Mark 10:35-45
Thank you choir -- a
beautiful rendition of our banners that Nancy Comer made for us:
And very fitting with
this passage this morning as well. We began, two weeks ago, a
study of the 10th chapter of Mark's gospel, and so continuing this
morning with that, reading verses 35 through 45. This comes right
after Jesus has spoken of his impending death for the 3rd and final
time:
James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came forward to him and said to him, ‘Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you.’ 36And he said to them, ‘What is it you want me to do for you?’ 37And they said to him, ‘Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory.’ 38But Jesus said to them, ‘You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?’ 39They replied, ‘We are able.’ Then Jesus said to them, ‘The cup that I drink you will drink; and with the baptism with which I am baptized, you will be baptized; 40but to sit at my right hand or at my left is not mine to grant, but it is for those for whom it has been prepared.’
41 When the ten heard this, they began to be angry with James and John. 42So Jesus called them and said to them, ‘You know that among the Gentiles those whom they recognize as their rulers lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them. 43But it is not so among you; but whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, 44and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all. 45For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.’
I want to address
this morning what I think is a common misperception of the Christian
life. And the misperception is this: that the Christian life
predominantly is about sacrifice.
You know, to be a
good Christian you must be willing to sacrifice yourself, to take up the
cross, to lay down your life. You must be willing to suffer for
Christ, to always put others first and yourself last.
A fellow student, a
Korean student, when Judy and I were in seminary, who came to the school
of theology at Claremont at the same time we did, had a particularly
striking way of putting it: she said that she was always taught
that she should take the small piece of cake. That as a good
Christian wife, she should let her husband have the big piece of cake.
She should let her children have the big piece of cake. She should
let her guests have the big piece of cake. But she should always
take the small piece of cake.
And then, pulling
herself up to her full 4-foot 11-inch Korean frame, she said "I'm tired
of always having the small piece of cake!".
She went on to become
a fairly well-known theologian, she teaches theology at Union Seminary
in New York, Dr. Chung Hyun Kyung, who is featured in the "Living the
Questions" video series that many of us have seen.
Well, I learned
through the eyes of my friend Chung Hyun Kyung and many other
third-world black and feminist theologians to see how this theme of
sacrifice has been used such that those in weaker positions have always
been the ones who are expected to sacrifice the most. Learning to
read the Bible, as Robert McAfee Brown says, "through third-world eyes",
has changed my perspective. One of the results is that I've come
to realize that teaching people that they are called first and foremost
to sacrifice their self interests to benefit someone else is the first
prerequisite for creating a culture where slavery, the oppression of
minorities and indigenous peoples, the abuse of women and children, and
many other social injustices is made possible.
And we thought that's
what it meant to be Christian. The great irony, of course, is the
whole point of the sacrificial language in reference to Jesus in the New
Testament was that his sacrifice was to put an end to sacrifice.
It was to be the final sacrifice which would make all further sacrifices
unnecessary.
In this text, Jesus
says the Son of Man would give his life as a ransom for many. We
think of ransom as something you pay to kidnappers, right? In
Biblical times, a ransom was what was paid to free a slave. Or to
free someone who was held in prison. In other words, Jesus gives
his life to liberate people, not enslave them. But if
liberation only leads to more and more sacrifice, then it is in vain.
There's a reason we
have 1 cross and only 1 cross.
It is the cross that
puts an end to sacrifice.
It is the cross of
transformation, not the cross of duplication.
It is the cross that
leads to new life, not the cross that leads to more death.
It is the cross to
end suffering not the cross to multiply suffering.
And ransom, by the
way, particularly in Biblical times (but I think today as well) is never
paid for the sin of the one redeemed, who is of course the victim.
The payment that is made is because of the sin of the captor, not the
captee.
Ransom, therefore, as
a metaphor for the death of Jesus is not about Jesus dying for our sin.
And I'm going to come back to that a little later.
Here's the point of
this sermon (write this down and we can skip the rest): we are
called to a life of service not a life of sacrifice.
I don't see anyone
writing it down, so I guess I won't skip the rest of the sermon :).
You had your chance, and you missed it. Kind of like the Ducks
yesterday on the on-side kick :). I've been in mourning all night
long.
A life of service, of
course, may involved -- often involves -- sacrifice. But the point
is it's not about making great sacrifices as if the sacrifice itself
creates something good. Rather, it is about serving God and others
to create that good, to make this world a better place as God would have
it be. And God would have it be with as little sacrifice as
possible. That we might claim our full humanity, the full benefit
of this life that God intends for all of us.
You have seen how the
world operates, says Jesus, how the rulers of this world like to use
their authority over others, forcing their will upon them, but not so
with you. You are to change the world not by force but through
service. Doing good from 'underneath', so to speak, leading
through your example of service.
That a life of
sacrifice, and more tragically the sacrifice of a life, can be and is
often pointless, was all too evident in Ft. Hood Texas this week.
Those 13, mostly young men and women who gave their lives not fighting
for their country, not defending their comrades, but just doing
bureaucratic stuff. With no means of self-defense. They were
slaughtered like cattle.
We are and should be
outraged at such senseless violence. Even as I feel that outrage,
I also think of those courageous families of the 9/11 victims who
traveled to Afghanistan with Code Pink to meet families of the victims
there. And they discovered in Afghanistan everyone could relate to
their experience.
In their common
grief, they also discovered it matters not whether the violence be from
acts of terrorism or acts of war, the pain of a sacrificed life is just
as great and just as wrong in their country as in ours. Regardless
of what side, if any side, one is on.
There will be many
lessons that we learn from that tragedy in Ft. Hood in the days, weeks,
years ahead. Probably some lessons we shouldn't learn from that
sacrifice. But for now, my point is rather than glorifying their
sacrifice, we should moan it. We should curse it. We should
shake our fists at it and say life is too precious, too good, too holy,
to let it be wasted in such a way.
A call to service is
not a call to sacrifice what is precious, good, and holy, it is a call
to preserve and uphold it. To make life sacred.
We mistake sacrifice
for service, however, when we focus on what is lost rather than what is
gained. And the result is almost always negative. Imagine
that parent saying to their child as they send them off to college:
"See what I gave up so that you could go to college. Woe is me".
What is the result of that? It is not gratitude, but guilt.
Imagine instead that
parent saying how lucky we are to see you go to college. That is
putting the emphasis on what is gained, rather than on what is lost.
Sacrifice is about what we give up. Service is about what we give.
And often, we know we receive more in the giving.
Sacrifice is often
self-serving. Service is self-giving. And that's why I say
the Christian life is about a life of service not a life of sacrifice.
Some here, I suspect,
might recognize the title of my sermon as the title of a book by our
beloved Ronald E. Osborne. "In Christ's Place". Ronald was
an Elder of this church, in retirement after being a prominent
theologian and historian in our denomination. So, I confess,
Ronald Osborne stole that title from me to use for his book, even though
I was only 12 years old when he published the book :).
That book was used in
classes and seminary as the definition of Christian ministry once upon a
time. It was required reading for professional ministers.
Ronald writes, quoting John 12:26: "If anyone serves me, he must
follow me. And where I am, there shall my servant also be".
And so Ronald says:
"The nature of Christ's ministry determines the nature of our ministry.
And he calls us to follow him where God is served. He bids us to
minister where Christ is, in Christ's place".
Servant-hood, writes
Osborne, is not something we learn as a doctrine of Christian faith, but
rather, he says "We saw it in a human life. In the man Christ
Jesus, the servant of the Lord".
And from that life,
from that example, we learn how we are to live and to serve.
Now, here comes what
I suspect may be a surprise for some: not only is the Christian
life not supposed to be about sacrifice, it's really not even about
believing that Jesus died for our sins. He may have, but that's
not what the Christian life is about.
There are a dozen
ways we can speak about the meaning of the death of Jesus. As a
ransom for our lives, that is a payment to liberate us from whatever
holds us in bondage. It may be addiction (which we might think of
as sin), but it may also be injustice, it may be abuse, there are all
kinds of things that hold us in bondage for which we are ransomed.
We can speak of the
death of Jesus as an act of ultimate love, giving one's life for others.
We can speak of
Jesus' death as the result of human sin, that is, the power and
corruption of the world that crucified Jesus.
We can speak of it as
the rejection by the world of God's love and light, and the rejection by
God of the world's power and darkness.
We can speak of it as
suffering, even as the death of God with humanity. Which
necessarily comes before each and every Easter.
But here's the thing:
however we think about the death of Jesus, Christian life is not about
Jesus taking our place, it's about us taking His place.
Regardless of what
meaning you give to the death of Jesus, what really matters is how we
follow the life of Jesus. "Are you able?", Jesus asks of the
Disciples, to drink the cup I drink, to be baptized in the same way I am
baptized. Which of course has nothing to do with what Jesus drank
or how he was baptized -- it is a metaphor for the Christian life:
following the example of Jesus.
And even as James and
John are a bit naive in the answer that they give -- 'yes Lord, we are
able, to the death' -- yet they delivered on their promise. After
initially deserting Jesus, they could have gone home, they could have
gone back to fishing. But they didn't, at least not for long.
They discovered in fact that they were able to follow his example.
To drink that cup. To be baptized in that way. To serve in
Christ's place.
And here we are now,
2,000 years later, still sharing that cup and that baptism. So now
the question of Jesus comes down to us: Are you able?
Here the good news,
people of God, the incredible news, you have been given that power, that
ability, because that's the meaning of our baptism. That's the
meaning of Pentecost. The spirit of the Lord to do these things
has been given to us.
So let me here you
say: "Yes,
Lord, we are able!".
Are you able not to
sacrifice your life to a noble cause but to give your life in service to
Christ and your brothers and sisters? Are you able?
"Yes,
Lord, we are able!".
Are you able to
change your life to live the life that Jesus wants you to live, to
follow the way he demonstrated? Are you able?
"Yes,
Lord, we are able!".
Are you able to make
a difference in this world, to help change the world, to make it like
the place that God intends on earth as in heaven? Are you able?
"Yes,
Lord, we are able!".
Are you able to put
aside all prejudice, to defeat racism, to deny hate, to stop abuse, to
end the killing, to love your neighbor and your enemy? Are you
able?
"Yes,
Lord, we are able!".
Are you able to be a
servant of that world, God's kingdom, to be a servant of love for God's
peace and justice? Are you able?
"Yes,
Lord, we are able!".
Are you able to serve
in Christ's place, to be the community of God's loving people, a light
to the world here in the heart of Eugene? Are you able?
"Yes,
Lord, we are able!".
Are you sure?
Are you able?!
"Yes,
Lord, we are able!".
ARE YOU ABLE?!
Yes, we are.
