A Sermon Preached By

Rev. Peter W. Shidemantle

Sunday, October 22, 2006

PEBBLE HILL PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH

5299 Jamesville Rd., DeWitt, NY  13214

Phone:  315-446-0960     FAX:  446-0672

phillchu@twcny.rr.com     http://pebblehill.presbychurch.org

As Mark tells the story of Jesus, Jesus has just predicted for the third and final time before his disciples “what was to happen to him” (10:32-33), how he will be betrayed, condemned, mocked, spat upon, flogged and killed, but then rise again.  After this there will be no more predictions, no more private instructions to the disciples.  One more healing encounter at Jericho, and they are on to Jerusalem, where what he has predicted will come to pass.

            The first time Jesus told them about what was to happen to him Simon Peter objects and rebukes Jesus.  The second time the disciples act like they don’t even hear him and engage in an argument about who is greatest among them.  This time it must have been the rising-again part that captured the attention of James and John, the sons of Zebedee.  As far as they were concerned, this was an opportune moment to make a bid for leadership roles in the cabinet of the new administration they thought Jesus was bringing.

            But, once again, they don’t get it.  The other ten disciples apparently overheard their question to Jesus and were indignant about it, like children reacting to other kids jumping into line ahead of them.  Jesus sees yet another “teachable moment,” sits them all down, and then tells them that this is not how it will be among them.  Once again, he says, “greatness” for them is not to see how close you can get yourself to those who exercise power over others, but just the other way around.  Greatness instead comes about in serving others.

            It is a lesson he has often repeated and often shown, and now school is out.  The predictions are past.  I guess you could say the disciples have graduated, in a way, even though they seem not to have learned much.  I am reminded of one of the most popular professors at my seminary addressing us during the baccalaureate service at our graduation – with our master of divinity degrees.  With his tongue firmly planted in his cheek, he congratulated us for now being “masters” of divinity, reminding us in the next breath, of course, that “mastery” of the faith is not something within our grasp.  We always remain students, and the lessons learned must be learned over and over again as we are confronted in so many ways with the lure, the attraction and appeal of the world’s understanding and practices of greatness, power and authority.

            We don’t have to look very deeply into ourselves, do we, to know how hard it really is to “get” what Jesus so consistently taught and lived about these things, so it isn’t surprising how hard it was for his first disciples.  We know what he taught about true greatness, about the last being first and the first being last, and all that.  But, let’s face it, this isn’t how the world works.  That stuff might be OK for saints who have the luxury or the time to pursue their “bliss,” but the rest of us have to live in the real world!  That’s the world where every advantage can help, where getting a leg up on the competition puts you in a better place to win; that’s the world that James and John had in mind when they said to Jesus, “We want you to do for us whatever we ask you to do.”

            James and John wanted to sit, one at Jesus’ right hand, one at his left, in his glory.  His response, by contrast, reminds them that the way to his kind of glory, the glory of the messiah, leads through the cross.  The “cup” that Jesus will drink is the cup of his destiny, his suffering and shame.  And even he will ask God to take it from him before things are done.  But James and John claim a capacity that Jesus himself can barely manage:  “We are able.”

            Are they being naïve, or just arrogant?  It would seem that Jesus would know that Zebedee’s boys need to straighten out their values and goals.  But he is amazingly patient with them, even though he must see the selfishness of ambition and the ignorance behind their youthful boldness.  They really don’t know what they are getting themselves into.  Yet Jesus grants their request.  He accepts their desire for glory, at least in part – they would have a share in his suffering and shame.  Seats in glory are not his to give.  Maybe he loved their ambition, as misplaced as it was.  He treats their ambition as worthy of redemption.  Far worse than misplaced ambition in faith, perhaps, is complacency in faith and lack of ambition altogether.    

            I have shared before how when Karen and I lived in Cleveland (PK days – pre kids), we tackled the renovation of an old house in the inner city that had been the manse of the church that housed the offices of the ministry organization we worked for.  We got to live in the house in exchange for working on it.  One of the programs of the group we worked with was called the Lutheran Housing Corporation, which helped and trained folks in the inner city to buy homes and fix them up.  The director of the program came over to help us determine just how we might go about this momentous task.  We hadn’t done much of this kind of rehab work before, so he suggested that we “go to school” on this house.  He walked around the place with us and broke down the work into three categories:  “must do,” “should do,” and “could do.”  We learned this was a helpful way to organize and prioritize our work on the house.  With a lot of help from friends and others who knew more than we did, we managed to get most of the “must do” work done, some of the “should do,” and a little of the “could do.”  It was very much a learning experience.

            The teachings of Jesus about what constitutes greatness in his kingdom are really “baseline” teachings – in the “must do” category.  Yet our tendency is to put them more in the category of “could do” or even “should do” (if we get around to it).  Maybe, instead of seeing them as essential to the maintenance and growth of our faith, we view them as the “extras” which we just can’t afford to take on right now.  Are we able?

            Well, maybe not, entirely.  But none of us here have yet graduated from the Jesus school of faith.  He continues to instruct us, if we’re willing to engage in some real experiential learning.  Over time, under his tutelage, the guidance of the holy spirit, we come to learn where true greatness lies, where it is to be found.  We come to learn, and learn again, that the power to serve others is the power he urges us to use, not the power to hurt or destroy.  “If someone forces you to go one mile with him, go also the second…”  “If anyone asks for your coat, give him your shirt as well…”  He doesn’t counsel us to be a doormat, but to exercise our servanthood as a power, and an authority, that becomes for us, not a “could do” or even a “should do,” but a “must do” – not because we are obligated, but because we choose it.  Servanthood in the name of Jesus is the chosen way of one who is in it not for the reward or for the recognition, but for the love of God.

            Unless our faith is something that compels us to act in love, to pursue peace, to reach out to others with compassion, to share the good news as it has blessed my life and our lives together in the church – then all we are doing is maintaining our faith and maintaining the church.  Never can we get to the point that says, “I really could deepen my life of prayer and devotion,” “We really could find or create a new thing, a new way to serve God and neighbor and help grow our church.”  “We really could take on a new mission to serve those in need, find ways to engage young people in their spiritual journeys…”

            My own tendency is to demonize James and John in their selfishness and seeming arrogance, but Jesus treats their ambition as worthy of redemption.  Can Jesus not redirect and purify our ambition if it is for him and his kingdom?  But where ambition is absent, where there

 is no zealousness for the Lord, we fall into a maintenance mode – perhaps able only to begrudge those whose earnestness in faith, as misdirected in some ways as it might be, at least shows that it is the vital driving force of their lives.

            I think that Rabbi Jesus is teaching us here that we shouldn’t look to the sons of Zebedee simply as examples of a wrong-headed faith.  Their act of stepping forward means more to Jesus than their immediate reason for doing so.  He engages them with respect and love, while working to refocus their ambition on the cross.

            “Are you able?” he asks them.  “Are you able to drink the cup that I drink?”  A thoughtful and realistic response might be for us to say that no, ultimately we are not able.  And we might even make a correct theological point that only the Christ could suffer and die for the salvation of us all.  Mastery of the faith, after all, is not within our grasp.  But if our correct theology leads to a lukewarm discipleship, what good is it? 

            What do we need to do, you and I, to get our faith, our discipleship, on our “must do” list?  What have we been putting off, waiting until our situation changes, or the time is more appropriate, or an opportunity presents itself – as if God has to hit us over the head with it before we can act.  Brothers and sisters, we have all we need in abundance to put to the Lord’s service, to walk in the confidence of the children of God, to share the gifts that God has already given us and discover how they grow in the proportion that we give them away.

             Let us say that we are able, and give ourselves to our Lord’s direction, letting him teach us along the way, exercising the only kind of power that Jesus will give us, the power that is transforming the world, not from the top down, but from the bottom up – the power that is at work within us, transforming us – so that the question of the sons of Zebedee might be turned around in our asking – not “Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you,” but “Teacher, we want to do whatever you ask of us.”               

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