Sermon Mark 10:35-45, the greatest October 18, 2015 HPMF Title: Servant to all Mark 10:35-45 35 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. 36 And he said to them, What is it you want me to do for you? 37 And they said to him, Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory. 38 But 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? 39 They 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; 40 but 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. 42 So 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. 43 But it is not so among you; but whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, 44 and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all. 45 For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.
After the events of this week, with the death of Ben, today certainly is a different kind of day, a different kind of Sunday with a different feel to it. If you are a visitor, this week we grieved the death of a young-man who grew up in this church who many here knew and loved. After the Memorial Service yesterday for Ben, it was hard for me to imagine coming to church today, not just because of the exhaustion and the emotion of it all, but that recognition that after such a loss, it almost doesn t feel right to go back to regular life again it doesn t feel quite right to return to the routines of life, like going to church on Sunday morning. And we know that for those who were the closest to Ben, their lives will never be the same, and they likely won t have anything feel normal for quite some time. When I read the passage for this morning, these words of Jesus about being a servant of all to be great in the kingdom of God, my first thought was of appreciation for this community and the ways that so many sought to serve Kathy, Bill and their family in the face of the loss of their son. There were so many people working in the background to prepare food, set-up tables, move chairs from here to downstairs after the service so many that answered the call to help in whatever way you could: to pray, to send cards and flowers. And many who will continue to answer that call to loving service the future conversations, future time with Mickey. There were so many ways that I saw this community of faith seeking to love through service: the service of a cheese plate, of cutting up fruit, of a hug, of a hand on the shoulder, prayer. And I also personally felt that service and support from so many phone calls, emails, and texts of support for me as pastor in this time: graciousness when I needed to cancel appointments or gatherings with people; graciousness and understanding from the youth (you may or may not know but this morning the youth were
going to lead the service, but we thought that might be better suited for a different Sunday and so thank you to all the youth who were willing to postpone for a few weeks). It truly was, during this whole week of coming face-to-face with the death of young Ben, an act of loving service from this community of faith. Kathy called this morning to ask that I express her thanks and appreciation her recognition that this was an act of love from the congregation for her and her family. And so on behalf of Kathy, thank-you for all the ways that you embodied this idea of Jesus, to be a servant. And so we will now transition, as best as we are able, to a more regular type of sermon. This passage, I think, matches a bit of where we have just been in mourning the death of someone from our community not only because of the ways that so many here took up roles as servants, but also because this story happens in part because of the disciples response to their own grief. As many of you are aware, Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, in her work on Death & Dying, identified five different stages of grief, five stages that people seem to encounter when they are dealing with grief: Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and Acceptance. These are not linear stages that we progress through, we will often cycle through these stages many times. And not every person experiences each stage, but each stage does help to articulate pieces that we may experience when we are grieving: Denial [this is not happening, it is not true, some cure will come], Anger [at God, at doctors, at hospitals, at the one who has died], Bargaining [wondering if we could have done more, is we would have taken them to a different hospital, if we should have noticed the signs earlier], Depression [deep sadness, appropriate and understandable
sadness], and Acceptance [not that it does not still cause great pain, but times of accepting what will come or has occurred, times of being at peace]. And in our story about James and John asking to sit at the right and left hand of Jesus in his coming kingdom, I think what we are seeing is a form of the stage of Denial. Jesus has just pulled the disciples aside for the third time and told them that he will soon be arrested and put to death. He told them for the first time in chapter 8, just after he healed a blind man. And Peter immediately rebukes Jesus for this declaration Peter s denial of what will come. Jesus tells the disciples a second time in chapter nine that he will die in Jerusalem and the disciples, after hearing this a second time, are silent for a bit, until then, much like this story, they begin arguing about who is the greatest among them causing Jesus to put a child in front of them to tell them that being great means welcoming the weak and vulnerable. And now in chapter ten Jesus declares for the third time that he is going to be arrested and killed. And we know in oral tradition, in story-telling like the gospels, we are alerted to the rule of three things get repeated three times, there is something about threes, they bring the high point of the story, the climax of the story. And so for the third time Jesus pulls his disciples aside to tell him that he is going to soon be put to death. And this is the response of the disciples, they change the subject. They don t want to hear about this coming death, they don t want to talk about it or think about it so they change the subject James and John ask Jesus to grant them a favor. David Kessler, who worked with Elizabeth Kubler Ross in her work on death and dying, talks about denial as moving between distraction and reality. Kessler says that we touch the pain of what is happening, and then we move away from it. We realize the reality of what is happening, we let it hit us for as long as we can, and then we move away from it. Some of us can touch the pain of the reality longer than
others, but we all touch it and we all move away from it. Kessler says that it might play out this way in families or communities: someone has just had a loss and you as a friend want to talk with them about it but when you go to visit them they just want to watch the football game. And you think, this person is in denial, they won t even talk about their grief. But likely they have already touched the pain that day and now they need to back away for awhile they need to be distracted for a bit. So maybe you watch football for awhile, and then later they bring it up they name the loss and you touch the pain again together. And then, after you have touched the pain, you back away from it together and watch some more football. And then perhaps another friend comes by wanting to talk about what has happened, to offer some support, but the two of you just want to watch football. And this third friend thinks, these two are in serious denial here, but they don t know that you have already touched the pain together and now you need to step away. So I wonder if this is what is happening for James and John. They have heard what Jesus has said, they have heard that their teacher, their mentor, their Messiah the one they have left everything for is going to be arrested and put to death. They hear him say that for the third time, they touch that unbearable pain for a moment, and then they need to back away from it so they change the subject. Teacher, we want you to do whatever we ask of you we want you to grant our request. They want to sit at Jesus right and left in his kingdom. And so of course James and John are not just denying that Jesus will die, they are denying who Jesus is; they are denying the type of Messiah that he is. James and John believe in the trickle-down effect of leadership, that changing the people at the top will make things better for all that putting good people in the seat of power will be better for all. James and John believe that Jesus is going to take the seat of Cesar and be a more
just ruler this is the kingdom they believe is coming and they want top-ranking cabinet appointments. But Jesus knows what we have come to learn, that every now and then the powerless become powerful and nine times out of ten they turn out to be as heartless as their predecessors they turn out to be corruptible and make bad decisions just as those before them. They too have to start bargaining and making compromises of their values to be effective and strong or to appear to be strong. And yet most of us still have, like James and John, an abiding hope that if only the right people can get and stay in power, without letting the power corrupt them, then the world will be transformed. But Jesus seems to believe in a Trickle-Up effect. Jesus does not ever try for a seat of earthly power. Jesus knows what we still have not learned yet, it doesn t work that way Jesus tells the disciples. The new world is not remotely like the old one, it can not happen from the top down. We have heard this so many times that most of us are numb to it, this idea that we must be servants that we must love from where we are, not try to get to the top where we can do the most good. Jesus is not pretending to be a servant until the right time comes for him to throw off his disguise and take his throne he is a servant through and through. He is a servant to the very end. He is not in it for a reward, he is in it for love the love of God and the love of neighbor. In one of his last speeches, just two months before his death, Martin Luther King, Jr gave a sermon on this text which he called the drum major instinct. What he meant by this is that we all have the instinct to be the one out in front, the one leading the parade we all want to be the
drum major. And I want us to listen to the closing of his speech, it is about four minutes long, because if anyone can help us hear these words of Jesus afresh once again, it is Dr King. go to: [Below is the part of King s speech that we played, or to hear this part of King s Speech http://kingencyclopedia.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/documentsentry/doc_the_drum_major_instinc t/ and start listening at 35:07] Every now and then I guess we all think realistically (Yes, sir) about that day when we will be victimized with what is life's final common denominator that something that we call death. We all think about it. And every now and then I think about my own death and I think about my own funeral. And I don't think of it in a morbid sense. And every now and then I ask myself, "What is it that I would want said?" And I leave the word to you this morning. If any of you are around when I have to meet my day, I don t want a long funeral. And if you get somebody to deliver the eulogy, tell them not to talk too long. (Yes) And every now and then I wonder what I want them to say. Tell them not to mention that I have a Nobel Peace Prize that isn t important. Tell them not to mention that I have three or four hundred other awards that s not important. Tell them not to mention where I went to school. (Yes) I'd like somebody to mention that day that Martin Luther King, Jr., tried to give his life serving others. (Yes) I'd like for somebody to say that day that Martin Luther King, Jr., tried to love somebody. I want you to say that day that I tried to be right on the war question. (Amen) I want you to be able to say that day that I did try to feed the hungry. (Yes) And I want you to be able to say that day that I did try in my life to clothe those who were naked. (Yes) I want you to say on that day that I did try in my life to visit those who were in prison. (Lord) I want you to say that I tried to love and serve humanity. (Yes) Yes, if you want to say that I was a drum major, say that I was a drum major for justice. (Amen) Say that I was a drum major for peace. (Yes) I was a drum major for righteousness. And all of the other shallow things will not matter. (Yes) I won't have any money to leave behind. I won't have the fine and luxurious things of life to leave behind. But I just want to leave a committed life behind. (Amen) And that's all I want to say. If I can help somebody as I pass along, If I can cheer somebody with a word or song, If I can show somebody he's traveling wrong, Then my living will not be in vain. If I can do my duty as a Christian ought, If I can bring salvation to a world once wrought, If I can spread the message as the master taught,
Then my living will not be in vain. Yes, Jesus, I want to be on your right or your left side, (Yes) not for any selfish reason. I want to be on your right or your left side, not in terms of some political kingdom or ambition. But I just want to be there in love and in justice and in truth and in commitment to others, so that we can make of this old world a new world. May the Spirit of God empower us to be brave enough to reverse the question of James and John, as Dr. King did, Teacher, we want to do for you whatever you ask of us. Christ Jesus, we want to do for you whatever you ask of us. Amen.