The Gospel of Mark sure is hard on Jesus’ disciples. In this Gospel, the disciples are constantly misunderstanding Jesus, or angling for favours, or flailing about in panic because they don’t trust him. Because of the way the writer of Mark describes the disciples, when it comes to this particular reading, we take a very dim view of James and John and their request of Jesus. Most preachers will take today’s reading and talk about how James and John just want power and how they don’t really understand what it means to follow Jesus, and will point to these poor guys as examples of the way we all try to get more power. And of course, they would be right, because we do constantly angle for more and more control of our lives, even to the point where we try to control others so that our lives are better.
But this morning I’m feeling more compassionate than judgmental, and so today, I want to take James and John at face value. I want to give them the benefit of the doubt, and when they say they want to be on Jesus’ right and left hand when he is in his glory, I am going to believe that they actually do know what that means. You see, right before this passage, Jesus tells his disciples, for a third time, that he will be tortured and killed, and then rise again. And James and John, unlike Peter, don’t argue with him. They don’t tell him he’s wrong, they don’t tell him this shouldn’t happen, they don’t walk away in disbelief. What they do is they say, “when you’re in your glory, when all of this that you say has come to pass, when you have the power that comes with being resurrected as the Son of Man, then we want something.” Hidden in their request is actually a proclamation of belief. They believe that what Jesus is proclaiming is really going to happen. They believe Jesus.
And they want to be a part of that. And who can blame them? This is what we, as Christians, want. We want to be part of Jesus’ work. And I refuse to be cynical this morning, and say that we want to be part of Jesus’ work because we want glory and power and all that. I think that followers of Jesus, like the disciples and like you sitting here, I think that we genuinely and earnestly desire to do what Jesus asks of us. We really truly want to be holy and righteous. We want to follow Jesus, and while we don’t do that great a job of actually following him and actually living in holy and righteous ways, we want to. This morning, I believe that James and John really honestly wanted to be righteous in Jesus’ eyes.
And so Jesus tells them how. Jesus responds to them with the same earnestness that they approach him. Jesus doesn’t mock them, or belittle them, or tell them that they just want power. That’s what the Gentiles want - the codeword for the Romans in power, but not the disciples. Jesus accepts the intention behind James and John’s request, and tells them how they might be great in Jesus’ kingdom. Jesus accepts that we really want to be righteous and holy and glorious in God’s eyes, and so Jesus tells us: “Whoever wishes to be great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave to all.”
Now this is not the first time Jesus has said something like this. We’ve heard several variations on this theme over the last number of weeks. “Those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it.” “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.” “Whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it.” “Many who are first will be last, and the last will be first.” In the Gospel of Mark, Jesus is intent on reversing social hierarchies and disrupting the status quo in favour of the underdog. And so, of course, I’ve said a lot about that.
But one word catches me today. “Whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave to all.” That little word - all - keeps tripping me up. Because I think that we as Christians do a great job of serving one another - we’re very welcoming to those who are like us, particularly if they’re also Christian. We are happy to help out the Syrian Christians who have suffered persecution, and we donate to Christian non-profits like Canadian Lutheran World Relief, or World Vision, or the Salvation Army. But you know what? Jesus isn’t telling us here to be slave to only Christians, or just to those who are like us. Jesus is telling us to be slave here to all. That means serving those who are not like us. That means helping out Muslim refugees, serving our Sikh neighbours, giving to Jewish non-profits. Serving all means helping those in need who have no religious affiliation whatsoever - agnostics and atheists, even those who are militantly anti-Christian. We don’t get to pick and choose who we will serve - we don’t get to say we will help this Christian wearing her nice dress but not that Muslim wearing her niqab. We don’t even get to say that we will serve Christians first and everyone else with what we have left over. Jesus is very clear, to follow him, to be righteous and holy and do good in the way that we earnestly desire, we “must be slave to all.”
This is what Jesus did, after all. Jesus drank the cup in the Garden of Gethsemane, and Jesus was baptized with the baptism of death on the cross in order that all might be saved. Jesus didn’t die only for Christians. Jesus didn’t die only for those who believed in him at that moment (which was a very very small number, actually). Jesus died for all. For the whole world. For Christians, yes, and for Jews. But Jesus also died in service to Muslims and Hindus and Buddhists and Wiccans and pagans and atheists. Jesus died for the world. “For God so loved the world, that God sent the Only Son.” God loves the world, Jesus died for the world, and we are called to serve the world.
And wow, is this hard! This is not something we’re very good at doing. Or maybe I should say, this isn’t something I’m very good at doing. I’m not very good at serving those who are different from me. Even though I want to believe I can do all these things, and serve the whole world, I don’t know that I actually can. I just don’t think I’m able. Jesus says to serve all, but there are people I’m just not sure I could serve. We all have our own particular groups of people that we just can’t bring ourselves to serve, for whatever reason. I know that the German side of my family has a very hard time serving those with a Cossack background. I know that my Israeli friends have a very hard time serving those with Palestinian connections. I know that I don’t do a very good job of serving those Christians who think women should not be pastors. We all have groups of people that we just avoid serving. We all have prejudices and biases that we simply can’t push past. While I want to do what Jesus asks of me, because I truly want to be righteous in God’s eyes, I find myself simply unable to truly be slave to all. So much for being great or first with Jesus in glory.
But the Christian life isn’t about what we can do on our own. As Lutherans we believe that we are categorically unable to actually do anything righteous at all; Luther was adamant on this point - we cannot do a single holy or good thing on our own - as humans, we simply do not have that innate ability.
But God does. God, of course, is righteous and holy and good. But more to the point, God shares that with us. God enables us - makes us able - to be righteous and holy and good as Jesus Christ is. This cup and this baptism that Jesus mentions? The writer of Mark brings these things up because these are the central elements of our Christian life. The cup of Holy Communion and the baptism in water that we are brought to as part of our Christian life, these are the elements that God uses to make us able to live the Christian life we desire - these are the elements that enable us to be a slave to all. Somewhere along the way we got mixed up into thinking that we had to be righteous and holy and good before we come to drink the cup of Jesus Christ, but it is actually the opposite. We will never be holy enough to drink this cup, and we will never be holy enough to receive baptism. And so God has reversed the order of things. God uses the cup and God uses the water to make us holy and good and righteous. We come forward to drink from the cup of Christ because we aren’t able to do what Jesus asks, and so that God might make us able, through the presence of the Holy Spirit in Communion. Jesus leaves us with no doubts about this - “The cup that I drink you will drink, and with the baptism with which I am baptized, you will be baptized.” Through Jesus’ sacrifice and through the gift of the Holy Spirit that God grant us, you will be able to live righteous and holy lives, and you will be able to serve all.
This means that we do not yearn in vain. You are not hopeless in your desire to live as a righteous Christians. You are not doomed to live an unfulfilled and inglorious life. “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be satisfied.” God enables you to be the Christian you long to be, and brings you to participate in the glory of Jesus when his kingdom comes to earth. Martin Luther King, Jr., who was killed for daring to proclaim that serving all included serving people of every skin colour, said to his congregation in his very last sermon before his assassination, “Everybody can be great .... because anybody can serve. You don’t have to have a college degree to serve. You don’t have to make your subject and your verb agree to serve. You only need a heart full of grace. A soul generated by love.” Through the presence of God’s own Holy Spirit in the gifts of baptism and Holy Communion, in water and the cup, God fills your heart with grace and generates your soul with love. By the grace of God, you are able to be great as you are able to be slave to all. Thanks be to God. Amen.
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