Remembering the Past...
        Planning the Future

    Park Christian Church
                                                                    (Disciples of Christ)

October 18, 2009

Scripture:         Mark 10:35-45

Sermon:           “The Bottom Rung”

            Turning our hearts and minds now to the word of God, let us read together the scripture lesson for the day.  Turn with me to the Gospel According to Mark, chapter 10 where we will read together verses 35 through 45.  You can find that easily on page 63 of the New Testament in the pew Bible.

            Let’s put this story in its place a little bit.  Jesus is walking the road on his way to the city of Jerusalem.  And his disciples and followers are trailing behind him.  They’re all on their way to Jerusalem, and Jesus called his twelve disciples aside to say this to them:  “We’re headed up to Jerusalem.  This is the last journey we’re going to take together, you know.  I’ll tell you this a third time, now.  When we get to Jerusalem, things are going to get ugly.  Do you hear me?  I’m going to be handed over to the authorities.  And then I’m going to be humiliated and tortured and put to death like a common criminal.  And three days later I will rise again.”

            It was the third time he said something along those lines.  The third time.  And each time he said it folks did things that demonstrated just how much they either didn’t want to hear it, didn’t believe it, or just plain didn’t understand it.  We’ll keep reading in a minute to see how that plays out this time.  But, remember:  all of this occurs on the way to Jerusalem and Jesus has just told folks what all of that means.

            Now, let’s listen for the word of the Lord…

            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.”  And he said to them, “What is it you want me to do for you?”  And they said to him, “Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory.”  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?”  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; 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.”

            When the ten heard this, they began to be angry with James and John.  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.  But it is not so among you; but whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all.  For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.”

            Now, before any of us get all high and mighty concerning ‘ole James and John, the sons of Zebedee, do you know what happened to one of them?  James, in particular.  Do you know what happened to him?

            You can read about it in the book of Acts.  It says:  About that time King Herod laid violent hands upon some who belonged to the church.  He had James, the brother of John, killed with the sword.  After he saw that it pleased a great many folks, he proceeded to arrest Peter also.  (Acts 12:1-3)

            Violent hands.

            You should know that before you look down your nose in the direction of these two disciples, James and John.  James was killed in cold blood several years after Jesus was crucified.

            Are you able to drink the cup that Jesus drinks?  Be baptized with his baptism?  James and John both said that they were.  We just read that.  And one of them definitely did.

            These are the two guys that Jesus first called the Sons of Thunder.  The Sons of Thunder.  I’ve always loved that name.  And I don’t know for certain, but it seems to me that Jesus had a certain fascination with the volatile personalities of these two brothers.  The Sons of Thunder, he called them.

            One time, you know, Jesus sent ahead some messengers to arrange for a place to stay the night in a Samaritan village.  They were all traveling to Jerusalem, and the quickest way to get there was by way of this one village.  But, the folks who lived there didn’t want anything to do with Jesus and his disciples.  Samaritans and Jews didn’t get along so well in those days, you know.  So James and John, the Sons of Thunder, said to Jesus, “How about we call down fire from heaven and destroy them?  You know, like the prophet Elijah?  We’ll just wipe them off the map!”  (Luke 9:54)

            These are the personalities we’re dealing with, here.  And I think Jesus really like these two brothers a great deal.  The Sons of Thunder.  Quick tempered.  Fiery.  They make great disciples, leaders of the early church.  But, you’ve got to take the good with the bad.  Just like any of us.

            Now, when Jesus told all of his disciples that he was on his way to die, these two really said something that’s hard for us to imagine.  It was in their nature, in their blood.  They were always stirring the pot.  Still, they asked a question that, on the heels of Jesus predicting his own death and resurrection, seems out of line.  Seems out of line?  It was out of line.

            The said, “Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory.”

            Now why do we think these two brothers, James and John, the Sons of Thunder…why do we think that they must have been the greediest, arrogant, selfish people ever born.  I know.  Who would dare ask a question like to Jesus?

            Is it really that hard to imagine?

            I mean, following Jesus was the sum total of their whole lives.  And they dared to ask, “Jesus, what’s in it for us?”

            I don’t know about you, but I ask that question a lot.  And not so much about following Jesus.  I mean, I ask it about life.  What’s in this for me?  Is this worth it?  Am I getting ahead?  Is this going to pay off?

            Those all sound like reasonable questions, don’t they?

            I was having lunch with a friend once.  He looked at me across the table and he said, “When do you know when it’s time to give up and leave a job?  I mean, when do you know?”  He’d been busting his knuckles for several years at that point, repairing some sort of industrial pumping system.

            “If I don’t get a raise…if I don’t get a promotion, soon, I don’t think that I can keep doing this.  I mean, I’m tired of just putting food on the table.  You know?  I’m tired of just getting by, day to day, paycheck to paycheck.  I want to think about bigger things.  I want to think about putting a kid through college.  You know?  I feel like I’m stuck here on the bottom rung.  I’m just always looking up.”

            There’s something about what James and John requested of Jesus that sounds to me a great deal like questions we ask all the time.

            And you’ll notice that Jesus didn’t get angry.  I think that he understood where they were coming from.  He said, “I just told you that I am going to be crucified.  Do you think that you can drink from that cup?  Do you think that you can get in the water with that kind of baptism?  Crucified, boys.  Crucified.  How else do you think someone can sit at my right hand or my left?”

            But, he didn’t get angry.  Actually, when the Sons of Thunder claimed to Jesus that they could go through all of that, Jesus just nodded his head and said, “Yes.  Yes, indeed.  You can and you will.  But, I can’t grant you what you’ve asked for.  That’s up to God.”

            In a sense, James and John were asking the wrong question.  Have you ever done that?  Ask the wrong question?  They were asking the wrong question.  With the things of God, the wrong questions begin with asking what’s in it for you.  What’s in it for me?  What is this going to cost?  Is this worth it?  Those are the wrong questions with God.

            But, it’s hard for us to learn to think in that way.  Our entire lives are centered, for better or worse, on those wrong questions.  For right or wrong, we learn to ask those questions.  Whether they are truly selfish questions, or reasonable questions, they are what we know.  They are what we always ask.  And many times we ask them for good reasons.

            With God, they turn out to be the wrong questions.

            That’s frustrating to be asking the wrong questions.  Frustrating.  It means that you’re operating out of the wrong frame of mind.  You aren’t seeing things correctly.  You’re stuck in a way of doing things that doesn’t work in this new circumstance.  Frustrating.  It might even point towards a frightening reality…you’re way of doing things is outdated!

            Henry Ford once said, “If I’d asked people what they wanted, they would have said a faster horse.”  The wrong question for him as an entrepreneur would have been, “What do people want?”  And that seems like a reasonable question.  Doesn’t it?  “What do people want?”  But, it’s the wrong question.  “Why do people want it?”  That is the right question.  “Why do people want it?”  If you live in the world of marketing, or sales, or responding to consumers, that’s the kind of paradigm shift in your thinking that makes a difference.

            But, it happens with anyone.

            I knew this violinist several years ago.  Amazing.  She could make it sound like a voice singing in the wind.  And she would rehearse for hours on end.  “I want to be the best,” she said.  “I am going to play in Carnegie Hall.”  And that was all well and good.  I believed her.  But, when I went to hear her play one time I noticed that she was so frustrated with the other musicians around her.  They just weren’t on the same level as her.  And they seemed to hold her back.  And she told me, “I’m never going to get noticed with these guys.  They just don’t practice enough.  They don’t put the time into it like I do.”

            She made a discovery after that.  Instead of spending so much time and energy focused on being the very best that she could be, a version of herself that no one could keep up with, she began to invest herself, her energy, her time into learning to play as part of an orchestra.  The shift, she said, was to see that she could only succeed if she helped everyone she played with be the very best they could be as well.

            I noticed it, too.  The next time I saw her perform, it was amazing.  She actually enjoyed the music of her partners.  I think that is close to what Jesus was saying.

            Listen to what he said to his disciples after all of this.  He said, “You see how it is with the Gentiles.  You know that if somebody is a ruler among them, they lord it over them.  It’s like they’ve achieved some sort of status after all their years of struggling.  You know what I mean?  And what does all of that trying to get to the top of the ladder get them?  They are so used to stepping on people’s heads to get there that they become tyrants.  Tyrants.”

            Here’s the paradigm shift that he’s looking for.  He said, “It’s not like that among you.  If you want to be the greatest, and you’re so used to struggling to get ahead, here you’ve got to become a servant of all in order to get there.  You’ve got to get used to being on the bottom rung of this ladder.  Here, the bottom rung is your greatest achievement.  So, you’ve got to ask a whole different set of questions, you see?”

            The change in the way folks see themselves, their lives, what they’re trying to do—well it all shifts by asking a new question.  It’s no longer based on what’s in it to gain for yourself.  It has to do with what God is trying to gain.

            Do you see that?

            Jesus wants to shift our whole way of being.  He wants us to ask questions about our lives based upon what God is looking for.  And that looks completely different than anything we’re used to.  It looks like people caring for one another.  It looks like people trying to help others be the very best they can be.  It shifts our understanding of getting ahead to that of reaching out a hand.  It sees that our own success is bound up in how well others are doing around us.  It looks like…well, it looks like a man who would give his own life on a cross for the salvation of others.  It looks like Jesus.

Rev. David James Brown

Park Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)