Claiming the Power of Servanthood

Proper 24, Year B; Mark 10:35-45; St. Paul’s, Smithfield, NC – 10/21/2018

Jim Melnyk, “Claiming the Power of Servanthood”

Have you ever said something and, even before you finished your sentence, known you should have kept your mouth shut?  The last word hasn’t finished reverberating in the room and your brain says, “Oh, I wish I hadn’t said that!”  And then another part of your brain says, “Aw, what in the world were you thinking?”  But by the time you think it; it’s too late. 

James and John knew what it was like to make that mistake.

“Teacher,” they say to Jesus, “We want you to do whatever we ask of you.”  What a set up! Ever try that with your parents?  Jesus, much to his credit, responds, “What do you want me to do for you?”  I’m afraid I would have answered differently – I rarely respond so graciously to such manipulative questions.  Obviously, this incident of glory seeking doesn’t reflect well on the disciples James and John.  The Sons of Thunder, as they’re known about the region, come across with more of a selfish whine than a rumble on this one.  Worse than that, they don’t even realize what they’re asking of Jesus – in spite of all Jesus has been telling them since Peter had acclaimed him as the Christ.

Remember that ever since Peter’s confession, Jesus has tried to teach his disciples that the way of Messiah is sacrifice, not sovereignty; and that the deliverance to be sought was not so much freedom from Roman rule, but from the power of evil.  Jesus has been trying to point out that such a battle can’t be won by ladder climbing, power brokering, or the amassing of wealth.  The power of evil finds its ultimate defeat at the hands of faithful people serving one another with the compassion and love of God held firmly in their hearts, and the justice and mercy of God as the foundation of their souls. 

This kind of attitude by Jesus doesn’t seem to make sense to his disciples.  It’s one of the primary things that has Rome, Herod, the Sadducees, and the Pharisees both perplexed and anxious.  But then again, even knowing the story centuries later, actions that embody words like compassion, mercy, justice, and love still make little sense to those who seek status, authority, and power.  The goal we are taught from day one is to get ahead and to stay ahead.  We learn as kids in games like King of the Hill and Dodge Ball.  Flinch and they’ve got you.  “Don’t let them see you sweat!”  It’s the world’s M.O., and most of the world seems to have it down pretty pat.  We play to win…we play for keeps…take no prisoners…we’re number one!  It’s the American way.  At least that’s what Madison Avenue and much of Corporate America would have us believe.

“There’s nothing wrong with the question asked by James and John,” today’s Spin Doctors might say.  “Somebody’s got to sit at the side of Jesus, why not James and John?  Why not us?  Why not me?  They simply didn’t use the proper tact in asking – they just didn’t set the stage properly – they just miss-phrased their thoughts.”  And true, James and John, for all their fumbling, glory-seeking ambition, are faithful followers of Jesus.  They’ve stuck with him through the tough stuff as well as the good.  They just don’t always seem to get what Jesus is trying to teach them.

Three times to this point Jesus has talked about what lies ahead in Jerusalem – the cross and certain death.  It shouldn’t take a rocket scientist to read the faces and body language of the religious and political power brokers of the day – they’re not exactly the leaders of the Jesus Fan Club.  Jesus has already told his disciples to let go of worldly understandings of greatness – remember the rich man from last week’s gospel?  Had James and John truly understood what Jesus had been saying all along, they would never have asked to be at his right and left hand – the places ultimately taken by two criminals who were crucified along with him.

Yet this is the one place in Mark’s gospel where Jesus lays his purpose out for all to understand – his words sound clear as a bell.  The Son of Man has come, “not to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”  This is where discipleship and Christology meet.  These are the guts of what it means to follow Jesus.  This is the icon of God’s call to each of us.  Can we break with the world’s understanding of power and glory?  In fact it’s easy to imagine that Jesus saw both himself and Israel mirrored in the Isaiah passage about the Suffering Servant we just heard this morning.  Can we find our purpose and power in following Jesus – by living into and by the teachings of this One we call Christ? 

Henri Nouwen once wrote that ever since humanity’s eyes were opened in the garden, the people of God have been tempted to “choose power over love, control over the cross, being a leader over being led” (Christian Century, Oct. 8, 1997).  The church has never been immune to such temptation – and throughout history people who have claimed to be sitting at God’s right hand have orchestrated some of the world’s most dastardly and even deadly deeds. 

The problem, as I see it, stems from the alluring shine of worldly power over and against the simple beauty of servanthood.  Power, as the world sees it, is a bright, shiny bobble.  It glints and gleams in its own precious light and entices us to take it up and use it – often telling us such misuse now will ultimately empower us to do great good later.  You can fudge things a bit – or even fudge them a lot now, because your ultimate goal is good.  After all, hasn’t somebody said somewhere that the end always justifies the means?

Sound familiar?  It reminds me of the great Ring of Power in Tolkien’s epic masterpiece, The Lord of the Rings.  In his story, Tolkien tells of the alluring power carried by the Enemy’s One Ring – a power that can tempt even the greatest leaders of the free world to use it to save – and yet the One Ring has within it a power that would ultimately turn against them and corrupt their hearts to its evil purposes.  The Ring has a power that almost wins the day, as it seeks to control and abuse all that stand in the way of its dread Master.

Yet there is another power in Tolkien’s epic story.  Faithful people from many lands stand together against the Enemy’s assault – rejecting the power of the One Ring.  Together they claim the power of both friendship and servanthood.  Friendship and Servanthood both have a power that comes from one’s willingness to stand alongside one’s neighbor so that he or she might find honor and dignity, respect and peace, in the face of the world’s corruption.  Such power and authority has a quieter, alluring call of its own, and one must seek with courage to find its power coursing through one’s veins.  As the wizard Gandalf recounts, “It is the small everyday deeds of ordinary folk that keep the darkness at bay.  Small acts of kindness and love” (The Hobbit, theatrical version of the story).

Where the world seeks power over others; the power of servanthood honors human dignity.  Where the world seeks to corrupt and control; the power of servanthood seeks to transform and make new.  Where the world seeks power over others, servanthood seeks power shared with one another.  Where the world builds barriers of all sorts, servanthood reaches out.

It might make us mindful of the work we do as a parish with Habitat for Humanity, where we team up to work side-by-side with a family, building their new home together – something we’ll have the opportunity to do twice in Selma in early in 2019.  We are called, as children of God and followers of Jesus, ever and always to embrace the transforming power of servanthood – making ourselves available to others in response to the One who laid down his life for us.

Jesus asks James and John, “Are you able to drink the cup that I drink?”  We must ask ourselves, “Do we know what we’re claiming for ourselves when we take the name Christian?  Do we know what we’re truly asking for when we seek to follow Jesus?”  The cup, which we in essence drink, is the cup of servanthood – it’s the cup that awakens us to what it truly means to live our lives “in Christ.”  A cup that opens us to the transforming power of God’s love – and which ultimately calls us to see one another, and to see all our neighbors, as God’s beloved – and we, like Christ, are called to give our lives for the life of this world.  For we, the people of God, are each created in the very likeness of the Living God – and we are created not to be served but to serve – and to be Christ’s presence in this world.  Amen.

Who You Gonna Follow?

Proper 23B; Amos 5:6-7, 10-15, 24; Mark 10:17-21; St. Paul’s 10/14/18

Jim Melnyk: “Who You Gonna Follow?"

The weight of it all is suffocating!  So heavy and close that he can hardly breathe – he can hardly move!  As his eyes adjust to the dim light, it seems as if everything he has ever owned is piled up upon and around him and he is overwhelmed by the heaviness of it all.  It suddenly occurs to him that he has surely died and his mourners have covered him with everything – from all his clothes to even the clay vases that used to sit outside his front door.  As he begins to scream he suddenly awakes, realizing that he was having that same dream that had haunted his nights for the past week.

“What is bringing these nightmares on,” he wonders.  Could it be…no, it couldn’t be that brief exchange last week with the rabbi from Galilee…could it?

The young man had sought out the wandering rabbi almost on a whim.  On one hand, he wanted to see what all the fuss was about.  On the other hand, he wondered if the rabbi had any wisdom that might save him from the deep anxiety he was feeling about his relationship with God.  He had asked Jesus what he thought was a simple question – perhaps expecting the usual religious platitudes, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?”  He wasn’t even sure why he had asked it that way – eternal life wasn’t exactly an everyday topic or concern for him.

Jesus did give him an answer that seemed perfectly comfortable at first.  “You know the commandments,” Jesus told him; going on to offer a summary of the last six commandments of the Decalogue – the ones having to do with how God expects us to treat one another in this life.  “Not a problem,” he had blurted out quite rashly.  “I’ve kept those commandments faithfully from my youth.”  The conversation was going well, and the young man started to feel confident in his status before God.

Mark tells us that Jesus looked upon this young man, and that Jesus loved him.  Who knows if the young man could tell how Jesus felt?  But then came the kicker – words that threw the young man for a loop – words that still challenge listeners two thousand years later.  Jesus had replied: “You lack one thing; go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.” No way, Jesus, he seems to say.  I don’t care what they say about you.  I’ve worked hard all my short life to build up my portfolio.  I earned this stuff the hard way and I’m not going to simply give it all away.  He recalled how utterly miserable he felt as he turned his back on Jesus and walked away.  In fact, he had turned away so quickly he never even noticed the look of grief on Jesus’ face. 

Yet, what could he have expected from that encounter?  Waiting to make his way through the crowd to meet Jesus he had spoken with several of the disciples, and they were telling the young man about the teachings they had heard.

“‘Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal; but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart – there your rootedness in God – will be also.’  Do not be anxious about your life – what you will eat, or drink, or wear – for isn’t life more than food and the body more than clothes?”

And the young man began to wonder if perhaps his dreams were trying to tell him something about the wisdom behind the rabbi’s words.

The young man’s wonderings weren’t that far off from the wonderings of those who stayed on the scene.  This is the part where Jesus goes on to say to the crowd, “Look – it’s hard finding your way into the kingdom of God – and it’s especially hard for those who surround themselves with wealth.  Why, it’s easier for a camel to get through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God!”    

In fact the Disciples are perplexed at Jesus’ words because in their day people equated great wealth with God’s favor and poverty or disease with God’s wrath – and there’s more than a few who still believe that today.  No wonder those listening to Jesus cry out, “Then who can be saved?”  Jesus responds, “Hey, I said it’s difficult – but I didn’t say it’s impossible.  With God, all things are possible.”  It brings to mind an old Jewish saying I’ve read: “The Holy One said, open for me a door as big as a needle's eye and I will open for you a door through which may enter tents and camels” (Jewish midrash quoted in Synthesis Today, 10/8/2018). 

“In other words God only needs the sinner to open up just a crack for [God], and [the Holy One] will come pouring in and set up room for an oasis. God only needs a 'foot in the door', so to speak.

The exaggerated and contrasted size [in this saying] is deliberate [but it’s] not an overt judgement on riches or poverty. Jesus reflects on how hard it often is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God. The riches can so easily be a distraction and hard to share if one is too attached to them. The disciples' incredulity is that if even the rich cannot be saved, who can? But the verdict is that even the rich, and not only the rich, will find it impossible to save themselves – but with God all things are possible” (Donna Nielsen: http://donna-connections.blogspot.com/2010/06/hebrew-hyperbole.html).

The young man’s wonderings aren’t all that strange to us, are they?  Even those of us who have chosen, or accepted a call to some form of life in the church can get caught up by stuff – can get caught up with anxieties.  We all wonder about things like how next year’s budget will play out. We wonder, will my business remain strong this year? Will there be enough money for a raise, or at least enough money to keep my job going?  How will my kids or my grandkids grades go?  Will they be able to get into college?  Will I be able to afford it if they do?  Where is my heart rooted?

It’s easy to become anxious, isn’t it?  It happens to us all from time-to-time.  Anxiety, though, can lead to fear – and fear tells us there’s not enough to go around – so our hearts can become confused, and we can find ourselves needing to grab hold of, or hold on to, everything we can.  Contrary to what we know to be right for us, we find ourselves storing up treasures on earth – if only because we find comfort in the surety of tangible things.  When have you felt suffocated?

When we fear, we give power over to that which we fear.  And as Jesus reminds us in another setting, no one can serve two masters – we will either hate one and be devoted to the other, or be devoted to one and despise the other – and that’s all too real!  No one can follow two masters.

The prophet Amos spoke out to a nation whose enemy was on the doorstep – waiting to pounce; looking to wipe away the Northern Kingdom: “Seek the Lord and live,” Amos challenges them (Amos 5:6).  “I know how many are your transgressions, and how great are your sins—you who afflict the righteous, who take a bribe, and push aside the needy in the gate” (5:10, 12). Yet there is still time, the prophet proclaims!  Return to God – return to the covenant – follow and serve the Lord – “Hate evil and love good, and establish justice in the gate; it may be that the Lord, the God of hosts, will be gracious to the remnant of Joseph” (5:15).

Amos reminds us that wealth and success are not necessarily signs of God’s good favor.  Like Jesus so many centuries later, Amos reminds us that being on top – or being first – doesn’t always mean we’ve got it right.  Amos reminds us just a few verses beyond today’s reading that we are called to “let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an everflowing stream” (5:24).  Being faithful might just mean some of what we have or hold dear might just get washed away in the flood – we might have to let go of some of what we believe gives us security in order that justice might thrive.

The Good News is that we get to choose what we will store up and where it will be stored.  We get to choose just who it is we will follow, and who it is we will serve.  We can look upon the ever-flowing stream of God’s justice and righteousness as a terrible flood that causes us to let go of the stuff we think we need – or we can see it as the mighty baptismal waters of God washing us clean, lifting our neighbors out of the mire and clay, and giving them, along with us, a firm place on which to stand.  

To paraphrase our Lord’s words, “Who are we gonna follow?