22nd Sunday after Pentecost
Oct. 20, 2024
Have you ever had a harrowing experience where you were injured or barely escaped death? Let’s say a car accident or a natural disaster like a hurricane? Imagine finally making it home to tell the tale to your loved ones hoping for sympathy and concern only to hear, “Oh, gees. Sorry about that. Does that mean we’re going to get a new car (or a new house?)” The lack of understanding and insensitivity would almost be like getting hit again!
In the three verses preceding our Gospel today, Jesus was explaining to his disciples that he was going to face his death when they reached Jerusalem, in fact, he was going to be beaten, mocked, and tortured, and then he would rise up from death on the third day. And immediately after hearing this horrific pronouncement, James and John ask, “So, can we sit at your right and left hand when you reach that place of splendor?” Talk about missing the point! How that must have smacked Jesus. Gee, sorry, Jesus. That sounds really bad, but what can we get out of it? And the other disciples are mad because James and John beat them to the ask!
But let’s take a look at what Jesus tries to teach this ragamuffin band of followers in this moment because they, like we, probably do not know what they were really asking when they attempted to answer that question, “What do you want me to do for you?” When James and John respond with the brazen request to be given a prestigious place beside Jesus, Jesus sort of shakes his head and says, “You don’t even know what you’re asking. Do you think you can really drink from the cup I’m about to drink from?” “Yes,” they answer. “Yes, we can do that!” They still don’t know what they are talking about but they want that spot and seem to be willing to agree to anything just to achieve it.
Jesus affirms that they will indeed drink from the cup and be baptized in his baptism, but those places of honor have already been assigned. Think about it for a minute. Who did end up there? In a very short time they were going to find out. Once they reached Jesursalem and all that Jesus prophesied did indeed happen, when they looked up at that cross, who was on Jesus’ right and left? Two criminals? They really did not know what they were asking for.
Since the disciples have the human tendency to want to make matters, even spiritual ones, about themselves, Jesus once again takes them aside to explain what he means. The others’ indignation at James and John’s request triggered Jesus’ final discourse in Mark on the character of authentic discipleship. It was the same message he had just given in Chapter 9, “Whoever wants to be first must be least of all and the servant of all.”
One of the biggest factors that plays into people’s tendency to be self-centered is fear. When we are afraid, our world becomes smaller and we close ourselves in. It’s quite possible that those who followed Jesus and were listening to his ominous predictions, were afraid when they heard Jesus describing what was going to happen to him. Maybe they were starting to understand and James and John were just seeking a promise of a secure future.
The connection between fear and the quest for security has led to many bad decisions in the world inviting more danger than peace. Which makes following Jesus rather difficult because, as you have often heard me say, following Jesus is risky business. The problem lies in what we profess to be our security and who or what we actually put our trust in. We want to place our trust in God, at least we want to want to, but what do our decisions and actions reflect? Where are we giving our attention and energy?
Which is why Jesus brings up the Gentiles in this discussion. “You know that among the Gentiles,” he says. “Those whom they recognize as their rulers lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them.” Gentiles here meaning the nations, Caesar, the rulers of Rome, their leaders in power who keep their control by making people afraid. “It is not to be that way among my followers,”Jesus commands. He calls the community of faith, in its life together, to offer an alternative way to this system that perpetuates fear—and to bear the suffering that inevitably comes as a result. The way of Christ is paradoxical to the way of Caesar.
The disciples gave up a lot to follow Jesus. They hung in there when others left. But he challenges them when they seek special treatment. Jesus tells them, yes you will drink the cup that I drink and be baptized into my baptism. The cup, the baptism of water, these are the symbols of our faith. When we drink from that cup we are asked to remember sacrifice, and when the primordial waters of chaos which the Spirit of God hovered over from the beginning of time are poured over our heads in our baptism, we emerge from the water birthed into a new life–restored, renewed, secure in Christ. That is the “ransom” Jesus is referring to, not a system of substitutionary atonement, but of the Holy One reclaiming God’s people back to the Garden. Jesus has come to bring us back to God, set us free, release us, from the tyranny of fear.
These central liturgical practices of the church, drinking from the cup, eating the bread, being covered by the waters of baptism, challenge all fear–driven quests for security. We repeat them every Sunday because they are a reminder to us that we are participating in the reality of the Kingdom of God on earth now. That is not the model our world is working with today, but it is to be the model for those who choose to be Christ followers. This is literally the call of Jesus for our very lives. If we choose to follow him, we choose a life of servanthood.
Now that might sound daunting, and it probably did to the disciples, too. But it is a promise to James and John and a promise for us. The Way of Christ frees us and empowers us to take up our cross and follow. We have been given a comforter and guide. Our strength comes from God, especially when you realize that depending on your own strength is a dead end road. What we see before us that makes us afraid is not the full picture. That is part of the promise–there is more to the picture than what we see.
Charles Campbell, professor from Duke Divinity School sees the promise in this way, “Here is the great promise for the church. We need not always live in fear; we need not continually seek our own security. Rather, we have Jesus’ promise that we can and will live as faithful disciples as we seek to follow him. It is an extraordinary promise made to such a fumbling, bumbling group of disciples—then and now!” Remember the words of Jesus we heard last week? “For mortals it is impossible, but not for God; for God all things are possible.”
We are called to live differently from the ways of the world. We are to be servants, not forced labor, but choosing to be a servant to all in the way of Jesus. That is the cup we must sip from.This is the Way of Love and it stands in defiance to the way of fear. And Love is patient, love is kind, it isn’t jealous, it doesn’t brag, it isn’t arrogant, it isn’t rude, it doesn’t seek its own advantage, it isn’t irritable, it doesn’t keep a record of complaints, it isn’t happy with injustice, but it is happy with the truth. Love puts up with all things, trusts in all things, hopes for all things, endures all things. That, my friends, is how we serve God, each other, and our community.
The way of Jesus is a lot harder than giving into the demands of fear, of making enemies of our neighbors because we have been told to fear them. We are to love our neighbors and learn to love ourselves. And we can practice this right here in this little neighborhood of St. Christophers. We don’t have to agree and we don’t even have to like everyone, but we do have to love each other and unless we can learn to do the hard work of love, we have no business saying we want to follow Jesus and drink from his cup.
We start by putting the needs of the folks near us in these pews first. Putting aside having to have our own way. Making amends when we have harmed each other. These days are filled with suspicion and fear. But we are not to live like that. We belong to Christ first before anything else we may give our loyalties to. Fear will divide us if we forget that we are first and foremost siblings in Christ, if we forget that we follow a God who came to serve. Everyone in this room is your brother or sister or sibling. We are kin by the adoption of God through Jesus Christ our brother. We must never forget this.
In the coming weeks this call to love and servanthood will be tested. Remember who you ultimately belong to and the promise of Christ to you, his Beloved. Do not forget your baptism and the dignity of every human being. The decisions we make in this world are to reflect our covenant with the Most High who has reclaimed us. And we are bound together in our covenant and to the commandment of love of God and love of neighbor. There is just no getting around it. It is the cup we are asked to drink from.
Magdalena's Musings 