Mark 10:35 – 45
During the year before I entered first
grade, I became curious about reading and writing, and annoyed my
mother no end. I would find letters in my Little Golden Books and
ask her what they were and what sound they made. She was patient for
the first ten or so. But I really wanted to learn to read because I
could then find out what those comic strips in the paper were saying.
I still turn to the comics every day – for inspiration, of
course.. There was a good one a few days ago – in the Pearls
strip. Rat was telling Goat that he wanted to be looked up to. Goat
replied that the way to do that was to accomplish something great.
Rat decided an equally effective way which would be much easier would
be to belittle everyone else.
During the year we read Mark's gospel,
we sometimes think the apostles must have been pretty clueless. In
fact I think Matthew and Luke, who wrote their gospels about twenty
years later, and obviously knew about Mark's gospel, tried to show
the apostles in a better light. When Matthew tells this story, he
has the mother of James and John approach Jesus. Luke doesn't even
have James and John initiate the exchange; Jesus just starts talking
about how the rulers of the gentiles lord it over them. But I think
you have to always ask what Mark is up to.
Last Sunday's gospel was the story of
the man who could not give up his possessions. Jesus then talked
about the camel and the eye of the needle and promised the apostles
that because they had given up everything they would receive a
hundred times what they had given up in the present age, and
persecution, and everlasting life. You remember that? Today's
gospel starts out with James and John. What we haven't heard is the
paragraph in between these stories in which Jesus tells the apostles
that the Son of Man will be delivered to the chief priests and
pharisees who will hand him over to the gentiles who will mock him,
spit on him, scourge him and kill him, and on the third day he will
rise again.
When they hear that he will rise
again, it makes more sense that John and James ask to be at his right
and left hand. They may not know how he would do it, but they were
convinced that he was the Messiah, and they probably believed what
everyone was saying, that the Messiah would conquer the enemies of
Israel and restore the glory of the Kingdom of David. And when we
hear Jesus say, “Can you drink the cup I must drink and be baptized
by the baptism I must be baptized in,” we think about his passion
and death; but those phrases are used in the Old Testament to
indicate a trial that you have to go through before you are
vindicated. That's why the other apostles are indignant – Jesus
has just promised James and John that they will go through this
trial.
As was the case with the rich young
man, Jesus has allowed the two apostles to swear their loyalty. Now
he turns the tables. The Gentiles are the ones who want what you
think you want, what you think I am going to give you. But that's
not how it will be. Greatness in my kingdom is measured by the
degree to which you are a servant. If you really want to be great,
then you must be a slave to everyone. And I am going to give up my
very life so that many will have life. In other words, the Kingdom
Jesus brings is a kingdom where everyone outdoes themselves in
waiting on each other.
When we have someone's funeral, we
say, “Eternal rest grant to him or her, O Lord” Heaven, we
imply, is a place where we no longer have to strive or worry or work.
But whether or not this is the case, Mark makes it clear that the
eternal life we hope to inherit is not the same thing as the Kingdom
of God. Jesus says that Kingdom is already here, already among us.
It's like a mustard seed that grows into a large plant. Jesus is not
content to wait for the next life; he wants the Kingdom of God to
begin right now, with you and I. And for some people, it has. It
doesn't matter if you are rich or poor, male or female, religious or
lay, a child or someone old and gray. The kingdom Jesus is talking
about is as near as the next time you give something to your
neighbor, the next time you meet his needs, the next time you listen
to her worries. The kingdom is a mind set which always asks, “How
can I serve you? How can I be another Christ for you? How can I lay
down my life for you.?”
Most of us Christians encounter little
bits of the Kingdom every day, either on the giving end or the
receiving end. If you are a medical professional, you do a little
extra studying to try to figure out a way to help your patient. If
you are a grocery clerk you are patient and helpful with the elderly
person who is having trouble with the chip reader. If you are a car
salesman, you try to help the customer decide what would be best for
him, rather than for you. You get the idea. The Kingdom is where
all our interactions are colored by mercy and love. And most of us
have a few of those moments every day. But as Jesus says, if we want
to be great , we have to grow into this way of acting, this thing
called servant leadership. For some of us it may indeed lead to
admiration, to positions of authority, to power, prestige, pleasure
or possessions. For others it will lead to obscurity or even pain.
But Jesus is saying that the more we get out of ourselves and answer
the needs of those around us, the more we partake of the kingdom.
Someone said that the afterlife is
like a great banquet where everything you could possibly want to eat
or drink is right in front of you. But hell is the same way. People
who die rise again with arms that have no elbows. The people in
hell are frantically trying to eat and drink, but can't, and of
course they are hungry and thirsty and miserable all the time. If
you look at the people in heaven, they are totally happy, since each
feeds the one across the table from him. This life we are living now
is practice for the next.
