Mark 10:35-45
October 18, 2009
Last year, I was at a Presbyterian conference. I decided to attend because there was a group of people who were considering ways to be in community with one another even though geographically dispersed. It was appealing to me because of the principles this community was to be based on. The idea came from one person who had the vision and got the project going. She was at the conference to work with folks on how to make the vision a practical reality.
I have to tell you, I had an ambivalent experience that week. On the one hand, I was excited about how people were talking about what it means to be “Christian” in our time and context; things like living simply and making a commitment to social justice. On the other hand, there was a dynamic going on that week that just didn’t sit well in my gut. The leader of this effort is a charismatic personality – in part because she has taken huge steps already to enact these principles in her own life. Her very life convinces people that it is possible, and that’s appealing. In addition, she is “famous” – within Presbyterian circles, mind you, but these were Presbyterians who were gathered.
What happened would have been ridiculous if it hadn’t been so disturbing. At every meal and in casual conversations, people dropped her name as if it were currency in the competition to be most Christian. There were mentions of shared trips and conversations. People were sure to point out when they worked with her in various organizations. The goal was to prove to everyone else that you were on the inside. That you were important because you were the right hand gal or guy of this important person. It all gave me a little tinge in my gut that told me something was amiss.
I think this is as close as we can come to a modern day version of our passage this morning. James and John admire Jesus and know others admire him as well. They want to be associated with him and want the glory given to Jesus conferred on them because of that association. They wanted to hitch their wagon to Jesus and ride along to the top – to the place of glory and power guaranteed in this Messiah who had come to pull them out of the depths and place them on the top of the world.
We can learn a lot from this passage by looking at the similarities between the disciples and our modern day attempts to hitch our wagon to people we think are on the road to glory. And the similarities feel all too obvious. Most of us would be pretty bold to make too harsh a judgment about James and John given our innate understanding of their impulse. We want to be seen as good – a good Christian, a good person, a good citizen. And so when we have the chance to stand between the gaze of others and someone who is seen as “good”, it’s hard not to step into the line of sight. It’s hard not to steal some of that gaze for ourselves.
Everyone likes to be liked and seen as good. None of us likes to be rejected or ignored. Humans can’t be blamed for being human. We have a natural, albeit uncomfortable, sympathy with James and John. And so we stand beside them as Jesus tells us all that we don’t understand what it means to hitch our wagon to his. James and John want to be on Jesus’ right and left when he gets his glory. But Jesus tells them that when all is said and done, it won’t be two regal attendants sitting beside him on a throne; rather there will be two criminals hanging on his right and left when he dies on the cross.
Do we really want that? Given our sympathies for the disciples, we too are left wondering whether the Jesus of the cross is really who we want to be associated with – whether this is the Jesus we want to follow, or would we rather follow the Jesus that looks more like a Messiah – a king – a nice fellow who walks around and loves people? It is our similarity with the disciples that brings us face to face with this dangerous Jesus and the question of whether this is the kind of savior we want.
As much as we learn through our similarity with James and John’s desire to be side by side with the charismatic, famous Jesus, I think we have a lot to learn by looking at our differences with them as well.
First, and most importantly, when we choose to sidle up to someone who we think will confer status on us in our day and age, it is not, to state the obvious, Jesus. The disciples were undoubtedly caught up in the status game. But at least they chose Jesus. Their impulse was right, even if their motives were a bit off target.
Too often, we are hitching our wagons to anything but Jesus. We find people and paths that seem to lead somewhere more promising. Instead of throwing our lot in with the downwardly mobile, we find people and organizations that will make us look better, feel better and sound better. When the disciples chose Jesus, at least for the time being they weren’t being led away from God’s will. When we choose to admire and follow someone no matter how genuinely good they are, we will in the end be led astray. People are changed by such admiration and worship. Leaders tend to enjoy the attention and eventually believe all the praise, and then they sell out, too often taking their followers right along with them. Following Jesus might take us where we don’t want to go, but it won’t lead us astray.
Another way our situation differs from the disciples is that it is much harder for us to hitch our wagon to Jesus than it was for James and John and all the rest – for two reasons: We know the end, and we have farther to fall. The disciples get to rely on their initial impulse to follow Jesus without knowing he died on the cross. Actually, Jesus does keep telling them this; but they have the luxury of denial because it hasn’t actually happened yet. We don’t have that luxury. We have to choose Jesus knowing he will walk us straight up to the cross.
In this way, we are less like the disciples and more like the original audience of Mark’s gospel. They were basking in the glory of the resurrection, but Mark reminds them that following Jesus leads to the cross. Three times Mark reminds them of this – with Jesus predicting his death three times in one short chapter.
Mark tells us all – the early Christians and those of us following today – that even when it’s hard we are to stay with Jesus. And things were hard for the early Christians. They were living in the shadow of the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem. Rome was winning – in a big way. I’m sure the temptation to hitch their wagon to the Roman Empire was strong. Identifying with Jesus, the one Rome put to death, would invite persecution from both Rome and the Jewish elite.
When we are suffering, when we are feeling bad about ourselves or lonely or rejected, of course we would want to choose the path that brings immediate relief. Sometimes that path includes fighting back with a vengeance, choosing violence to achieve the short term goal of “winning”. Sometimes it means finding our identity based on other people’s values because we see that society praises those values far more than Christian ones. Sometimes we choose being American over being Christian, because Americans seek victory over enemies, foreign and domestic, and Jesus seems to seek failure by refusing to fight back even at the expense of his life.
It’s harder for us. It was harder for the early Christians. Whether we want to admit it or not, hitchin’ our wagon to Jesus will put us on the losing team by the world’s standards.
The other reason it’s harder for us to hitch our wagon to Jesus than it was for the disciples is that we have farther to fall. We know Jesus is headed down – down to a life of slavery and service to others. But that sounds different to us than it would have to the disciples or even the earliest Christians to whom Mark was writing. When Jesus tells them they must be last, the truth is they pretty much already are. These disciples are not middle class or part of a democracy, nor are they able to determine their own financial futures or social status. True they are not slaves or servants, and Jesus is calling them down even a notch farther. But basically what Jesus is asking them to give up on is a dream, not to turn away from a reality they already know.
Not so easy for us. We have already been pulled pretty far by the wagon of heroes and power. We’re born hitched to the fates and fortunes of our family, which for most of us already confers a fair amount of privilege, especially when our status is compared to the rest of the world. Even more, we are hitched to the United States, where the opportunity to increase our status is so much greater than for people born into families beset by poverty in other parts of the world.
Our choice is whether to give this up or not…and I really do think that’s harder than what the disciples had to choose.
But, even though it’s hard, even though we know where its ends and what we will have to sacrifice, we are supposed to hitch our wagon to Jesus. That’s what Mark seems to be telling us. But, the surprising twist at the end is that Jesus rejects the admiration and worship too. He tells us to hitch our wagon not to him but to those at the bottom of society. We are to throw our lot in with the slaves and the servants and see where that takes us.
We all remember when Representative Joe Wilson shouted “liar” at the President during a speech on health care to a joint session of congress. His accusation came when the President claimed illegal immigrants would not be covered by any national health insurance. This outburst set off a debate between the two sides where each was trying to be more “against” offering health coverage to illegal immigrants than the other. The response from the administration to this accusation was “no, really, truly, we aren’t going to help the illegal immigrants.” And the accusations kept flying from their political opponents, “admit it, you are secretly planning to help these terrible people.”
When all this was going on, a member of our congregation offered this insight: “In all the discussion… nobody has stopped to wonder just who does pay for health care for the undocumented workers. Somebody has to, they live here, they are poor and they get sick. Maybe we should think about covering them for their sake and ours.”
I think this is what Jesus was talking about – I think this is what Jesus was living. He hitched his own wagon to people like illegal immigrants, slaves and lepers, and he was inviting the disciples to do the same. When you do this, you hear these debates differently. When Joe Wilson yells, “liar,” you think, “I hope so. I hope someone is secretly planning to ensure coverage for the undocumented workers.” This is not the easy path. This is certainly not the path to glory. “Both” sides will look at you with disdain. In the race to create distance between true Americans and those here without our permission, you will lose. But that’s where Jesus will take us, if we hitch our lives to his.
Of course, the whole reality of the cross tells us that doing this is hard – to understate it. And that begs the question: Why? Why would we want to hitch our wagon to Jesus? If we do, our lives will be changed, we will be asked to sacrifice, and we will meet honest to goodness opposition. We might find it hard to be a part of a political party or social group. Our answers will be different to questions of the day, and our lives will look odd. And in the end, we will be just another common criminal hanging on the cross next to Jesus.
Jesus doesn’t give a nice, neat, easy answer to this question. Neither does the gospel of Mark. This is the gospel that lacks all mention of resurrection or feel-good appearances of Jesus to the disciples after an empty tomb. But, what the early Christians knew was that the ways of power and glory, of status and winning, or political success and nationalism were as far from how the kingdom of God should look as you could possibly get. Jesus wasn’t there to win short-term battles and fix short-term political and national problems. Jesus was there to offer a way that would lead to an entirely different world.
There is no immediate motivation in this story. And Jesus doesn’t promise it will be easy. But here’s what he does promise. Listen to what he says, “The cup that I drink, you will drink; and the baptism with which I am baptized, you will be baptized.” At first it may not sound like much, especially if we are ambivalent about whether we want to drink from that cup. But given all the disciples’ misunderstandings and failures, Jesus still says, “you are able to follow me. I know you are, and you will.” Jesus has incredible faith in the disciples – God has incredible faith in us, even though we fail to understand too.
Even if we don’t want to admit yet where it’s going, maybe we can join the disciples in their imperfect desire to hitch their wagon to Jesus. I believe God works even through imperfect decisions. We might not be ready for the implications, but I think we should keep vying to be next to Jesus – at least that will keep us from vying to be next to heroes that will lead us foolishly astray. At least that will start us down the road, even if we don’t yet accept the destination. It’s a place to start, and a way to continue on the journey of faith. We do know where it’s headed, and there is a lot to lose by the world’s standards. But, this is the one we have chosen to follow. And Jesus will not lead us astray – Jesus will not ultimately let us worship him and sing his praises. Ultimately, Jesus will point us in the direction of the cross…and the line from here to there runs through the lives of people who need the good news, who need our love and service, who need a God that doesn’t seek the privileged and powerful. That’s where our leader is taking us. Are we able to follow? Yes, we are able, if we hitch our wagon to the right horse. Amen.
