20 Pentecost, Year B

"SERVANT OF ALL"
A sermon by The Rev. Gene Tucker, given at Trinity Church, Mt. Vernon, Illinois; Sunday, October 18, 2009
Proper 24 -- Isaiah 53: 4 – 12; Psalm 91: 9 – 16; Hebrews 4: 12 – 16; Mark 10: 35 – 45

Sometimes, at wee hours in the morning, I will wake up, finding one of our Cocker Spaniels, Phoebe by name, standing on me with her front paws. Now, this means that she wants something…it could be to go outside, it could be that she wants to check out some of the wildlife outside, or it simply could be that she wants a belly rub.

This is quite a sight, this Cocker Spaniel standing on my chest, her long ears drooping down around her face. Her eyes are hard to see when she does this, because the skin on her face is a little loose, and her eyes disappear. It’s an unforgettable sight.

Whenever this happens – and I’m glad to say it isn’t often – I don’t know whether to be amused or to be slightly annoyed. (After all, this dog can sleep the entire day away if she wants to, a luxury I can’t afford.)

But, once I’ve sorted through those two options for responding to her bold behavior, I usually ask her, “OK, so are you the king of the hill?” (The “hill” being me, of course!)

Today’s gospel text has a lot to do with being “king of the hill”, or – more properly – it has to do with being close to the top of the hill, right next to the king.

We hear James and John, the two sons of Zebedee, ask the Lord to grant them spots #2 and # 3 in the glorious time to come.

Hmmmm…..neither of these two guys have any ego problems at all, do they?

Obviously, their request shows that they know something wonderful is going to happen, for they use the term, “in your glory”.

We could speculate about their request, and the meaning of that word, “glory”. We might be safe in thinking that James and John expected Jesus to be the earthly ruler who would bring the ancient glory of King David to reality again. If so, then God’s chosen people would be liberated from the oppressive rule of the occupying Romans. The early prestige of the nation under David would be restored to the prominence of earlier times.

It’s probably safe to say that many in Jesus’ day expected just that sort of a Messiah. Maybe James and John did, too.

So, perhaps James and John wanted positions like “foreign minister” or “treasurer” in the time when Jesus would be in charge.

But notice the reaction of the other ten disciples…Mark tells us that they were “indignant” at this request.

Maybe they expected to be given those places of prominence – the places that James and John asked for - when Jesus entered into the glorious time that was to come, a time that these original disciples might have expected would come sometime very soon.

Such displays that smack of jockeying for position, prominence and power must have been commonplace as the disciples were being molded for their future role as apostles by the Lord. Time and again, and particularly recently in our gospel texts, we’ve been reading about this problem of leadership vs. servanthood, prominence vs. lowliness, servanthood vs. mastery of all, a problem that Jesus had to deal with on more than one occasion.

For example, recall with me the discussion that took place among the disciples about who was the greatest (see Mark 9: 33 – 37), a text we heard recently. In response to this ludicrous discussion about who was the greatest, Jesus takes a little child in His arms, and says to the twelve very nearly the same words we hear today, “If any one would be first, he must be last of all and servant of all.” You see, in the ancient world, a child was a “nobody”. That’s Jesus’ point: to be a part of the kingdom, one must enter as a “nobody”.

But let’s return to the text…..notice that Jesus responds with a statement, which leads to a question: “You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or to be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized?” (Notice that the two men chime in with their answer, “We are able.”)

In response to their ready affirmation that they are able to drink the cup that Jesus drinks, and to be baptized with the baptism He has been baptized with, Jesus then indicates that they will, indeed, do both: they will drink from the same cup, the cup of suffering (see Mark 14: 36, where Jesus uses the word “cup” to denote His coming passion), and, they will be baptized with the same baptism, the baptism of death.

By sharing the cup of the Lord, and by sharing His baptism, two things happen between the Lord and His disciples, between the master and the servant. They are:

An ongoing relationship is indicated: The future course of the relationship between the Lord and His disciples is indicated here by the future tense of the verbs. This relationship will stretch into the future beyond the time that Jesus is present in His earthly ministry. It corresponds to the time that Mark was writing, a time in which many Christians did drink the cup of suffering, and a time when many Christians were baptized into the death of the Lord by their own deaths. The ongoing relationship established by the shared cup and the shared baptism stretches forward into our own day and time.

Love is demonstrated and love is shared: The Lord’s passion and death is the supreme expression of love for the world. Our Lord demonstrates His love for us, and this love is shared. But by sharing in the cup and in the baptism, this love is returned by Jesus’ disciples, as well, and a love relationship is established between God and His people.

Dear friends, this is the way of the kingdom, the kingdom of God: The master becomes the slave, the king becomes the servant, the greatest sets aside greatness in order to be the least.

Jesus affirms the reality of the way of the kingdom by acts of love. You and I are the objects of that love. Our welfare is the goal of that love.

The Lord reaches out to us by acts of love accomplished 2,000 years ago. That same love is active and living today, and the arena in which God’s love is given and received is your life and mine.

Thanks be to God, the God who loved us in Jesus Christ, the one crucified and risen, and the same God who loves us in Jesus Christ day in and day out, today.

AMEN.