Proper 24: Job
38:1–7, 34-41a; Psalm 104:1–9, 25,
37b; Hebrews
5:1-10; Mark 10:35-45
A homily by Fr. Gene Tucker, given at Trinity Church, Mt. Vernon, Illinois on Sunday, October 21, 2012.
“SURVIVAL
OF THE SPIRITUALLY FITTEST”
(Homily text: Mark 10: 35 - 45)
“Grant us to sit, one at your right
hand and one at your left, when you come into your glory.”
(James and John, making a request of Jesus)
Earlier this week, while we were
visiting family back east, we had the delightful experience of visiting the
tourist railroad that I was involved with before we moved to Illinois. So it was on Tuesday morning that several
family members boarded a small track inspection car and took a ride up the
track. Looking up the track, I saw a
hawk swoop down out of the trees and snatch up a snake (about two and a half
feet long) in his claws. He flew away to
another nearby tree, with his prize dangling below him.
This little, quiet and swift drama
was a chapter out of nature’s book….those creatures with the means to do so
will dominate the weaker and the defenseless.
Charles Darwin, writing about this
aspect of the created order, gave such a reality a name: “The Survival of the Fittest.”
And so it was that the hawk, being
more mobile, swift, and possessed of keen and sharp eyesight, was able to
conquer the snake, carrying it off as his midday meal.
The patterns we see in nature also
exist in the realm of human affairs…..
About six decades before Jesus’
birth, the Romans had swept into the Holy Land, conquering it and subjecting
the people who lived there to a brutal occupation. The strong had defeated the weak.
Spiritually, the axiom also held
true in the common thinking of Jesus’ day.
The rationale went something like this:
If a person was rich and well off, or was healthy, then it was evidence
that God had blessed that individual because of their faithfulness to God’s
commandments.
Therefore, the strong and the
powerful were that way because they had earned God’s favor. Those who were weak were the way they were
because of some terrible sin. Evidence
of this mindset can be found in the account of Jesus’ healing of the blind man
in John’s gospel account, chapter nine…the Pharisees want to know if the man
was born blind because of some of his own sin, or because of the sins of his
parents.
Into this equation of power and
weakness, both secular and spiritual, Jesus comes. He brings with Him evidence of God’s power,
God’s power over sickness, over demons, over nature itself.
Jesus’ power is being noticed by
more and more people who hear of His teaching, or see His power to heal in
action. Things are moving in the right
direction, as Jesus’ strength defeats the enemies of illness, of demonic possession
and of nature out-of-control.
Perhaps it’s possible then, that
Jesus’ disciples are beginning to think that their Teacher is possessed of so
much power that the prevailing order of the Roman occupation, and the corrupt
leaders of the temple in Jerusalem, will be conquered, as well.
And this perception, that God has,
at last, sent the promised Messiah, the Christ, the Anointed One, to deliver
God’s people, might be the perception that motivated James and John, in our
gospel text for today, to ask the Lord, “Grant us to sit, one at your right
hand and one at your left, when you come into your glory.”
Cast in contemporary English and
placed in a corporate setting, we might characterize James and John’s request
thusly: “Allow us to become the Chief Operating
Office and the Chief Financial Officer when you set up your corporation and
dominate the market.”
The bottom line here can be
expressed thusly: We want to be on the
winning team, the team that will overcome everything in its path.
But Jesus’ response, in addition to
being a bit cryptic (as they often are), also demonstrated the truth of a true
walk with God:
- The walk of faith involves self-sacrifice, not self-advancement,
- Those who walk in God’s path must be willing to give up everything, in order to gain everything,
- Survival of the spiritually fit involves self-denial. Only then will the true self be found.
To their ears, and in the time of
Jesus’ earthly ministry, Jesus’ references to a “cup” and a “baptism” must not
have made much sense.
However, in due time, they would
come to understand exactly what these terms meant. Recall with me that James and John both
reclined with the Lord at the Last Supper, as He offered the cup to them and
said, “This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many.” Remember also that James and John were
present with the Lord in the Garden of Gethsemane as He said, “Remove this cup
from me….”
In time, both James and John would
follow the Lord in a martyr’s death.
Perhaps between the time that Jesus responded to them as He did in our
text today, between that time and the Lord’s passion and death, and their own
deaths, they thought a lot about what the Lord had said to them, and perhaps
they wondered how they would drink the cup that the Lord had taken from, and
would follow the baptism that the Lord had undergone, wondering when that time
and the place would come when they, too, would die for the faith.
James and John were martyrs.
Remembering that the word “martyr”
comes to us from the Greek, where it means “witness” (its meaning has changed a
lot over the years!), how can we be martyrs/witnesses to our Christian faith
today?
Here are some practical suggestions
to get our own thoughts going:
- Putting God first means that we will be second, third, or maybe even last.
- Being willing (with God’s help!) to step out of first place ensures that we will find our truest and fullest self in God, to become what God intends for us.
- Strength in God’s kingdom often looks a whole lot like weakness to the world.
- God’s power is made perfect in weakness (II Corinthians 12: 9b). What is true for God is also true for us!
AMEN.
