TRUE GREATNESS

A Sermon for 20th Sunday after Pentecost
By Pastor Laura Gentry

Mark 10:35-45

There they stand before Christ, the two sons of Zebedee, James and John—the same ones who had zestfully thrown down their nets and left their father to answer the call of Jesus. They are devout followers of Jesus. No one would question that. And in this scene from today’s Gospel lesson, they place an important request before him: “Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory.” This is such an audacious request that in Matthew’s Gospel, this question is attributed to their Jewish mother, as if Matthew is too embarrassed to admit that Jesus’ own disciples would make this bold request themselves. It had to have been their mom (mothers say those kind of obnoxious things, you know). But the way Mark tells it, James and John, themselves, ask Jesus for glory.

Of course, they are still under the expectation that Jesus is going to be a great military leader who will lead the Israelites to political victory, and they are eager to be a part of this glory. I imagine Jesus just shaking his head in disbelief that these two still don’t get it. He’s just explained to them the painful torture and death about to befall him, and these two knuckleheads are still talking about a military takeover. They’ve missed the point entirely. The frustrated Jesus looks at these misguided disciples and replies, “You do not know what you are asking! Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?”

These seem like random questions for Jesus to ask. And this is because the references he lays out here would make a whole lot more sense to his ancient audience than to us. So let’s look at each of them for clarification.

His first question is: “Are you able to drink the cup that I drink?” In biblical times, it was the custom for kings to hand their banquet guests a cup of something—and the guests would simply accept what was handed to them. Today when you attend a party, you are usually given a choice as to what kind of beverage you want. But that was not the case for the ancients. As the guest, you were expected to happily accept and drink whatever you were given.

Jesus uses this concept as a metaphor for life. God is like the king and you are the guest. You don’t get to choose your lot in life, that is given to you by God. So in this context, Jesus is using “cup” to mean your set of circumstances. In his prayer on the Mount of Olives, Jesus himself pleads with God for his cup to be taken away from him. This cup for Jesus includes his death on the cross. Of course, he would like for this cup to be taken away, yet he knows that he must endure this for the sake of the world.

So Jesus is asking James and John: Do you REALLY want to take on the mission I’ve been given? Can you follow me even though that means following me all the way to the cross?

And then he asks them: “Are you able to be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?” The Greek word used here refers to being dipped in or submerged. It is likely that Jesus is not describing the sacrament of Holy Baptism here, as we might suppose, but simply asking: are you willing to be submerged in the experience in which I am submerged? And just what was that submersion? Well, Christ left the riches of heaven to be submerged in poverty, he left his throne to be submerged in humble service, and in the end, he allowed himself to be submerged in an excruciatingly painful death to win eternal life for a largely ungrateful humanity. That’s quite a humbling experience in which to be submerged.

These are difficult questions Jesus asks James and John: “Are you able to drink the cup that I drink? Are you willing to be submerged in the experience in which I am submerged?”

“We are able!” they quickly reply. The way Mark writes it, it almost sounds like they answer in unison like a couple of Double Mint twins. “We ARE able!” You can almost picture them grinning awkwardly as they say this. Whether they really know what they are getting themselves into or not at this point, we don’t know. In any case, they do accept his challenge—they do drink from his cup, and they willingly submerge themselves in a life of humble service. We now know that James will go on to lose his life in this submersion. Even though they were originally asking for glory, they get redirected by Jesus and instead, take Jesus’ path of humble service and suffering.

But this cup, this submersion—is not the popular choice. Most people don’t answer, “We are able.” Who wants to choose the life of service instead of the life of glory? As humans, we naturally prefer glory.

I remember when John F. Kennedy, Jr. and his wife were tragically killed in a plane accident. There was a massive outpourings of candles, flowers, and cards springing up in make-shift shrines all across the country. On the news, there were a lot of “person on the street” interviews where I recall people say things like, “I am so sad about this tragedy. What I loved about John is that he was so humble and so kind.” That answer made me laugh. That is not why the world loved him! There are millions of humble and kind people all around us who go unnoticed. When they die, there aren’t shrines all over the country. While JFK, Jr. may well have been an extremely kind and even a humble person, that is not what made him a worldwide obsession—it was the legacy of his family name that gave him notoriety, power, wealth, fame, and loads of glamour. It’s not the death of this man we mourned—we didn’t even really know him. What we mourned was the death of the glorious myth he embodied. His death reminds us once again, that earthly greatness is fleeting—even though that’s what the world continues to strive for.

I supposed I don’t need to tell you that we live in a power-crazed world. Everyone wants to be great. We want to get the right education and a profession or at least the money that gives us power over others. We want to surround ourselves in possessions that prove our status. We want to launch that successful business or buy that winning lottery ticket that will finally set us free from the bondage of being a humble servant of the working world so we can finally tell our boss where to go like in the lotto commercials. All the advertisers know that’s what we secretly want so they spend billions continuing to market this myth of earthly power and domination to us. But Jesus tells us that this is not the way to attain true greatness. It’s not at all the way.

In the face of this striving for glory, Jesus comes out with the question: “Are you able to drink the cup that I drink? Are you willing to be submerged in the experience in which I am submerged?”

Jesus did not come this earth in the form of a Kennedy. He was born in a dusty stable to a poor carpenter and his wife. As the God-become-man, he painted a living portrait for us of what humanity ought to be. And the example he provided was one of love and humility; one of service, of foot-washing. In this scene from Mark’s Gospel, he tells his followers directly that: whoever wishes to be great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be a slave of all. For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many. (Mark 10:43-45)

You see, to be a follower of Jesus, means to be radically countercultural. Some of you remember just a short time ago when mainline Protestantism was in the height of it’s heyday in this country. To be a Christian did not mean to be radical. Being a Christian just meant being an American. Everybody who was anybody went to church. It was just the thing normal people did. And with that kind of “it’s the status quo thing to do” mind-set about Christianity, it is easy to forget how countercultural Jesus’ message really is. To follow Jesus means to reject the striving-after-glory life that is the norm of our world. It means we stop trying to get things for ourselves; and seek instead, to give of ourselves. This is the only way to attain greatness. John Kennedy Senior put it so well when he gave that stirring line, “Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.”

That’s the spirit of this call. Jesus is saying: “Don’t ask for glory, ask to drink from my cup, ask to be submerged in a life of service. Ask what you can do for the kingdom of God.”

This reminds me of Princess Alice. She was the second daughter of Queen Victoria. She had a four-year-old son who contracted the disease known as “black diphtheria.” Alice was devastated. The disease was highly contagious, and without modern medicine, it was deadly. The nurses continually warned the Princess, not being in the best of health herself, to stay away from her son. And so she tried. She really did.

But one day as Princess Alice was standing in the far corner of her son’s room, she heard the child whisper to the nurse, “Why doesn’t my mother kiss me any more?” That was more than Alice could bear. As tears streamed down her cheeks, she raced to her son’s bed, held him in her arms, and smothered him with kisses. Tragically, this turned out to be the kiss of death. Princess Alice contracted the deadly disease and in a matter of weeks, both mother and son were buried. A foolish thing to do? Crazy? Yes, of course. But who ever said love was logical? To love as deeply as the cross: that is a calling so high it flies in the face of common sense.

That’s the calling Jesus gives his disciples: to drink from his cup even if the price is death, to be submerged in a life that abandons itself in loving service. That is true greatness. And we don’t even have muster up this love on our own. We are able to freely love and give of ourselves in humble service because God first loved us. We are held in the arms of a loving God who didn’t get fed up with our relentless search for glory and throw us out as we deserve. No, this is a God who actively seeks us out as a shepherd who leaves ninety-nine sheep to go find the one who has strayed away. In a ridiculous act of selflessness, similar to that of Princess Alice’s, Christ gave his life to redeem us. And in response to this lavish outpouring of love, we are called to throw out our personal aspirations for fame and glory and humbly stand with James and John with the answer: “We are able!”