'What is it that you want me to do for you?'

“…What is it you want me to do for you?” (Mark 10:36)

Mark 10:35-45 (Year B: 21st Sunday after Trinity, 21st October, 2018)

(other Readings in paired Revised Common Lectionary for this Sunday: Isaiah 53:4-12;  Psalm 91:9-16; and  Hebrews 5:1-10)

As creatures of habit we may like the limelight – titles, positions, ranks and all that goes with authority. Not that we do not act most of the time with good motivation and with the intention of doing good and fulfilling our commitments whether in family, the workplace or the local community.  However, what goes with this by way of position in a hierarchy of position and authority is attractive – for some more than others.

This is not altogether a bad thing. After all, God knows how to write straight on crooked lines and even if what drives people forward is a mix of things, everything can be turned into good especially when there is – thanks to God’s grace – some faith, some hope and some love in what we do and how we do it.

The story of how James and John asked for special places in the kingdom reminds us how just human the first disciples were. Little has changed since those days. Yet, we should remember that of these two, James had his head cut off according to Acts 12:1-2 – a fate awaiting some Christians in the same region today. There is no evidence that John met a violent death but the other leading apostle, Peter, was by popular tradition believed to have been crucified.  And as for the Lord, his crucifixion is a key part of our understanding and faith within the story of God’s saving power. So, whatever about rank, position and title according to human arrangements, norms and traditions, the outcome for those who sense a call and are called to positions of particular service or ministries in the church involves some pain, difficulty and possibly even persecution.

As it was in the beginning, is now and will continue to be….

In Matthew’s account (20:20-28) of the same story there is a slightly ironic and humorous note in that the mother of James and John does the pleading.   No surprises there!  Just picture the ‘sons of thunder’, James and John, standing confidently beside their mother (quite possibly a mother and woman of thunder?!) as the pleading goes on. Was there a hint of arrogance in the following request (verse 35):

“Teacher, we want You to do for us whatever we ask of You.” 

It should be remembered these were cousins of Jesus and, perhaps, there was a family dimension to this such as arises about seating at wedding banquets or children’s birthday parties today.  Jesus knows how to handle not only James and John but the other 10 disciples who, according to Mark 10:41, became highly indignant. Anyone familiar with human resource management and what are referred to as ‘industrial relations’ in the workplace will spot parallels here.  But, that is to be expected and in the culture of Jesus’ time we are reminded that it was normal practice among the ‘Gentiles’ for rulers to ‘lord it over’ their subjects.  Jesus wants us to know that this is not how it is meant to be among his followers.

But, there is another point that we must face: discipleship including leadership involves suffering – much suffering. Not without reason did the liturgists pair today’s Gospel reading with what we might term the Fourth Song of the Suffering Servant to be found in the 53^rd chapter of the prophet Isaiah (Isaiah 53:9-12). I am particularly struck by that part of verse 12 that reads:

because he poured out himself to death, and was numbered with the transgressors

If only.

Returning to the sources of the gospel we are challenged and confronted by the harsh realities of discipleship. Choices are made, some things are left behind and other things are taken on and the road ahead is never certain or foreseeable. Rather, we proceed one mile or kilometre at a time watching for the next turn and hill.

All service and all positions of leadership – especially Christian inspired – can draw on the prayer of St Ignatius of Loyola (1491-1556):

Teach me to give, and not to count the cost to fight, and not to heed the wounds,to toil, and not to seek for rest,to labour, and not to ask for any reward,save that of knowing that we do your will

Another Jesuit, Saint Oscar Romero, on the day before he was murdered while saying mass in El Salvador in 1980 addressed the ordinary soldiers of his country as follows:

Brothers, you are from the same people; you kill your fellow peasants…No soldier is obliged to obey an order that is contrary to the will of God…In the name of God, in the name of this suffering people, I ask you—I implore you—I command you in the name of God: stop the repression!”  

If only that courage and type of leadership was more widespread in today’s world!

The harsh truth is that in so many walks of life from the corporate world to the sporting world to the ecclesiastical worlds the three ‘P’s’ reign supreme over the three ‘S’s’. The three ‘P’s’ are, quite simply: Power, Position and Privilege. This explains a lot in what we see around us.  Only those who have discovered the secret of the three ‘S’s’ have found some peace and inner and outer harmony: Simplicity, Surrender and Service. 

And for each one of us living the life of a disciple in a 21^st century church, things ought to be no different.

(words above = 908)

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Further reading: notes and questions, verse by verse

Preliminaries

This episode sits in the midst of a busy preaching and healing mystery. Already, Jesus has made it clear to this disciples that following him with all their hearts will make demands. His way is not an easy way. It would be wrong to give any other impression.

10:35-37          What do we seek?

‘James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came forward to him and said to him, ‘Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you.’ And he said to them, ‘What is it you want me to do for you?’ And they said to him, ‘Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory.’’

O for the naiveté of James and John! These ‘Sons of thunder’ (Boanerges in Mark 3:17) let themselves in for it! Jesus knew them through and through and ‘he knew their game’. Yet, he tested them; he almost teased them in the following terms: ‘What is it you want me to do for you?’. Today, Jesus looks straight at you and at me and asks ‘What is it you want me to do for you?’

10:38-40          ‘not mine to grant’

‘But Jesus said to them, ‘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?’ They replied, ‘We are able.’ Then Jesus said to them, ‘The cup that I drink you will drink; and with the baptism with which I am baptized, you will be baptized; but to sit at my right hand or at my left is not mine to grant, but it is for those for whom it has been prepared.’

Were we to know, before we set out on a life journey of commitment be it professional, married, religious or otherwise, what would emerge would we still make the same declarations, choices and even binding vows?  I dare say that we might not even get out of bed in the morning if we knew what lay ahead! J Jesus declared that it was not his to grant what would befall his disciples. Only the Risen Christ acting with the Father will gather in those who have submitted to God’s will.  We need to work out our salvation in ‘fear and trembling’ (Phil 2:12). Sharing in the passion of Christ is the point and not places of honour.

10:41-45          An unholy fight breaks out among the apostles

‘When the ten heard this, they began to be angry with James and John. So Jesus called them and said to them, ‘You know that among the Gentiles those whom they recognize as their rulers lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them. But it is not so among you; but whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all.  For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.’

Now that would never happen, today, among those in positions of leadership and ministry, would it!  Bishops and Patriarchs excommunicating each other; Cardinals undermining and censoring other cardinals and the Pope; one current or movement of discipleship declaring another as acting outside the Word of God and to be condemned; one half of a parish fighting with another half and so on and so on. Have we missed the plot? It is about service and surrender to the Will of God. Is anyone so sure of their interpretation of the Word and their living out of same that they can, with absolute certainty and authority, exclude another from the Table of the Lord or the Fellowship of the Disciples? Now, let’s be very clear, there are times, places and occasions when someone in authority needs to remove evil and the lack of such has been a source of great evil, trauma and loss of credibility in the modern world. But, that is another story.