Mark 10:32-45 – The Request of James and John
Introduction
This reading from Mark 10 is probably one we’ve heard a few times before.
It’s also pretty straightforward, isn’t it?
We can see that the heart of this passage is the revelation that Life under the rule and reign of God is about being a servant not being served.
As someone who has been looking at the Village Church from the outside, I can see that this message is not only well-known to you but part of your identity as well. It comes through in the sorts of things you do in your life together and the way you work at God’s mission in your community.
A loving and serving community of faith.
When we come to these straightforward and familiar passages, the Spirit is always there, affirming the work Christ has already done in us, but also inviting us further in and further down. Let’s take a look together.
The power Jesus wields v32-34,v40,45b
The Story starts by letting us know that the disciples have been feeling the tension between the religious leaders and Jesus and are afraid. Here they are, heading right into the centre of the life of Jewish worship and religious power. As Jerusalem looms large on the horizon, they start to get nervous about what’s going to happen.
Jesus notices this and so, for a third time, lays out how things are going to go. He’s going to be arrested, tried, and sentenced to death, abused, and killed. Then he will rise.
You can imagine the disciples thinking: What are you talking about Jesus?
You’re onto a great thing here. Look at all the good you do!
Sick people are made well, the hungry crowds are fed. You even made an honest tax collector out of Levi. Let’s not forget only a couple of chapters ago you were walking on water!
Then there’s James and John’s request, which only makes sense if they understand Jesus’ words in some metaphoric way. Perhaps the talk of his dying and rising is a way of speaking of the conflict with the religious leaders and that he will be victorious in the end.
But the author of Mark will show us that what’s coming up is not a surprise for Jesus. Rather, it has been the natural and deliberate endpoint of his vocation from the beginning.
Jesus has carved out his identity as the heavenly Son of Man, picking up on the mysterious figure from Daniel 7 who is given power and authority over all creation. But Jesus says there’s a nuance to this position.
This Son of Man receives power because he is going to give his life as a ransom for many.
The word ransom has a sense of liberation about it. We can see this in Christ’s work as he goes about, liberating people from oppression. Economic oppression, social oppression, cultural oppression, and physical oppression.
In his book The Divine Conspiracy, Dallas Willard comments that Jesus must have been the smartest, wisest person who ever lived. I don’t know what you think about that idea. But if we imagine for a minute that it’s true. Imagine just how else Jesus could have spent his life. He could have grown a successful carpentry business and turned it into a Rome Empire-wide chain. Or used his business contacts to gain influence and start a reality entertainment show at the Colosseum. Once that gets dull, a life in politics seems a natural path. Perhaps the Roman Senate or even a bid for emperor wouldn’t be amis.
Jesus could have been the ultimate self-made human.
But the writer of Philippians, in that famous passage reminds us that Christ
… made himself nothing, taking on the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.
Because of this, this emptying of himself, even to an unjust death, God gives Jesus the name above all names,
Jesus showed us what “a life lived to God” looks like. A life marked by divine love used for the good of others.
The powerful God identifies with humanity, by becoming powerless and dying to liberate others from darkness.
Jesus wields the power of life by laying his down.
The sort of leader we find it easy to be v35-41
We don’t see this sort of example playing out too often in our world, do we?
We seem to see more examples in line with the request of James and John.
People vying for positions of authority: political office, promotions, fame, and technological firsts.
All variations on the theme that the “Good Life” can be found in exerting power over others.
It seems that some will stop at nothing for this power. No expense is spared, no insult is off limits, no integrity is unable to be sacrificed and no lie is too bold.
We see powerplays like this unfold on our screens and in our communities, from Parliaments to Playcentre committees.
Because there is a finite amount of this power thing, there’s also a race to get it. Did you notice the disciples?
I don’t think they’re upset because John and James let the team down. Their indignation is not likely their concern for their friend’s spirituality.
They’re upset because they’ve been pipped at the post. They didn’t get in first. Perhaps they never would have been as brazen or open as James and John. But perhaps they secretly hoped, that Jesus would notice them. That they may be selected for promotion.
Then the muttering begins. The metaphorical secuteurs come out and together they start chopping those two tall poppies down.
Our Kiwi culture doesn’t tend to like it when the poppies get a bit tall. Like a bucket full of live crabs, when one makes a break for it and tries to climb out, the rest of us pull them back into “their place”.
It’s been said that behind Tall Poppy Syndrome lies our own insecurities. Our anxieties that “we are not enough”. I wonder if the next layer down on that onion is a hint of jealousy and comparison that we weren’t brave enough, bold enough, smart enough … privileged enough.
As humans, we seem to be well-versed in these insecurities and anxieties. The disciples were no exception.
We can forget that James and John and the rest of the disciples were not likely “wannabe dictators”.
They were a bunch of everyday people who saw the injustice in their world and found hope in Jesus for a better way.
But, they were trying to be the leaders we find it easy to be.
Interesting, is Jesus’ response to James and John, and by inference, to the disciples who were envious: You don’t know what you are asking.
You don’t know what you are asking.
It has been said that power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
I am reading JRR Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings to Sophie and Johnny at the moment and in it we are introduced to the character of Saruman. An Istari, or Wizard and head of the Wise, White Council. He is a formidable and powerful figure, Part way through we become suspicious of him and eventually he is unmasked and found to be in league with the Dark Lord Sauron, who is attempting to take over all of Middle Earth.
In a letter, Tolkien reflects on Saruman’s downfall and says that for a Wizard like Saruman, the temptation was impatience. An impatience that would lead him to force others to do good, and then to a simple craving for power”.
This is an apt illustration of the frightful truth that, as Richard Foster writes, “when we are convinced that we always use our power to good ends, we believe we can never do wrong.”
When we are convinced that we always use our power to good ends, we believe we can never do wrong.”
When we start walking down that path, we can become convinced what we are doing is the work of God. But really, we are serving our own ends.
“You don’t know what you are asking,” says Jesus.
Our overt bids and subconscious yearning for power, are denials of our inability to handle it and our inherent weakness to admit that it is so.
When we notice that tall poppy reaction in ourselves, or the urgency to look out for our own interest. The question we all have to ask ourselves is: What are we asking for? What are we really asking for?
The sort of leader Jesus is calling us to be v42-45
To the disciples, to us, used to seeing the dynamics of human power play out in our lives, Jesus’ instruction seems counterintuitive:
Whoever wants to be great among you, must be a servant…
It’s wisdom that turns the world as we know it, upside down.
That says not strength, but weakness is the hallmark of greatness.
The sort of leaders Jesus is calling us to be are not invincible, but vulnerable.
Jesus invites us to see the world differently.
Have you seen a map like this before? (‘Upside down’ map projected on screen)
I wonder what it is you notice?
Perhaps you see straight away it’s upside down.
Then maybe that things don’t look quite right. Africa looks huge, and the northern continents look smaller. Actually, they are more in their right proportions this way.
Countries we are used to seeing in the centre of the map are pushed to the edges and wow, look at that. Bluff is almost on top of the world.
I said before the world is upside-down on this map. But is it?
In space, which way is up? There is no up in space.
Why, in the maps, we are used to seeing, is Europe at the centre and top?
Who made those maps?
The sailors, explorers cartographers who went out from Europe full of technology, importance, and authority, saw themselves at the centre of the world and went out to discover, colonise, and lord it over others.
An illustration like this makes us think, doesn’t it…
How have we been looking at the world?
How we see the world affects how we act in it.
Who sits at Christ’s right and left at his coronation? Two thieves. One of whom we have some sympathy for, is the one who turned to Jesus. But also the one who mocked him. That’s who God had appointed to be at Christ’s right and left when he came in his Glory.
The weak and despised.
Who are we surrounding ourselves with? Who do we share power with?
The Message of Scripture is that God shows us which way is true north, which way is really up, in sharing power with us weak, dust creatures, and changing us from enemies into family members.
When we rest in that knowledge that we are loved and accepted members of God’s family, we can see greatness in the ordinary, in vulnerability, in weakness. We begin to understand who God is, and who God has made us to be.
Closing
When we gather for worship, we gather to praise, but also to listen to God’s voice. Today is no exception as we are all discerning something of the path ahead for us all.
You may be asking yourself, what sort of leader is this minister? How will he lead us?
What’s he like to be around? How does he handle power? All fair questions.
When I first experienced a call to ministry I was in my early 20s. I was excited and ready to get into it. What needed to be done? Let me at it.
But as I listened to wise Counsel I knew I needed more life experience. By the time I discerned a call again in my late 30s, looking back over who God had been shaping me to be, I found myself asking:
Who am I to be a minister? Who am I to be a leader of God’s people? God had brought me face to face with my weakness and God’s greatness.
Throughout my formal training in the last five years, I know I’ve grown in confidence. As any of us grow in knowledge and practice, it can be tempting to begin trusting in ourselves, rather than in the God who calls us, shapes and moulds us, enabling us by the Spirit.
I’m an ordinary person, like James & John, like all of Christ’s disciples throughout history with failures and weaknesses.
But, like you, passages like this have taken deep root in my life, in my faith, creating the desire to be a servant leader, to work alongside others.
And it’s by our committing to return to these familiar passages and let them reflect back to us who we really are that we can ask for the grace to walk in the servant way of Christ.
Perhaps if there is any encouragement we can take from the disciples in this episode, it’s that we keep reading the rest of the story. We see they go on to live powerful lives. Not a self-serving, corrupting power, but lives filled with the power of the Good News of Jesus, who made himself like us, empty and weak, so that we may be like him. Humans, as we were made to be. Working together with God.
Jesus wields power by laying it down and embracing death.
In our deepest being, we know that we are too weak to lay down our ideas of power.
But by Christ’s Spirit in us, we can be the humans God calls us to be. Walking in the resurrection life as servants of God, in this age and the age to come because of the work of Jesus.
Amen.