“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.”
From James: We had been on this road to Jerusalem many times. We knew the landscape. We knew every little town along the road. Yet this time, as we walked with Jesus, things were different. Some of us had begun to grumble, to grow impatient with each other. All of us wondered if somebody had changed the rules of the game without telling us.
James and John believe they are more special to Jesus than are the other disciples. That is because Jesus has often included James and John in his inner circle. Of the twelve, Jesus took only James, John and Peter with him when he healed Jairus’ daughter. Jesus took only James, John and Peter with him up the Mount of Transfiguration. For three years, Jesus’ disciples have journeyed with him. The crowds have grown larger. The exchanges between Jesus and the Pharisees have sharpened. Now, as Jesus and his disciples journey towards Jerusalem, tension grows thicker with every step. James and John are uneasy.
Jesus had said some really strange things lately. Just the other day, he told a rich man that it is easier to get through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God. When we asked Jesus about that, all he said was, “With God, all things are possible.” Then Jesus began talking about his death. He kept insisting that when we arrived in Jerusalem, someone would deliver him to the chief priests and scribes. Officials would condemn him to death. Mock him. Spit on him. Beat him. Kill him. And three days later, he would rise again. He just could not let this go.
So the question that none of us dared to ask is this: If he knew the were going to kill him when he got there, why were we all going back to Jerusalem? John and I looked at each other. Did Jesus need to be reminded about this wonderful Kingdom of God he kept saying was close at hand? Did we need to remind him about his glory we saw on the mountain that day? For three years, John and I had been close to Jesus. In fact, we hoped that when Jesus finally set up this new kingdom, we would get important positions. Now all he could talk about was death. We needed to remind Jesus what was important.
James and John think they know Jesus. Yet the closer they all get to Jerusalem, the more they wonder. Increasingly, Jesus seems to see things the disciples do not see. He seems to hear things they do not hear. His conversations are more enigmatic, his responses more cryptic. Every day, Jesus’ face looks more weary. More pensive. More lined and drawn. Yet there is an unmistakable set to his jaw.
John and I approached Jesus. “Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you.” “Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory.” But Jesus did not react the way we had hoped. Instead, he said, “You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or be baptized with the baptism I am baptized with?” Of course we were. We loved this man. We had left our homes, our jobs, our families, to follow him. If there was a cup to be passed around, we wanted to be right there. If there was a baptism, we didn’t want to miss it. So we replied, “We are able.”
Yet somehow we knew we had done the wrong thing. Jesus looked towards Jerusalem with that look he gets when he sees something we don’t. When he hears something we don’t hear. When he knows something we don’t know. Then he said, “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 my left is not mine to grant, but it is for those for whom it has been prepared.”
We seemed to be talking past one another. Jesus didn’t understand us. We did not understand Jesus. Then the whole thing blew up. The other disciples found out that we had asked for places of honor. They were angry and wouldn’t speak to us. Then Jesus gave all of us a lecture about how if we want to be great, we must be willing to be servants. He said whoever wants to be first has to be slave of all. Did we give up everything we had just to be servants? I didn’t think so. I didn’t get it. After that, Jesus walked alone, ahead of all of us. Wrapped in that beautiful seamless cloak his mother gave him, he strode along, his face turned towards Jerusalem as if the rest of us weren’t even there.
James and John did not understand Jesus. Neither do we. As human beings, we love honor and recognition. We like being powerful people—or being close to powerful people. We want to sit at the head table. We want lives full of comfort and privilege. Yet we forget that Jesus does not call us to an easy life. Jesus calls us to pick up a cross and follow him. Along the way, he challenges us to put God and others first instead of our own wants and desires. He challenges us to live the way he did: as a servant. Jesus continues to reorder power structures, to question the Church’s rules and regulations that can kill God’s love. Jesus’ unconditional love and servant ministry still stand in stark opposition to those in Church, society or politics who want to sit at the right and left sides of power, position and prestige. Jesus continues to stand at the margins of the church and society—in the first century and in the twenty first century. Jesus reminds Christians that “some of history’s most dastardly deeds have been done by those who claimed to be sitting on God’s right or left hand.”[1]
In today’s gospel, James and John do not understand. Neither do the other disciples. When two people take their places on the right and left of Jesus, it will not be because of choice. That is because the ones who end up on Jesus’ right and left are two criminals on crosses at Calvary. Later, these disciples would understand. They would, indeed, drink the same cup as Jesus. In fact, James was the first of the twelve to drink that same cup of suffering. According to the book of Acts, Herod Agrippa put James to death by the sword in about the year 44 CE.[2] John lived the longest of the disciples. According to tradition, John was exiled to the island of Patmos and lived to extreme old age. John drank a different cup: the suffering of a very old man who has watched his brother, his family, his friends die, one by one—many of them violently. James and John finally understood the kind of servant ministry to which Jesus had called them. As their faith matured, they, too, drank the cup of suffering and the baptism of death with loving and courageous hearts.
Just like those first disciples, you and I hear Jesus’ call to servant ministry. This call is not to places of power, position and prestige. This call is to follow Jesus down a narrow road—even if it does lead to servanthood and suffering. What will our servant ministry look like today? That depends on the person and the situation. However, it always means that we give of ourselves—not in the sense of being a doormat—but with prayerful intention. It means that we always ask two questions. The first is this: “What can I do to bring the Kingdom of God, the Dream of God, into real places, in real time, today? The second: “What must I give up in order to make this Kingdom of God real today, in my world?”
To become a servant in Jesus’ name means that your actions are more about God, more about your brothers and sisters, than about your own wants and desires. So this week, remember James and John, who—like us—did not understand. Remember Jesus, walking courageously towards death in Jerusalem. Then ask yourself what kind of servant ministry you can do this week to make the Kingdom of God come alive in your home, your office, this community, this nation and the world. Ask yourself what you can give up to make this happen. Then with courage, do it. It’s the least we can do for the One who loved us enough to go to Jerusalem one last time. Amen.
© The Rev. Sheila N. McJilton
Picture of road taken at Longwood Gardens by McJilton
Picture of basin & towel accessed at http://www.badgervillage.com/images/050404/2151wf.jpg
Picture of sculpture of Jesus washing feet (Dallas Theological Seminary) accessed through Google images.
[1] Kenneth L. Carder, “The Call to Downward Mobility,” The Christian Century, 1997. At Religion Online, accessed through www.textweek.com. Accessed on October 15, 2009.
[2] Acts 12:1-2.
Imagine the following scene. It is a hot, sunny day. The pungent smell of olive trees in road-side groves fills the air. A man walks along the dusty road. About a quarter of a mile behind him, a group of men are engaged in a heated argument.
That evening, in Capernaum, Jesus confronts them: “What were you arguing about on the way?” We can almost see the disciples turn red and shift uneasily. We can see them looking down at the floor. So the Master did hear them arguing after all. Jesus gathers them around. “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.” Jesus knows what society teaches: that only the powerful have value. If you have political power, wealth, military power, or family power, you make the decisions. You get the best seat at the dinner table. People wait for you, and they wait on you. The haves wield power over the have-nots. That’s the way it’s always been. Jesus challenges and subverts this view of power and authority.
We remember that day.
Never forget this:
The dog days of August are well upon us here in the Washington DC area. Someone has said that nothing is as hot as a Washington summer. While I’m not sure about the truth of that, I know that the official temperature right this moment (10:45 a.m.) is 87 degrees but according to weather.com, it feels like 94 degrees. Last night, when I got home from a meeting at church, I thought, “Good grief, I can hardly draw a good breath in this air.”
As I water my flowers and my tomatoes, I am reminded that some of my brothers and sisters live in heat far worse than this, in living conditions that are a far cry from my comfortable ones. They will not have a gallon of water this day for them or their children to drink, never mind having plenty of water to water a garden. I pray that God will remind me of this truth and that God will provide water in the wilderness, somehow, for those who don’t have enough.
On Sunday night, I returned from a two-week vacation in Maine–hence, my absence from this blog. Being away from internet access was both an interesting and uncomfortable exercise. We were on Mount Desert Island, near the gorgeous Acadia National Park and so could make trips into Bar Harbor There, I used an internet cafe a couple of times just to check e-mail (and to delete the hundreds of spam I got!), but I replied to very few; I had imposed some self-discipline on myself to get away from all things routine during vacation. So other than some news that came across a good friend’s Blackberry, I was in a news vaccuum.
While in Maine, I took lots of pictures with the new Pentax camera my beloved gave me as a ten-year ordination anniversary gift. At some point during the time away, I realized that I was taking lots of pictures of water. Mount Desert Island has an incredible variety of kinds of water. The Maine coast is rocky, with volcanic rock that is black in some places and pink (granite) in other places. Depending on the time of day, the colors shift and deepen with the sun’s position.
But the water. . .there are the ponds that stretch like shaped mirrors and reflect mountain peaks, ponds where lily pads and frogs on lily pads sit in still, quiet splendor. There are harbors that invite lobster boats, fishing boats, pleasure boats and yachts. There are waters roiled up artificially: one day we bought tickets and took a U.S. Mail Boat to Great Cranberry and Little Cranberry Islands, so I enjoyed the summer sun and breeze, and the sight of blue water making its wake behind the boat. And of course there is the ocean, in all variations of blue and black and green, with the white waves crashing against the rocks at Otter Cliffs–one of my favorite places in the world.
In Psalm 24, the psalmist writes this: “The earth is the LORD’s and all that is in it, the world and those who live in it; for he has founded it on the seas and established it on the rivers.”
For these past two weeks, I was grateful for time away, to rest my body, to refresh my soul, to be with good friends, and to just BE. I found myself grateful to be able to walk beside, or sit beside, waters that were sometimes still and sometimes moving, and to be a quiet observer of God’s Creation.
We have two examples in today’s scriptures of power. The book of Amos was written about eight hundred years before the time of John the Baptist and Jesus. During King Jereboam’s reign, Israel and Judah have enjoyed peace. Neither Egypt nor Assyria—world powers—threaten. The old tribal systems of family and land ownership are unraveling, and a more wealthy—and powerful—elite social class rises. With all this power and upward mobility comes a disregard for God’s laws. The rich get richer. The poor get poorer. For many political and religious leaders, power has become an addictive drug, not a spiritual responsibility.
Not one person in that banquet hall protests or holds Herod accountable. And the one person who does hold him acountable is about to die. Herod makes a choice and uses his power poorly. In what must be a grisly scene, John the Baptist’s head is brought into Herod on a platter and given to the teenage girl. In turn, Salome hands the platter to her triumphant mother. This tragic story ends with John’s disciples coming to take his body, to lay it in a tomb—an eerie foreshadowing of the task that will face Jesus’ disciples in a few years.
In the summer of 2000, I went on a seventeen day trip to the Holy Land, led by Dr. Ellen Davis, my Old Testament professor in seminary. Four months before the trip, Ellen sent a lengthy e-mail which covered flight schedule, costs and passport reminders. Additionally, Ellen told us how to pack. Now I already knew about norms for dress, because I had been to Israel and Egypt two years earlier. I knew that dress norms there are more modest than in the States—one cannot enter Moslem religious sites or Jewish religious neighborhoods with bare knees or shoulders. Nights in Jerusalem can be cool, so one needs a shawl or wrap of some kind. A good sun hat and sun glasses are critical in desert climates. And of course one needs a sturdy pair of hiking boots. However, Ellen’s e-mail included more than basic packing tips: “I would urge you to pack lightly. We will be staying several nights in a row at most hotels or guest houses, so you can do hand laundry, or even send things out (although this will not be an option everywhere.)”
The disciples have been traveling with Jesus for a little while. They have learned much already—probably more than they think they’ve learned. Now, Jesus sends the disciples out in what you and I would call an internship. Jesus tells the disciples to pack lightly and take only what they need: one tunic, one pair of sandals and a staff—to protect themselves from wild animals or to negotiate the rough desert terrain. They are to take nothing extra: no cloak for a cool, windy evening. No bread. No bag. No money. Jesus does not send them out alone, but in pairs. This is critical, as the long, dusty roads between villages wind through harsh desert terrain full of wild animals and robbers.
But on the way to Jairus’ house, something happens. An unnamed woman pushes through the crowd to Jesus. She has been hemorrhaging for twelve years and she is desperate. Despite repeated visits to all kinds of doctors, despite all the money she has spent, this woman has not been healed. She is not even getting better. She is continuing to lose something life-giving—her blood—and undoubtedly she is exhausted and weak. She is also considered to be unclean, according to Levitical laws. So the very fact that she is in a crowd of people is, in itself, a violation of Jewish law. However, this woman has heard about Jesus of Nazareth. She believes that all she has to do is to touch this healer’s clothing to be made whole again. The ancient peoples possessed what we would call “magical thinking.” They thought that if someone had healing power, that power extended to their clothing, to anything they touched, even to the shadows they cast (think about holy relics). 
Of course this interruption has delayed Jesus’ trip to Jairus’ house. Suddenly, some friends of Jairus show up to say that there’s no point in Jesus’ going to heal the twelve year old because she has died. Jesus, the Son of God, is undeterred. Did he not say “Peace, be still” to the raging storm just a few days ago? God’s power rules the elements of nature—whether they are the powers of wind, sky and sea, or the powers of illness and death. So Jesus continues on to Jairus’ house. When they arrive, they see mourners who have already gathered in the traditional custom of weeping and wailing publicly. So when Jesus tells them, “The child is not dead, but sleeping,” they laugh in his face. Jesus, the Son of God, is undeterred. He takes the girl’s mother and father and three disciples—Peter, James and John—and enters the room where the girl has been laid. Jesus takes her hand and commands her, “Talitha cum.” These words—retained in the original Aramaic—show us that the Greek writers believed in the literal healing power of Jesus’ words.
I need to get something straight right from the beginning. This boat ride across the Galilee at night was not our idea. It was Jesus’ idea. Jesus had called twelve of us to travel with him around the area. I wasn’t exactly sure why Andrew and I had said yes to Jesus’ command to follow him. We just knew we could not say no. So we had left our fishing boat to follow this carpenter from Nazareth as he began to preach and teach and heal.
Almost immediately, Jesus found a cushion in the stern of our boat, curled up, and fell asleep. But it wasn’t long before the clouds gathered. The wind picked up, then grew into a furious squall. Choppy waves grew into swells that began to lap over the sides of the boats. Now I am a fisherman. I had been in rough waters before. But never had I experienced such a sudden, violent storm. Within a few minutes, even the four experienced fishermen among us went from being concerned to being terrified. Suddenly, we were afraid we were not going to make it to the other side alive. It was as if the wind, the sky and the sea had joined forces and turned into a chaotic, evil force.
you thought you were bound for, but God will be with you there.
