Jesus' Way of Serving

If you were in church on June 25th and every Sunday since - and I know you all were - you may realize that we have been hearing the gospel of Mark ever since. The disciples in Mark's gospel are on a journey with Jesus that will end in Jerusalem with Jesus' suffering and death.

These disciples, who are named in the gospels, are the ultimate insiders. They go everywhere with Jesus, they get instruction before, during, and after significant events, and they have the unique opportunity to see Jesus in action in a wide variety of situations. They get to hear Jesus repeat himself much as a campaign aide for Bush or Gore must have certain key phrases from the standard stump speech ringing in her ears from constant repetition.

These disciples have seen some amazing things. They have seen numerous healings and the feeding of thousands with less food than would fit in one Wawa bag. Yet it is the unnamed blind man at the beginning of the gospel, and the blind Bartemeus whom we will meet again in next week's gospel, and the unnamed centurion at the foot of the cross who seem to grasp who Jesus really is much better than the disciples do.

In fact, I think the principal role the disciples play in the gospels, especially in Mark's, is to be characters who don't get it. Who simply do not understand what Jesus is all about no matter how often they are told. In this respect the disciples are just like us, or we are just like them.

This week's reading is the ultimate example of the disciples not getting it. Remember that last week Jesus told the young man to sell all he owned and give the money to the poor and follow him. And a month ago we heard the story of Jesus gathering the twelve around him to tell them in no uncertain terms, "If anyone would be first, he must be last of all and servant of all." This was by way of explaining why he would have to be delivered into the hands of his enemies to be killed.

So today we have the Zebedee brothers, James and John, asking for the special favor of being seated beside Jesus in the Kingdom. In the context of this gospel this seems like a stupid and arrogant request of colossal proportions, doesn't it? But I think there is a pretty clear literary method at work here. Before and after this long series of examples of the disciples not understanding, we have blind men who see who Jesus is more clearly than they do. It is as if these two blind men are sort of bookends to the misperceiving disciples that highlight their misunderstanding. And then James and John by their question offer a set-up for one of the most significant themes in Mark's gospel, that of suffering and service.

In this respect, as I have said, the disciples are like us. They want the pride of place and recognition that goes with serving, but they do not want to pay the price. How often do we do a kind of cost-benefit analysis whenever we have an opportunity to serve others? As we choose from a variety of ways to serve others, how often do we gravitate toward those activities that will make us look good in the eyes of others, and away from those activities and ways of serving that only a poor and socially insignificant recipient is likely to notice?

In this passage Jesus challenges us to examine our ways of serving. If service is effortless, and if what we do brings us honor in the eyes of others, who are we really serving?

Jesus makes it very clear that suffering and self-denial are the cost of service and the only real way to join ourselves to him. If Jesus must suffer and die in order to reconcile us to God, then we, too, must be willing to suffer, or at least be uncomfortable, or at least to forgo self-gratification when we serve.

Last week we heard of the wealthy young man who was dismayed to learn that the way to eternal life is self-denial and identification with the poor and destitute. This week the ante is raised. It is not just a spirit of poverty that is called for, but a total surrendering of our power, of our gratification, of that which makes us look good in the eyes of world – a total surrendering of our whole selves. It is also a willingness to put the poorest, most insignificant person in society ahead of our own selves.

The Dutch priest Henri Nouwen realized this in a profound way at the end of his life. Nouwen was a prolific and best-selling spiritual writer who was very popular on the speaking circuit. He taught at Notre Dame, Yale, and Harvard and had influential friends everywhere. But near the end of his life he chose to pull back from the limelight and join a community of mentally handicapped people in Toronto where he lived as a co-equal member of the community. From the time he joined the community he never went to another speaking engagement without taking a member of the community along with him to share the stage.

In Nouwen's final writing there is a sense that at last his struggle to find the true meaning and fullness of the Christian life had been achieved. He had not found it in the accolades he received over many years from his writing, lecturing, and teaching at prestigious universities. Instead, he found it in the daily companionship of people who could not read his books and who had never heard of him before he appeared among them. He found that a life of sharing and service among these beautiful souls was more abundant in every way than anything he had imagined before.

The Spanish philosopher Miguel de Unamuno tells about the Roman aqueduct at Segovia. It was built in 109 AD and for eighteen hundred years, it carried cool water from the mountains to the hot and thirsty city. Nearly sixty generations of people drank from its flow. Then came another generation, a recent one, who said, "This aqueduct is so great a marvel that it ought to be preserved for our children, as a museum piece. We shall relieve it of its centuries-long labor."

They did; they laid modern iron pipes. They gave the ancient bricks and mortar a reverent rest. And the aqueduct began to fall apart. The sun beating on the dry mortar caused it to crumble. The bricks and stone sagged and threatened to fall. So, what ages of service could not destroy, idleness disintegrated.

Albert Schweitzer put the matter this way. He said "I don't know what your destiny will be, but one thing I know: the only ones among you who will be really happy are those who have sought and found a way to serve."

So, whatever happened to James and John - these apostles who asked to be at Jesus' right and left hand? Well, according to Acts 12:2 James was martyred by Herod Agrippa - "killed with the sword" it says, beheaded rather than crucified. And many early writers report John's death as well. Many scholars thought that Mark would hardly have given emphasis to Jesus' prediction unless both apostles had already been martyred. More recent commentators tend to believe that John lived considerably longer, but his fate is not certain. The irony is that the men who would later occupy the positions at Jesus' right and left were the two thieves at Golgatha (Matt 27:38; Mark 15:27; Luke 23:32; John 19:18).

And so it is with us. If we would be with Jesus, we must be like Jesus. We must make ourselves least among others. We must put others before ourselves. We must avoid calling attention to ourselves, especially when we serve others. We must, in effect, die to ourselves so that we may live with Christ, now and forever.

Amen.