By Rev. Chris Jorgensen
April 25, 2021
Video of entire service: https://www.facebook.com/hanscomparkchurch/videos/1834438166745871
Scripture: Mark 10:35-45
In the Gospel of Mark, there are many stories that highlight the struggle of the disciples to understand who Jesus was and what the heck they are supposed to do in response. Today’s story is one of those. This one, like many others in Mark, could be filed under “The Disciples Mess Up.”
In it, John and James go to Jesus, and they say to him, “Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you.”
Okay, can we stop right here? I want you to imagine yourselves, standing in front of Jesus and saying. “Hi Jesus. I want you to do for me whatever I ask of you.”
What?! Who in the world would do that? I don’t think the word “presumptuous” even begins to describe it!
But that’s just my response. Jesus does not respond with any shock or offense. He’s curious. He says, “What is it that you want me to do?”
Do you remember what John and James say?
They say to him, “Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory.”
Well.
These two are even bolder than we thought. Not only do they say, “Jesus, we want you to do whatever we ask.” Then they say, “Let us be your right- and left-hand men. Let us have the places of glory and honor right beside you. Let us be first.”
Jesus responds to this bold, presumptuous request with a comment and a question. First he says, “You don’t understand what you are asking.” Then he asks, rather rhetorically, I think, “Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?” I think the implied answer is, “I don’t think you are ready. At least not yet.”
But James and John, they don’t even know what they don’t know. They don’t know that the cup Jesus is talking about is the same cup he asks the Father to take from him in the Garden of Gethsemane. That cup is his inevitable crucifixion. And the baptism Jesus is talking about is not his baptism with John in the Jordan. It is the baptism of his death and resurrection.
But James and John don’t get it. So they rush right in. They don’t hesitate to say, “We are able!”
Jesus tries to explain to them that striving for glory isn’t the point, and then the other disciples jump in. They figure out that James and John have been scheming to be the uber-disciples, and they are pissed – likely because they didn’t think to ask Jesus for the place of glory first. It’s not just James and John. None of the disciples get it yet.
So Jesus calls them over and sits them down and tries to explain. He tells them (and I quote) “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. 43 But it is not so among you; but whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, 44 and whoever wishes to be first among you must be servant of all. 45 For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.”
One commentator I read this week explains that ransom here is not about buying our freedom from some key-carrying devil-creature in a fiery place we call hell. It’s not about that. But it is about Jesus giving himself on the cross so that we can have freedom in this life and beyond. It’s about liberating us from the death-dealing worldview that Jesus is rejecting right in this text, liberating us from the death-dealing worldview that great people are those in power who then “lord it over” others, who then wield that power to amass more power and wealth for themselves. Jesus says, “No!” to that warped idea of greatness. Jesus liberates the disciples – and us – to see that to become truly great, we must become like servants.
Now when I think of people who have done this, people who follow in the way of Jesus, I often think of religious leaders. People like Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Mother Theresa, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Archbishop Oscar Romero, Rev. Dr. William Barber.
So imagine my surprise when I was listening to a Brene Brown podcast, and she was interviewing a man named Jim Collins. Collins is the author of a number of classic business leadership books, including the one I mentioned during Children’s Time, Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap…and Others Don’t.
To start with, it was kind of a surprise that I was listening to this podcast at all because I do not usually spend time thinking about business leadership. I am actually quite skeptical of most business management thinkers. Fun fact: when I had to take a library management class while getting my MLS, I had an assignment to go to Barnes and Noble. I was supposed to pick any business management book to read and write a review of it. I was so opposed to the idea, that I found a very slim volume of satire. It was a satire of business practices called What Would Machiavelli Do? The Ends Justifies the Meanness, and I read that for my business management book instead of taking the assignment seriously.
So, imagine. Imagine my surprise while listening to Jim Collins talk about what he calls a Level 5 Leader, the kind of leader who can move companies from good to great, and that I found myself thinking, “Well, that sounds like Jesus.”
What?!
But I did. Here’s what Collins says distinguishes the leaders of the companies he studied. These companies went from good to great. They were on a path of stagnation, sometimes on a path of decline, and they were able to be transformed into great, high-performing companies. These companies had several things in common, which we will be exploring over the next few weeks. But the first one Collins identified is that they were led by a Level 5 Leader. A Level 5 Leader is what we might call a transformative leader (leaders that can transform the organization they are a part of).
These Level 5 Leaders had two main qualities:
First, they were humble and selfless. They were happy to give everyone else the credit for anything that was accomplished in their company. They did not care at all for personal publicity. They did not sell out the company even when it would have meant great financial gain for themselves. They had what Collins called a “compelling modesty.”
Secondly, they were “fanatically driven” to get results. They would do anything to accomplish the mission of the company, whatever that mission was. Again, they didn’t do that so they could brag or be famous or get rich. They did it because they cared so much about the work that they were called to do.
This sure sounds like Jesus to me. Jesus’ mission was to transform the world by defeating the powers of hate and oppression and despair and even death, and he was fanatically driven to humbly give everything – even his very life for that mission. And in doing so, he transformed – and continues to transform – the world.
That mission is still his, and it is also ours. We are called to be humble, self-sacrificing, and fanatically driven to do God’s work of love and justice.
This is not easy. I confess that I relate to John and James. The siren song of my ego is always calling me to gather worldly glory for myself. At the very least, I want worldly comfort. If I can’t have worldly glory, I will settle for worldly comfort.
Self-sacrifice is not quite as appealing. Here is a very real example. Sometimes, I am more excited about having the title of Senior Pastor when Pastor Peter comes to join us this summer, than I am about actually doing the truly hard work of growing a multi-racial, multi-ethnic faith community. (Do you know how much work that is going to be?) In my weak moments, I would rather someone heap honor and glory on me than to be humbly, fanatically driven in pursuit of Jesus’ mission.
I am not there yet. I’m not a Level 5 Leader yet. Are you there yet? Tell me I’m not alone here.
Well, here is the good news. We don’t have to be there yet. This is the good news of our faith, and it’s also the good news of what I learned from Jim Collins. He writes that there are a few people who simply have NO HOPE of ever being Level 5 leaders. Those hopeless people are SO self-centered and so enamored with the idea of being famous and powerful, that they simply cannot lead in truly transforming ways. It will ALWAYS be about them. I’m sure we can think of a few examples of leaders we know who are like that.
But Collins tells us that these sort-of hopeless leaders are rare.
The rest of us can develop. Thanks be to God! We may not be selfless and heaven-bent on doing Jesus’ work in the world yet. But we can be. We can do better.
We do it, at least I do, by going again and again to sit at the feet of our Level 5 Leader. I keep going back to Jesus. I keep going back to his presence. I keep going back to this story, and I keep praying for the strength and courage to be transformed. I keep praying for my heart to be freed just a little bit more each day until even my desires, even the things I would ask of Jesus, are changed.
In today’s scripture, John and James approach Jesus. They say, we want you do to whatever we ask of you. Jesus, with so much openness says, “What do you want me to do for you?” Theologian Kimberly Clayton says that everything hinges on how our hearts are prepared to answer that question. So I want to end this quote.
Listen carefully to Rev. Dr. Clayton’s words. They were convicting for me. “What do we want Jesus to do for us? If we are following him comfortably, without much disruption or cost, if we have some measure of power or status and use if for good purposes, then an honest answer might be that we want Jesus to keep things as they are…
[But] can you see? If we are a woman economically and socially devastated, a child powerless against neglect or abuse, a person left by the side of the road in a society that values those who are able bodied and gainfully employed, if we are victims of prejudice or hate, then we are likely to ask Jesus to make the world radically different.” [1]
May we be willing to sit at the feet of Jesus until our desire for comfort and glory is transformed…into an unshakable resolve to create a world that puts the most vulnerable first whatever it may cost us.
May it be so.
Amen.
[1] Kimberly L. Clayton, Feasting on the Gospels, “Mark,” p.331.