Mark 10:35-45; Isaiah 53:4-7; Hebrews 5:1-10
God of grace,
open your Word to us today. Help us to hear the calling that you have for us,
and give us courage to serve others in your name. Amen.
One of my colleagues recently posted a picture online
of the entryway to her house. Right by the front door, there are some hooks on
the wall, and there are a bunch of baseball caps hanging on those hooks. This
collection of hats tells a lot about who she is. There are hats for the
churches and organizations she works for. One of the hats says “preacher’s
wife,” because in addition to being a pastor herself, my friend is also married
to a pastor. It’s a great picture showing the many roles that one person can
hold in life.
If Jesus had a row of hooks in the entryway to his
house, with hats for his different roles hanging on them, it would have to be a
very long line of hooks.
Jesus would have a hat that said “teacher.” He’d have
one that said “savior.”
He’d
have a “human” hat and a “divine” hat – or maybe that would be the same hat,
you could just turn it inside out to change the writing.
Jesus would have a hat that said “son of Mary,” one
that said “son of God,” and one that said “son of Man.”
As we
heard in today’s second reading, Jesus would have a hat that said “great high
priest.”
And as we heard in the first reading, he would have a
hat that read “oppressed and afflicted, wounded and crushed” – or perhaps more
simply, it would just say, “sacrifice.”
Jesus
would have a hat for being a healer and a king and a rabbi.
Most importantly, Jesus would have a hat that said
“servant and slave of all.”
Jesus wore a whole bunch of hats, metaphorically
speaking. He had a whole bunch of different titles to live up to in his life
and his ministry.
In each
of these roles that Jesus lived, he was both called by God and blessed
by God.
Jesus didn’t just assume these roles, he didn’t claim
that he had earned each one.
Instead,
God called Jesus to live as the son
of God, to be a teacher and healer, and to exemplify the meaning of living life
as a servant to others.
As Jesus accepted and fulfilled each of these roles,
he received the blessing of God and passed that blessing along to others.
Jesus was called and blessed by God in all
the many hats that he wore.
Last week I was at a meeting with a bunch of chaplains
from the hospital.
Some of you
already know this about me… I’ve been doing chaplaincy at this hospital for over 5
years now. Once a month I take an overnight on-call shift, from 5pm to 8am, so
that if anyone wants to talk to a chaplain during the night, they can do so.
There
are about two dozen of us who serve as night chaplains at this hospital, taking one
shift a month, and most of us either have day jobs or are retired.
We were doing introductions at the beginning of last
week’s meeting, and as everyone shared their name, they also shared their ministry
position.
Everyone had at least two ministry roles to share.
Sue,
retired Episcopal priest, spiritual caregiver association board member, and
night chaplain.
Aaron,
Lutheran pastor, volunteer for advance care planning, and night chaplain.
Bill,
former lawyer, candidate for ordination in the Unitarian Universalist church,
hospice chaplain, and night chaplain at Meriter.
And these were only the ministry roles that people shared.
Add to
the list things like mother, brother, wife, son, caregiver for family members, coordinator
of a social justice group, member of the PTA, volunteer with a theater group,
and the list goes on and on.
It really struck me in that meeting last week how many
roles each of us has in our daily lives.
And it’s
not just groups of chaplains who wear many hats. The same could be said for everyone
here.
Father, grandmother, sister, husband. Teacher, nurse,
doctor, administrator. Church member, volunteer, activist, friend. What else?
God calls you and me to be many different things, and
to wear many different hats. In each of these roles to which God calls us, God
also blesses us with the gifts and abilities we need to fulfill our calling.
Because
of God’s call and God’s blessing, we can do all this work – teacher, mother,
grandfather, volunteer, friend – in the
service of God.
This sounds all right so far, I think.
All of this is good news.
God
calls us and blesses us in all the different facets of our life, just as God
called and blessed Jesus throughout his life and ministry.
And the purpose of that call and blessing is to do
everything in service to God.
That last little bit is where it gets more
complicated.
Living
our lives in service to God.
When God calls us and blesses us to live out certain
roles in life, it is not so that we
can have power and dominion over other people.
God does
not bless us at the expense of other people.
God does
not give us authority to control others, or to control the Word of God, or the
gates of heaven, or anything else that people of faith are constantly claiming
to control in order to instill fear in the hearts of their sisters and
brothers.
In fact, if you use your God-given calling to create
fear in your neighbor, you have ceased to use it in the way that God intended.
A faithful life is a life of service, and you can’t be serving another person
if they are afraid of you.
God’s
call is not to power and greatness,
contrary to what televangelists and politicians might tell us.
God’s call is to serve.
James and John were called to a life of service. Jesus
walked past them as they were mending their fishing nets on the shore of the
sea of Galilee. He told them to follow him, and they dropped their nets, left
their father behind, and followed without question.
They
weren’t promised greatness. They didn’t get into the whole discipleship thing
expecting riches or power or any special kind of authority.
But by today’s Gospel story, they’ve been following
Jesus faithfully for quite some time. It seems like Jesus’ ministry is coming
to a critical point. He’s been talking about going to Jerusalem and telling the
disciples some nonsense about suffering and being put to death, which none of
them really believe.
James
and John, as good Jews, know that the Messiah is supposed to be a political
revolutionary and military hero, who will return the rule of the Promised Land
to the descendants of Abraham, as it was meant to be.
So, if Jesus was going to usher in this kingdom, James
and John wanted to make sure that they had front row seats.
They
felt that they had earned it, after all, by faithfully following Jesus all this
time.
James and John tried to live the life to which Jesus
called them.
But they
didn’t get it. They prove that to us today.
James
and John asked things of Jesus which he never intended to give to them or to
anyone else. They asked to be made great in the kingdom that Jesus was going to
rule.
But in the kingdom of Jesus, the true measure of
greatness isn’t political or military power.
In the kingdom
of God, the true measure of greatness is whether you act as a servant to
everyone you meet.
Last week the sermon mentioned how the Kingdom
of God is not so much a place as a perspective.
This is the perspective that defines the Kingdom of God:
A person
of power in God’s kingdom is someone who serves other people with every breath
that they take.
God calls people to action in this world, and the more
faithfully we follow, the closer we get to experiencing what God’s kingdom is
really like.
When we
spend our time, our talents, our possessions, our whole lives in service to
others, then we start to understand what Jesus meant when he said to James and
John, “can you drink the cup that I drink, or be baptized by the same baptism
as me?”
James and John said, “yes, we are able.”
And Jesus said, “good luck.”
You can
try to live as God has called you, and God will bless you as you try to live
out that calling… but it’s not going to be easy.
People might not like you.
People might not like the message that you’re trying
to share.
But worse than that, people might try to change you.
The
people you used to work with might wonder why you left your fishing nets behind
to follow this itinerant preacher.
Your family might wonder why you give so much of your
money away to charity.
Your friends might wonder why you spend so much time
volunteering for MOSES or Luke House or Habitat for Humanity.
People who
love you might, with all the best intentions, try to get you to be more
selfish.
It’s your money, you’ve earned it, so why should you
give it to people who don’t deserve it? If you invest that money now, you can
live comfortably for the rest of your life. And in fact, your money will grow
over the next number of years, so that when you do pass away, if you still want
to support some charity, you can make them a beneficiary of your will and
they’ll get even more money then.
Isn’t that better?
Well, no, it’s not.
Because
someone today still needs to be fed
and housed and given assistance to navigate the medical system or find a job or
whatever, and those needs won’t wait until your investment has matured.
God’s call to us is now, in this life, in this world,
with these neighbors.
God calls us to a life of service, just like James and
John were called, and just like Jesus himself was called.
It’s natural for us to want to get out in front, to be
better than other folks, to have more status or money or popularity.
In his
sermon on this passage, Martin Luther King called this the “drum major
instinct.” It’s the basic human desire to lead the parade, to achieve
greatness, and to be recognized for our efforts.
This “drum major instinct” is diametrically opposed to
the purpose of a life of faith.
No matter what hat we’re wearing – whether we’re a
faithful spouse, a loving grandparent, a generous volunteer, a dedicated professional,
a thoughtful writer, an inspiring musician – whatever role we’re filling in
life, the purpose of that role is to be of service to other people.
Not to
ourselves.
To
others.
Can we share in Christ’s cup and his baptism?
James
and John said yes, and Jesus took them at their word. He knew that they had it
in them to live as servants for the rest of their lives, even though they
didn’t understand what it meant when they asked.
Can you?
God has called you to be many things in life.
We know that God blesses us in our calling,
just like Jesus was blessed throughout his life and ministry.
And this is the good
news of today’s Bible readings.
But the challenge of
today’s Bible readings is to honor that call and that blessing by using
everything we have in service to other people.
Can you
do it?
Next week we will
celebrate confirmation with one of our young people as she affirms the promises
that were made on her behalf when she was baptized.
I will ask her, “Do you intend to continue in the covenant God made with you in holy
baptism . . . to serve all people, following the example of Jesus?”
Can you drink of the cup from which Jesus
drinks, and can you be baptized with his baptism?
Can you commit to
focusing the rest of your life on service to others?
I’m pretty sure that
the young woman in question will be answering yes to that question. Or
probably, “I do, and I ask God to help me,” which is really a much more honest
answer.
Because this whole life of faith thing
is hard.
Yes, God calls us to
be people of faith in every aspect of our life.
And yes, God blesses
us in every single role that we are called to, just like God blessed Jesus in
the many roles he lived out in his ministry.
But there are constant pressures to give in
to the lure of power, like James and John did. And that’s not how God intends
us to use our blessings.
God’s blessings are
given to each one of us, in every aspect of our lives, so that we can use those
blessings to serve other people.
God’s blessings aren’t for earthly power, or
wealth, or fame, or physical strength, or military might, or the ability to
control other people, or for instilling fear, or for manipulation.
God’s blessings are
for none of those things.
God wants
us to live each day of our lives as servants, just like Jesus did.
