Water For You Not Me
Mark 10:35-45
James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came forward to him and said to him, “Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you.” And he said to them, “What is it you want me to do for you?” And they said to him, “Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory.” But Jesus said to them, “You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?” They replied, “We are able.” Then Jesus said to them, “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 at my left is not mine to grant, but it is for those for whom it has been prepared.” When the ten heard this, they began to be angry with James and John. So Jesus called them and said to them, “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. But it is not so among you; but 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.”
__________
The past couple of days, I was with a group of high school students who signed up for a retreat that explored the relationship between faith and social issues that they felt were necessary for Christians to address in their daily and corporate lives. Not corporate in the sense of the business world or the structure that our culture emphasizes, trying to get ahead by any means necessary, but corporate in the way that we are called to value community over all else. It goes against the values of "getting ahead" for oneself that appears to permeate our genetic identity. To this day, Jesus is still trying to drill that message into the core of our being to this day.
“The First Ones Now Will Later Be Last.”
For whatever reason, whenever I read a passage about people trying to get ahead of others for the sake of power, my mind immediately jumps to Bob Dylan's song where he sings another line from Scripture, "the first ones now will later be last." Now, I doubt any of the high school students at this retreat would know who Bob Dylan was. Still, they certainly weren't afraid to call me out if they felt I wasn't direct or candid in addressing the ways Christians have failed to follow Jesus in addressing concerns of the broader community and the care of creation. Of course, for someone in my vocation, you get used to "couching" or carefully crafting your words to be diplomatic (and there certainly is a time and place for that), but for these youth, all they could see is that we aren't doing enough to help, yet somehow made time for caring about positions of power and status.
It was a refreshing experience, one that was also humbling. What I found humbling was that I was confronted by the subtle biases I harbored towards Gen. Z. Part of me assumed they weren't willing to set aside their phones for a deep conversation; part of me assumed that they wouldn't get the type of sacrifice it takes to do hard work, part of me assumed, and that's where things went wrong. Of course, these youth did understand sacrifice, and they understood selfless love. What they couldn't comprehend is why people would spend so much time and energy jockeying for the right to say someone was "first," or "most important," or that they couldn't understand the type of message Jesus was telling his disciples in our reading for today.
Baptism - Selfless Love (Sacrifice)
The question they posed to me (as the adult in the room) and the question posed to us by them is whether or not we understand what Jesus is asking of us. Do we really get what it means to drink from the same cup Jesus drinks? Do we know what it means to be baptized with Christ? As we consider the Sacrament of Baptism we will soon celebrate, there is the reminder that our faith is much more than a philosophical practice. There is a price to be paid, and that price is living a life that embraces counter-cultural values: hospitality without expecting anything in return, welcoming anyone regardless of their background, placing creation care over profit, and leading from a place of humility instead of power.
"In baptism God claims us, and seals us to show that we belong to God. God frees us from sin and death, uniting us with Jesus Christ in his death and resurrection." (Book of Common Worship) You'll hear me repeat this in a few moments when we celebrate the Sacrament of Baptism. For us right now, it's a reminder that as we prepare to celebrate the baptism of a child that we have been called to participate in a life of sacrificial love. Sometimes that sacrifice comes at a high cost, as Jesus was willing to go to the grave for the entirety of creation, and sometimes the required sacrifice costs little to us but might have a large impact on someone else.
Jesus was the living embodiment of sacrificial love and modeled for us the importance of care for the broader community as Jesus, in his own words, says, "the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve." May we be inspired by the Holy Spirit to see how acts of service, both big and small, can change the ground beneath our very feet. May we remember and reconnect with the promises made at our baptism when it was proclaimed that we were sealed in the love of God and that nothing in life or death could separate us from the love of God. Let the waters of baptism continually renew and refresh our spirits to the new ways in which we can respond proactively as people of faith to the needs of a weary and hurting world instead of getting caught up in self-inflated egos and a desire to be on top. And let the waters of baptism we share with Jesus continue to give us hope as we welcome new members to the table God has prepared. Amen.