Who Is This Man?
Godly Ambition
Mark 10:32-45
Ambition
We often talk about people going through “phases.” That’s especially true for those who are growing through adolescence or some other dynamic season of life. “Oh, don’t worry about it,” we tell ourselves, “it’s just a phase.” Grown adults have their phases, too. For the last two years or so, I’ve been scouring the library shelves for historical biographies, especially around the colonial and founding era of our country. Diane’s done some of that, too, though we don’t usually read the same books. The library shut-down has been a real bummer for us and especially in trying to support our “historical biography phase.”
So, in order to feed our need, we subscribed to Disney+ and watched Hamilton. Not once. Not twice. But three and four times. And we plan to watch it again before we cancel our subscription. It’s a little edgy, so I’m not recommending it for everyone. But I guess you could say we’ve become obsessed. Seems we now have a “historical musical biography phase,” too. Don’t worry. It’ll pass. It’s just a phase.
One of the things that I have noticed about many of the men during the Revolutionary War period was their burning ambition to establish a name for themselves. In fact, one of the books I read was entitled, Valiant Ambition, a comparison biography between George Washington and Benedict Arnold. Fiery personal ambition was characteristic for many of the men of that era because, for the first time in history, a person could climb out of their social station through hard work and merit rather than through the privilege of their birth. Alexander Hamilton burned with this ambition, as did the Navy commander, John Paul Jones and, perhaps our greatest general of that era, Benedict Arnold.. All three of them started off in a relatively low social station and made it their life’s goal to prove that they were somebody. Hamilton’s story is extraordinary for his achievements and yet tragic for his personal failure and untimely death. John Paul Jones died in relative obscurity and bitterness in France, having never received the honor from his country that he thought was his due. Benedict Arnold, of course, became America’s most notorious traitor because his contributions and sacrifice were overlooked and he never received the promotion that he probably deserved.
Ambition is a common human motivation. We see it played out in the lives of countless men and women throughout history. There are stories of ambitious people in the Bible as well. In our text today, we observe two kinds of burning ambition. While the passion to achieve desired ends is similar, the motivation sets them worlds apart.
Text: Mark 10:32-45 (NLT)
They were now on the way up to Jerusalem, and Jesus was walking ahead of them. The disciples were filled with awe, and the people following behind were overwhelmed with fear. Taking the twelve disciples aside, Jesus once more began to describe everything that was about to happen to him. “Listen,” he said, “we’re going up to Jerusalem, where the Son of Man will be betrayed to the leading priests and the teachers of religious law. They will sentence him to die and hand him over to the Romans. They will mock him, spit on him, flog him with a whip, and kill him, but after three days he will rise again.”
Then James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came over and spoke to him. “Teacher,” they said, “we want you to do us a favor.”
“What is your request?” he asked.
They replied, “When you sit on your glorious throne, we want to sit in places of honor next to you, one on your right and the other on your left.”
But Jesus said to them, “You don’t know what you are asking! Are you able to drink from the bitter cup of suffering I am about to drink? Are you able to be baptized with the baptism of suffering I must be baptized with?”
“Oh yes,” they replied, “we are able!”
Then Jesus told them, “You will indeed drink from my bitter cup and be baptized with my baptism of suffering. But I have no right to say who will sit on my right or my left. God has prepared those places for the ones he has chosen.”
When the ten other disciples heard what James and John had asked, they were indignant. So Jesus called them together and said, “You know that the rulers in this world lord it over their people, and officials flaunt their authority over those under them. But among you it will be different. Whoever wants to be a leader among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first among you must be the slave of everyone else. For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve others and to give his life as a ransom for many.”
Man on a Mission
Jesus was a man on a mission. Even from his earliest days, he knew that his purpose in life was to do God the Father’s will. Do you recall the story from Luke’s Gospel when he was only twelve years old and he remained in Jerusalem in order to discuss the things of God with the Jewish religious scholars? When his parents came to retrieve him, he said, “Didn’t you know I had to be about my Father’s business?” Jesus came to do his Father’s will which led him directly to Jerusalem. He was speed-walking his way to his destiny in the holy city, out in front of the pilgrim’s progression on their way to observe Passover. He was fulfilling the words of the prophet in Isaiah 50:7:
Because the Sovereign Lord helps me,
I will not be disgraced.
Therefore, I have set my face like a stone,
determined to do his will.
And I know that I will not be put to shame.
The way Mark describes it, you can feel the tension in the air. Licking their Master’s dust and trying to keep up, his disciples were filled with awe. A sense of fear was enveloping the other pilgrims as they watched this unusual rabbi hustle up the road to Jerusalem. Jesus pulled his disciples aside and explained to them the third time, this time with more detail:
“Listen, we’re going up to Jerusalem, where the Son of Man will be betrayed to the leading priests and the teachers of religious law. They will sentence him to die and hand him over to the Romans. They will mock him, spit on him, flog him with a whip, and kill him, but after three days he will rise again.”
When there’s tension in the air, we usually don’t think right. We don’t listen. We don’t want to hear because the circumstances are too uncomfortable for us grasp. And so, we go back to what is familiar for us. We hold on to our presuppositions and act accordingly. And that’s exactly what James and John do in this situation. Jesus just told them that the Son of Man would suffer torment and death. They didn’t hear that. Every religious Jew in that day believed that the Son of Man (who they knew from the prophecy of Daniel) would come and reign in power. A suffering Son of Man did not register in their imagination. And so, James and John, the sons of Zebedee, come to Jesus, evidently not hearing anything he just said, and make their request. “Hey Jesus, we know what you’re doing. You’re going up to Jerusalem to finally set up your kingdom. We were kind of wondering if you were thinkin’ you might want us to sit in the places of honor – you know – one of us on your right and the other on your left. ‘Cause we’re ready to do that.”
Social Climbers
James and John really thought they were special. They had their reasons. After all, they had been there along with that loud-mouth, Peter, on the Mount of Transfiguration. They were privileged, along with Peter, to see the little girl raised from the dead, earlier in Jesus’ ministry. Surely Jesus wouldn’t put Peter in one of those places of honor. His mouth had gotten him in trouble and Jesus had even called him, “Satan.” Besides, Peter was just a lowly single fisherman who didn’t really know how to handle authority whereas they had been in charge of servants in their father’s fishing business in Galilee. They were well-qualified for the honor of ruling with the Messiah.
Here you have two pictures of ambition. Jesus was driven by a passion to do his Father’s will. James and John were driven by a passion to be better than anyone else. It’s the way of the most of the world. Hamilton was driven by that kind of ambition. I’ve been driven by it, too. I wanted to be somebody. I wanted my worth acknowledged. Perhaps you’ve been driven by that same kind of ambition as well. But the result will never be satisfying and sometimes, the fruit of selfish ambition can be destructive.
Of course, the other disciples were all ticked off at James and John for trying to jump to the head of the line. Truth-be-told, they were probably all wishing for the same thing. But Jesus was having none of it with his followers.
“You know that the rulers in this world lord it over their people, and officials flaunt their authority over those under them. But among you it will be different. Whoever wants to be a leader among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first among you must be the slave of everyone else. For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve others and to give his life as a ransom for many.”
Downward Mobility
This is the world turned upside down. It seems strange to us. But many who are the greatest now will be least important when Jesus comes again, and those who seem least important now will be the greatest then. This is the way of downward mobility. The Apostle Paul, who gave up his pursuit of the self-righteous religious elite in exchange for knowing Christ in “the fellowship of his sufferings” would write this about Jesus:
Though he was God,
he did not think of equality with God
as something to cling to.
Instead, he gave up his divine privileges;
he took the humble position of a slave
and was born as a human being.
When he appeared in human form,
he humbled himself in obedience to God
and died a criminal’s death on a cross.
Philippians 2:6-8
We, who claim to be followers of Jesus must be like him who “did not come to be served but rather to serve.”
There are countless people who have gladly laid aside their life of privilege for one of service in the name of Jesus:
• Members of the early church who, for the first 300 years, endured mocking and severe persecution, all the while serving and loving even their enemies.
• David Livingstone, a successful Scottish doctor who gave up his practice to serve Christ in the unknown continent of Africa from which he would never return.
• Mother Teresa, who gave her life to Christ in radical service to Calcutta’s outcasts.
• Even Eliza Hamilton, the wife of the ambitious Alexander and a devout Christian, would find her greatest life-work of service in establishing the first orphanage in the United States in New York City which still operates today.
Henri Nouwen, an acclaimed psychologist and Catholic minister who taught in the highest halls of American academia at Yale and Harvard, willingly finished his working years serving and learning the way of Jesus at L’Arche Daybreak, a home for severely disabled people. For the modern American Christian, he modeled and articulated that the way up is the way down. I’ll quote him at length:
“The compassionate life is the life of downward mobility! In a society in which upward mobility is the norm, downward mobility is not only discouraged but even considered unwise, unhealthy, or downright stupid. Who will freely choose a low-paying job when a high-paying job is being offered? Who will choose poverty when wealth is within reach? Who will choose the hidden place when there is a place in the limelight? Who will choose to be with one person in great need when many people could be helped during the same time? Who will choose to withdraw to a place of solitude and prayer when there are so many urgent demands from all sides?
My whole life I have been surrounded by well-meaning encouragement to go ‘higher up,’ and the most-used argument was: ‘You can do so much good there, for so many people.’ But these voices calling me to upward mobility are completely absent from the Gospel. Jesus says: ‘Anyone who loves his life loses it; anyone who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life (John 12:25). He also says: ‘Unless you become like little children you will never enter the kingdom of heaven (Matthew 18:3). [Nouwen goes on to quote our passage today and the lesson that Jesus delivered to his disciples.]
This is the way of downward mobility, the descending way of Jesus. It is the way toward the poor, the suffering, the marginal, the prisoners, the refugees, the lonely, the hungry, the dying, the tortured, the homeless–toward all who ask for compassion. What do they have to offer? Not success, popularity, or power, but the joy and peace of the children of God.”
From Here and Now pp. 138-139
The Crossroad Publishing Company, © 1994
There is an inborn yearning in each of our souls to be significant. We want to be known. We want to be accepted for who we are and loved. That’s what it means to be human. But in our brokenness and sin, many of us are driven by a self-serving ambition that will never be satisfied. You’ll never be satisfied when you pursue your own ambitions. And yet, such lifelong frustration isn’t necessary. There is a way of deep satisfaction and peace. That is the way of downward mobility…of considering others better than yourself and living your life as a servant to others.
It is the way of Jesus.
Lose your life in Jesus and then you will truly find it. Lay down your own ambition and fruitless search for significance. You see, when you are in Christ, you are a somebody. You are a child of the King and a co-heir with Jesus in all the riches of his Kingdom.
