Ann Henderson came home from her doctor’s appointment looking much the same as usual. Maybe she was a little quieter, but not enough to cause comment. The whole family was home for dinner that night, for once. She was grateful. She would only have to say it once. She waited for a moment when nobody was speaking - not an easy thing in this large and noisy family - and said, “I have something to tell you.” “Yeah, Mom?” from a middle son, reaching across the table for the catsup. “It’s important,” Ann said. “Please listen.” “OK,” and they all looked at her expectantly. She took a deep breath and prayed that her voice would be steady.
“I saw the doctor today, I’ve been waiting for some test results, and the news isn’t good. He says I have only about a month to live - probably less.”
There. It was out. How were they going to respond? Could she summon the strength to help them deal with all the possible reactions - denial, anger, incredulity, tears? She waited. No one said anything. Finally,
“Have you decided who’s gonna get what?” said Jane. “I want the wide screen TV.” “Can I have the RV?” said John, “I can live in it at college.” “That’s not fair!” shouted the others, “they’re always grabbing the best stuff! There won’t be anything left for me at this rate.”
“Stop it!” Ann wanted to scream. “Is that all you care about?”
This is a pretty appalling scenario, isn’t it. Have you ever seen such a display of greed and insensitivity as this?
And yet this is almost exactly what was going on that day on the road to Jerusalem 2000 years ago. Jesus had just told them - yet again - that he was going to die. In the passage just preceding the one Judy just read, Jesus took the twelve aside again and told them,
"The Son of man will be handed over to the chief priests and the scribes, and they will condemn him to death; then they will hand him over to the Gentiles; they will mock him and spit upon him, and flog him, and kill him; and after three days he will rise again.” [Mk 10:33b-34]
Their teacher, their master, their Anointed One, the Hope of Israel, had just told them he was going to die and all they could think about was what they would get out of it.
To be perfectly fair to the disciples, of course, it isn’t that they didn’t care. It’s just that they didn’t believe Jesus was going to die. How could he? He was the Messiah, the Redeemer-King of Israel, and that meant power. And power is good, right? Power is being able to tell other people what to do. Power is not having to do what you don’t want to do, like eating spinach or getting up in the morning. Power means you can get back at people you don’t like and take care of your family and friends. Power is getting, and having, and keeping. Power means being on top.
Each time Jesus speaks to the disciples about his coming suffering, his words go in one ear and out the other. Look at James and John, sidling up to him with their shameless request. “Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you.” This sounds as though they think they can catch him with a “Rabbi, do me a favor, hmm?” Maybe he’ll say, without thinking, “Sure, what?” And then they have him!
You see, as important as all of this is, as much as they’ve given up to follow Jesus, and as much as they really do love him, they’re not taking it seriously yet. They’re on that wonderful high that comes with the first glimmering that this may, indeed, be a championship season. This small town, bush league, class C team is going to go all the way to the finals! They’re already planning the victory party.
The disciples still think of victory, of royalty, of glory, in exactly the same terms they always have. They envision an earthly kingdom founded and run according to human standards. They assume that when Jesus takes his rightful place as Messiah his friends will get special privileges. The new age they look forward to looks just like the old one, starring pork-barrel politics and influence-peddling. They fancy themselves as the elite of the elite, ruling over others as others now rule over them. If they heard anything of Jesus’ words of suffering at all, they see it as temporary, just a rough spot on the road to glory. They really expect a kingdom for themselves, where they can impose their will on others. They hope to replace the self-glorifying, oppressive structures of the Romans with their own self-serving control structures. And nothing would change except the names of the rulers and the faces of the slaves. Oppression gets recycled and new tyrants rise to the top. It’s the same old same old, deja vu all over again.
“Teacher, when you’re crowned king, let the two of us sit in the places of honor - one on your right hand, and one on your left.” It isn’t enough for John and James to be ahead of everybody else, all those who haven’t followed Jesus from the beginning, the ones who aren’t part of the inner circle; they even have to be ahead of their fellow disciples! And then of course when the other ten find out what the Zebedee brothers have done, they get all upset - not, I dare say, trying to defend Jesus against their crass insensitivity, but because James and John beat them to the punch and may now have an edge over them for the power positions. At this point the disciples are far more inclined to carry a grudge than a cross.
What they don’t realize is that when Jesus is lifted up to begin his reign it will be on a cross. What they don’t realize is that on that day the ones on his right hand and his left will be two thieves - the one who scoffed, and the one who believed.
They don’t know that the road to glory leads down, not up.
And Jesus knows they don’t know. “You don’t know what you’re asking,” Jesus says, and asks if they can drink from his cup, and be baptized with his baptism. All they can think is that to drink from the king’s cup is one of the highest honors a monarch can bestow upon anyone - a public statement of intimacy and trust. They have forgotten that the cup is an Old Testament metaphor for suffering. They have forgotten that baptism - the Greek word means immersion - implies being flooded, overwhelmed by calamity. “Save me, O God,” says the psalmist, “for the waters have come up to my neck.” “When you pass through the waters,” says the Lord, “I will be with you.”
“Sure thing, teach,” they say, still not getting it. After all, they were baptized by John, weren’t they, just like Jesus was? And they’ve been sharing the same food and drink for a long time now. “No problem, boss, we’re ready.”
The twelve think of faithful discipleship as a means to an end; if they stick with him, they’ll share the victory cup - maybe even have their names engraved on the trophy! They don’t understand that the favors and advantages that they will receive from following Jesus include the privilege of sharing in his sufferings and bearing their own crosses. They will, indeed, drink from his cup and share in his baptism. But it is completely beyond them at this point to understand that that means suffering, and that suffering for Christ is a privilege. And even now, with the example of Jesus Christ and the testimony of centuries, Christians resist that awareness. It goes against everything our culture teaches.
Even today, among people who claim to be followers of Jesus, even today we see people pushing and shoving for positions of advantage. Too many Christians keep a sharp eye out to make sure that nobody gets ahead of them, that they always come out on top, no matter whom they have to step on. Not too long ago I heard from a friend who took a temporary position as a church secretary. It was the worst work situation she'd ever been in, she said, because the pastor she worked for always made sure she got blamed if something went wrong, so that he would never have to admit to a mistake. She is lucky, said my friend, that she had known other pastors, pastors who served their people with humility and grace; otherwise, she would have come away cynical and disillusioned, believing that the followers of Jesus Christ were no better than anyone else - in fact, worse, because of the hypocrisy.
So Jesus tries one more time to explain to the disciples that he is a different kind of king, that he is heading toward a different kind of glory, and that they must learn to value different kinds of behavior. Eugene Peterson paraphrases Mark’s lesson,
" ...You’ve seen how godless rulers throw their weight around, and how when people get a little power how quickly it goes to their heads. It’s not going to be that way with you. Whoever wants to be great must become a servant; whoever wants to be first among you must be your slave." [v. 42-44]
Jesus isn’t telling them that ambition is a bad thing, or that they shouldn’t aspire to be great. He’s telling them that true greatness looks different from what they’re used to, true greatness is not what they expect. And he tells them how - indeed, encourages them - and us - to become great. Great servants.
Being a servant is probably even less popular now than it was then. Because in those days almost everyone served someone. What gave you status was whom you served. The higher your master's rank, the higher your rank. Those of you who used to watch Upstairs, Downstairs remember that the hierarchy in the servants' hall was even stricter than in the drawing room. In the same way, a trusted slave in a Roman patrician's household enjoyed much higher status than a freedman who owed allegiance to no one. But today to be a servant is almost unthinkable.
My career in the working world spanned more than 20 years and ranged from file clerk to management. Over that time secretaries stopped making coffee for their bosses - because they weren’t servants. I remember taking offense myself one time when the Vice President over our department stuck his head out of his office door one day and asked me to get coffee for himself and his guests. I didn’t say anything, I knew better, but I burned with resentment. I wasn’t a secretary. I was an Assistant Tax Analyst. Didn’t he know that getting coffee was beneath my dignity?
Once I made it to the management level, I could get coffee for anyone and everyone without thinking twice about it - because I knew my worth. And my boss knew my worth. Sometimes I think that the people who are most touchy about their dignity are afraid they really don’t have any. An interesting thing to note is that the secretaries for the company’s highest ranking officers still called themselves secretaries, and still made coffee for their bosses. They had unassailable status because of whom they served - and they rose that high because they were willing to serve.
When you’re a servant of Christ, you get your status from his, but you can only rise that high if you’re willing - and able - to bend your knee to serve as he did. Our dignity and worth come from copying him. Whatever glory we receive will come as a result of imitating him. And "the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life away in exchange for many who are held hostage.” [v. 45]
When we drink from Jesus’ cup in the Lord’s Supper we accept the cost of discipleship, and when we are baptized it is a baptism into service.
What does greatness mean to you? What do you want to get from Jesus? Are you serving - or being served?
