Seventeen Trinity
Mark 10:35-45
Servant Leaders unto Death
Many years ago, when I was in seminary, I learned a valuable lesson about Bible study. I often recount this story, because it is one of the more valuable things I brought with me from those seminary years. Dr. S. Lewis Johnson told us once that if we were studying the Bible and saw something in a passage that no one else had ever seen, we were probably wrong.
That lesson from seminary days has given me some trouble this week as I’ve worked with Jesus’ conversation with James and John in the gospel lesson we just heard read. I’ve taken a look at what many others have said, particularly modern students of this passage, and I must say this: it’s not so much that I see something no one else has seen. Rather, what most everyone else is seeing is something I cannot see. Am I blind? That’s always a possibility, of course. It’s also a possibility that I cannot see the emperor’s clothes, because he isn’t wearing any. Judge for yourself as we look at this conversation again.
I want to focus on two things in this passage, two things which get a lot of comment today, two ideas which I think amount to seeing something that isn’t really there. First of all, James and John, I believe, get a bum rap a lot of the time. Second, Jesus’ comments in today’s climate are often twisted to mean what he clearly did not mean. Let’s take each of these in turn.
Here is a sample of what I’ve found this week in other teachers’ writings about James and John.
“When Jesus asked this question he was expecting to hear them reply with the word “no,”… He received a very cocky answer from them … When they told Jesus that they were able to do what Jesus would, they demonstrated their prideful attitude that would hinder them from servanthood.”
John R. W. Stott says in his book The Cross of Christ that our world “(and even the church) is full of Jameses and Johns, go-getters and status-seekers, hungry for honor and prestige, measuring life by achievements, and everlastingly dreaming of success . . .”
I could multiply opinions like these, all of them very critical of James and John, all accusing these brothers of being status seekers, prideful, arrogant, and consumed with power and prestige. Now, to be sure, it is a foolish and usually harmful thing to be a status seeker, prideful, arrogant, and consumed with power and prestige. But, is that really the situation with these brothers? There’s another detail or two about this conversation we learn from Matthew’s account of it. Let me read this to you from the parallel account of this conversation in Matthew’s gospel in chapter 20:
20Then the mother of Zebedee’s sons came to Jesus with her sons and, kneeling down, asked a favor of him.
21"What is it you want?" he asked. She said, "Grant that one of these two sons of mine may sit at your right and the other at your left in your kingdom." 22"You don’t know what you are asking," Jesus said to them. "Can you drink the cup I am going to drink?" "We can," they answered.
It is often said that behind every successful man there is a woman, usually his wife or his mother, or both. In this case, it was the mother of James and John, evidently, who had a hand in this request for position in Christ’s coming kingdom. In this, she was no different than any other mother, zealous for the success of her sons. I do find it odd, however, that if James and John are such prideful power mongers that they would be following their mother’s lead in this!
Nevertheless, most of those I have consulted this week about this passage have the same reaction to James and John that the other disciples had: they are all greatly vexed and displeased with the two brothers. But, did you notice that Jesus does not seem to betray a hint of displeasure in his response.
I don’t think Jesus was displeased with them. Instead, he found their request flawed because of its ignorance. Jesus’ response to them suggests that the brothers (and the mother too) were not connecting the dots that lead from their present position as disciples of an itinerant preacher to right and left hand men of the reigning Messiah. And, so, Jesus says, “You don’t know what you’re asking for.” By which, of course, Jesus means, You don’t know ALL of what you’re asking.
In the context of Mark’s gospel as well as in Matthew’s gospel, this request by James and John comes immediately after these verses. In Mark 10:33-34 we read this:
33"We are going up to Jerusalem," he said, "and the Son of Man will be betrayed to the chief priests and teachers of the law. They will condemn him to death and will hand him over to the Gentiles, 34who will mock him and spit on him, flog him and kill him. Three days later he will rise."
The very next words of the gospel are these: THEN James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came to him and asked …”
The implication of both Matthew’s gospel and Mark’s gospel is this: that James and John believed what Jesus had told them, particularly that three days after his execution he was going to rise from the dead. They were confident that Jesus was going to triumph and set up his kingdom. And, they were confident that they were going to have a part in that kingdom, a place in Jesus’ administration, as it were. And they were ambitious to have a place in that kingdom as close to Jesus as possible. In none of this do I find a hint of disapproval in what Jesus tells them. From Jesus’ remarks, we see what Jesus saw – that James and John had not connected all the dots, particularly the dots from suffering and death to victory in the coming kingdom.
You don’t know what you’re asking!” Jesus tells them. Can you go through what I am going to go through in order to get to the position I will hold in that kingdom?”
I wish Matthew and Mark had told us a bit more about the immediate reaction of James and John, and of their mother, to what Jesus told them. All we are told is that they said, “Yes, we can.” And Jesus does not rebuke that answer. In fact, he assures them that they will indeed drink the cup he will drink and undergo the baptism he will undergo – both of these expressions referring to his coming suffering and death. When Jesus assures them of their future suffering, I take it to mean that they will also have a comparable place in the coming kingdom – because those who suffer for the kingdom’s sake will find their reward in that kingdom.
And Jesus definitely does NOT deny that either of them will sit at his right or left hand. He simply says that this request is one he has no power to grant, but only his Father in heaven. In other words, as far as Jesus knows, their wish might be fulfilled. And, it might not. They would have to await the coming kingdom to find out.
If Jesus seems irked by anything in this episode, it is not with James and John. It is, rather, with the other disciples. For when they become vexed and displeased with James and John, Jesus steps in to give them all a lesson. And, here we come to the second idea which so many modern teachers seem to see here, which I do not think is present at all. It has to do with what is commonly called “servant leadership” and this passage, and the parallel passage in Matthew 20, are cited as the sources for this concept.
One commentator understands the gospel passage to be saying this: In the eyes of the Lord we are all equal, and for one to rise above the another … is ungodly. What we are to see is that servant leadership can work in two ways. Leaders operate on the level of the ones served, and also the ones served can be leaders themselves because they are servants to begin with.
Muddle-headed comments like these are most often found in the mouths of those who are opposed to leadership in any form – leadership in marriage, leadership in the church, leadership in society. They come to this passage, where Jesus points to the way leadership works among the gentiles. They see Jesus saying “It shall not be so with you,” and they stop there. According to their reading, leaders are supposed to be servants, and servants are supposed to be leaders. If everyone is everyone else’s servant, there are, in effect, no leaders. “No one should say to another – do this, or don’t do that!”
Of course, Jesus said nothing of the sort, as you can read for yourself. He defines what it is to be a leader: to live for the welfare and benefit of the ones whom you lead. NOW THAT is what any ordinary SERVANT does – he labors for the benefit of someone ELSE. Yes, things are different in the church, but the difference is NOT that there are no leaders, but rather that the LEADERS are laboring for the benefit of THOSE WHOM THEY LEAD. And, Jesus is the prime model for this, as He himself points out.
“Instead,” Jesus told them, “ whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, 44and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all. 45For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many."
So, are Christians to have leaders? By all means! Jesus is the great shepherd of the Sheep, and he commits his flock to undershepherds, to whom he says “Feed my sheep.” And so the author of Hebrews in chapter 13 writes,
17OBYEbey your leaders and submit to their AUTHORITY. They keep watch over you as men who must give an account. Obey them so that their work will be a joy, not a burden, for that would be of no advantage to you. [Heb. 13:17]
Are Christians to have SERVANT leaders? By all means! Those who would be chief among Christians must be their servants. Their lives must be for the benefit of those whom they lead. And, most often this will entail suffering, sometimes suffering that leads to death. Paul, that great servant leader of the Church, describes his ministry with these words in 2 Cor. 6:
“4Rather, as servants of God we commend ourselves in every way: in great endurance; in troubles, hardships and distresses; 5in beatings, imprisonments and riots; in hard work, sleepless nights and hunger; 6in purity, understanding, patience and kindness; in the Holy Spirit and in sincere love; 7in truthful speech and in the power of God; with weapons of righteousness in the right hand and in the left; 8through glory and dishonor, bad report and good report; genuine, yet regarded as impostors; 9known, yet regarded as unknown; dying, and yet we live on; beaten, and yet not killed; 10sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; poor, yet making many rich; having nothing, and yet possessing everything.
Will James and John be at Jesus’ right and left hand in the kingdom? We’ll have to wait until the Kingdom comes to find out. Did they drink the cup Jesus drank? Or face the baptism Jesus faced?
As it turned out, James and John were indeed a kind of left and right hand as touches martyrdom for the testimony of Jesus. James was the very first of the apostles to die, as recorded in the twenty-second chapter of Acts. He was beheaded, by Herod -- the first of the apostles to be martyred.
John was the last of the Apostles to die. Some of the writings of the early church fathers report that he was boiled in oil. Others say that he died a natural death. But, even though the exact manner of his death is uncertain, we do know that he was exiled to the island of Patmos for the testimony of Jesus, and that he underwent much suffering and shame and punishment for the Lord’s sake.
So Jesus granted them their request to drink his cup and to undergo his baptism. These two brothers formed a kind of "Apostolic parenthesis of martyrdom," within which the apostles, each in his own turn, were put to death for the sake of Jesus.
May God grant that when the Kingdom of Christ comes to this earth, we will be found faithful servants, faithful to the testimony of Jesus, as James and John were faithful unto death, faithful to have served one another as Christ has served us, and joyfully looking forward to our place in Christ’s kingdom, our reward for our faithful service to him and to one another.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
