A Place at the Table: Sermon Mark 10:35-45

Dear God, take our minds and think through them; take our hands and feet and work through them; take our lips and speak through them, take our hearts and set them on fire for you. Amen

There was a great theologian who had been asked to give a lecture at a prestigious university. The theologian had been picked up at the airport by a chauffer driving a nice car which had been provided by the university. As they were driving from the airport they encounter some traffic and the chauffer decided to make small talk. “What do you do for a living?” the chauffer asked. “I work for such and such university as a professor of theology and I go around and speak at other places from time to time, and I am an author” the theologian had responded modestly. “Wow, it must be really nice to sit in an office and get to travel around and not have to work hard for a living, I’ve been driving this car for 15 years and all I get is caught in traffic” and the chauffer kept complaining and complaining and telling the theologian that he had it so easy and finally the theologian had enough. “I’ll tell you what, we are about the same size and I really don’t want to have to give this lecture tonight, why don’t you pull over and we’ll switch clothes and I’ll be the driver and you can give the lecture, I’ve got all my notes right here” The driver had never been one to pass up a challenge and so they traded places and head off to the school. They got there and the driver all dress up in the theologians suit got up before a packed house, over 3,000 people there to hear this man, whom they had all read but never seen in the flesh. The professor, dressed in the chauffeur’s uniform and cap snuck in the back row. Armed with the notes provided the driver, just let them have it, I mean he laid it on thicker and heavier as he went and those people ate it up, they loved it, but then came something that the chauffer had not expected the question and answer time after the lecture. The chauffer was sweating in that tailored suit, when the first young seminary student stood up and asked the first question, but the chauffer played it cool. “Why that is the simplest question I have ever heard, I cannot believe that you could get accepted into a fine school like this with such a simple mind, in fact that question is so simple I am going let my chauffer in the back of the room answer it for you.”

Sometimes ambition gets us into trouble and sometimes our need to be a little bigger than our breeches and turn around and bite us. James and John the son of Zebedee got a case of ambitiousness and walked up to Jesus. Jesus knew that something was up because they came up and said “Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you.” That’s like going up to a parent or a spouse and saying “now don’t say no, ok.” Jesus stays cool, “what do you want me to do?” “Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory.” Can you imagine the frustration that Jesus must have felt? I mean not a few days before he had dealt with this same kind of ambition. The 12 were arguing about who is the greatest among them, and Jesus told them that if you want to be the greatest you have to be the least, if you want to be the big dog, you got to be the flea and now here we go again, James and John wanted to be on the right and left of Jesus in his glory. They might have not been that far off in asking, remember James and John along with Peter were in Jesus’ inner circle, they were with him during the transfiguration and they would be with him again at Gethsemane. They thought that they could maybe get the inside tract on this kingdom of God thing that Jesus had been talking about. They wanted the best seat at the table that they could get not at the head but the next best place which was next to Jesus. They were thinking individually and not communally.

Would it be a stretch to say that we live in an individualistic society? I didn’t think so. We have been taught from an early age that ambition is a good thing and we should strive to be the best at whatever we do. We want to be number one, just like we talked about a few weeks ago. Then disciples argued about who was number one in this life and now James and John want to be the greatest in the next life and spend it right next to Jesus. Each one of these incidents is an example of individual goals taking precedent over the needs and the good of the group or community. James and John were not concerned about the placement of the others but only for themselves. They wanted the best seat at the table without too much concern about the other 10 disciples. That is the problem of individualism. The person so wrapped up in their own success fails to see the harm their success does to the community that surrounds them. That is the danger of this kind of mentality.

This is the mentality that causes CEOs to rip off employee’s pensions or lay off working people and skate off into the sunset with millions for themselves. This is the mentality that causes companies to dump pollution into rivers and lakes and call it cost efficiency. This is the mentality that causes politicians to sell their vote to the highest lobbying bidder. When someone only thinks about themselves and their own future then the effects of their ambition are of no consequence.

This is not what Jesus had been teaching. Jesus’ whole ministry had been on of community and not about the individual. In fact Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection were all about uniting God and humanity and also all humanity together. The teachings of Christ had been about the preservation of the community. The healings were done so that the isolated and rejected could be part of the community.

Jesus’ response to James and John was in the form of a question as Jesus’ responses often were, Jesus says “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?” James and John respond, “We are able.” This seems naïve and almost indignant of the two looking back on it in hindsight. Jesus is referring to the cup of suffering, cup of the cross that even he himself asked God to take away from him in the garden and these two knuckleheads say oh yeah we can do it Jesus, just like you. Then Jesus says something unexpected, which the disciples had come to expect from Jesus. Jesus says yes, they will drink from the cup and they will be baptized and it will be the same cup and the same baptism that Jesus received. They won’t suffer in the exact same way as Jesus will but they will suffer for the kingdom. James, we learn in Acts 12, is among the first disciples to be martyred. This sends a message for us today.

We are baptized with the same baptism Jesus received, now I can spend a whole sermon just on the issue of baptism, but the point I want to make now is that Jesus’ baptism is a baptism of the Spirit and that is the baptism, no matter how much water is used, that we receive and through it we are reconciled with God, we are reconnected to God.

Then Jesus goes on to say that to grant the placement on either side of him in glory is not his decision to make. Now we can take this as Jesus taking the easy way out, by passing the buck onto God, but Jesus never did that so we can assume that his motivation was something different. Jesus was once again affirming that his ministry on Earth, his purpose on earth was that of service to God. His birth and baptism gave him the power and strength not to achieve individualistic ambition, but instead to become the great servant of humanity. Jesus then concludes by once again saying “but whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, ⁴⁴and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all.” This makes a connection between the baptism of the Spirit which was what Jesus received and service.

So many times we see like, James and John, baptism and “conversion” simply as a one way ticket into heaven. We receive it and place it in our pockets for safe keeping until we die and then we cash it in. But I want to say this morning that this is not the case. We can given the gift of the Spirit and we have to use it, we are given the keys to the kingdom of God and we must use it in the world. Just like that gift that we want to use, just like placing our trust in God, we take it and use it to work in the world. We cannot simply wait around with our eyes toward heaven with our heads in the clouds. We must be ambassadors of God’s love and make a difference in the world. That is what Jesus taught from day one. He could have taken the power he received and used it to take over the world, remember the temptation from Satan to rule over all the kingdoms of the world, but instead Jesus knew that true greatness and true discipleship is not cheap grace but costly. We have to take what we have been given and do something here and now and not simply wait until we all get to heaven.

An important place at the table, that is what James and John wanted. They tried to ask for it, but Jesus said that you have to earn it and the only way to do it is by service to community not individual ambition. We have to insure that not only that we have a place at the heavenly communion table, but that our fellow human beings have a place at our table here and now and a share of what is prepared.

Let us pray…

Grant, O Lord,

that what has been said with our lips we may believe in our hearts,

and that what we believe in our hearts we may practice in our lives;

through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen