Sermon: Twenty-Second Sunday after Pentecost, Mark 10:35-45

October 20, 2024 + Faith-La Fe Lutheran Church, Pastor Jonathan Linman

James and John, the sons of Zebedee, were not shy about stating their desires. They were, after all, also nicknamed the “sons of thunder.” So, they boldly, shamelessly got in Jesus’ face and said: “Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you.” 

It would be easy for us to castigate and criticize them for their audacious request. After all, that was the reaction of the other disciples who heard about James and John’s bold ask of Jesus – they became angry with their brother disciples.

But if we’re honest with ourselves, don’t you think that a lot of our prayers really boil down to, “Lord, I want you to do for me whatever I ask of you”? 

Now, don’t get me wrong: I’m all in favor of you letting your honest requests be made known to God, whatever they are, because so many of our prayers do come from deep down in our hearts in response to our sometimes-desperate needs and circumstances.

But at the same time, today’s gospel reading beckons us to reflect on what truly moves us to pray. For our broken, sinful desires often motivate what we pray for. 

This is revealed in the specific nature of James and John’s request. When Jesus asked them “What is it you want me to do for you?” their response was, “Appoint us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory.” 

Well, that says it all. The sons of thunder’s prayer request did not, on the face of it, come from deep existential suffering so much as their very human reactions to defend against any suffering. They wanted power, plain and simple – perhaps to be rid of the oppression of the occupying Roman empire and then to bask in the glory of victory.

James and John wanted to meet raw power with raw power, expecting that Jesus would be a revolutionary to overthrow the imperial occupiers and then be seated at a royal throne of earthly glory. In short, in roles we can understand in the United States, James and John wanted Jesus to be president and they wanted cabinet positions for themselves. 

We see the clamoring for worldly power throughout human history and certainly in our current day. Think of the tech bro billionaires in Silicon Valley for whom incredible wealth is not enough. Now they want to spend their millions to be political power players as well. 

And think of the Christian Nationalists who want a warrior Jesus who does nothing but “move fast and break things,” as if the only thing Jesus did in his earthly ministry was violently tip over the moneychangers’ tables in the temple.

But all of this anxious striving for power and domination, and the various ways we try to claw our ways to the top of the heap, ultimately emerge from profound insecurities about our vulnerabilities and our mortality. In short, as we know from our own youthful schoolyard experience, bullies are some of the most scared people around. 

And yet we are bullied all the time by insecure leaders who need to dominate everybody else. This dynamic, of course, wreaks havoc and causes enormous suffering. Wars are so often started by so-called strongmen with fragile egos.

Companies meet their downfall when CEO’s domineering egos get in the way of success. The list goes on. But so much human suffering is caused by power hungry people – mostly men – who are scared to death of death and our mortal nature.

The good news, of course, is that Jesus models and offers a totally different way, a way that turns upside down, like the moneychangers’ tables, human understandings of power. And Jesus’ way of power and leadership is a healing way that calms the fever in our blood. It’s the opposite of bullying. It’s a way that James and John did not want. But it’s the way that they needed. And it’s the way that they in fact got.

We get a good sense of the way of Jesus in the suffering servant passages in today’s reading from Isaiah: “Surely he has borne our infirmities and carried our diseases, yet we accounted him stricken, struck down by God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the punishment that made us whole, and by his bruises we are healed.” (Isaiah 53:4-5)

We see Jesus’ way of leadership and power also in today’s passage from Hebrews: “In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to the one who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverent submission. Although he was a Son, he learned obedience through what he suffered, and having been made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him.” (Hebrews 5:7-9)

And here’s how Jesus himself sums it up as recorded by Mark: “You know that among the gentiles those whom they recognize as their rulers are domineering, and their great ones are tyrants over them. But it is not so among you; instead, 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.” (Mark 10:42b-45)

Jesus put his teaching about leadership and power and glory through suffering-servanthood into action on the cross. And God vindicated this upside-down way of leading and serving by raising Jesus from the dead after three days. 

And what does Jesus’ leading by serving and giving his life in death and then being raised to new life do for us? Jesus’ death alongside the resurrection eliminates the ultimate cause of our fears and insecurities that provoke our striving for power and domination in the first place. Again, bullies are at heart terrified people who feel weak and vulnerable. We seek to dominate others ultimately out of our own limitations and finitude and finally, our fear of death. 

Well, because Jesus died and was raised and promises the same for us, we have no reason any longer ultimately to fear death and its claims. And because Jesus’ became weak on the cross only to reveal God’s greatest power in that loving vulnerability, we are invited to trust in that way of suffering servanthood. And when we’re thereby given the gift of faith to trust the way of Jesus, we are freed from the tyranny of our insecurities and given Christ’s power in the Holy Spirit. Thanks be to God. 

Pointing to his suffering, Jesus makes reference to the cup of agony that he must drink and to the baptism of his suffering and death. We cannot help but see in these statements references to our sacraments of baptism and Holy Communion. 

Indeed, we too are baptized into Jesus’ death and resurrection, undergoing the baptism that Jesus was baptized with. And, like Jesus and James and John, we drink the cup of suffering in the Eucharist, which also links us to the power of Jesus’ cross and the empty tomb. This bath leading to this meal heals the fever in our blood and helps us feel secure, trusting the paradoxical power of our vulnerability and mortality. Because of what God in Christ accomplished on the cross and in the empty tomb, finitude and death no longer have the last word. Alleluia.

We are thus washed and fed also to become the kind of suffering servant that Jesus was and is. In short, at Jesus’ invitation, and in the boldness of faith, of trust in the paradoxical way of Jesus, we take up our cross to follow Jesus into the world in the way of lovingly serving our neighbors in need and advocating for justice on behalf of the oppressed and most vulnerable and marginalized.

And in a world full of domineering bullies who anxiously clamor and claw after earthly glory, thus revealing their true weakness and fear, we offer a different way, a healing and liberating way, the way of Jesus, the one who came to serve and not to be served. Jesus may not give us what we want. But by God’s grace, Jesus gives us what we need, and what the world needs! Thanks be to God. Amen.