The greatest,  18/10/15, Cygnet, LJB

Mark 10: 32-41, Job 38: 1-7, Hebrews 5: 1-10

In last week’s reading from Job, we heard about Job’s frustration with God, his

wanting to confront God to complain of God’s treatment of him. Yet he was

afraid of what this awesome God would do if Job did confront him. Today we

heard the answer Job got when he did pluck up the courage to confront God.

God answers, speaking from a whirlwind. And Job copped the rebuff he was

expecting: What can you know, Job, about the works and the ways of God?

How can you hope to understand God’s ways? …More next week!

Moving from the power of creator God  to today’s lesson from the gospel,

which is also power: Jesus’ teaching about what real power is.

Jesus’ chosen twelve disciples were from humble backgrounds, fishermen, a

tax collector, and so on. They probably exercised some power as the head of

their households, and perhaps in charge of one or two men on the fishing

boats. On the other hand, they would have been on the unhappy receiving end

of power in the form of town officials, temple priests and scribes, Roman tax

collectors and soldiers. They would have experienced power wielded unjustly

by their own leaders and the Roman rulers.

How wonderful it would be, they reasoned, to share the power of the great

Messiah, the soon to be ruler of the kingdom of God here in earth? What is

wrong with that?

Mark’s combining of the first and last parts of this reading is almost laughable

in its irony and shows us what was wrong with their thinking! Jesus for the

third time spells out for his disciples what is going to happen to him in

Jerusalem, where they are heading.

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He will be condemned, mocked, spat upon, flogged and killed. There is no

response from them, no inkling of understanding what Jesus is saying. In fact,

the very opposite.

James and John, and probably the others too, have very different visions of

what will happen to Jesus. They picture Jesus as the magnificent ruler of the

kingdom of God. Probably clothed in fine clothes of gold, sitting on a throne,

like the early kings and Caesar. So they ask for what they imagine will be the

positions of power, the seats at the right and left hands of the ruler, Christ.

When Jesus points out the price they will have to pay, they accept

immediately, without thinking it through! Yes, we will drink of the same cup as

you, yes, we will accept the same baptism that you have just told us about

(which is martyrdom!) Yes, of course we will pay the price for such prize

positions and glory in the kingdom! They really hadn’t a clue what they were

asking, and I’m sure they didn’t understand what the price would be. Jesus said

yes, you will share my baptism and my cup. And they did. He was really saying:

you too will be martyrs, dying young, leaving your families devastated, because

you are my followers. But they weren’t hearing him.

Perhaps we feel a bit angry at the presumption of James and John, just as the

rest of the disciples were. The writer of Matthew’s gospel was so

uncomfortable about their request he had their mother make it for them!

We may feel frustrated with their lack of understanding, as I’m sure Jesus was

frustrated. But Jesus patiently used this occasion to give to his disciples and to

all of us another lesson in what it means to be great in God’s eyes, in the

kingdom of God.

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Whoever wishes to be 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.

Earlier on he had startled his disciples by telling them that God’s kingdom was

made up of people who were like children in their simplicity and trustfulness.

The powerless ones made up the kingdom! Ridiculous! Later he shocked them

again by declaring that the rich and powerful would find it very hard to enter

the kingdom. Jesus taught and modelled servant leadership throughout his life

and in his death. He washed the feet of his disciples at the last supper, like a

servant, trying to help them understand what he meant about serving one

another.

Throughput the gospel of Mark, we hear again and again the lack of

understanding of the disciples, of what Jesus was teaching and modelling. They

didn’t understand his parables, had no faith in his powers to bring peace in a

storm or feed multitudes, and did not understand the kind of leadership and

power he advocated.

We might ask why did Jesus choose these particular men? (At least I ask it!)

They disappear from our sight very soon after Pentecost, after the first few

chapters of the book of Acts, they are hardly mentioned. Peter appears

occasionally, usually in conflict with Paul. As we learn in Acts, the early church

was in the hands of the seven deacons, appointed by the apostles, including

Phillip and Steven, and in the hands of Paul, the great missionary leader of the

early church and his helpers. These men had different skills and experience

from the twelve, and through their efforts and inspiration, the early church

grew rapidly.

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I think perhaps Jesus chose these twelve disciples because they were most

suited to the work he had for them while he was a travelling rabbi and healer.

His mission was to the people of Israel and in particular the humble Jews, the

poor, the oppressed, in the region of Galilee. His disciples were drawn from

these people, and so were able to speak their language, to understand their

problems and move among the people. The twelve were village people, and

villages were the places where Jesus taught, not big cities, not outside the

borders of Israel.

And perhaps no-one of greater learning or status would have been prepared to

join and follow this village carpenter.

After Christ’s death and resurrection, after Pentecost, the disciples were

changed men, able to discern and encourage the next generation of leaders.

Inspired by the Holy Spirit, they knowingly met the fate of martyrs that Jesus

had predicted for them.

I don’t know about you but I still find Jesus’ teaching about what constitutes

real power so alien to our lives. We generally regard power as the ability to

change things and people. But in our culture this usually means legislating or

enforcing laws, or building up or shutting down businesses and jobs and

livelihoods. Having the power of money to get what we want from people. The

heroes in our action movies are those who are strongest, the best fighters,

who come out on top by defeating others.

But Jesus’ concept of real power was quite revolutionary, quite counter-

cultural. He too regarded power as the ability to change things and people. But

he taught that the usual ways to gain power through strength and riches and

politics were not God’s ways.

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When we look at history, we can see that is true. Power held and exerted by

force or money or politics does not last. Riches and their power come and go

within a generation or two at the most. As we have recently seen, political

power is hard to hold and maintaining it can call for many compromises and

sacrifices of principle. Power held by force is also ephemeral and jeopardised

by illness and age: dictators hang on tightly to power as long as they can, for

the next dictator is waiting for the first show of weakness. Assassination or

exile are the end days of many dictators. There is no place or peace for

defeated military dictators.

Jesus’ way of changing things and people is so different from that way of the

world. He showed us how a humble, compassionate teacher of God’s way

could change the brutal world of the Roman empire. How his teachings could

outlast the empire and spread much further than the all conquering Romans

ever did.

His church, his body carries his message to the world today. But the church has

gone wrong at times and continues to go wrong whenever it imports the

world’s concepts of power into its structures. The church seems to need

reformations and renewals at regular intervals to bring it back to Christ’s

teachings. Entrenched hierarchies, focus on money and buildings, manipulating

people by fear and threats of damnation, these are the ways of the world

which continually creep into Christ’s church.

It’s not surprising, for the church is made up of people with human failings and

has existed in the materialistic cultures of the world throughout the ages. But

it’s important that we are watchful and try to keep the church to Christ’s

teachings, for it is the means of bringing Christ and his kingdom to the world.

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I’ve just spent some days at clergy conference, and I do believe that we are

blessed in this diocese by having in our leaders authentic teachers of Christ’s

gospel and true servant leaders. They need our prayers for their extremely

busy and overcommitted lives, as they seek to serve us and the wider world.

Our church should embody and model Christ’s teachings about servant

leadership and true power as a beacon and example for the world. Christ’s

teaching about power and servant leadership have a lot to say to our world: to

those politicians who put personal power and advancement above discerning

the good and serving the people they represent. To those public servants who

disregard the ‘servant’ part of their title.

To governments which put staying in power ahead of making the right, hard

decisions for the good of the people. To company directors and executives

who hang on to positions and power by putting shareholder profits above

ethical and moral treatment of employees and customers and their social

responsibilities. To those in the media who use their power over audiences to

denigrate and manipulate.

When we look at these aspects of our culture, we can see what a difference it

would make to humanity if Christ’s teachings about humility, servant

leadership and what constitutes true power were widespread. So it is up to us

as Christ’s church to do our best to make the world aware of Christ’s new way

and reject our culture’s concept of what constitutes power. This means

remaining vigilant and watching how power is wielded in our governments, our

companies, our schools and our church. And being prepared to speak up when

what we see contradicts the wise teachings of Christ that true power is exerted

to serve others. We start by modelling in our own lives his subversive message

of how to change things and how to change people’s hearts. Amen

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