Pentecost 21 B: Who Will You Serve?
A quick note, Dear Partner, that it’s not too late to register for this year’s Preaching Days with five fabulous presenters and lots of great workshops. It’s going to be great. I hope you can join us!
Dear Partner in Preaching,
Who will you serve?
I don’t know if you got a prickly feeling when reading that question or whether you read over it quickly enough not to notice how much it runs against our grain. Either way, I’ll ask it again: who will you serve?
As a culture and species, we tend to prize freedom…and accomplishment…and autonomy…and self-determination…and… And the list could go on. Which is why, if we slow down and take the question seriously, we’ll recognize how much itgrates against our deeply held belief and culturally formed sensibilities.
Yet perhaps one of the most pernicious illusions of our culture is that we are, indeed, free and autonomous beings who can live independent of all bonds of loyalty, devotion, and service. In fact, I shudder to think how much time and energy we expend in service to – yes, in service to – the idea that we don’t have to serve anyone.
This assertion – that you will always serve something or someone whether you know it or not – is at the very heart of not simply today’s passage but much of Mark’s Gospel. Notice, for instance, the careful literary structuring of this larger section of Jesus’ march to Jerusalem and his three predictions – actually, announcements would be more like it – of his impending death.
First, way back in chapter 8, Jesus cures a blind man at Bethsaida, but it doesn’t seem to take at first; indeed, it takes a little time for the man to regain his full sight. Then comes Peter’s declaration and Jesus’ first announcement of his impending death. But Peter doesn’t get it and rebukes Jesus (who in turn rebukes him right back.)
Then, in chapter 9, Jesus repeats his declaration that he will die in Jerusalem, a pronouncement that terrifies his disciples into silence…until, that is, they begin arguing with each other about who is the greatest because, again, they don’t get it. Jesus’ words take time to sink in, so he puts before them a child and tells them that leadership and greatness are about welcoming the vulnerable.
Now, in chapter 10, Jesus says once more – in verses just before those appointed (but which should definitely be read on Sunday!) – that he is going to Jerusalem to die. And, again, the disciples don’t get it. First, James and John ask for special places of honor and then the rest of the disciples resent their self-interested pushiness. Jesus’ words still haven’t sunk in and taken hold yet, so he says as plainly and clearly as possible that to be great is to serve others and that to be first is to be last. And then comes another healing of a blind man, Bartimaeus.
It’s interesting, isn’t it, how these healings of blindness bracket Jesus’ three pronouncements of his impending death, the disciples’ failure to understand, and Jesus ongoing teaching about what constitutes greatness? I think Mark tells the story this way because he knows that Jesus’ words – indeed, his whole life! – run contrary to our natural tendency to think about power, leadership, and all of life according to the terms of the world and therefore take time to sink in. In today’s reading, for instance, James and John think greatness comes from status and power. And in response Jesus points out that there is no escaping service. You will either willingly, even joyfully, serve others, or you will become a slave to your illusions that you can be free and secure your future through status and power (or, in our day, wealth or youth or fame or possessions, and so on.).
So I’ll ask again: who will you serve – the voices of the culture that say that you can be free – indeed, must be free – on your own and at any cost, or the voice of Jesus that calls you to find your freedom and, indeed, your true self, through service to neighbor. Last week we read the Genesis narrative in relation to Jesus’ words about marriage, but I wonder if they aren’t more about our inherently relational and social nature as those made in the image of the triune God. We are made to be in relationship and we discover our wholeness only as we join ourselves to the fortunes of those around us.
Indeed, perhaps it would be worth repeating that reading this week so that we can hear it addressed not simply to marriage but to all of our relationships, recognizing that God delights in our relationships at home and school and work and in the community and that we discover our identity as whole people as we see ourselves inextricably linked – “bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh” – with those around us.
Perhaps that’s also how we might hear Jesus’ description of his life as giving himself “as a ransom for many” – not as Jesus buying us back from God (or the devil – take your pick, they’re both awful choices), but instead as paying himself out in order to rescue us from our delusion that we are somehow self-sufficient, independent, self-made men and women. From this point, his whole life – including his self-sacrificing death – challenges not only our assumptions but the very powers that be with the surprising and life-giving revelation that as we lose ourselves in service we find ourselves living more fully than ever before. It’s an example and sacrifice validated in the resurrection and, for that matter, in our own experience as we give ourselves away in service and love only to discover a depth and quality of life we’d never experienced before.
So I’ll ask it again: who will you serve? You don’t have to let others answer this for you. That is indeed part of our freedom as God’s children. And once you’ve answered it, you can ask your people the same and then set them free by God’s promise and power to serve others and find themselves.
Thanks for your good words and life of service, Dear Partner, this message – and your ministry – has never mattered more!
Yours in Christ,
David
thanks for this challenge about what we seek when we seek to be free. The question is always, who is your God/god? Minor point, the question you ask should be “Whom do you serve?”
Knock knock
Who’s there
To
To who?
To whom.
Thanks again for this. I’ve thought for some time that the original sin, as the Psalmist says, from birth, is our instinct to serve only our own interests, to “look out for #1.” Parents spend a lot of time teaching children to share, to learn how to “play well with others.” I see the emphasis on fundamentalism’s search for a “personal savior” to be one of its primary flaws, along with the reliance on the ransom theory of atonement which you mention. The greediness of society, evidenced in the widening gap between rich and poor, is evidence of whom we really serve. This gospel lesson is another call to mature faith, to grow up into the fullness of Christ.
I wish I had known of your seminary’s preaching seminar earlier. Perhaps next year!
I couldn’t help but think of Bob Dylan’s “Gotta Serve Somebody.” There will be a baptism in the congregation this week and your point will help me remind myself and everyone that we are baptized into a life serving others. Thanks you.
Hmmm. If our goal is simply to “get into heaven”, isn’t that the same as asking to sit at the right or left hand of Jesus. Here it seems that it could be argued, simply serve God here. Of course, the “end game” is not ours to determine.
As ever, David, a really helpful reflection. God bless you in this service.
I seem to recall that Luther said something to the effect that, knowing and experiencing the love of God, we should be willing to serve even if it meant going to Hell instead of heaven. That’s a pretty strong statement, and pretty frightening as well.
I wonder if part of what is beneath the response of these two disciples isn’t a deep seated fear of where following Jesus can take us, and if, on some level, we don’t all have a similar fear.
One question this raises for me is how to pastorally address that fear in a way that opens us to the deeper truth Jesus is speaking of and calling us to.
How do we transform what seems like a harsh demand into something we can enter into joyfully through our service?
What’s the “good news” here for us in the midst of our fears? How do we help each other come to joyful service?
Thank you for this.
In my congregation there are stained glass windows at the back of the sanctuary (so that I see them over the heads of the gathered community each week) that depict Matthew 25 – A reminder that when we serve the last and the least we serve Christ himself.
I focused on the reality that we are all made for community and that all of our false divisions are divorce when we had that text a couple of weeks ago.
This week I will connect with Mark 14 – He said, “Abba, Father, for you all things are possible; remove this cup from me; yet, not what I want, but what you want.”
We will drink the cup of death – and our riches and status will be dust. But love is stronger than death.
I heard that a Sister of Mercy serving with Mother Teresa in Calcutta was once tending to the festering, oozing sores of a destitute patient when a tourist came to see the famous hospital. The tourist commented, “I wouldn’t do that for all the money in the world.” The sister looked up and replied, “Neither would I.”
We don’t serve to earn a place in that kingdom, but because he took our place in this one. Love makes the impossible, possible and redeems the irredeemable.
“You gonna have to serve somebody it may be the devil it may be the Lord but you’re gonna have to serve somebody” bob Dylan
I like it.
Historical records indicate the political and economic imbalance between individual needs and those of the wider community. Nearly all of history shows that the proverbial 1% have won the battle of “balance” to their favor. “Wealth/wage disparity” has been around since the first cities were born. This imbalance between the minority “haves” and majority “have nots” is the cultural context that informs, teaches and shapes each human being. We learn from day one where we “fit” in society and what “rules” we have to follow to exists, much less change, our place within that social structure.
Since Emporer Constantine, Jesus and his life have been wrapped in the flags and power of the 1%. Today, in America, Capitalism and Corporatism wraps itself (with the teachings and blessings of most evangelicals) with the “servant-hood” model that enriches the few at the literal expense of the many. Jesus, himself poor, came to lift (resurrect/save) the poor “on earth as it is in heaven.” It did not take a historian to see the end result of his teachings and deeds would end in death. The 1%, of every age, are not interested in sharing “their” power and wealth. Then, as now, the legions (militarized police) are sent in to stamp out dissension among the peasants and working class. Indeed, be ready to suffer if you want to serve the interest of the poor and powerless, if you really want to find and carry YOUR cross for the sake of the many. Unfortunately, most congregations will never hear that invitation to follow. Instead, they will hear a Jesus who wants to love them an save them from hell. They will hear and they will sing songs full of emotion that is divorced from the real world and the real invitation to suffer with and next to Jesus. Jesus and America is what will be heard and worshiped. Business as usual.
Welcome to the ‘T’ in TULIP! Total depravity. We are all – all of us – screwed up. But in the midst of that there’s still U – Unconditional election. No matter how screwed up we are, we’re still called to be responsible. Neighbors come out after storms and help others clean up. People shelter each other at great cost. And some folk get it and others don’t – and we’re never sure which is which. And – for what it’s worth – we’re all still beloved, even as we mess up and hurt each other. Once you get it, you can’t go back to sleep. You can do a lot of damage to yourself and others – but you can’t go back to sleep…