22nd Sunday After Pentecost

Sermon: 22nd Sunday After Pentecost, 10/20/2024
Texts: Mark 10:35-45, Hebrews 5:1-10
Grace, Peace, and Mercy from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
“Power corrupts”. This is an adage that many of us can readily believe to be true. Plenty are the examples of political aspirants who’s speeches are full of honey to the ear, and if not honey, then fuel for the fire; and once they reach the position of power, they either mightily disappoint or worse, they abuse the trust which was given to them for self-gain. Power attracts human beings like moths to fire, and many are those that are burned for flying too close to the flame. The search for power is full of drama, no wonder we like to witness it! It is an agonic process, full of ambition, grit, and cunning, it is one of the most explicit manifestations of human beings in action. Television series and movies abound with stories like this, so much so that we can say that we admire such determination as much as we can abhor it. But the quest for power, no matter how small the stage, is rife with the potential for sin. Power corrupts, absolutely, for it feeds into the great human capacity to delude ourselves, to think that we are actually in control, to the point of thinking ourselves to be gods among men, a superior class above the rabble. In the calculations of power, there is no equal space for we, it is the I that counts, it separates us from the rest. Power breeds forgetfulness not only of our vulnerable humanity, but of our belovedness that is meant to be shared in communal harmony. Ambition and power puts a dark shroud over love of neighbor and deifies the desires that arises from our ego, from the altar we set to satisfy our own cravings. This made me think of Shakespeare’s Tragedy of Macbeth. In the words of Macbeth, as he leaves to plot the course of his bloody ambitions to be king: “Stars, hide your fires; Let not light see my black and deep desires.” These impulses are under the surface, hidden, whispering in our ear. Our judgements may be darkened by their influence, if our gaze is not settled on the way of Christ. And the Way of Christ is humble service for Others, instead of serving ourselves.

In our Gospel text today, we see this dynamic play out in the ambitious petition of the disciples James and John. They asked Jesus: “Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you.” And Jesus said to them, “What is it you want me to do for you?” And they said to him, “Appoint us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory.” James and John revealed where their hearts were truly at: they wanted the greatest honor to be given to them, to look down on others from the throne of glory and might. The emphasis is clear, we want you to do for us! Their concern was not, what can we do for you, or for others. So much is revealed in this small preposition for. The search for power and ambition are plans made for me, myself and I. But where is the rest of the world in their request? Even more so, where is God? Jesus responds: “You don’t know what you are asking.” Indeed, James and John barely could scratch the surface of what they were getting into. They thought they could get access to greatness as their hearts had imagined, but they lacked the imagination of God in Christ. Never would they expect that the greatness they asked for, was not a greatness for themselves. Perhaps, Jesus remarked, the greatness they imagined was like the gentiles, where they lord power over other people, where ambition is about looking down on others, for others to look up and to serve you. This greatness, Jesus says, is tyranny. It hinges on idolatry, a misestimation of what human beings actually are. But greatness according to the Gospel is so far from that vision. Divine greatness is given to those who do not think about themselves at all. But rather, it is for those that are servants, those that give their life for the sake of others. The Jesus way is a for-others existence. It evades, unlike Shakespeare’s Macbeth, the agony of guilt and unfreedom caused by the struggles of acquiring selfish power, and rather it exists in the liberty of loving others deeply. Instead of being enraptured by one’s own ambitions, one’s attention is passionately drawn to caring for others wellbeing. It is love that gives itself away and stands alongside the weak in their weakness, it rejoices in other’s joy, and pains alongside others who are in pain. So indeed, James and John don’t know what they are asking. For what they ask for is the cross. They are asking to be wounded by the love they are being invited to participate in. They are asking to forego their definition of glory, for God’s way is revealed instead in the hiddenness of those who serve and need to be served. God’s glory is not the glory of titles, and armies, and money, and fame. God’s glory is the liberation of the oppressed. God’s glory is the sick being visited, God’s glory is the poor having their fill. God’s glory is the beloved community that feeds, clothes, and uplifts those who are cast down. James and John clearly did not know what they were asking for. The Gospel overturns their ambitions and transforms them into the life that Christ lived for us.

So power for it’s own selfish sake corrupts. But God’s power liberates. Our agony and tears are not shed for ourselves, they are not self-serving and pitiful. Whatever we struggle for, the baptism we share with Christ, is the deep diving into a life that is lived well because it loves graciously. We do not need to ask the stars to hide their fires, so light might not see our dark and deep desires. We can live in the freedom of the truth: that God desires us to exist in a compassionate togetherness, for all to eat and drink at the same table. God in Jesus Christ lived, died, and rose again for you. How much more are we invited to participate in this life that looks to meet the eyes of others, rather than one’s own? Glory awaits in the beloved faces of those Christ calls us to embrace. It is not in might and tyranny that Jesus overcomes the world, but in “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”. In abandonment to love, in not resisting the reality of loving like God loves, thus it is opened to us the gates of Heaven. We can ask, where is God in all His power? He is standing with us, struggling with us, embracing with us, crying with us, waiting with us, rejoicing with us. God abandons glory to touch our very lives. God does this for us. May we also be for others in the same spirit, submitting and accepting the gift of this life with tears and joys not withheld.