Not to Be Served

Please tell me this didn’t happen like this. Surely this is one of those examples of editorial compression, of taking something that happened at another time and slipping it in here to make some sort of larger point. This story is bad enough on its own. But as Mark places it in the narrative, James and John come off as the dictionary definition of crass.

We skipped a few verses in our walk through the tenth chapter of Mark’s gospel. Last week, we finished Jesus’s teaching about the dangers of riches with the familiar line – “the first shall be last and the last shall be first“ (Mark 10:31). We start this passage with James and John oiling up to Jesus with their painfully selfish request. In between, we have Jesus baring his soul. I realize that this isn’t the text for the week but take a moment and reflect on these words. You can’t help but read the gospel lesson in a different light if you do. There’s a lot going on in these three skipped verses, and we shouldn’t take too much time. But why were they amazed and why were they afraid (Mk 10:32)? And who exactly was amazed or afraid? And why did Jesus think telling them about his upcoming death was going to help them with their fear or amazement?

Too much to unpack. But after all that, we have James and John. It just feels icky that after Jesus talks about being mocked and spit upon and flogged and killed that James and John sneak up and say, “Give us the best seats in the house!” They did it on the sly, you notice. Mark says, “When the ten heard this,” they blew a gasket. So, James and John snuck around and asked Jesus this when the others weren’t listening. Maybe they’d wandered off after Jesus talked about going to Jerusalem to die, and the sons of thunder seized their moment and grabbed Jesus. They started with, “We want you to do whatever we ask.” Maybe it reads better in Greek, or maybe the original Aramaic doesn’t sound so smarmy. This is just an ugly moment for two members of the inner circle of disciples.

Except that Jesus doesn’t take it that way. With what seems infinite patience, he explains to them what’s involved here. “You don’t know what you’re asking,” he says to them. Weren’t you listening? Well, apparently, they were, because when Jesus itemizes the route to his ascension, they nod their heads with enthusiasm and say, ”Yep, we can do it!” “Are you able,” he asks. “Yes, we are able,” they replied, and then proceeded to write a hymn about it.

Here's the amazing bit. Jesus agrees with them. Wait, what? Go ahead, look at verse 39, after their foolish declaration. Jesus says, “Yeah you will.” Whether he means the inevitability of persecution that will fall on them all, or he sees something of significance in the two of them who will be part of a movement that changes the world, it is hard to say in this moment. But Jesus treats them with more kindness than most of us would have in that less than stellar moment.

I guess that is part of the good news here. James and John aren’t the only ones who want to put themselves higher than they should. It is a cultural blindness for many of us. We’re surrounded by messages telling us to dream big and reach for the stars. In and of itself, that’s not a bad thing at all. But it sometimes leads to finding shortcuts that do damage to ourselves or those around us. There’s a reason why Paul was so big on humility in many of his letters. But if Jesus can be patient with these two, maybe we have a chance as well.

When the incident blows up into the rest of the group, Jesus calms the waters with a lesson on what it means to lead. He says we can look around and see all kinds of authority, many ways of wielding power. But that’s not how we function. That’s not the model we follow. Instead, I’m showing you what it means to wield ultimate power. We do it by setting ourselves aside. We do it by serving. Not serving to climb a ladder, however, but serving to serve—even”” to the point of giving our lives away. He comes back to what he was trying to get them to understand before James and John interrupted him. “Service isn’t a strategy,” he says. It is not a means of getting to the top, of achieving a personal goal. Instead, it is a way of being. Service is a way of living.

Maybe James and John helped him make this point. So, perhaps we shouldn’t be too hard on them. We need a few good bad examples, some might say. Or maybe our example should be the one who didn’t come to serve but who gave his life so that we might have life.

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Rev. Dr. Derek Weber, Director of Preaching Ministries, served churches in Indiana and Arkansas and the British Methodist Church. His PhD is from University of Edinburgh in preaching and media. He has taught preaching in seminary and conference settings for more than 20 years.