“The Suffer Club” (Mark 10:35-45)

The Mega Millions lottery on Friday was worth well over a billion and a half dollars.  That is a lot of money.  I was tempted to purchase a ticket . . . but I wasn’t quite convinced my chances at a little over one in a little over 300 million were real good.  Yet, I did allow myself the thrill of dreaming for a few minutes . . . dreaming how a billion dollars would change my life . . . of moving me up into that top one percent . . . of living the rich life . . . of having it all.  Then I thought, 300 million to one . . . naw!

Jesus’ disciples were doing a little dreaming as they were still attempting to understand everything that was happening around them.  Though they were constantly with Jesus . . . hearing his words, seeing his miracles, and doing his ministry, they still were not certain exactly what they were getting into as they followed their teacher.  One thing they did understand is that Jesus was the king they had been waiting for.  In their understanding of what a king was like . . . the good life . . . they allowed themselves to dream.

Especially the brothers, James and John.  In their minds they saw that there was some prime real estate to be had as Jesus ascended to the throne.  They saw all the trimmings that come with being a king . . . after all kings reign in glory, they are honored, and wield great power.  James and John saw themselves as good and faithful followers; therefore, in their minds, shouldn’t they be entitled to bask in some of the glory, too?

With this in mind, the two ask Jesus for a favor . . . “Let one of us sit at your right and the other at your left in your glory.” 

Of course, this did not make the other disciples happy.  Jesus, on the other hand, is a little intrigued by the request.  He tells the two that they do not understand what it is that they are asking.  He asks them if they think that they can do as he is doing . . . to “drink the cup” he is drinking or to be “baptized in the baptism” that he has been baptized with.  With no hesitation the two affirm that they can.  This only confirms for Jesus that the two still do not understand . . . that they do not understand what it is Jesus is attempting to teach and show them about following and emulating him.

Jesus tells them that if they truly follow him . . . live like him, they will “drink the cup I drink and be baptized with the baptism I am baptized with . . .”; and yet, at the same time they need to understand that it is not the silver spoon club they are joining, but the “suffer club”.  There is a huge difference.  A huge difference between the kingdom that they dream of and the kingdom that God calls all to join.  Once again, he explains that the kingdom of God is not like the kingdom of humanity.  No, in the kingdom of God it is to serve that is better than to be served . . . and, in that service there would be suffering.  Jesus invites them to the “suffer club”.

You can just hear the air leaking out as Jesus pokes their balloons once again.  This is not what the two were dreaming of when they popped their request on Jesus . . . they were expecting to serve, they were going to be served . . . and, they sure were not thinking about suffering.  Yet, that is what Jesus is calling his disciples and us to. 

The Reverend Sharon Blezard puts it this way: “. . . Jesus invites us to join the ‘suffer’ club as part of faithful and radical discipleship, to realize that in following him and in being part of the reign of God here and now, we open our eyes, our minds, and our hearts to the realities of this beautiful yet broken world. No one gets out of life on earth alive, and suffering is a part of the fabric of life.”

Jesus is right.  We live in a beautiful but broken world.  That is where we live.  We need to open our eyes, minds, and hearts to this reality . . . we live in a beautiful world, but there is much that is broken.  You don’t get one without the other; yet, we are not much for suffering these days.  We have life pretty easy.  We have the ability to turn away from that which is ugly . . . that which shows suffering . . . that which is violent . . . unjust . . . and evil.  We have the ability to ignore it or relegate it to someone.  We can change the channel, turn it off . . . we can send money to support missionaries who are on the front line doing the dirty work . . . and, we don’t even have to leave the conform of our own homes.  Despite our denial, the suffering will always be there in the midst of the beauty.  Like death, there is no escaping it. 

Thus, it is that Jesus calls for his followers to open their eyes, minds, and hearts to this reality.  It is a call to service . . . a call to join the “suffer club”. It is a call that even Jesus himself cannot ignore.  He tells his disciples: “For the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”  If you are going to follow Jesus, you are going to experience suffering.  In the suffering there is beauty, joy, and hope in serving others.

The late Leonard Cohen, from his Jewish roots, understood that in the suffering the light shines in.  In his song, Anthem, he sings:

Ring the bells that still can ring

Forget your perfect offering

There is a crack, a crack in everything

That’s how the light gets in.

The fact is that we live in a beautiful world that is broken.  Into the brokenness we are called to live our lives in order to discover that there is beauty, joy, and hope in serving others.  And when we suffer, or suffer with others, we learn what it means to be fully dependent upon Jesus who shows us the perfect way.

Jesus invites us to join the “suffer club”.  Invites us to discover the beauty, joy, and hope in serving others . . . to allow the light to shine through the cracks.  We are not the first to be invited.  No, in joining the club we discover that this moves us into a community that spans across time, place, and context with others who bear the name of Christ.  It is not an exclusive club.  It is a big club, with a vast table and good company, where there is always room for one more.

It may not be the lottery, but it is a lot better.  Amen.

“You Then Me” (Mark 10:35-45)

James and John, Zebedee’s sons, came up to him. “Teacher, we have

something we want you to do for us.”

“What is it? I’ll see what I can do.”

“Arrange it,” they said, “so that we will be awarded the highest places

of honor in your glory—one of us at your right, the other at your left.”

Jesus said, “You have no idea what you’re asking. Are you capable of

drinking the cup I drink, of being baptized in the baptism I’m about to be

plunged into?”

“Sure,” they said. “Why not?”

Jesus said, “Come to think of it, you will drink the cup I drink, and be

baptized in my baptism. But as to awarding places of honor, that’s not

my business. There are other arrangements for that.”

When the other ten heard of this conversation, they lost their

tempers with James and John. Jesus got them together to settle things

down. “You’ve observed how godless rulers throw their weight around,”

he said, “and when people get a little power how quickly it goes to their

heads. It’s not going to be that way with you. Whoever wants to be great

must become a servant. Whoever wants to be first among you must be

your slave. That is what the Son of Man has done: He came to serve, not

to be served—and then to give away his life in exchange for many who

are held hostage.”

The Billings Gazette has been running a series titled “Ten

Inspiring Stories from Billings and Montana.” The goal of

the series is for the reading audience to “refresh its faith in

humanity.”

This week we read about the high-tech smart house that

was recently built in Lockwood for former Navy SEAL Bo

Reichenbach. Reichenbach’s life changed when he

stepped on a makeshift bomb in Afghanistan in 2012. His

dream, before the accident, was to build his own home for

his family. His father is a builder. With the loss of both his

legs, and one arm also injured, Reichenbach’s dream was

short-lived...until many good people (including foundations

and organizations) who “like to make good things happen”

stepped in.

This week Bo and his family received the keys to their

brand-new home that meets all of the American Disability

Act’s requirements, including a cook top stove that has a

button you push which lowers it to a height that you can

cook from a wheelchair--- one of many high tech features

in the home that support Bo’s needs.

What struck me as I read the story was the creativity of

the persons involved in building this unique home, whether

it was the foundation which provided financial backing

(created in memory of a firefighter named Stephen Sillar,

who laid his life on the line on September 11, 2001…his

shift had just ended and he had plans to play golf with his

brothers, but when he heard that the towers had been

bombed returned to help his coworkers), or the local

persons who gave unselfishly of their resources to make

this home a reality, to the person or persons who use their

life to think of ways to make living easier for persons who

can’t stand on two legs or reach with two arms.

A retired friend shared with me that this is how she

views her newly acquired retirement status, as an

opportunity to be creative in a Jesus kind of way,

which means SERVICE. In our lesson from the Gospel

of Mark, Jesus reminds his friends that life with God isn’t

about self-promotion, it is about self sacrifice, or

SERVICE. I like the way service is defined in the

Renovare Spiritual Formation Bible—the commentary the

work of Christian author Richard Foster:

“Service is the loving, thoughtful, active promotion of

the good of others and the causes of God in our

world, through which we experience the many little

deaths of going beyond ourselves.”

What we hear in this definition is that SERVICE is

INTENTIONAL (thoughtful; thought out),

INDESPENSIBLE (of God), and INVIGORATING (lifegiving.)

·        Many of the stories recorded in the 10th chapter of Mark

address energy centers which ail people, or make us sick:

legalism, judgment (shaming), the pursuit of comfort, and

self-centeredness (me before you). Jesus invites us into

new energy centers: compassion, humility, the pursuit of

spiritual depth, and connectedness or attention to the

other (you then me). The movement of the soul of the

person, or the soul of a congregation, from the sick

energy centers to the healthy energy centers is what

we are talking about when we talk about faith—in faith

we step into God activity such as prayer, forgiveness,

service---trusting that we will not fail ourselves or

each other—because God is with us in our actions.

My newly retired friend put God activity on hold for many

years. She made time for worship but the rest of the week

was about pursuing success at work instead of pursuing

success at life. As she entered her sixties she realized

her spirit was starving for something other than her

savings account and a new sofa and promotions at work.

“I’m simply listening to the people in my life and

responding,” she told me, “which was pretty hard to

do when I was running the company”.

She continued, “Not too long after I retired I met a

professional woman who was what I used to be—working,

working, working! You’ve heard of the walking dead—well

there is the working dead and I was one of them! When I

met this woman I loved her because she was me—she

gave everything she had to her job in the community and

her family at home. Families have to eat which means

someone has to cook! So she was a brilliant lady, and a

tired lady. So I went around to a few stores and selected

a few inexpensive goodies such as chocolates and cute

cooking utensils and a small vase with flowers, arranged

them in a basket, and left it on her front porch with a note

that read ‘If you want to be good to others you also have

to be good to yourself.’ I had so much fun! Not too long

ago a family in my neighborhood here in Billings struggled

with the failing health of their mother. Their mother had

cancer and I think, in the end, this family tended to her for

over two years. I looked out my kitchen window and

decided I’d do my part, too, so I cooked extra food on

Thursdays and placed the food in their refrigerator for the

weekend when most of the family would show up. I grew

to love the mother, too! Now that the mother has died, I

am going to select a few cards and include notes about

how much I loved this woman and her family. You know,

service simply is acts of kindness. You don’t have to

make it complicated and travel long distances to find

people who need a little kindness in their life. It’s next

door. The point is I’m having so much fun. Who knew

that SERVICE was play?”

So often we will talk about service as Christian duty; a

requirement, or obligation. Do we think Jesus plucked

Zachaeus out of that tree out of obligation—or returned

Lazarus to Mary and Martha out of obligation? Did he stop

and visit with the Rich Young Man because he was

required to do so? Did he pull the children out of the

crowd and put them on his knee, and speak of their value,

because he was supposed to?

The answer is no. Jesus served because SAW the

world as God saw the world: beauty and value in

everything and everyone. To LOVE is to WAKE UP (to

quote Jesuit author and teacher Anthony de Mello) to life

as it really is: holy. Of God—all God—all of it!!! How can

we not be impressed by it all—or moved to be in it—or

moved to stay with it—to build it up? How can we turn all

that is IN ON OURSELVES when all that is belongs to

everyone—especially God’s unconditional love?

The challenge, we begin to understand, is to love

where we are planted—to refrain from thinking that God

happens somewhere else—to refrain from wishing we

were in Hawaii, or born into a better looking family, or

longing to be ten years old again and in the care of our

parents, or, if we are entering this story as the church, to

move into our neighborhood as it is now, to embrace each

other as we are now, to be open to the depth and talent of

every generation of persons because every generation of

persons is holy.

Holy is happening RIGHT NOW…inviting us to show

up…inviting us to care.

Here’s a little story:

“Where shall I look for Enlightenment?” the disciple asked.

“Here,” the elder said.

“When will it happen?” the disciple wanted to know.

“It is happening right now,” the elder said.

“Then why don’t I experience it?” the disciple asked.

And the elder answered, “Because you do not look.”

“But what should I look for?” the disciple wanted to know.

And the elder smiled and answered, “Nothing. Just look.”

“But at what?” the disciple insisted.

“Anything your eyes alight upon,” the elder continued.

“Well, then, must I look in a special kind of way?” the

disciple said.

“No,” the elder said.

“Why ever not?” the disciple persisted.

And the elder said quietly, “Because to look you must be

here. The problem is that you are mostly somewhere

else.”

As my retired friend shard with me---when she wanted to

grow deeper in Jesus---all she had to do was walk out her

front door with a new purpose---to build up her neighbor in

love.

Prayer: Very Present God, you are as close to us

as we choose to see. Open the eyes of our

heart—so many beautiful people—tired and

worn, growing ever so slowly in goodness—and

beautiful. Give us the courage to love us all, like

you! Amen.

 
(This sermon was preached by Reverend Dana Keener at Central Christian Church in Billings, Montana on October 18, 2015.)