Servant Problems, October 18, 2009

I’ve told this joke before and, if you remember it, I hope you’ll forgive the repetition. Jesus says that the Greatest among us must serve the rest. In response to this Gospel, the Pope has used the title, “Servant of the Servants of God.” And the story goes that that makes the Bishops the servants of the servant of the servants of God, and that makes the priests the servants of the servants of the servant of the servants of God. Do you know what that makes you? People with a lot of servant problems.

One thing that stands out in the Gospel of Mark is that Mark does not portray the Apostles in a positive light. He's forever portraying them as people who don't get it and who don't understand. So in the Gospel today Jesus is teaching the Apostles that he's going to suffer and die, and how do James and John respond? "Give us whatever we ask." What they want are places of honor in the kingdom.

So Jesus says, "Well, what do you want?"

"Can we sit at your right and your left when you come to your glory?" They don't get it. And Jesus tells them that. You don't get it. You don't know what you're asking for.
The ten are indignant. Are they indignant because they're so zealous for service or because they got out jockeyed by James and John? Whenever I read the Gospel I'm tempted to be critical and to say they don't get it.

I'm tempted to be critical when I look at our church and our society. Maybe you are, too. How many of you would be tempted to look at the church and leadership in our society and say they don't get it? Wouldn't we all?

So, anyway, I've been reading over the past several weeks a commentary by a Francis Maloney on the Gospel of Mark. And in this passage there was just one sentence that caught my eye and gave me an “aha!” moment. What he said was Jesus does not abandon the failing disciples James and John, but he teaches them. He teaches them, not as a law giver or a rule giver, but he teaches them by saying, "Follow my example." He gives them his own example of coming not to be served but to serve and to give his life.

Well, for some reason that hit me. It hit me in my feeling of wanting to be critical of everybody that fails to live up to my standards -- and there are many -- and in my desire to be critical of myself when I don't live up to my standards. So what hit me between the eyes was the realization that, when I fail Jesus does not abandon me, but he teaches me and he teaches me by his example.
When others fail my call is not to condemn them and not to abandon them, but to teach them and to teach them, above all, not by criticism, not by repeating the law, not by picking up the Bible and hitting them on the head with it, but by my own example. And that is difficult, isn't it?
That's just the thought that struck me in the Gospel and in Jesus' reaction. Jesus does not abandon the failing disciples, but he teaches them.

And by the way, about James and John. They said, "We can," when he said, "Can you drink the cup that I will drink?" And do you know what? They did, and all of them did.

I sometimes imagine this Gospel ‑‑ yesterday I did a wedding and I could imagine saying to the couple, "You don't know what you're asking. Can you drink the cup and be baptized with the baptism?"

Can you imagine people wanting to have children and saying to them, "You don't know what you're asking." Or somebody saying, "I want to be a priest." You don't know what you're asking. Or somebody saying, "I want to be a teacher." You don't know what you're asking.
And this could go on and on, and in our hope and enthusiasm we would answer, "We can." And do you know what? I think we will, with God's help and with God's teaching.