On Mark 10:32–45. At Trinity Lutheran Church, Coopersburg, PA.
Louisa—Lu for short—was the picture of your average eight-year old. She was enrolled all summer in a camp program in Nebraska for children with emotional or behavioral challenges, but Lu didn’t seem to have any of those. She was friendly, compliant, happy—and didn’t quite need the same attention as some of the others.
And then, in the afternoon, we got to the swimming pool, and Lu refused to go in. I didn’t really see an issue with that, but many of the other counselors were social workers in disguise, and the rules said everyone had to participate in all the activities. This requirement was reinforced through a complex system of points, which the children earned throughout the day, and which they were able to spend on fabulous prizes at the end of the week.
I may not have had a degree in child psychology, but I can’t say I was surprised that Lu did not decide differently when she was reminded that, “You won’t get all your points.” It was a hot day, and everyone else was in the water and clearly having fun (a big crowd as we shared the space with another camp), and so whatever was holding Lu back wasn’t going to be overcome by the prospect of a fancy new toy five days from now. So when the other counselors threw up their hands in disgust and went back to reviewing campers’ education plans, I decided to go sit on the ground by the fence and see if I could talk to her.
Whatever had gotten into Lu rendered her unable to speak. “It looks like you’re really upset by something.” She shook her head. “Afraid maybe?” She nodded. “Can you tell me what you’re afraid of?” She shook her head. “If I try to guess, will you tell me if I’m right?”
With the other camp present, there were too many people swimming for Lu to feel comfortable. So I found an oversized beach ball and invited her to come join me in the grass nearby, where we played for a while. She had a nice time, until she was reminded that she had zero points for this activity. I wanted to slap my coworker who said this, but we went on.
That was Monday. Tuesday, Lu brought the ball to me. Wednesday, I got sneaky. “I really want to play with you, but it’s so hot today. If I go in the water, will you stand by the side near me? That way we can throw the ball, but I can go in the water, and you don’t have to.” She thought for a minute, and decided it would be okay. By Friday, she was swimming too. On Monday, she abandoned me for her other friends.
Now, I was a pretty young adult at the time, and had no idea what I was doing. How is it, then, that these well-trained, experienced professionals, who I, frankly, valued and appreciated very much that summer—how is it that they handled this situation so wrong? We can get so trapped by the assumptions we make that we completely fail to communicate with one another. We know what we expect to hear before the other person even opens their mouth. In this case, these good people whose life is spent loving and helping children grow in to their full, healthy selves, knew that they would find a child who was completely stubborn and non-compliant, so that’s what they saw.
Which reminds me of our thick-headed disciples today. They are on their way to Jerusalem, and Jesus is talking about what they will find when they get there. “The Son of Man will be handed over to the chief priests and the scribes, and they will condemn him to death; then they will hand him over to the Gentiles; they will mock him, and spit upon him, and flog him, and kill him; and after three days he will rise again.” And this was the third time he told them these things.
And in response, James and John turn to him and say, “Hey, Jesus, sounds great. And when you do come in glory, the two of us can sit at your sides, right?” This is such an absurd request that I have spent the last thirty-eight years hearing it wrong. I always assumed they wanted to sit by Jesus’ sides in Heaven, and thought Jesus was objecting because, after all, he will be sitting at “the right hand of the Father,” which meant that the seat was already full. Jesus has just been telling them about his death and resurrection. So of course, that’s what they are thinking of, right?
Wrong. See, James and John assume that Jesus, the Messiah, is going to do what they expect the Messiah is supposed to do. He’s going to defeat the Roman Empire and restore the nation of Israel, with Jesus taking his place on the throne of King David. That is what they’ve all been following him for. They want to get rid of the Romans and to bring Israel back to life. So when Jesus starts talking about condemnation, and mocking, and spitting, and killing, and death— It’s not just that they aren’t listening. It’s that they can’t listen. Jesus could talk about this for a few hours, and they wouldn’t get a word of it. Jesus? Die? No, obviously not. He must be talking about some spiritual thing we don’t understand.
We all bring expectations to our relationships with other people. How many relationships do we have in our lives that get marred because we think we know what the other person is saying or doing? Or better still, because we have expectations for our relationship that the other person cannot live up to—and perhaps doesn’t even know exist! That friend who is always late, and drives you crazy, and you just don’t even want to be friends anymore, but you’ve never told them how much it feels like they don’t respect your time? They aren’t a mind reader. That cousin who goes out of town with friends every time you happen to be visiting the area? It must be malicious. It’s not that they’re just a little clueless and a lot busy, and didn’t really hear that you were going to be around. That parent you haven’t spoken to in years, because they said something that really, really hurt, and should have known better—even though they have absolutely no idea why you’ve cut them out of your life?
And if that’s true in our human relationships, how much more with God? We know what God wants for us already, so why listen for the movement of the Holy Spirit? We don’t need to pray, because we’re good Christians and already doing what God wants us to. We can get stressed out and worried about the future of our church, and cry out to God, “What are we supposed to do about this?” And we absolutely won’t hear it when God answers and says, “I’ve told you what to do about a hundred times. What am I supposed to do about your inability to listen?”
The thing that usually gets in the way is we ourselves. Our expectations, our needs always seem to stop us from hearing what others, what God, really is saying. Take Lu and the swimming pool. I love telling this story, and as I was writing it down, I noticed something. I always tell it for the same exact reason. It has the same moral, the same point. Do you know what it is?… The reason I love this story is because it’s about how much smarter I am than all these professionals. This story is about me. I tell it so people will look at how wonderful I am! (To be fair, I am pretty wonderful.)
Friends, we are so focused on ourselves, all the time, all the time. It comes from being human, a survival instinct. We have to take care of ourselves. But Jesus tells us some very bad news about our survival. “The cup that I drink you will drink; and with the baptism with which I am baptized, you will be baptized.” This fearful thing we do here in this place every Sunday: When we are baptized, we are baptized into Christ’s death. It looks so small, but we are drowned under this water, and we—our whole sinful selves—die. The we gather around this table and are offered the body and blood of Christ—the funereal remains of a corpse. We do this every week, and then follow it with coffee hour, like it’s a normal thing to do. Why did we never notice that this is a place reeking of death?
And yet, maybe this isn’t such bad news after all. For if we are indeed dead already, do we need to worry about ourselves? Do we need to be stuck in that desperate need to make sure that our own selfish needs, our own desires and assumptions, get heard? If we are dead, that means we are free of the worries of life and death. There’s this great phrase that shows up in the writings of the early church. They talk about how we don’t need to be afraid of the “second death.” If we have died with Jesus, we cannot die again. We don’t need to be afraid of death, or worry about or own needs. We can use our energies to really listen—to God, each other, and our world—and then use our resources and our energies to make a difference.
Where are we headed? What will happen next? In the news, in my neighborhood, in my own life, there are so many things that are uncertain. Sometimes I am so frightened by it all I can’t even speak. I sit there on the ground by the fence and look out at the world with eyes wide with fear. And Jesus sits down next to us, and begins to talk, and grabs an oversized beach ball (metaphorically speaking, I hope). For God, it’s all about us. Everything is all about us, his beloved. God gave up everything for us—power and glory, even life itself on the cross. If he’d wanted, Jesus could have had his beloved friends seated at his right and his left; but when he came into his glory, those seats were taken by two thieves, who used their dying breath on their crosses to mock him. Everything that Jesus did was all about you. It’s all about you.
So if Jesus’ life was all about you, your life doesn’t have to be about you. You are free to chase after the Holy Spirit’s call, jump into the pool, cannonball if you want, and give and live and love for the sake of the world. It can be a little uncomfortable to give up control that way. But only by living for others are we forced to truly rely on God, and in that is true freedom. When Jesus calls us to serve, he is really showing us that he has already set us free. When we abandon our own selfishness and care first and foremost for the needs of others, we are living in the freedom that God has already accomplished for us in Christ Jesus. When we journey along with Christ, we carry the whole world on our backs, and suddenly find it the lightest load we could bear. When we place ourselves last, we are surprised to find that we are first, and the surprise of it can make us laugh out loud for joy. Because it’s all about you. Which means it’s really not about you at all. It’s all about God, and the way you bring his unbreakable love to the whole world.