Sunday, 20 October 2024: Isaiah 53:4-12, Hebrews 5: 1-10 and Mark 10:35-45
Will you do something for me, please? It’s a slightly softer spin on the question asked of Jesus by James and John: ‘we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you.’
Perhaps you find it easy to ask for what you want, to express what is needed; or perhaps it’s something you keep buried out of fear of rejection one way or another.
It’s the kind of question that is both self-revealing and an invitation to know what is going on for the other person. Sometimes it can be demanding or lazy, but at best it is testing out trust and commitment. Will you do something expressing hopes or practical needs, signalling our interdependence.
Some of you might have read the novel The Notebook - or more likely, seen the 2004 film adaptation. In it, Noah and Allie confront differences in class, wealth and parental expectations amongst other things. He has acknowledged that their relationship is going to be something that they will have to work at every day.
He then asks her: ‘Will you do something for me, please? Just picture your life for me? 30 years from now, 40 years from now? What’s it look like?’
It’s risky, honest and self-revealing. The question ‘will you do something for me, please?’ is rooted in his love for her, but also gives her agency, freedom and space to imagine consequences and choices. Without too much of a spoiler, the question leads to a life of vulnerability and joy, arguments and compassion; lives lived in love and carrying the memory of the other.
It’s easy to take offence at James and John - just as the disciples did - because they had the boldness to ask Jesus for something, to name what they wanted. Jesus doesn’t dismiss that. Instead he invites them to be specific and draws them into taking responsibility, to embrace hard consequences and to reimagine life lived with him.
Like Peter and the other disciples, James and John had heard Jesus talk about his own suffering and death; talk of resurrection might have been beyond their frame of reference. But nevertheless they trust him. They put their faith in him.
It seems as if they have got to the point where they cannot imagine a future apart from their teacher. All that he has said and done - acts of compassion and challenge, indeed his very character - is so profoundly attractive to them that they want to mould their life around it. Their hopes are rooted in Jesus.
James and John are ambitious. In part for themselves - angering the other disciples. But if we look closely at the conversation, they’re also kinda ambitious for what God is doing. On the basis of what they have witnessed, they fully expect Jesus to be glorified - that in him, God’s reign of justice, mercy and peace comes a little closer.
What Jesus goes on to do is unpack for all the disciples something of the way in which the world might be remade or renewed. He redirects their ambition in the service of his definition of greatness and leadership. Through lives of service, he wants them and us to open to grace, love and change.
Jesus deconstructs the world’s way of thinking about what we strive for and how we behave. It is a reversal which nudges us to strive for God’s kingdom - to want it and hope for it. Laying aside fears of disappointment or failure or even rejection, we are to put our lives at the disposal of God’s ways of love.
James and John might need a bit of redirection but their confidence is admirable. Yes it might be a bit selfish and naive, but they engage. They ask Jesus for what is on their hearts because they are close to him.
Maybe you have a mental list of friends and family you’d pick up the phone to - without worrying that they might be too busy to help. Our human relationships at their best are rooted in that practical familiarity of love. Those who’ll not reject us despite our quirks; those who are there for us despite being a pain sometimes; those who know us at our worst but also bring out the best in us (as the fictional Noah and Ally demonstrate).
James and John encourage us to be ourselves before God too. To know we are loved, to be honest about what’s on our heart; to be prepared to be challenged; to know that we will be changed.
One of the things that is challenged and changed for James and John is their sense of entitlement. They want prestige and position by association; they want to lay claim to something without cost.
Jesus’ response models the expectation he has of his followers. He doesn’t make a demand, he extends an invitation. He asks them to picture their life with him - now and in the future. He speaks of being drawn into something more and describes that in terms of service.
Service is not about entitlement but steadfast love.
Service upends all that we associate with power and influence, leadership and achievement: the social media influencer versus the soup kitchen volunteer; the tech guru versus the friend sharing a cuppa; the billionaire versus the aid worker.
Greatness is reimagined as service: it is a path of gift and love; of risk and compassion. Such service is not self-protection or self-advancement. It is about our deepest longings for justice and the patient work of repairing, building and renewing - our relationships, our institutions, our communities.
Dare we imagine, want and strive for the renewing of creation itself?
It is too easy to slip into a counsel of despair, of scarcity and futility; but we have a choice - to seek glory by asking for what we want or by asking what we can do for others?
We do that not in our own confidence or strength but because ultimately Jesus has already given his life as a ransom for many. We get hints in our other readings today about what that looks like.
First in Isaiah, we are reminded that power and privilege lie at the heart of our brokenness. It is a text written to communities who’ve suffered loss and destruction at the hands of other forces. Despite that humiliation, the prophet and people sought to remain faithful to God.
We read this passage through the lens of Jesus: the servant who suffers for all - taking on iniquity, afflictions and suffering. The one who is our servant king: hands that flung stars into space, to cruel nails surrendered.
Suffering is sometimes as a direct result of human actions - the interplay of human greed and ambition, the desire to be vindicated or to control resources. Whilst we might chase after wealth and status, power and influence, the heart of God aches at the injustice and pain. God chooses to be with us - chooses to be a servant of all.
If power and greed, violence and privilege can cause so much harm, Jesus leaves us with the invitation to reimagine the world on a different basis. To share good news in the face of suffering - or in the words of today’s anthem ‘if ye love me’ we are to keep the commandments.
That text is part of Jesus’ prayer for us: that there will be another comforter - the holy spirit - to be with us forever as our strength and guide, advocate and breathe. The one who leads us into all truth.
Jesus prays for us still - his life and death undoing the harm of our transgressions, our going astray; his new life healing our wounds, and the afflictions of those we injure; bringing light that we might be drawn into a right relationship.
The writer to the Hebrews focuses on this ongoing offering of prayer by Jesus - cries of the heart for all those in anguish, the desire for humanity to know salvation; the cries that we might be strengthened to serve in our own contexts - embodying the life of God’s kingdom, seeking peace within a kinder and more just society.
Will you do something for me?
If ye love me keep my commandments.
As we eat and drink at our Lord’s table, as we find forgiveness, peace and blessing in this place.
He calls us now to follow Him
To bring our lives as a daily offering
Of worship to The Servant King.
