Care to Grow Wiser
Mark 10:35-45
James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came forward to him and said to him, ‘Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you.’ And he said to them, ‘What is it you want me to do for you?’ And they said to him, ‘Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory.’ But Jesus said to them, ‘You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?’ They replied, ‘We are able.’ Then Jesus said to them, ‘The cup that I drink you will drink; and with the baptism with which I am baptized, you will be baptized; but to sit at my right hand or at my left is not mine to grant, but it is for those for whom it has been prepared.’
When the ten heard this, they began to be angry with James and John. So Jesus called them and said to them, ‘You know that among the Gentiles those whom they recognize as their rulers lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them. But it is not so among you; but whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all. For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.’
A lot of us probably remember the myth of King Midas—the king blessed and cursed by the power of “the golden touch.” In case you don’t remember, I’ll give a brief refresher: Midas was a king obsessed with material things—obsessed with gold in particular. Though he tried to pretend he was happy with his abundance of riches, he wasn’t. In some versions, the god Dionysius, as a reward, grants him any wish; in another version a mysterious and magical stranger came to him one day, offering to grant him any wish. In all the versions, his wish was that anything he touched would turn to gold. And, in all the versions of this myth, his golden touch has some pretty dark consequences. In one, he nearly starves to death because every piece of food he attempts to eat turns to gold when he comes into contact with it. In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s version, Midas’ beloved daughter comes to him, grieving the loss of fragrance of their garden’s flowers, now that all the roses have been turned to gold. Midas reaches to comfort her, and turns his own daughter into a statue of precious metal.
I thought of this myth when I was discerning this week’s scripture passage, because the cliché that popped into my head in my research was, “be careful what you wish for,” and Midas is the ultimate example of that cliché.
The reason this old saying came to mind is the disciples’ behavior in this passage. We have, yet again, another example of the disciples just not getting it. And this example might be the most egregious yet. You see, what the lectionary passage leaves out, for some strange reason, is the actual beginning of the passage, verses 32-34. In these verses, Jesus foretells his death and resurrection for a third time in the gospel of Mark. And this time, there’s nothing cryptic about it. Jesus does not hold back. In fact, it’s the most straightforward, darkest, and most violent prediction so far—he makes it clear that he will be mocked, spit upon, flogged and killed; and that “…after three days he will rise again.” It’s directly after this graphic and troubling description that James and John say to Jesus, “Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory.” So just to spell this out for you—Jesus gives his disciples some pretty shocking news (though, granted it shouldn’t be too shocking since he’s told them twice before), describes in gruesome detail what will happen to him when they eventually make their way into Jerusalem, and what to James and John do? They ask to sit at his right in left hand, when they enter Jerusalem, apparently having completely ignored what Jesus just said, and assuming when they march into the city, they will be greeted, essentially, as royalty. And James and John want first dibs on those most favored positions under Jesus.
Not only is it insensitive and just odd and oblivious that after Jesus tells them the traumatic future that awaits him, James and John ask to be his favorites, but it’s also foolhardy—because by asking Jesus to let them be on his right and left side, they clearly have no idea what they’re in for. Because think of who really ends up on Jesus’ right and left when the time comes to Jesus to die—two others convicted of crimes, sentenced to death by crucifixion alongside Jesus. Jesus kind of plays along with James and John by asking them if they’re truly able to drink from the same cup as Jesus, to be baptized the same way as Jesus. They say yes, but again—they probably don’t really know what they’re saying yes to.
They’re probably thinking of the cup as we think of the cup when we take communion—the cup of salvation, the cup of victory. And they’re probably thinking of baptism the way we usually think of baptism—a joyful dedication, an exciting commitment to life in Christ. But this is not what Jesus means. The cup also has the connotation of being a burden, of being something traumatic. Throughout the Hebrew Bible, there are many instances of people in very dark times, crying out to God, “take this cup from me!” This is the type of cup Jesus is referring to. And when Jesus is talking about baptism—this is more of a reference to what happens to radicals like John the Baptist—he was executed by the state. Jesus is making it known, albeit in sort of a typically cryptic way, that following in the steps of Jesus is not what the disciples think it is, or what the disciples want it to be. He’s making it known that glory, joy, and victory are not what to expect in the coming days.
So how on earth do these disciples to remain so dense, so hard-headed? Well, when I was giving myself a refresher on the myth of King Midas and the golden touch, I was reading Hawthorne’s version, and at one point, right before Midas makes his fateful wish, Hawthorne writes, “…people always grow more and more foolish, unless they care to grow wiser and wiser.”[i] It takes work, Church, and care to keep up with the strange and difficult call of Jesus. The disciples, in theory, were up for that work, but they weren’t actually quite ready to make the radical moves and changes to their own thinking that Jesus was calling for.
We talked last week about how the disciples were still stuck in the ways of their contemporary, unethical, super competitive, and corrupt society—they were shocked when Jesus tells them that wealth is a curse rather than a blessing. And the week before that, they were shocked when Jesus allowed a lowly child into their midst, and shocked when Jesus made it clear that to enter the Kingdom of God, one must do so as a little child. And here they are, yet again—not shocked, but the only reason they’re not shocked is because they don’t understand the ramifications of what they’re asking for, what they think they want, what they’re volunteering for. They’re being a little too optimistic, a little too naïve. Not only are they being naïve, they’re also, once again, wrapped up in the competition of their day, in the accepted hierarchal systems of their day.
Asking to be on Jesus right and left—that’s asking to be Jesus’ favorites, his second and third in command, essentially. So my reading of this, of the beginning of this passage, is that they were so blinded by their own ambition and apparent need to be at the top, the favorites, that they totally blocked out what Jesus had just told them, and just wanted to make sure that they would be first in line when they time came to take power. And you know, maybe I’m a little too naïve and too trusting, because in my first reading of this, when it’s written, “When [the disciples] heard this, they began to be angry with James and John,” I initially interpreted this to mean that they were mad because of how insensitive and oblivious they were being. But nope—turns out, they were all just as bad as James and John. They were mad because they all wanted to be Jesus’ most favored. They all wanted to be sitting at Jesus’ right hand.
Again, in the words of Nathaniel Hawthorne, “people grow more and more foolish, unless they care to grow wiser and wiser.” Reading this now, it might feel incredibly frustrating that the disciples continue not to get it. But can we really blame them? I think a lot of times, when we hear things we don’t want to hear, we just block it out. I think a lot of times when something doesn’t go the way we’re hoping, we end up in some form of avoidance or denial. I imagine that’s where the disciples were. While they, in theory, loved the things Jesus was preaching—equality, love, tearing down the corrupt systems of power that were subjugating the masses—they were still holding onto the idea that everything would be okay; better than okay actually; they were banking on the fact that they would be triumphant, victorious, that they would be the ones with power now! They weren’t trying to grow wiser because they didn’t yet care to. They were still stuck on the same hierarchal systems of their day; they were just hoping to reverse them. They just wanted to be the ones on top now.
Jesus sometimes gets a little frustrated and a little short with his disciples. But in this case, he remains patient with them. He gently explains, “You know that among the Gentiles those whom they recognize as their rulers lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them. But it is not so among you; but whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all.” In other words, Jesus is saying, the society we live in now is one of tyrants ruling over the less fortunate. It won’t be this way with us. It shouldn’t be this way with anyone. True leaders are servants, working equally and alongside their peers, even alongside their would-be enemies. Jesus then makes it clear that even he, the Son of God, did not come to be served, but to serve.
There’s so much anger in the world right now; some of that of that anger is valid. Things have been really bad for a lot of people for far, far too long. People in power, or people who are scared of change or power-hungry don’t care to grow wiser, and so they grow more foolish, making excuses to hold fast to the status-quo. And those who have been subjugated and oppressed for far too long may be similar to the disciples in that they’re so understandably consumed with passion or righteous anger, they may not realize how difficult the work of change and social justice truly is, and they may enter into it naively; or maybe they simply want a reverse of the current system—they’re just dying to be the ones on top.
Thank God, though, for this community, because I really, truly see a microcosm of the world that Jesus was preaching about and working towards at work in this congregation. Everyone here really does work alongside one another. There’s no jockeying for power, no trying to prove who does the best, who does the most. Everyone here works with such a quiet humility to make this community the best that it can be. It’s really inspiring, and so rare these days. But this is a really special and specific place. And it’s so much harder to do this work and be this way outside of church.
So I hope, going from this service today, that we can all do our best to try to be as we are in church outside this building. We can be the church out in the world. As I’ve said a million times before, this can be he hard. The world outside this building has completely different values than the church does, than Jesus has. They’re values like the ones the disciples were struggling and often failing to rid themselves of; values Jesus had to explain as unethical and wrong over and over and over again. And we have to learn from the disciples’ hastiness and naivety and be thoughtful, intentional and realistic about what it takes and what it means to really follow Jesus—that it won’t always be easy or convenient; that it won’t always feel triumphant. In the prayer of invocation today, which is from a longer prayer by author Sarah Bessey there’s a line I really loved in it in which she makes this request of God: “Don’t let us get away with divorcing our prayers from our politics and policies and practices.”[ii] What a beautiful way of saying, “Loving God, allow us to be the church out in the world, no matter what, now and forever.” So let’s work, Church, to care to grow wiser together—here, there, and everywhere. Amen.
[i] https://www.carnaval.com/kingmidas/kingmidas-hawthorne.htm
[ii] Bessey, Sarah. A Rhythm of Prayer. (New York, Convergent, 2021), p.145
