David Orendorff        Mark 10:32-45        March 22, 2009

This is a take out your Bible sermon.  In chapters 8, 9 and 10 of Mark there is a three act play.  In each act a similar scene gets repeated. Jesus announces his death and resurrection, there is a controversy with or among the disciples, and Jesus teaches both the true nature of being the Christ and the true way of discipleship.

For the first act we look at Mark 8:27-38.  Here (v. 29) Peter correctly declares that Jesus is the Christ, the Messiah.  But after Jesus tells the disciples that he will be betrayed, killed and after three days rise (v. 31), Peter rebukes Jesus (v.32); to die is not Peter’s understanding of Messiah.

Jesus is not the type of Messiah almost universally anticipated among Jews.  For them the Messiah will be the political and military victor, a king over the present forces of evil, namely Rome.  And the Messiah is the one who will also re-establish the full power and authority of the Temple, the church.  For Jesus to die as a criminal is a scandal, as Paul says, to expectations.

Either Peter must deny what Jesus has just said or rethink what Messiah means.  Peter chooses denial.  Jesus calls this Satanic and of humanity, not of God.  Jesus is the messiah exactly because he will be killed.  And the disciples, who lose their life for Jesus’ sake, and for the sake of the good news, will actually be saving their lives.

In the second act, Mark 9:30-37, Jesus again tells the disciples that he will be arrested, killed and after three days he will rise (v. 31).  But the disciples, for a second time don’t understand what he is talking about.  They are arguing over who is greatest (v. 34).  Jesus, both in reference to being the Messiah and being a disciple, says that whoever would be first (greatest) must be a servant to all (v. 35).  Then as a visual lesson he takes a child in his arms and talks about servant hospitality with children being a generous hospitality with God (vs. 36-37).  Christ and the faithful disciples are those who will give radical hospitality to folks generally excluded from polite society.[1]

In the third act, Mark 10:32-45, Jesus again announces his coming death and resurrection (v. 33).  The controversy this time is initiated by a request of the brothers James and John.  They want a favor.  When Jesus comes into his glory, that is, when he is the Messiah in the kingdom of God, might he let them sit at his right and left hand (v. 37)? They still don’t get it.  What they are asking is that when Jesus is made King they would like to be the second in command. They are thinking that God’s kingdom will operate in the same way as the patronage system they know so well.

You remember that the patronage system was and is based on a code of honor and shame.  At meals this code worked so that those with the greatest honor sat at the head table.  Those with lesser honor sat at other tables.  The further you sat from the head table the less your honor. And those with the least honor were excluded from the banquet altogether.   To sit at the right or left hand of Jesus would give James and John authority over everyone but Jesus.

Jesus knows that James and John have no understanding of what they are asking.  First of all what Jesus has to offer is not authority over others but power to serve others.  And in order to have this power James and John must “drink the cup he drinks” and be baptized with the “baptism by which he is baptized.”  Jesus asks them if they are able to do this.  They confidently reply, “We are able.”

But of course they aren’t and in a few days, because they fear dying, they will deny they even know Jesus.  What Jesus also knows is that though they don’t understand, and though they will betray him, there will come a day when they will in fact drink of the same cup and be baptized by the same baptism.  Jesus knows that by the power of the Holy Spirit in them they will be metamorphosed into servants of the least, and too will die and be raised.

Then the other disciples get into it.  They want to sit at the head table; they too want to rise up the corporate/kingdom ladder; they want to have power and authority over others.

In response Jesus draws a direct comparison between the Gentiles (those who are not followers of Abba God) and those who are Jesus’ followers.  The Gentiles have a hierarchical understanding of leadership.  They command all those beneath them.  But the followers of Jesus, who are the followers of Abba, have a servant understanding of leadership.  To be the leader is to be the servant.

And then Jesus gives the reason, the purpose of the drama.  “The son of man (messiah and humanity) came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

By now we either do or don’t get that God is a servant God and that Jesus is a servant Christ.  And hopefully we get that being a disciple is not about authority over others but a power to serve others.

But the ransom angle is a whole new thought.  We usually think of ransom as some kind of fee that is paid to set a kidnap victim or prisoner of war free?  What is Jesus talking about?  The word being translated here as ransom is “lutron.” It is one of those word’s that doesn’t translate well with only one word.  Its root is “luw.”  Luw means to unbind or set free. In reference to your sandals it means to untie them.  In reference to a person it means to “release, deliver, to set free especially from bonds or prison, and so, generally, from difficulty or danger.”[2] A lutron (the noun form of luw) is the means or agent by which someone is set free from whatever prison is theirs, free from whatever suffering or danger would have them. In this passage it means that Jesus the Messiah dies in order to set many free from whatever binds or imprisons them.

What imprisons someone may be a physical or mental illness.  It might be their own failures (the things we call sin), willful ignorance, or wrong headedness.  Their prison might be made by others and forced upon them such as refugee camps, war, or economic recessions.

Jesus is the lutron, the means, by which prisoners are set free.  The good news of Jesus is that the Messiah comes not to be served, but to serve (especially by his death) so that many will have a free and abundant life.  This is why those who accept the grace and Holy Spirit offered by Jesus are free no matter their circumstances.

In his gospel John has Jesus say it this way, “I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.”[3] Likewise Paul writes to the church in Corinth, “Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And all of us … seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being metamorphosed into the same image from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord, the Spirit.”[4]

And so likewise, the good news of the disciples of Jesus is that they have come not to be served but to serve (even by death if necessary) so that others may set free.  From the beginning faithful Christians have given their lives in service for orphans, widows, the poor, the ill, slaves, the oppressed, and those in prison.  Disciples are those who find in trusting God are metamorphosed into persons of radical hospitality.  Disciples are those who in this metamorphosis are given their own freedom, are given rich, meaningful life, and are given life beyond life.

Name the names in your head of those who sacrificed that you might be free.  I suppose the list, for me, might begin with my mother who labored hard that I might be born and with my father continued to labor hard that I might have an abundant life.

Name the names in your head of the great saints who gave the fullness of their life that you and the world might have freedom to live fully alive.  In my list of saints are my wife and family.  I am amazed they stick with me.  My saints are also teachers, pastors, mentors and friends.  They are soldiers and peace keepers, they are nurses and doctors, inventors and philosophers, they are the ones who grow, prepare and serve food to me (and I do love to eat). They are the ones who make my clothes.  They are all those who sacrifice in their life for the shalom of my life. Without those who sacrifice for the good of others the world would be a total hell hole.

Sacrificial servanthood for the good of even an enemy is the purpose and great legacy of Jesus and of all his faithful disciples.  And the wonderful mystery and inverted magic of this sacrifice is that those who make it save their lives. When we give our lives to free others of whatever binds them we are set free of our own bindings.  When we act in lovingkindness, sometimes at personal loss (maybe even especially at times of personal loss) we are being metamorphosed into who God made and sent us to be; we are being disciples of Jesus; and the freedom for which we so deeply hunger, the freedom to be our true selves, comes and there is full and forever joy.  To give ourselves in servant love is to know the present kingdom of God.

To be loving, generous and even sacrificial servants of others is our design, meaning and purpose. Faithful discipleship leads to servant love, both as a gift (grace) from God and our gift (grace) to the world.  Losing our lives for the good news of God’s kingdom saves our lives.  Immersing ourselves in caring for the needs of others, especially the needs of children, the ill, the poor, the imprisoned, whoever are the least regarded and cared for among us, renders our real freedom.  It is a freedom from disease even as we are dying.  It is a freedom from our failures even as we fail.  It is a freedom that transcends any prison this life may hold.  It is a freedom that is abundant life.  It is the metamorphosis of life in the Holy Spirit and it is joyful life.  Thanks be to God.

Shalom and amen.

[2] Greek-English Lexicon, Liddell and Scott, University Press, Oxford, Great Britain, 1976, p. 1068

[3] John 10:10

[4] II Corinthians 3:17-18