I write this reflection, intentionally, on Election Day, with the outcome of the election unknown. It is actually a sermon I wrote a few weeks ago on Mark 10:35, as that Sunday morning was very complex, Nancy was officiating at a burial at Sleepy Hollow and was almost certainly going to be back in time to preach at the 10:00 a.m. service, but I wanted to be prepared in the event she wasn’t. As it turned out, she was back in plenty of time, and she delivered a far better sermon than this writing would have been. Still, this writing may be of some help to us in these times.
The gospel lesson, as you may recall, was this:
James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came forward to Jesus 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.”
The disciples, John and James, have started to internalize Mark’s Great Secret, that Jesus will be crucified, rise after three days, and then go to sit at God’s right hand in glory. They see an opportunity to go and sit at Jesus’s right and left hand, themselves also in glory. Jesus tells them that getting to those chairs is no picnic, and then he has to go and restore unity to the disciples, who are more than annoyed at James and John for trying to gain their own advantage.
These two disciples are sort of like two politicians going to a presidential candidate saying that they should be the Vice President and Secretary of State, and the candidate telling them that it’s difficult work. Most presidents don’t emerge from running the country without their hair turning gray – now I’m not implying that any of the present presidential candidates color their hair, but the point is that it is a very hard job, and I imagine that a president would advise applicants that they will be impeached, threatened, sued, and their families excoriated.
I was at a luncheon downtown on Friday of Consecration Weekend to welcome the then Bishop-Elect Julia Whitworth and the then Presiding Bishop, Michael Curry. Michael Curry spoke eloquently for a time, and he said two things that are applicable to today’s gospel, if not to our time.
The first thing he said was that the complexity of the things that divide us are evidence that the Adversary (that is a capital A) was at work, and the second thing he said was that because of that, no matter the outcome of the election, we all have to go on, we are needed, and we need each other, now more than ever.
That is good advice for disciples, for communities, for congregations, and for nations, and, in fact, for the world. Bishop Julia (consecrated the next day) said that she rejected the economy of scarcity to which we allege the church is subject in these times, and plans for our diocese to provide the presence that Michael Curry called for.
But, meanwhile, back at the disciples, the conversation with the disciples, I think that the symbolism of the disciples sharing that difficult cup, not knowing the outcome, and our common cup that we share in the eucharist, and even the cup that we all share as beings on this earth, is a better foretaste of heaven than the hierarchy that the disciples envisioned and wanted to be a part of. I think that we will all be seated next to Jesus. How can that be? It’s just a small problem of topological mathematics to be solved in common love, and I’m sure that the Divine is up to that task, and I think Jesus indicated this to the disciples and to us, saying that the common cup of life is more common, more shared, and more filled with life if we are all the servants of one another, and believe that heaven is not a game of musical chairs. And if it is, when the music stops, everybody gets a chair.
CJ+