truths about humanity, God, and discipleship: a sermon in the season of creation

Mark 10:35-45

Season of Creation

            What a fitting day to celebrate humankind, as we welcome new and returning students to our community!  When we think about humanity and creation in relationship, it’s easy to rely on the image of humanity being active creators, instead of a more passive creation.  Because to admit that we are indeed created beings, implies a bit of vulnerability and trust in whomever or whatever has created us.  And vulnerability isn’t the easiest thing, is it.  We like the control of creating our own destiny and to be vulnerable is to relinquish a certain level of this control. 

            Perhaps this is also true when we think about Jesus’ call to service, like that in the gospel text for today.  Sometimes it’s easier for us to serve our neighbors than it is allow ourselves to be served.  To be served requires trust, vulnerability, openness, giving up control. To be served requires us to admit that, like our neighbors, we are also in need.  That we also need reconciliation, healing, support, forgiveness, understanding, and love.  And sometimes that is difficult to admit.    

            At first glance the gospel text for today appears to be focused only on our service towards others, but I think if we dig in a bit deeper we might find that it also reveals truths about our own needs and the disposition of God in Christ towards humanity. 

            One thing I love about the gospel of Mark is the way in which the author characterizes the disciples.  Story after story details the clumsy disciples screwing up, asking the wrong questions, sassy comments layered upon gutsy assumptions—They just can’t seem to get it together.  The same thing is true in this today’s specific text.  James and John ask an embarrassing question of Jesus, being rather self-centered and, instead of responding with compassion, the other disciples respond to James and John with anger and, I imagine the scenario in my head, a lot of dirty looks.  I must admit that most times I feel more like these disciples than I do a more wholly perfect, pius, socially acceptable, follower of Christ--constructions we so often times place on what it means to be a disciple.  The disciples of Mark are people I can relate to! They reveal an honest assessment of what life is actually like and in all of their failures, their “just-can’t-get-it-togetherness,” their “face-palms,” Jesus still calls them to be his disciples and leaves them responsible for caring for creation, for serving God’s Children, for creating the Kingdom of God on earth.  This leaves me to think that perhaps Jesus’ interaction with these disciples, people just like us, says less about their inadequacy, and more about the nature of God through Jesus Christ. 

            This is also evidenced in the location of our gospel text for today.  This particular passage on James and John’s inadequacy and the call to service takes place immediately after Jesus foretells his death and resurrection for the third and final time.  In fact, the other two times Jesus describes his soon death and resurrection are also connected to stories of the disciple’s perceived inadequacy and a call to serve. This leads me to believe that Jesus’ death and resurrection has distinct implications for the ways in which we understand service and discipleship and our place within it. 

            If we fast forward from this passage all the way to the end of the gospel of Mark, we read details of Jesus’ cruxifiction, death, and resurrection.  In the final chapter Jesus appears again to his disciples, and commissions them, this imperfect bunch, to go and share the good news.  He conveys that in his name the disciples will be able to proclaim to the world salvation, reconciliation, and healing.  Jesus again calls his disciples to serve, to take part in creating the Kingdom of God on earth.  Jesus calls them to create a new community; a community where the normal hierarchies of this world are non-existent.  The ground at the foot of the cross is level. The Son of Man did not come to serve a few or give his life to a few, good followers—the message of his death and resurrection in which we find validation, empowerment, salvation, healing, it is for everyone to hear. 

            Christ’s death and resurrection meets us, inadequate disciples, at the point where our inadequacies seem too much to bear.  Jesus’ death speaks honestly about the messiness of our world—where people are hungry, abused, lost, and forgotten-- but his resurrection shows us that this messiness is not the way things have to be; that we were made for so much more.  Jesus death frees us from our own inadequacy, helplessness and the fact that we too, like the disciples, just can’t seem to get it together, and places us securely in God’s community, a community where ordinary people are called to mutual service and love of neighbor.  Whenever we inevitably slip into self-doubt about our own ability to create the community that Jesus calls us into, when we say, “I can’t possible do this,” God in Christ has already said “Beloved, yes, together we can, you were created for this.” 

            We are Mark’s disciples.  We are clumsy, our actions often fall short, sometimes we say the wrong things, ask the wrong questions and yet we, too, are called.  We are called to serve and be served, and to love, and take part in what God is doing in our world today--- in our congregation, on our streets, in our communities, in those places that we least expect God to be. 

            Discipleship isn’t about us doing good things and getting a gold star—it’s more about how God equips us to do extraordinary things in Jesus’ name.   Less about the good things we do, and more about the good things God has done for us.

When you are willing to admit the ways in which God has served you, you are better equipped to go out into the world and serve your neighbor.  When God has met you in your deepest needs, you are better able to meet the needs of those around you.  When you begin to understand the way God has been compassionate towards you, you are more prepared to be compassionate towards others. 

            Discipleship starts with what God has done for us, for humanity.  Affirmed, made whole, reconciled, justified, we are sent out into the world to serve our neighbors both close and far.  Sent out to bring this same message of hope to a world that desperately needs it. From this building, Go out and into the world.  Take part in what God is doing.  Serve and be served.  Be a co-creator with God, actively participating in realizing the community of God on Earth.