Sunday Homily - October 21st 2018 - Asking for the Best Thing
The Apostles James and John, Sons of Zebedee Icon
I.
Her mom,
working at her computer on a presentation for work the next day,
raises her eyebrows and says,
“Uh… Whatcha want?”
Leslie interjects,
“Okay, but you have to promise that you will actually do it, okay?”
Her Mom,
even more skeptical than before responds sarcastically,
“That’s really going to depend
on what you are asking for, miss.”
“But Mom,
please please just promise?” Says Leslie.
Mom sits there,
going through all of the possible things
that Leslie could possibly be asking for….
And with a little bit of a smirk, she says dryly,
“What do ya want?”
Leslie shuffles her feet in excitement, and blurts out:
“My friends are going to the big Trans Siberian Orchestra Winter Concert
this weekend and you have have have to let me go too,
because remember how you said you love love love
Trans Siberian Orchestra?
I mean, wouldn’t you want me to love
them too?”
Mom starts laughing.
Leslie got her.
Flawless logic, right?
“Don’t you want me to love the music
that you love, Mom?”
Leslie’s mom opens her budget spreadsheet,
takes a studious look at the finances,
and smiles a defeated, but happy, smile.
“You had better be back before midnight.”
Leslie squeals, and immediately dashes from the room
and picks up her phone to text her friends of the happy news
when her Mom calls after her,
“I mean it, hun! You better be back by midnight,
or next time TSO comes, I’m going on
my own and leaving you!
I’m serious!”
Mom laughs to herself and says,
“Well, that’s what I get for blabbing about my love of music.”
-----
Has anyone else here had a similar conversation with your kids
or grandkids as Leslie's Mom did in this story?
Even better, maybe YOU were Leslie in this story,
strong-arming your parents or grandparents
or step-mom and dad
into getting something you wanted?
Each of us probably has a great story behind one of these instances.
One where your kids, grandkids, or maybe even YOU
walked up to someone and said,
“Okay, you have to PROMISE to do something
for me.”
Well, guess what?
Even Jesus had this happen to him
under maybe not so unfamiliar circumstances
as we may find out.
II.
Let’s just get it out there:
It is really hard to read the first part of today’s Gospel
without chuckling to yourself just a little.
James and John walk right up to Jesus,
and they go,
“Teacher, we want you to do for us
whatever we ask of you.”
I would imagine that this may in fact be the closest Jesus ever got
to being the parent of a teenager at this point.
I’m imagining Jesus, just like Leslie’s mom,
has all of the possible things that James and John would want
going through his head at the moment,
and I think he probably chuckled to himself too.
Jesus then stops the work he was doing,
looks up over his proverbial computer screen
and with a raised eyebrow responds,
“Whatcha boys want?”
And then James and John say something very very interesting:
“Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left,
in your glory.”
Jesus, knowing full well what that is going to entail,
responds like we have heard this morning:
“Y’all don’t know what you are asking! Are you able
to go through what it takes to get there?”
And James and John respond, I think, courageously:
“Yes, we are able.”
And Jesus, in a sense,
grants some of their request.
James and John will in fact
drink the cup that Jesus must
and be baptized with that same baptism.
But in no way did James and John really know
what they were about to sign up for.
Because, as we know on this side of the story,
the cup that Jesus was about to drink
that baptism that Jesus in which Jesus was baptized
was his sacrificial death on the cross.
Jesus baptism and his cup,
the cup "that on the night before he died for us" he drank,
was the shedding of his own blood
for our sins.
James and John were indeed martyred for the faith,
baptized into the death of Jesus.
But just as Jesus was raised from the dead,
so also do all who die in Christ
rise again into his glory.
But to sit at Jesus’s right hand and his left,
was only for those whom God prepared it for.
And if y’all remember when Jesus was lifted on the cross,
there were two others crucified alongside him,
one on his right,
and one on his left.
[this theological connection was made for me by the reflection
of a seasoned priest from the Diocese of Arkansas]
Because when Jesus was lifted on the cross,
those places reserved for the glory of Christ our King
ended up being those two lowly thieves on their crosses.
And their places in Christ’s sacrificial glory
is that place of honor
in which the most dishonorable death
became the very symbol
of our Christian hope - the Holy and Life-giving Cross.
James and John didn’t ask something of Jesus
that was out of accordance with God’s will necessarily.
Rather, they asked a sincere question
without really knowing what they were asking.
And sure, the other disciples were angry with them
for putting themselves out there and asking for seats of honor.
But Jesus, knowing that his Passion and Resurrection
were going to take place a few short months
from then,
GRANTS a different
more accurate request.
He grants their request to drink his cup, to be baptized in his baptism,
which meant, for James and John, that they would in fact
walk that same narrow road as Jesus,
giving up their lives for the Gospel
and yet gaining that glory of eternal life
through their own death.
They didn’t get what they thought they wanted,
but instead they received that which was good and holy,
even though they didn’t know what they were asking for.
III.
and rather God gives us something that is good for us.
How often to we ask for the things we think will be good for us,
when in fact our Father In Heaven knows
all those things that are BEST for us?
How many times can we get caught up in asking for
that new car,
that new house,
that financial safety,
that retirement fund’s maturity,
that orchestra concert,
that person to come to know Christ,
that one thing to happen to your church to make it grow,
that when God answers your request
in a new and holy way,
we sometimes don’t even recognize it
because it isn’t what we expected.
What if we treated those defeated expectations of God not as failures
but as God’s way of showing us what is BEST for us?
What if what is BEST for us isn’t what the world wants?
What if the BEST thing for us isn’t
power,
prestige,
success,
security,
but rather, what if the BEST thing for us
is the holiness of life
found in the baptism of Christ
and the in cup he drank?
What if the BEST thing for us was summed up in these commandments:
"You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart,
all your soul, all your mind, all your strength,
and the Second is like it: you shall love your neighbor as yourself.
There is no commandment greater than these."
[para. the Greatest Commandment in Mark’s Gospel]
Friends, brothers and sisters,
don’t work for the things of life that result in competition
or domination of other people.
After all, the rulers of our world LOVE domination
that seductive temptation of climbing the ladder
to success at the expense of others.
But, friends, it must not be so among us.
Rather, we are called to so give up our secular desires to God
to so give up our passions
that distort our vision and love of God,
that we actually put on Christ,
and become his hands and feet in the world.
For the sake of our neighbors,
our sacred and holy duty as followers of Jesus
is to do what our title “Christian” actually means:
to be “little Christs” for the GOOD of the world.
To so live into the baptism of Christ
that our identity is then wrapped up in the sacred life of God.
And then we in turn become reservoirs of God’s love
for the world, which those who are thirsty
can come and drink deeply and freely.
Be so molded into the life of Jesus,
that we can all say together that same thing that Jesus told us
in our Gospel this morning:
“For the Son of Man came to serve,
not to be served.
And to give his life as a ransom for many.”
[Mark 10:45 NRSV]
In the name + of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
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