Somewhere I have a pop psychology book called the Pain of being Human. Each chapter kind of goes through a different issue. I’m not sure that the advice in the book solves anything; the answers are not memorable anyway. Still, it feels very similar to this 10th Chapter of Mark—more human problems….so many human problems.
The Gospels not only give the backbone of the human and divine characteristics of Jesus, the Gospels even more so perhaps, confront our human foibles, frailty, and brokenness and help us to be, if anything, maybe a little less annoying, and slightly easier to cohabit the earth with our fellow human beings.
What I was most struck with in this Gospel passage is how full people’s lives are with the tediousness of egos. This clearly is not a first world problem, or 21st century problem. This is a human problem. Even if expressed differently across different cultures, it is a pervasive problem.
It’s kind of funny; Matthew also has this particular story, but it’s as if the writer of the Gospel of Matthew is too embarrassed for James and John, the sons of Zebedee, to ask this question of Jesus, and instead has their mother ask Jesus to put them in higher favor. That is kind of funny—even back then there were helicopter moms …
It causes me to wonder. Why do we want to elevate ourselves over others? Why do we think we want to rule? Why do we think we are better? And maybe you are like me, I don’t identify with James and John. Maybe you are like me and inwardly, if not laugh, find it ironic that James and John want to be on the right and left, when we know how the story goes and know that bandits who were also crucified on the right and left. However, who I do identify with are the other ten disciples who get bent out of shape that James and John tried to get favor. Sadly though, here is the kicker, getting bent out of shape is still leading with one’s pride. It’s actually no better than the two who were jockeying to be shown favor. So, why do the ten disciples get angry with James and John? Because they have exactly the same problem. Even if the ten did not want to be in the elevated, they don’t want someone else to be elevated either. Pride and jealousy, they are bad kin to each other.
It probably goes without saying, or I guess it should go without saying, that we can’t/ shouldn’t/ don’t need to become competitive around doing good deeds either, we shouldn’t try to outdo each other’s doing good. Although perhaps it is not a bad problem to have, I suspect that trying to win better favor with God, is probably just as silly as jockeying to be the best disciple.
Jesus’ admonition that the first shall be last and the last first, bears striking resonance with the Isaiah passage. The Isaiah passage is from what is called the Suffering Servant Song. Although there is frequently a supersecessionist tendency between Christianity and Judaism, meaning Christianity reads the Hebrew scriptures through the lens of a supposed Christian superiority, it is particularly striking with this portion of Isaiah. Jews do not read this passage and think “Jesus”, but Christians do. And in fact, large portions of our Advent and Christmas readings are from these portions of Isaiah. It is important to bear in mind that Jesus and his disciples would have known this scroll or book of Isaiah. There is something to being a scapegoat; the concept is deeply rooted in the heritage of our Judeo-Christian faith. Briefly it comes from a long tradition of what literally and what turned metaphorically of loading up the sins on a goat and running the animal out of town. The goat bears the sins out of the community. The Suffering Servant does this. And Jesus does this.
Back to James and John, contrary to what they wish, I don’t think ruling will actually bring joy for a sustained period. It feels instead like it could be another chapter of the Pain of Being Human. So, what is actually going to bring joy in a life? I suspect that being in charge or lording anything over another is an incomplete form of happiness, if we can call it happiness. What is actually going to bring happiness? The joy found in the psalm resonates. Being bound to God because one knows God’s love, this is happiness. It is not necessarily a well-off life, but it is living a life well and completely in the moment.
And here is where this all comes back to loving as the Suffering Servant, loving as Jesus forecasts for us, loving as Jesus, THIS type of living, of loving is MEANING MAKING. Things and ruling don’t matter, but loving others selflessly gives meaning to our lives. It did so before Jesus’s time in the passages from Isaiah, it did so during Jesus’s time, and it does now. When we participate in God’s mission, along the path of God’s ways, then we know God’s love, angels have charge over our lives, and no matter the length of our days, we know God in our days, and that gives our lives all the meaning we need – or at least all we need until we can stand before the throne of God and ask all our burning questions – or, perhaps, discover that our questions, in the end, can simply be let go, as we are gathered into the deeper life of God.
Track 2
Isaiah 53:4-12 Psalm 91:9-16 Hebrews 5:1-10 Mark 10:35-45