Sermon
10-21-18
Grace to you and peace from
God our creator and from our Lord and Savior Jesus the Christ, by the power of
the Holy Spirit, Amen.
“Be careful what you wish
for”… ever hear that phrase?… we’ve all heard stories – or maybe even lived our
own experiences – where the things that we thought we wanted turned out to not
be so great after all.
A week ago, I watched the movie Coraline with friend’s
daughter. The movie told the story of a girl – named Coraline – who was unhappy
that she had just moved with her parents to a new apartment in a new town. She
missed her friends, her parents were too busy to spend time with her, and the
residents of the other apartments seemed pretty weird. She discovers a magical
parallel universe – as you do – that was just like hers… ONLY BETTER. Or at
least, it seemed so at first. Soon she realized that her “other mother” was
actually a giant spider who wanted to eat her, and she had to save her real
parents and get out of the magical world before they were trapped there
forever. And when she got back to her own world, Coraline knew that it wasn’t
always perfect, but her parents loved her, and she was starting to make
friends, and her current situation was not all that bad.
What if you discovered a magical world were all your dreams came true? What
would that world be like? Or what if you, like so many stories, found a magical
object or a supernatural person who would grand you a wish? What would YOU wish for?
Sadly, we don’t live in these
kind of stories, but sometimes it fun to imagine what it would be like if we
won the lottery… or we suddenly looked like a movie star…. Or we became famous
and were invited to speak on Oprah….
It might sound kind of out
there, but in a way, James and John may have felt as though they had stumbled
into one of these stories. They had been following a man who so far had been
doing AMAZING things – healing people from their illnesses, casting out unclean
spirits, walking on water, feeding thousands of people with just a little
bread, teaching about God’s coming kingdom, and flouting the authority of those
in power to set up this kingdom’s emergence. And THESE two – just two sons of a
fisherman – got to be a part of this
man’s inner circle! This was THEIR ticket to be SOMEBODY when the world
told them they were NOBODIES. They had won the lottery! They had ARRIVED!
They were on their way to
Jerusalem, and they thought Jesus was going there to be crowned a king. But
actually, Jesus was going to Jerusalem to die. Jesus had just told his
disciples in the verses prior to this, the third prediction of his crucifixion.
Jesus said, “See, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be
handed over to the chief priests and the scribes, and they will condemn him to
death; then they will hand him over to the Gentiles; they
will mock him, and spit upon him, and flog him, and kill him; and after three
days he will rise again.”
But all John and James heard
must have been something like “Bla Bla going to Jerusalem … bla bla after 3
days he will rise again.”
They must have thought that
THIS was their chance to ask for prime spots in the new regime. The left hand
and right hand of the ruler where reserved for only the next most powerful
people, below the king. It wasn’t enough, apparently, that Jesus had chosen them to be part of his inner circle of
twelve. It wasn’t enough, apparently, for the privilege to follow him and hear
his most exclusive teachings. They wished to have more. But, as they say, “be
careful what you wish for.” They wished for Jesus’ baptism and cup, and they
were going to get in, but not in the way they thought.
They asked to be able to do what Jesus did… and they missed
the fact that Jesus was going to suffer and die. So, Jesus grant them there
wish.
If you remember the last
time you went to a baptism, you might have heard the pastor talking about how
we have died with Christ in his death, and we are raised with Christ in his
resurrection. In Luther’s Small Catechism, he writes that baptism “signifies
that the old person with all sins and evil desires is to be drowned and die
daily…. And … that daily a new person is to rise up to live before God…” When
Jesus refers to his baptism, he is not talking about they day he was in the
river with John the Baptist. He’s talking about his upcoming death.
Likewise, in the garden of
Gethsemane, Jesus prays that the cup
might pass from him… not a cup of fine
wine with jewel befitting a king, but the cup that Jesus is to drink from is
his suffering and death. Jesus drank from this cup, handed himself over to
those in power, was handed over to death, tortured and mocked, and finally hung
on a cross. Two people WERE on Jesus’ right and left hands…. But they were not
James and John. They also were criminals condemned to death.
Who THEY thought Jesus was,
didn’t match up with who Jesus actually IS. Silly James and John, weren’t they
listening to Jesus all those times when he very explicitly talked about who he
was, and what he was going to be going through? How many times have they heard
some variation of “the first shall be last and the last shall be first”? Or
“the son of man came to serve, not be served?”
We know that James and John
DID get PART of what they wanted… after Jesus’s death and resurrection, they
went on to proclaim the coming of his kingdom, and they did give their lives
for it – they drank the same cup and were baptized with the same baptism. It
wasn’t what they THOUGHT they were going to get… but by then it probably didn’t
matter, because they finally “got it.” – they finally got what Jesus IS all
about.
Well, what does Jesus say
about himself? That he came to serve the last and the least, to be a help to
the people who the rest of the world has forgotten and cast aside. He was
first, but he made himself last.
John and James wanted to be
Jesus’ favorite disciples… but Jesus doesn’t have favorite disciples. We can’t be loved by God MORE by being
somehow BETTER. WE are ENOUGH. YOU are ENOUGH. And you are loved.
So, who is Jesus for YOU?
(Have you ever thought about that question?) Who is Jesus for you…. And What
would we have Jesus DO for US? Who is Jesus for Family of God? And what do we
want Jesus to do for us, this faith community? I have a feeling that we might
THINK we know what we want or need … but it might NOT be what is actually best
for us, in this time and place.
Some days it is easy to wish to be more like churches
down the street and nearby… with their
“bustling” children’s programming, or with their multi-media worship
“experiences,” or remarkable music programs, or with huge new buildings.
But we’re not them. And we
shouldn’t wish to BE them. We are US. We have so much to offer the community –
an entire community that welcomes children, members who are passionate about
feeding people in need, people who take care of one another, families who step
up when there is a need. Maybe what we DO have is enough, at least for now, at
least as a place to start.
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