There is a wonderful story about the King and Queen of Sweden who were attending the 1980 Olympic Winter Games in Lake Placid, New York. Trying to get into an ice hockey game featuring the Swedish team, they were stopped by the ticket taker because their tickets were for another game on another day. The King said that the correct tickets were in his car and he asked that they be allowed in without the correct tickets: “Could you make an exception for us, please?” he said. “You see, I’m the King of Sweden.”
The ticket taker responded, “Sure you are, and I suppose this is the Queen.”
The King and Queen of Sweden went back to their car to get the correct tickets . . . only to see it being towed away. (1)
I guess it is a little different being the King and Queen of Sweden and being, say, the Queen of England. The job obviously comes with fewer perks.
How about your job? Are you at the place you had hoped to be at this stage of your life? We spend our whole lives pursuing dreams and goals. The aim is to go higher, to become greater. To have more perks, as it were. That is the mark of success. It even affects our families. We want our children to become doctors and lawyers and engineers. Nobody tries to persuade their children to become servants. What?! A servant? But sometimes God’s way confuses man’s wisdom.
In Mark 10, Jesus tells his disciples for the third time about his impending death. “We are going up to Jerusalem,” he said, “and the Son of Man will be delivered over to the chief priests and the teachers of the law. They will condemn him to death and will hand him over to the Gentiles, who will mock him and spit on him, flog him and kill him. Three days later he will rise” (33-34).
Jesus might as well have been speaking a foreign language to his disciples. They just didn’t get it--even two of his closest disciples, James and John. Jesus predicts his death, and they don’t seem to be concerned at all about the suffering he is about to endure. Instead they are still looking after their own selfish interests.
They approach him privately. That tells you something right there. If they were approaching him about something high and noble, they would certainly have done so in front of the other disciples. No-o-o . . . this is a different kind of request.
“Teacher,” they said, “we want you to do for us whatever we ask.”
There’s another red flag. If one of your children came to you and said “Mommy, we want you to do for us whatever we ask,” what would be your reaction? You’d brace yourself, wouldn’t you? This was going to be a doozy.
That was Jesus’ reaction too. “What do you want me to do for you?” he asked.
They replied, “Let one of us sit at your right and the other at your left in your glory.” Ah, so this is the desire of their heart. After hearing Jesus’ teachings and seeing his compassion for the least and the lowest, they are still on a power trip. They want the places of highest honor and authority in Jesus’ Messianic Kingdom which they anticipate he is about to establish. “Let one of us sit at your right and the other at your left in your glory.”
These were positions of authority. Obviously, this is something they had talked about at home in great detail. In Matthew 20 their mother makes this same request in their behalf. She was Salome. Some scholars believe she was a sister of Jesus’ mother and thus Jesus’ aunt. If this is true, then James and John were Jesus’ first cousins and perhaps they hoped that family ties would help their cause. Nepotism is what it’s called, I believe. That never happens in the workplace, does it? Of course it does.
Look how often it happens in politics. Does the name Kennedy ring a bell, or Bush, or Clinton?
Some of you will remember that after winning the 1960 presidential election, President-elect John F. Kennedy appointed his younger brother, Bobby Kennedy, Attorney General. The choice was controversial. After all, Bobby was only 35. He had no experience in any state or federal court. But John Kennedy, ever the quick wit, joked, “I can’t see that it’s wrong to give [Bobby] a little legal experience before he goes out to practice law.” He was going to get a little experience . . . as Attorney General of the United States. Actually the case against Robert Kennedy was a little over-stated. He had already achieved a name for himself as a government lawyer at 35.
But it’s not unusual for someone to try to use family or social ties to get ahead, to cut the line, to be bumped up over someone else who may be more qualified than we are. Our goal is to get ahead. And sometimes we don’t care whose turn it is. In this world, it is survival of the fittest, dog-eat-dog.
John and James wanted to get ahead. They were not simply asking Jesus to be chummy with him and sit close to him. This was not a request for relationship, but one for power. They wanted to be at the top of the pecking order.
“You don’t know what you are asking,” Jesus said. “Can you drink the cup I drink or be baptized with the baptism I am baptized with?”
Jesus wanted them to understand that in his Kingdom positions of power did not come according to family or social connections. It costs to have a place at his table. To ask for a place of honor in his Kingdom is also a request to share in his suffering since the one is a requisite to the other. Paul makes the same point in Romans 8:17: “Now if we are children, then we are heirs--heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory.”
“You don’t know what you are asking,” Jesus said. “Can you drink the cup I drink or be baptized with the baptism I am baptized with?”
“We can,” they answered.
“‘Are ye able?’ said the Master,” goes an old Gospel song, “to be crucified with me? ‘Yea,’ the sturdy dreamers answered, ‘to the death we follow thee.’”
James and John were among those “sturdy dreamers.”
Jesus said to them, “You will drink the cup I drink and be baptized with the baptism I am baptized with, but to sit at my right or left is not for me to grant. These places belong to those for whom they have been prepared.”
Jesus explained that positions of honor in the kingdom were not his to give. Maybe in our generation we would nominate Mother Teresa or Dr. King for those positions. But God has had many worthy servants through the ages, most of whom are unknown to us. Maybe that honor’s reserved for the janitor at your school or business. Who knows? Nevertheless, Christ does indicate that there are places of honor reserved for those who serve him. Never think that your service to Christ is in vain. You will have a place at his banquet table.
Now, it’s interesting what happens next. The other ten disciples become furious when they learn of James and John’s private attempt to gain preferential treatment in Jesus’ Kingdom. We read, “When the ten heard about this, they became indignant with James and John.” Perhaps they were upset--not because they thought James and John’s request was unfair--but because they too harbored those same selfish ambitions.
Isn’t it funny how sometimes we judge others more harshly than we judge ourselves for the same sins? The anger of the other ten disciples may not have been motivated by the injustice of James and John’s request but by their own jealousy.
At this point, Jesus, in order to avert discord among the twelve, calls them together. He begins to reemphasize the meaning of real greatness. He contrasts greatness in this world--positions of power, elegant houses, expensive cars, fat bank accounts--with greatness in God’s kingdom.
“Instead,” says Jesus, “whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”
I don’t have to tell you that service is at the heart of Jesus’ teaching. His incarnation--his coming in human flesh--was a most powerful demonstration of that truth. His death, which he had just predicted, was a demonstration of that. As he himself once put it: “Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” (John 15:13). His washing his disciples’ feet at the last supper was an indication of that. Think of it. The great, matchless God of all the universe stoops down to become a human being and becomes a washer of feet. This is greatness at its zenith! Jesus himself is the supreme example of that which he is calling us to be. In humble, lowly form he came into the world, and it was not so that he could be elevated and made ruler over the Roman world, but to suffer and to die for us. He did not have to do it but he did. He demonstrated greatness in his immaculate service to humanity. And that is what Christ asks out of us.
Years ago, there was a provocative story in Discipleship Journal about Franklin Delano Roosevelt and a man who served him. The man’s name was Harry Hopkins. Hopkins was Roosevelt’s closest adviser during much of his presidency.
During World War II, when his influence with Roosevelt was at its peak, Hopkins held no official Cabinet position. This disturbed many people. And Hopkins became a major political liability to the President.
A political foe once asked Roosevelt, “Why do you keep Hopkins so close to you? You surely realize that people distrust him and resent his influence.”
Roosevelt replied, “Someday you may well be sitting here where I am now as President of the United States. And when you are, you’ll be looking at that door over there and knowing that practically everybody who walks through it wants something out of you. You’ll learn what a lonely job this is, and you’ll discover the need for somebody like Harry Hopkins, who asks for nothing except to serve you.”
It is said that Winston Churchill rated Hopkins as one of the half-dozen most powerful men in the world in the early 1940s. The sole source of Hopkins’ power was his willingness to serve. (2)
Christ is also looking for people whose only desire is to serve him.
Of course, serving Christ means serving those whom Christ loves. In his book, The Jesus Style, Gayle D. Erwin described servanthood this way: “A servant’s job is to do all he can to make life better for others--to free them to be everything they can be. A servant’s first interest is not in himself but others . . . .”
Obviously, most people have no interest in servanthood. One way to avoid feeling guilty over our failure to serve others is to criticize those who do.
Mother Teresa was sometimes challenged about the long-term effects of her humanitarian ministry. For example, she was asked, “Why give people fish to eat instead of teaching them how to fish?”
She had a quick response. “But my people can’t even stand, she said. “They’re sick, crippled, demented. When I have given them fish to eat and they can stand, I’ll turn them over to you and you give them the rod to catch the fish.”
She was quick to emphasize, however, that she gave people more than “fish.” Equally important was that which came from the heart--love and joy. The poor, she insisted, deserve more than just service and dedication: “If our actions are just useful actions that give no joy to the people, our poor people would never be able to rise up to the call which we want them to hear, the call to come closer to God. We want to make them feel that they are loved.” (3)
There are all kinds of ways to serve God’s people, including simple acts of kindness. Of course, sometimes much, much more is required, even acts of courage.
Many of you, no doubt, have seen the movie Schindler’s List. This film chronicled the heroic efforts of a German industrialist named Oskar Schindler. Through his unselfish activities, over a thousand Jews on the trains to Auschwitz were saved.
After Schindler found out what was happening at Auschwitz, he began a systematic effort to save as many Jews as he could. For money, he could buy Jews to work in his factory which was supposed to be a part of the military machine of Germany. On one hand he was buying as many Jews as he could, and on the other hand he was deliberately sabotaging the ammunition produced in his factory. He entered the war as a financially wealthy industrialist; by the end of the war, he was basically financially bankrupt.
When the Germans surrendered, Schindler met with his workers and declared that at midnight they were all free to go. The most emotional scene of the film was when Schindler said good-bye to the financial manager of the plant, a Jew and his good and trusted friend. As he embraces his friend, Schindler sobs and says, “I could have done more.” He looked at his automobile and asked, “Why did I save this? I could have bought 10 Jews with this.”
Taking another small possession he cried, “This would have saved another one. Why didn’t I do more?” (4)
Oskar Schindler had a heart for serving and saving others. This is what true greatness is all about. At the end of the movie many Jews saved by Oskar Schindler are shown placing stones on his burial marker. This is a Jewish tradition--the stones symbolize that the memory of this man will not be blown away by the wind. (5)
No act of service to Christ and to those whom Christ loves will be blown away by the wind. It will never be forgotten.
Jesus asked James and John, “Can you drink the cup I drink or be baptized with the baptism I am baptized with?” A few sentences later he says, “You will drink the cup I drink and be baptized with the baptism I am baptized with, but to sit at my right or left is not for me to grant . . .”
Jesus’ prophecy would come true. Tradition tells us that James was the first apostle to be martyred and John was the last to die after enduring years of persecution. I guess they did not know what they were asking for. But they did not turn back. And thank God they did not, for they played a critical role in continuing Christ’s work. Their service will not be in vain. They do have a place at his great banquet. It might not be at his right or left hand, but they have a place. As will we if we seek Christ’s greatness as well--through service to him and to those whom he loves.
1. Donald J. Sobol, Encyclopedia Brown’s Book of Wacky Sports, p. 104. Cited by David Bruce, The Most Interesting People in Politics and History: 250 Anecdotes (Kindle Edition).
2. Issue 39, 1987.
3. Contributed. Source: Ruth A. Tucker.
4. Contributed. Source: James Forlines, Men’s Beat of Free Will Baptist Foreign Missions, April 1999.
5. Tom Powers, Steven Spielberg: Master Storyteller, p. 101. Cited in David Bruce, 250 Anecdotes About Religion (Kindle Edition).