How many of us here this morning were born BC? By “BC” I mean “Before Cell-phones?” The first cell phone was invented in 1973 by Martin Cooper. My kids were born AC, but I was born BC. In a world of 7 billion people, there are now 5 billion cell phone subscriptions. Pretty amazing for something under 40 years old.
In the last forty years the cyber-cellular age has changed the way we do business, the way we get our education, the way we socialize. The world has never been so closely connected, and there has never been this much immediately accessible information as there is with our new online universe. Each cell phone is almost the equivalent of having the Library of Congress in our hands.
Unfortunately all that easily accessed info has also led to an epidemic of a new kind of crime — identity theft. With just a few bits of our personal information, an online burglar can electronically hijack anyone’s identity and drain bank accounts, take out huge loans, run up mountains of credit card debt. Once your identity is stolen your name is no longer your own. No matter your name, your name is mud.
No wonder one of the fastest growing businesses in the last decade has been the security business, especially “identity security.” Companies like “LifeLock” promise to keep your identity safe from electronic thieves and watchdog all your personal information. If you pay them they will keep a constant eye out for suspicious activity. For a price, your identity will be safely “locked” down.
That is, as long as your “identity” is defined by what you own and what you owe.
But our personal identity is more than a financial history. Who we are is more than a paper trail of purchases and payrolls. Identity thieves may be able to steal our economic life. But our true identity, who we are in this world, should be beyond the grasp of any online bandit.
This has not been a good week for Protestants. The Pew report on religion in America was released, and it revealed that not only are the “Nones” the fastest growing segment of religion in America, with one in five of us claiming no religion, but Protestantism is tanking faster than ever. [Check out http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2012/10/09/survey‑one‑in‑five‑americans‑is‑religiously‑unaffiliated/?hpt=hp_c2] In fact, there is no continent where Protestantism is growing, anywhere.
Protestantism is in the midst of an identity crisis. Has Protestantism so wedded itself to a print culture and Gutenberg mindset that it can’t make the transition to a digital culture and Google mindset?
But the truth of the matter is that all of Christianity is suffering from an identity crisis. Do we know what it means to be a disciple of Jesus? Do we have an identity as Christians?
What is your identity? At the very core of your being, who are you? It’s a core question, since every corporation and every institution that understands these digital times is reinventing itself around “Who we are” and away from “What we sell” or “What we offer.”
In today’s gospel text Jesus is giving his followers a new identity, an identity as his disciples. But despite all he has revealed about the kingdom of God, despite the shocking passion predictions he has declared, his closest chosen companions still don’t get it. While twenty centuries later we might shake our heads and call these guys clueless — the Duh!ciples frankly from the disciple’s perspective it isn’t hard to see how they could get the wrong idea about what their new identity as followers of Jesus might entail.
After all, before the final trip to Jerusalem, before the crowd turned and the cock crowed, before conviction and the cross, being a disciple on-the-road with Jesus was an amazing journey. When Jesus was just an itinerant preacher/prophet/healer/teacher, there was a special status to being one of his traveling companions. Those who were associated with Jesus’ “entourage,” those whom he called his “disciples,” were part of an inner circle in a powerful ministry that was gathering enthusiastic followers from Galilee to Jerusalem.
No wonder that Jesus’ twelve specially chosen companions began to think of themselves as being specially chosen — for greatness. Great things were happening everywhere Jesus went.
Great speeches.
Great healings.
Great crowds.
Great fans.
If Jesus was so great and powerful, why could his chosen followers not also be imbued with some of that greatness? Surely at least some of the disciples must be destined to sit at Jesus’ “right” and “left” hand when he came into his full glory, when he publically claimed his messianic identity.
James and John thought that the path of discipleship, their faithful following of Jesus, would naturally lead them to the celebrated “head table,” to places of honor and rightful recognition in this world. So confident are they about this future that they try to force Jesus to promise that he will save them those places of honor at the table.
Jesus summarily rejects James’ and John’s seating chart. “Headship” is not the true identity of discipleship. The way of the world, the world of head honchos at head tables, was not the way of discipleship.
Disciples are “great” by becoming “servants.” The “first” in a lineup of Jesus’ disciples is the one at the bottom of the heap, the “slave of all.” The world may judge greatness by who’s “on top,” who’s “on first.” But Jesus declares to those who would follow him, in some of the most powerful words of Scripture, “it is not so among you.”
Or as Jesus put it differently elsewhere to his disciples, “What do you more than others.” Others may, but we may not, because we are disciples of Jesus. Others may not, but we may, because we are disciples of Jesus.
Discipleship identity is not defined success or status, wealth or power. Discipleship identity is found in Christ, in following Jesus not just on his miraculous ministry before Jerusalem, but in following Jesus all the way to the cross. In fact, you might even say that discipleship is less about who you are, than whose you are and whom you serve. Jesus is our LifeLock. In him our identity is safe and secure . . . .from all alarm.
Jesus’ disciples live according to different “rules” than does the world. The truth is Jesus’ disciples live according to different “relationships” than does the world.
There is a long-standing tradition of having to pass a quiz at the Pearly Gates. In the more humorous versions St. Peter proctors the test. In the serious versions it is Jesus who actually asks the questions. I don’t really know anything about those Pearly Gates. But my mind often conduct theological reveries on what those questions might be.
Here is my current crib sheet for the Pearly Gates quiz. I have three potential questions, each one an identity question. I invite you to add your own, and get your people to suggest their own candidates.
Question #1:
1) Show me your hands.
Are they dirty and wet? Or did you keep your hands clean? If your hands are clean, the gates refuse to open. The Incarnation means God came down. How far down? All the way down, even to the point where Jesus washed his disciples’ feet, the filthiest parts of the body in the first century mindset. You don’t wash anyone’s feet without getting your hands dirty and wet. Holiness is not keeping your hands clean, but getting your hands dirty and wet in serving those Jesus loves. The mark of a clean heart? Dirty hands.
Question #2:
2) Show me your scars.
Do you have any battle-scars from our mission sorties in the world? Tell me your scar stories. In the words of Canadian composer and lyricist Leonard Cohen, “Children show scars like medals. Lovers use them as a secret to reveal. A scar is what happens when the word is made flesh.”
Question #3:
3) Show me your Facebook friends.
Are all your “friends” just like you? Or do you have friends that don’t look like you, don’t think like you, don’t worship like you, don’t sit where you sit at the table? Or is your Facebook page just one long look in the mirror?
“Not So With You.” The words haunt and hound down through the centuries. We are to be “in” the world but not be “of” the world. We are to be discernible disciples of Jesus who live by the polities and protocols of another world, a world where our identity is secured and protected by our LifeLock Lord.
COMMENTARY
Anyone who has gone through that social maze and emotional gauntlet known as “high school” knows that there is always an established “elite” as well as a definite “out” crowd. In every school system there are the “chosen few” and the untold “unchosen."
This week’s gospel text reveals that the desire to be the cream of the crop has been with humanity for far longer than there has been adolescent slam books. In today’s gospel text we read about the “sons of Zebedee” and yet these disciples of Jesus come across as nothing less than “Mean Girls.”
Biblical historians suggest that the origin of this week’s exchange between James, John and Jesus finds its source in Peter. James, John, and Peter were the unofficial “inner circle” within the Twelve — noticed and present at such momentous events as the Transfiguration. Yet in the exchange in today’s text it appears that “blood is thicker than water.”
The request James and John make of Jesus makes no mention of Peter. The third member of that trio is completely omitted from the request the brothers make to Jesus — not to mention all the other disciples. The “sons of Zebedee” appear to be attempting a post-kingdom “coup,” cutting off all the other disciples, most notably their compatriot Peter, from claiming any special seats in the world-to-come. Since Mark’s gospel only rarely invokes the names of individual speakers, and in this case the connection is so negative, the Petrine source of this scandalous request is hardly far-fetched.
Even before James and John make their “request,” their attitude is audacious. While they address Jesus as “Teacher,” their words are rude, not respectful: “do for us whatever we ask of you.” The brothers want a guarantee from Jesus, before they even articulate what it is they want. And what they want is nothing less than to be the top dog, the head of the class, the peak of the heap, the elite of the elect, the “winners” of the messianic age.
Even as it remains today, the “places of honor” at any gathering of the powerful is at the “head table.” The one who rules, the one who is the “big boss with the hot sauce,” sits at the head of the table. The ones directly to the right and to the left are the next most important figures. The only laudatory iota in James’ and John’s request is that they indirectly at least seem to be acknowledging their faith in Jesus’ upcoming role as Ruling Messiah. Of course they also reveal that even if they believe in who Jesus is, their focus is upon that which Jesus’ status can do to improve their own personal ranking.
Jesus’ response is surprisingly delicate. It is not an outright rebuke, but a gently chiding. He declares that the brothers do not understand for what they are asking — what the “package deal” in discipleship entails. His language of “cup” and “baptism” has specific connotations for post-resurrection Christians — that is, to Mark’s audience, but not, apparently, to Jesus’ pre-crucifixion disciples. Jesus is on his way to Jerusalem, on the path of obedience to the sacrifice he knows is required. Coming immediately upon the heels of Jesus’ third passion prediction (10:32-34), the cost of this obedience and the radically new role of the Messiah makes it clear that the “cup” and the “baptism” Jesus obediently embraces is not a path of greatness and glory.
Although the Zebedee brothers affirm that they will share in the cup and baptism, their initial request reveals that they do so without any insight into the true cost of discipleship. In vs. 39 Jesus informs them that they will, indeed, share in these sacrifices. But twenty-first century readers should remember that he is speaking to his “disciples” about discipleship — not to later Christian martyrs sharing in the role Jesus embraced. Drinking from whatever cup is offered, participating with all those who seek a baptism of repentance, is the role all of Jesus’ disciples are called to live. Jesus affirms their roles as his disciples, not as some glorified messianic groupies.
Jesus also defers the completion of all of God’s plots and plans to . . . God. Enacting his messianic obedience, Jesus announces that seat assignments in the kingdom of heaven are not his to make. Showing traditional Jewish deference to using God’s name, Jesus merely states that these seating arrangements have been entrusted to other hands.
It is little wonder that the audacity of the request made by James and John, and Jesus’ response to their rude request, causes the other disciples to be “angry.” It is hardly unlikely that some of the disciples were angry because they hadn’t thought to ask for these front row seats first. While Jesus did not directly accost James and John, he now takes the time to “summon” (“proskaleonai”) or “call together” all of his disciples to once again try and impress upon them the radically different nature of their discipleship. Those who are recognized as rulers (“hoi dokountes”) in the rest of the world do so by exercising their power over others (“katakyrienien”), literally “lording” over others. This is the accepted way of the world.
But Jesus then offers an about face: “But it is not so among you” (v.43). Jesus’ “not so among you” directive is not to some future oriented age of perfection. It is a call to the missional order his disciples here and now must embrace. The world’s top-down directive is not now, nor ever shall be, the way of Jesus’ disciples. Instead Jesus offers what his listeners may have heard as another “camel through the eye of a needle” bit of hyperbole. But it was not. Jesus declares that to become “great,” a disciple must become a “servant.” Even more ridiculously, he goes on to assert that whoever seeks to be “first” — as did James and John — must become a “slave” (“doulos”) — that is, assume a position even lower than that of a servant (“diakonos”). Only by embracing the very lowest, least esteemed position, can Jesus’ disciples hope to be elevated in the kingdom.
Finally, in today’s text, Jesus clarifies the ultimate distinction between his role and the positions held by his disciples. While James and John, and most likely the other ten disciples, were squabbling over seating arrangements, Jesus was focused on the sacrifice that he faced. Jesus defines the focus of his mission as acting as a “ransom” (Greek “lytron”; Hebrew “kippur;” English “atone for”) for others.
James and John wanted to make their discipleship identity a noun — giving them a place of honor and power. Jesus’ final declaration in today’s text emphasizes that being the Messiah, and being a disciple of the Messiah, is a verb — an action taken. Being a ransom, being a sacrifice, being a servant, even being a slave, these are actions taken on the behalf of others. All of these are identities that are defined by being an active sacrifice for another.