Twenty-First Sunday after Pentecost
- Oct 18, 2015
- 4 min read
Mark 10: 35-45
I’m supposed to talk about the theme of our stewardship campaign this morning,
Look and Be Grateful.
And yet all of this morning’s readings have to do with suffering.
The first reading, words from the prophet Isaiah,
is about someone who knows what it is to experience terrible suffering.
To be unjustly afflicted.
To be numbered with transgressors.
This part of Isaiah’s prophecy is sometimes called
the “song of the suffering servant.”
You might recognize some of the words from Handel’s Messiah
or from Holy Week, which is when we usually hear this reading in church.
Although the Jewish understanding of the suffering servant
is that he represented Israel,
suffering at the hands of Gentile oppressors,
Christians have associated the suffering servant
with Jesus,
One was unjustly afflicted
and numbered with transgressors.
The second reading, from the letter to the Hebrews,
talks about Jesus explicitly.
The writer says that even though Jesus was a high priest,
in the tradition of the high priests of Israel,
he didn’t seek glory for himself.
And even though he was the Son of God,
he didn’t opt out of suffering.
And then there is our Gospel reading,
which has the Jesus’ suffering at its heart.
In the passage just before the story we hear today about James and John,
Jesus tells his disciples
that he is going to suffer.
That he’s going to be handed over to the authorities,
and condemned to death.
That he’ll be mocked, and spat upon,
flogged, and killed.
In fact, this is the third time in Mark’s Gospel that he has
said this to his disciples.
And every time, it makes the disciples increasingly uncomfortable.
You might remember the first time he talks about how
he is going to suffer,
Peter takes him aside, and rebukes him.
No way, Lord! This can’t be!
The second time Jesus speaks of his suffering openly,
Mark says the disciples don’t understand what he means,
and that they’re too afraid to ask.
And judging from today’s Gospel story,
the disciples still don’t get it.
Here Jesus has just told them again about what is coming for him in Jerusalem,
when James and John have the nerve to come up to him,
and ask him to sit on his right and on his left in glory.
Maybe they haven’t been listening to what he’s been saying.
Maybe they’re in denial.
Maybe they just can’t comprehend that the road ahead for Jesus
doesn’t just lead straight to glory,
not before it passes through suffering and death.
And so, Jesus says to them,
do you really even know what you’re asking?
Are you able to drink the cup that I’m going drink?
A cup that includes suffering?
Are you able to be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized?
A baptism that includes death?
I guess can hardly blame the disciples for having a hard time
coming to terms with the whole suffering thing.
or for wanting Jesus to stop talking about it so often.
I can hardly believe them for being in denial either,
and wanting to gloss over the ever-closer reality
their friend and teacher was going to suffer.
If we’re honest,
most of us probably don’t like to talk about suffering too much either,
even when it’s the elephant in the room in our lives
or in the scripture stories we hear in church.
I mean, it’s not like suffering has great curb appeal for attracting new members,
either in Jesus’ time or now!
Seems like a better idea if we keep the mood a little lighter.
If things stay comfortable and comforting.
Maybe we’re there with Jesus’ disciples:
Maybe like Peter, we wish he’d be quiet about suffering.
Or maybe like James and John,
we want him to be a king who reigns in glory on a throne
rather than one who suffers on a cross in between two criminals.
And yet,
it is the news that Jesus suffered
that is also the Good News today.
Because in Jesus, God chose to be with us in a new way.
Not to be far away from us.
But to come close to us.
Not just to be with us in the parts of our lives where everything is fine.
Where everything is polished and shiny.
But to be with us in the hard places.
The ugly places.
The places of suffering and pain and grief.
The Good News today is that in Jesus,
God chose and chooses to live our lives alongside us.
The Good News is that in Jesus,
there is no place in our lives where God isn’t with us,
standing in solidarity with us.
The Good News is that we are part of a community here at St. Peter’s
where we can experience Jesus with us in this way.
Where we experience him close beside us in one another
Where we experience at this altar, in the bread and wine that become his body.
It seems like the perfect response to this Good News
is to Look and Be Grateful.
Amen.
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