Two of Jesus’ apostles, two brothers in fact, have a lead role in today’s gospel. It’s not the first time we have met James and John, the sons of Zebedee, in Mark’s Gospel nor will it be the last. In chapter 1 of Mark, when Jesus called them to be his disciples, they were fishing on the Sea of Galilee. Upon his call, they immediately, perhaps impulsively, drop everything to follow Jesus, leaving their father Zebedee in the very boat they had just been fishing in.
James and John seem to be part of an inner circle within the larger group of the Twelve. In chapter 5, Jesus allows James and John, along with Peter, to witnesses the raising of Jairus’ daughter. In chapter 3, it is James and John, also with Peter who witness the Transfiguration, when upon a mountaintop Jesus is transformed into a brilliant being clothed in dazzling white conversing with Moses and Elijah, when a voice from heaven declares that Jesus is in fact the son of God. James and John, again with Peter, and this time with Andrew, again on a mountain, this time the Mount of Olives, take Jesus aside and question him about the apocalyptic allusions and predictions he’s been making. And in response, Jesus gives them an earful.
James and John seem to have a special status within the Twelve, they are witnesses to revelations of Jesus’ power, witnesses to Jesus’ special relationship to the prophets of old and to God the Father, they ask and receive a somewhat private revelation of what the immediate future holds for Jesus and for themselves.
It is in the passage about the Transfiguration that we learn that James and John have a nickname given them by Jesus. He refers to them as Boanerges, which means Sons of Thunder.
I think we can infer from their behavior and from the nickname Jesus gives them, that James and John are a bit pushier than the other disciples. They’re a little bit more in your face. We see this in their questioning of Jesus on the Mount of Olives, and we see it in our gospel passage today. James and John aren’t wall flowers. They aren’t about to sit quietly and let things happen. They want to be part of the action. They want to know what’s shaking, what’s coming down. And when it’s all said and done, they’d like their reward, they’d like a confirmation of the special status they feel they have, that they feel they deserve. James and John want to know what’s what and they’d like to know what’s in it for them.
I imagine that James and John could navigate the clogged aisles of Fairway on a Saturday morning, no problem. And I’ll bet they could make their way quite successfully onto a crowded #2 train at 72nd Street during the Monday morning rush hour. They can make themselves heard at a community board hearing. And they’re probably a shoo-in for co-chairs of the co-op board. James and John would make excellent Upper West Siders. They could make here in our neighborhood, where as we know, it is the strong that thrive.
In today’s gospel, James and John have cooked up a pretty good plan, and they run it up the Judean flag pole to see who they can get to salute it. They tell Jesus that they’ve got some seating arrangements to discuss with him, involving specifically the seat on his right hand and the seat on his left. Jesus defers on the issue of seating, but he tells them that everything that is coming his way will also come their way. We who know how the story ends, know just how bitter will be the cup that Jesus and James and John will drink and just how brutal the baptism in martyr’s blood will be. John disappears from the post-gospel narrative, but James, we know from the Acts of the Apostles, did indeed join Jesus in a martyr’s sacrifice, the only one of the Twelve who’s martyrdom is recorded in Scripture.
Part of what today’s gospel has to teach us is to be careful what you ask for – don’t ask “What’s in it for me?” or you might find out what’s in it for you, and you might not like it.
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On Sunday, February 4th, 1968, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. preached a sermon on this very text at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, Georgia. Dr. King spoke of James and John’s request of Jesus, and he spoke of the psychoanalyst Alfred Adler. Dr. King agreed with Adler that the quest for recognition, the desire for special attention, this desire for distinction is the basic impulse, the basic drive of human life. Dr. King named it “The Drum Major Instinct.” That impulse we all have to jump out in front of the crowd, to lead the great parade with the blaring band at our backs, under our direction.
In that great Baptist style, Dr. King listed the many examples of the Drum Major Instinct run amok: living beyond one’s means, seeking out titles and honorifics, self-aggrandizement, narcissism.
“Every now and then I guess we all think realistically … that something that we call death. We all think about it. And every now and then I think about my own death and I think about my own funeral. And I don't think of it in a morbid sense. And every now and then I ask myself, "What is it that I would want said?" And I leave the word to you this morning.
If any of you are around when I have to meet my day, I don’t want a long funeral. And if you get somebody to deliver the eulogy, tell them not to talk too long… Tell them not to mention that I have a Nobel Peace Prize—that isn’t important. Tell them not to mention that I have three or four hundred other awards—that’s not important. Tell them not to mention where I went to school.
I'd like somebody to mention that day that Martin Luther King, Jr., tried to give his life serving others. I'd like for somebody to say that day that Martin Luther King, Jr., tried to love somebody. I want you to say that day that I tried to be right on the war question. I want you to be able to say that day that I did try to feed the hungry. And I want you to be able to say that day that I did try in my life to clothe those who were naked. I want you to say on that day that I did try in my life to visit those who were in prison. I want you to say that I tried to love and serve humanity.
Yes, if you want to say that I was a drum major, say that I was a drum major for justice. Say that I was a drum major for peace. I was a drum major for righteousness. And all of the other shallow things will not matter. I won't have any money to leave behind. I won't have the fine and luxurious things of life to leave behind. But I just want to leave a committed life behind. And that's all want to say.”
Two months later to the day, Martin Luther King, Jr. was felled by an assassin’s bullet at 6:01pm on a Thursday evening, just about 5 or 6 miles from where my mom and dad and my brother and me were sitting down to dinner. A recording of his sermon on James and John and the Drum Major Instinct was played at his funeral -- Dr. King proved to be his own eulogist.
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Our passage from Isaiah this morning is one that we might recognize from another somber day. This passage is one of four in Isaiah that comprise the Suffering Servant songs -- and it is read on Good Friday. When we read this passage on that day we commemorate our Lord’s crucifixion, we see in it the end of the sacrificial system, we see the end of violence for God’s sake, for salvation’s sake.
Jesus makes the ultimate sacrifice, the sacrifice that guarantees for all of us that, like his death, ours will be but a gateway to eternal life.
But I’d like to reread a few passages from the fourth Suffering Servant song this morning again, and I’d like you to think not of Jesus, but of Martin Luther King, Jr.
“By a perversion of justice he was taken away. Who could have imagined his future? For he was cut off from the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people… Although he had done no violence, and there was no deceit in his mouth. Through him, the will of the Lord will prosper… The righteous one, my servant, shall make many righteous… Therefore I will allot him a portion with the great… because he poured out himself to death…”
Sometimes the words of Scripture can seem very far off, antiquated, not really appropriate to our present time, to the way we live out our faith now. We live in a different world than did Jesus and his disciples; we live in a different world than the Jerusalem of Isaiah’s day. It is our right and our responsibility to find God’s will for us today, to discern what God is calling us to do in our time.
But then there are places in the Scripture when there is no denying what is God’s call to us. “Whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, and who ever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all. For the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve…” Seems pretty clear to me.
We might fudge a bit with the “Sell all your goods and follow me” from last week’s gospel; we might cut a few corners with that divorce edict from our gospel a few weeks ago. There are other places where we come closer to hewing to the spirit rather than the letter of God’s word to us. And we do the best we can.
But this morning I bring before you Martin Luther King’s words and his life as a reminder that even in our time, even in our day, there are those who can and do live and die in ways that are indisputably Christ-like, and holy. There are women and men in our time who live out the call that Scripture makes to us it such a way that it seems as if the ancient words were written just yesterday, written to describe sacrifices and service that we know, that we have been witnesses to.
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Chances are you and I will keep elbowing our way onto the #2 train, and hogging the microphone at the community board meeting. We’ll be typical Upper West Siders on most days, and if our neighbors are being particularly benign, they might nickname us ‘sons and daughters of thunder’. Chances are they’ll call us much worse.
And that’s OK, because as our reading from Hebrews this morning reminds us in, Jesus, the son of God… we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who in every respect has been tested as we are… And we all know that there is no test of one’s character like Fairway on a Saturday morning.
But let us also remember that there have been, and I fear will be again, those who lives too closely resemble the sacrifice made for us by Jesus… Let us not forget that for our transgressions as a people, as a country, as Christians; that for our transgressions and shortcomings as sisters and brothers of all humanity, others do suffer and sometimes die…
So when we are called to service to others, when we’re asked to pack lunches for our Brown Bag program – or when that envelope comes in the mail asking for $25 or even $50 to help feed a hungry child – when that sometimes too needy friend presses for more of our attention, let us offer our time and treasure and talents unbegrudgingly, willingly and with a thankful heart.
Chances are that you and I will be asked to make what are in fact small sacrifices; we will be called to engage in what are in fact simple, fairly straightforward services to others. Such is likely to be the cup that we will be called to drink from, such is the baptism of sacrifice that we will undergo. Maybe not enough to be counted among the great, except in the opinions of our neighbors and friends whom we have loved, and who have loved us.
But let us respond to those smaller calls to service with joy and with willingness. And let us give thanks to God for those who are called to do much more than we, those whose righteousness helps many others to be righteous and who answer the call to make the ultimate sacrifice for our sakes, and to the Glory of God. Amen+
© The Rev. Mark R. Collins
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