The last few weeks we’ve been following along with Jesus as he tries to correct the disciples (and other’s) perceptions of who he is and of how others ought to proceed if they wish to become his students or followers. Again and again we’ve heard this message: to follow me is not to be the first according to the world’s standards. It’s not about being powerful or in control and it’s especially not about getting your way, no matter how stubborn or frankly, how much of a temper tantrum you want to throw.
Last week we heard that the reason for this is simply that our capacity to do the will of God perfectly is limited. We see, as St. Paul says to us, only through a glass darkly. We are so arrogant in our ignorance; that is, in presuming total comprehension of the breadth and depth not only of other people’s lives and of other events, but of the limitations of our own perspectives and biases. On top of that, we simply don’t have the lifespan to understand how all of the events that take place affect people and events through time. We are limited, or in more technical terms, we are finite. We are also sinners. No matter how hard we try, no matter how good we try to be i.e. to follow the law, we are caught up in events and relationships that, along with our limited understanding and knowledge prevent us from being able to see and do God’s will.
Thanks be to God for coming into the world; for sending his Son Jesus Christ to become one of us, to live with us, to go so far as to offer his life up to us, to our own faulty judgment of him and of our own circumstances, to offer himself for our sakes, as our reading from Hebrews puts it: “In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to the one who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverent submission. Although he was a Son, he learned obedience through what he suffered, and having been made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him.”
I remember when I first heard these words as a new Christian: “Jesus was heard BECAUSE of his reverent submission … he learned obedience through what he suffered.” I just couldn’t make sense of how God himself - for that’s who Jesus is - could be God and still submit to human beings given our ongoing sin, which is nothing but rejection of God. And why did God need to learn obedience through suffering? The first thing, one of my professors said to me when I asked, is that this confirms Jesus’s identity as God. How so, I asked. Well read this passage from Isaiah my professor said. God himself told us through the Israelites how he would show up when he came to us: “Surely he has borne our infirmities and carried our diseases, yet we accounted him stricken, struck down by God, and afflicted … he poured out himself to death and was numbered with the transgressors, yet he bore the sin of many and made intercession for the transgressors.
Through the whole of the OT Scriptures God tells us who he is and what his life will be like when he shows up in the world. He promises to never again drown the world in their own sinful ways, or allow them to be enslaved in their sins and he won’t do this with war or violence, but instead he will come and give his life so that others might have his divine life as we see in Abraham’s willingness to give his son Issac and God’s answer of providing the sacrifice, his own son, the lamb of God, instead.
And so you would expect that when John and James, Jesus’s disciples, encounter him, they would grasp the basics: this Jesus - the Son of God - will not enter the world as a domineering tyrant with violent military force. He will not value those who step on or over other people to get what they want. He will not hear the prayer of those who are stubborn, who close off their listening and their ability to observe, pay attention and truly engage with other people. God comes into the world instead as a servant of other people; not as one who coerces others to conform to what he wants; but instead, as one who comes alongside people - takes on their own sufferings, their own life struggles, their own temptations, challenges, fears, anxieties, joys, dreams, and hopes, so that in his very human, very everyday physical life, they can see themselves in this God-man Jesus.
Knowing that James and John, and the rest of the disciples who feel just as you and I might - insecure, jealous, frustrated - are constantly battling to secure ourselves Jesus says, “if you want to secure yourself what must you do? Until you are willing to bear the difficult load of loving others whom it is not so easy to love, those who get things wrong, those with whom you disagree, until you are willing to let go of your insecurities and your demands that others conform to your expectations and your striving to stave off your frustrations and insecurities by always claiming you are right, you are first, that you know what is at God’s right hand, until you let go of these things you will remain a tyrant in your own microcosmic social sphere. Seek first the kingdom of God, Jesus says again this week. To truly follow Jesus, you have to let go and allow God’s own life, revealed in Jesus, to work through you for the sake of others. Whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all. For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many." AMEN
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