Holding onto Hope
22nd October 2006, Parish Communion (Jeff Bailey)
Mark 10:35-45; Hebrews 5:1-10
In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.
One of the things enjoyable for those of us who are Americans living in England is to observe the way British politics works. We especially enjoy observing some of the political intrigue unique to Britain—the kind of smoke-filled, back-room deals that are the stuff of getting things done in politics. We enjoy all of this because, in part, it helps us take our mind off of American politics. One story we find especially thrilling in the UK is about the alleged Granita Pact—whether a secret deal was done one night at a London restaurant between the future Prime Minister and Chancellor as to who would step aside at a certain points in order to let the other have his turn. What makes it all so intriguing, of course, is that no one was there to overhear the conversation, and thus no one appears to truly know the answer to what in fact was said.
What makes today’s lectionary reading from the Gospel of Mark so interesting, therefore, is that the narrator of the story appears to be letting us overhear what has the potential to be a smoke-filled, back-room political conversation between Jesus and a couple of rather ambitious disciples. Jesus and his follower have spent the last several months on what we would have to say is remarkably similar to a campaign trail, doing many of the same things potential political leaders do: giving speeches, announcing plans for a new kind of politics, and engaging in debates with political parties—in this case political parties known as the Pharisees and Saducees.
Now, if that seems a surprising way to describe Jesus’ ministry, we should recall that the life and ministry of Jesus was an inescapably political existence. According to the Gospels, the primary announcement we see Jesus making again and again is to “repent”—that is, change your way of thinking—because “the kingdom of God is at hand.”
Now, we should note that politics in the Middle East in Jesus’ time was not a lot different from politics in the Middle East today. So it is important to remember that the phrase “kingdom of God” did not mean in first-century Palestine what we might understand it to mean today—perhaps as some a kind of ethereal, heavenly, where-you-go-after-you-die kind of realm. No; it meant then, as it always did for the Jews, a concrete social realm in which Yahweh would rule, through a Messianic figure, returning Jerusalem to the kind of stature it had enjoyed centuries earlier when King David sat on the throne, and bringing concrete healing and redemption to the entire world. So to announce “the kingdom of God is at hand” was a bold, provocative, and even dangerous claim—not least when it was announced in the midst of foreign occupation.
Therefore, when Jesus announced this kingdom to the crowds and said, “Follow me!”, most of the people—including Jesus’ disciples—heard one thing: this is a call to political revolution! Their instinctive response was to say, We need to sharpen our swords, because fairly soon we are going to make an attempt overthrow the Roman authorities who have imposed themselves upon us. The time of Israel’s self-rule is once again at hand! The fact that Jesus named 12 disciples, symbolically echoing the 12 Tribes of Israel, only reinforced this perception.
So in our Gospel passage today, when James and John pull Jesus off to the side and say, “Jesus, when you come into your kingdom, let us sit on your left and right hand”, they were not asking to sit on clouds on either side of Jesus in eternity. They were asking to hold central positions of influence in Jesus’ new, revolutionary government that they hoped might be forming in the next few months—or, at the latest, next few years. They were asking for significant positions in Jesus’ cabinet.
Now, before we judge them too harshly, let’s remember that this only makes sense. While we must admit they were ambitious, they were also two of Jesus’ closest friends, and had been with him from the beginning. They were not presuming anything that loyal, qualified people in similar positions today wouldn’t naturally assume.
And yet that’s when, suddenly, the direction of this conversation on which we’re listening in—a conversation which strikes us as instantly familiar and understandable—takes a very different turn.
Jesus rubs his chin and looks at both James and John, and he says: “Do you realize what you’re asking? Can you drink the cup that I’m going to drink? Can you be immersed in the same things in which I’m to be immersed?”
And James and John look at each other, and then at Jesus, and say, “Yes, we can.”
The answer to Jesus’ question must have seemed obvious to them. Can we drink the cup? they were surely asking themselves. If you’re asking us if we’ve got what it takes to make it in this business, if you’re asking us if we’re willing to undergo the tough and bruising battles of politics, or if we’re okay with seeing a few heads role, or if we subscribe to the old adage “if you want to make an omelette you’ve got to break a few eggs”—well, then, Yes, we can drink the cup. Where do we sign up?
But if we’re astute listeners, some of us are beginning to suspect that perhaps James and John don’t actually understand what, in fact, this cup is that Jesus is referring to. Can you drink the cup? Jesus asks. I don’t know, James and John, we might want to say—perhaps you should ask what’s in the cup before you answer? Perhaps we would like James and John to pause for just a moment because we can remember, at some point in our life, when we might have answered Jesus’ question with a similar ease—when we had a certain confidence that we could conquer the world; that we could largely write our own script; that if we just tried hard enough, or worked hard enough, or even prayed hard enough, things would go our way.
The answer that James and John give appears to presume that the secret to success is an act of the will, a simple willingness to “do what it takes”.
And so they have to have been surprised, I think, or at least perplexed, at Jesus’ response. They readily say, “Yes, we can drink the cup!” Yet Jesus responds by saying, “Oh, you will drink the cup. But whether that will bring the results you’re hoping for, it’s not for me to say.”
“It’s not for me to say.” Surely, James and John must have thought, if it’s anyone’s say, it’s Jesus’ say! And yet what they could not fathom at this point in the story is how things were about to unfold.
Jesus is very soon to become the embodiment of the reality that some of the most important things in life come about not when we are in control, or actively making things happen, but actually when we are in a state of powerlessness, when find ourselves unable to make certain things come about. Where what happens is, at the end of the day, not for us to say.
Jesus, we remember, is not far from the point in which he will find circumstances escalating in such a way that he will move out of active ministry only to find himself increasingly restricted, then arrested and isolated from his friends, then suffering, then dying, and finally in the utter powerlessness of a tomb. It is a cup of suffering that, in the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus will plead with God to allow him to avoid.
Our New Testament reading from the book of Hebrews sums it up with some provocative theology: “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…[and] although he was a Son, he learned obedience through what he suffered…” (Heb. 5:7-8)
Jesus moves, in other words, from a life of active obedience, and increasingly into the suffering of passive obedience—a position of prayers, and tears, and the desperate hope that God would eventually save him.
Jesus’ disciples, and not least James and John, would eventually need that kind of hope, too, although they didn’t know it at the time. And, of course, Jesus’ disciples need it today, as well. Most of us have known seasons of active, confident, forward movement in our lives, whether that be in our careers, or family, or friendships. But we also know seasons that, like Jesus, mean barely holding onto hope. Perhaps we find ourselves confronting some kind of loss we are powerless to do anything about; perhaps we come up against some kind of barrier at work, or in a relationship, or with an illness that proves too formidable; perhaps it is simply a set of desires that remain unfulfilled. And we find ourselves drinking a cup that we would not have chosen.
And yet it is in the darkness of those places, sometimes dark as tombs, that the seeds of resurrection are sown. Seeds have to be buried in the darkness of the ground, Jesus once told his disciples, if they are to eventually break forth above ground and bloom.
Several weeks ago I was in New York City for a conference in which various politicians and leading figures in business and the media were present. Gordon Brown was there, Hillary Clinton, Bill Gates, Richard Branson, you name it. It was a gathering absolutely teeming with talent and brilliance and self-made success. But amidst various speakers at the conference, there was one particular person who came on to speak and, when he did, the whole dynamic of the room changed. First everyone wildly applauded, and then they listened to what he had to say with rapt and even reverent attention: It was Nelson Mandela, now nearly 90 years old, yet he spoke with such warmth and enthusiasm. And I found myself reflecting on what brought about such a heartfelt response from everyone there. Is it because of what he accomplished on behalf of South Africa? Surely it is. But the response was apparently even deeper—as though people were responding to the kind of person Nelson Mandela had become, to make it possible to lead in the way that he did. But what was it that turned him into that kind of person—one who could lead with such forgiveness and generosity? Most would say, as would Mandela himself, that it came about in his nearly 30 years in prison, many of them sitting in a jail on Robbens Island.
Now, would that have been a cup Nelson Mandela would have chosen to drink had he known beforehand? Probably not. But it was while he was hidden away in the dark corner of a jail cell on Robbens Island, that small seeds of resurrection grew—seeds which later bore fruit which no one, including Nelson Mandela, could have predicted.
In a few moments we will go forward to receive communion. And when we do so we will, the Church tells us, drink Jesus’ cup. Jesus shares it with us. But we should remember that the cup is not only a cup that shares in Christ’s sufferings; it is a cup that shares in Christ’s resurrection, as well. The smallest sip is able to water seeds buried in the darkest of places. Amen.