EDITOR'S NOTE: In October 2017 I began a new venture as a synodically authorized minister at Faith Lutheran Church in Wolverton, Minn. The ride over the past nearly four years has been an amazing journey of learning, growing and a deepening of my theological mind. This sermon took place on Oct. 17, the 21st Sunday after Pentecost.
This week's gospel: Mark 10:31-45.
31 But many who are first will be last, and the last will be first.”
A Third Time Jesus Foretells His Death and Resurrection
32 They were on the road, going up to Jerusalem, and Jesus was walking ahead of them; they were amazed, and those who followed were afraid. He took the twelve aside again and began to tell them what was to happen to him, 33 saying, “See, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be handed over to the chief priests and the scribes, and they will condemn him to death; then they will hand him over to the Gentiles; 34 they will mock him, and spit upon him, and flog him, and kill him; and after three days he will rise again.”
The Request of James and John
35 James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came forward to him and said to him, “Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you.” 36 And he said to them, “What is it you want me to do for you?” 37 And they said to him, “Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory.” 38 But Jesus said to them, “You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?” 39 They replied, “We are able.” Then Jesus said to them, “The cup that I drink you will drink; and with the baptism with which I am baptized, you will be baptized; 40 but to sit at my right hand or at my left is not mine to grant, but it is for those for whom it has been prepared.”
41 When the ten heard this, they began to be angry with James and John. 42 So Jesus called them and said to them, “You know that among the Gentiles those whom they recognize as their rulers lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them. 43 But it is not so among you; but whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, 44 and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all. 45 For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.”
The message:
One night last weekend, one of the very first weekends in a long, long time that I had been home, Shelley pointed at me and said, "We're going to your basement, and we're cleaning that thing out because there's going to be people here for ordination."
Now, you have to understand that I have collected a lot of stuff over the past few months, and the basement is kind of my dwelling. That's where she allows me to have all my "man stuff." And there has been quite a collection of stuff that had amassed in my bar/lounge downstairs. And so, we went to tackle it, and one of the things that was down there was a collection of boxes that my sister-in-law had brought to me at Carter's graduation, way back in June. So, this kind of gives you a picture into our lives recently.
The boxes were full of stuff that had belonged to my eldest brother. You may remember that my oldest brother passed last summer after a long battle with cancer. My brother had been the historical archiver of the family. And so my sister-in-law passed much of that onto me.
As I went through those boxes, I found a historical trove of stuff from all the way back to my grandparents and some from my parents. Stuff that I had never known existed. Some of the other things that I found in there just reinforced the awe I have for my oldest brother. There were cancelled checks in there from 25 and 30 years ago that had paid my grandmother's rent. In the final years that she was living, she had depended on the railroad pension of her husband, and it wasn't much. So in her later years, my grandmother was living off her very very small Social Security allotment, and unannounced to all the rest of our family, my oldest brother had been paying her rent. I saw in there cancelled checks for when my grandmother had passed and the funeral expenses that he had taken care of on behalf of my mom for her mother. ... And the discoveries went on and on. I learned of all of these things that my brother had done, and that that none of us had ever known.
When we were going through the process of my brother's death, his family had asked me to participate in the worship service. And so this week as I was going through those historical records, it dawned on me just how much service to our family that my brother had done in secrecy. Finding all of those documents reminded me of when I was pulling together his obituary, a process in which I discovered just how professionally accomplished that he was.
He was in education, and he was a superintendent of schools here in Minnesota for more than 30 years, in addition to the teaching years that he had spent before that. And when I was writing his obit last year, it reminded me that he was known throughout the state, and even beyond, for his career in education. He earned his bachelor's degree in teaching in 1976 at Bemidji State, and then several years later, he ended up earning two master's degree in education. One from Saint Cloud State and one from Bemidji State at the very same time; he completed both degrees at the same time. Not long after receiving those degrees, he was hired at the school that he was working at in Laporte, Minn., as the superintendent. At the time, some 32 or 33 years old, he was one of the youngest superintendents ever hired in the state of Minnesota. He served there for 10 years and then, in 1993 he moved to Sauk Centre, Minn., where he would take the superintendent's job there and serve another 23 years.
During all of those years, Dan was active in various professional education organizations, both on the state and national level. In 2007-08, Dan was elected as president's elect of the Minnesota Association of School Administrators and served as its president for the next two years, and then as it's past president for two more years after that. In July 2011, Dan was voted to the governing board of the American Association of School Administrators, where he served for more than 20 years on a national level.
During all of this time, for 17 years, Dan was also an adjunct professor in education at St. Cloud State University, and probably his crowning achievement was that in 1991 and 1992, he was selected nationally to participate in the Bush Fellowship for educators in which he spent time overseas both in Japan and in Turkey.
This is the stuff I learned about Dan, while compiling my brother's life in an obituary. To anyone's standards, he was a true leader in education in our state and beyond. And I had only learned of all of this last summer when I was writing this obituary.
But, despite as much as all of that made me proud of my brother, it was what happened over the coming weeks and months after his death that sticks with me today. And it was the going through of that box and seeing those receipts and the service that he had done for our family in private. It reminded me of the stories that flooded in last summer. Stories that make me want to live up to a life of service that might be a fraction of what his life of service was.
Because as news of Dan's death spread throughout the state, you have to remember that this was the middle of COVID, and we were allowed only a limited funeral service. So all of the people that he had touched weren't able to come to Sauk Centre last summer to celebrate Dan's life.
So the stories started to flood in through emails and letters and texts and phone calls. And my sister-in-law, Teri, started to receive so messages about the impact that my brother had had on people's lives. And so many of the stories were never ever revealed while he was living. For instance, we soon learned that as hard as Dan worked at his professional career that was visible to everybody, he worked even harder at serving people in ways that no one ever knew about.
One of the stories that sticks with me, in fact makes me tingle even today, is the one about a single father that knew Dan from the community, and knew that he was the superintendent. He came to Dan begging for help. The single father had gone through a messy divorce and lived just across the street from the school in Sauk Centre. He told Dan he was in a pickle. His job required that he had to leave very early in the morning. But he had two sons that were on the cusp of being dropped through the cracks, and he was very worried about his kids. But he knew that he couldn't be there in the morning for them, to get them up, get them ready, and get them off to school. And so he came to Dan asking if there was somebody there at the school who would go over in the morning and just wake those kids up and get them ready for school?
Now, one would think that this isn't the superintendent's concern. ... After all, he had some 5,000 other students to worry about, in addition to bus routes and sports schedules and building bonds, you name it.
But, we found out after the funeral from the two kids who were now adults, that it turned out that my brother took it upon himself to go across the street in the mornings, wake the kids up, get them something to eat, and then get them off to school. ... Day after day, the superintendent of schools, who generally left home early in the morning himself, would take time out of his busy mornings to cross the streets and get those two boys ready for school. And he had never told anyone about it
Then, there was another story that Teri heard after Dan's death. It turns out that there was this teacher that he had worked a long time with who was at a very low point in his life. There were some problems at home, and he was separated. And there was a phone call in which he intimated that he might be considering a very terrible option to end his life. In minutes, Dan was in the car and headed to St. Cloud, 30 miles away, to intervene in the situation.
After Dan's funeral service last summer, that former colleague let my sister-in-law know about the great deed that Dan did that day, and that it turned his life around. Another example of service to someone in dire need that Dan never talked about. ... Service to others.
"For the son of man came not to be served but to serve and to give his life a ransom for many." ... That was in our gospel text today.
Like James and John, the sons of Zebedee, in today's text, those two brothers are no different than many of us today. This earthly world has convinced us about this obsession with power, about who's No. 1, about who is the boss, about who gets to make the decisions, about who is going to sit at the right and left of Jesus. ... And yet, even as Christians, most of us rarely understand what it means to be a leader ... also, just like James and John in today's text.
That is what inspired me most about the stories that I relived this week about my brother's service. All stories that we learned about after his passing. Sure, as the superintendent of a school district, Dan did possess a lot of power. He was a leader who oversaw the health and safety of some 5,000 students and hundreds of teachers, staffs, coaches, and bus drivers. And some of the sparring matches he had with his school board over the years were legendary.
But what it really meant to be a leader to Dan was going across the street to wake up a couple of boys and get them ready for school so that their single father could still get to work on time. ... He didn't delegate that duty to a subordinate. He never ever told a soul about his service to that family. He just put those kids first in his responsibilities. Day after day. ... He wasn't worried about whether or not the act was going to get him a seat next to Jesus, either the left or right side.
Jesus says in our gospel today, "but whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant. And whoever wishes to be first among you, must be slave to all. For the son of man came not to be served, but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many."
This is such a challenging message for all of us, isn't it? We're constantly bombarded by messages from society that we are the most important person on this earth. ... Me. Who is here to serve me? ... How can I get richer? ... What is in this for me if I help this person? ... How do I acquire more power? ... How do I get to sit next to Jesus?
Because this is exactly what the brothers, James, and John are asking of Jesus when they ask him, "Grant us to sit, one at your right hand, and one at your left in your glory." ... In other words, "Hey, Jesus, look at us righteous followers. We've been with you throughout your whole ministry and doing the good work and helping people, going without the luxuries while we serve you. Surely, we deserve this honor, this recognition, this power. Surely, we deserve the privilege of sitting by your side for all of the world to see."
But Jesus, frankly, is dumbfounded by their request. ... Because you may remember from the text, that just immediately prior to this utterly astounding request from James and John, they had been walking on the road to Jerusalem. And during this walk, Jesus had explained to the disciples in full detail what his future held in store for him and what it meant to be the Messiah, or our savior.
Do you remember that text? ... " See, we are going to Jerusalem and the Son of Man will be handed over to the chief priests and scribes and they will condemn him to death. Then, they will hand over to the Gentiles. They will mock him and spit upon him and flock him and kill him."
James and John ... this is what it means to follow in the footsteps of Jesus. That is what it means to be the one who was sent here to lead. It means the practice of selflessly giving yourself up to place others before you despite knowing the tragic future that awaits you. Jesus bluntly tells them that in their worldly fascination with power, with recognition, with getting their just desserts, they have no clue what it means to lead. ... Because they have no clue what it means to serve.
Again, from our text, "You do not know what you are asking," Jesus tells James and John. "All you silly, silly disciples! ... Didn't you just hear what I was explaining to you back on that road? You think you're worthy of sitting to the right and left of me? ... What you're worried about is what you are getting out of this life, or what you are getting for following me, what is it that you will receive from somebody else?"
Well, Jesus tells James and John, that selfishness has nothing to do with leading and it has nothing to do with leading a life as a follower of Christ. ... And Jesus is absolutely pointing his finger directly at James and John and saying, "Look, being a Christian isn't about what you receive for your belief. Being a disciple of Christ, or being a leader, or being powerful, isn't about what others can do for you. Being a disciple, or a leader, or being powerful is about serving others. ... You want to be great? You must first be a servant of all. You want to be first? You must be last. ... You must first be a slave of all."
That might be a very hard message for us to hear today. ... Society tells us from our earliest ages that it's all about me. How do I get to the front of the pack? How do I earn the most money? How do I drive the nicest car? What are other people going to do to serve me? And Jesus's painful message to James and John who are so absurdly worried about getting to sit on either side of Jesus -- just minutes after he told them how he was going to be crucified -- Jesus' message is, "If you want to follow me it's not an easy road, and it's never about rewards."
"The cup that I drink, you will drink, and with the baptism with which I am baptized, you will be baptized but to sit at my right hand or left is not mine to bring but it's for those for whom it has been prepared."
Faith Family, Jesus is not only speaking to James and John here in this text; he's very pointedly speaking to us as well. He is bluntly telling us that if being Christian, if following in his footsteps is all about us, if it is all about what recognition or spoils we can get in this life, then we too are missing the point. Just like James and John are missing the point.
But luckily for us, Jesus tells us the correct way to follow him: "For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve. And give his life a ransom for many."
Faith Family, forget what the messages the world has told us over and over. Today, resolve to go forth to serve the many and forget about whether you get to sit at Jesus's right or left hand. That was never the point of following Christ anyway!
And that is the Good News for this Sunday, Oct. 17, the 21st Sunday after Pentecost. ... Amen.
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