A Sermon in Sheffield

October 21, 2018
St. Mark’s Sheffield England
Mark 10: 35-45
The Rev. Canon Marianne Wells Borg

(Note: for those who read my November 14 sermon given in St. Louis, there is duplicate material here.)

“Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you.”
“What is it you want me to do for you?”
“Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory.”

The Teachings of Jesus

Even after traveling with Jesus and watching him with others, seeing how his presence seemed to change the very molecules of those who came near him, reordered them and set them aright, even after hearing his teachings albeit inscrutable sometimes (they weren’t straight forward but rather evocative), even after hearing Jesus proclaim a kingdom of God in sharp contrast to the ordering of the kingdom of empire in their day, the disciples could not imagine a social and economic and religious world other than the one they had so deeply internalized.

They assumed that when this Kingdom of God Jesus spoke of took hold they would rise up to the status of ruling and religious elites and sit at the places of power, next to Jesus. This is what James and John wanted Jesus to confirm.

A quick picture of the first century world: it was structured hierarchically, defined by strict social boundaries; everything and everyone had its place. Those who defined the social order were the religious and ruling elites and they defined the world for their own benefit and were dedicated to preserving it.

A Rigged System

The system was rigged in favor of the righteous rich. Who has not heard “the righteous shall prosper” being blessed by God. The rich were getting richer. And the poor? Well, the poor will always be with us. But the systemic injustice of Jesus’ day and the seductive power of claiming God’s imprimatur made for an intolerable system for the massive underclass.

To borrow from poet William Butler Yeats: The world “was falling apart. The center could not hold, mere anarchy was loosed upon the world, the blood-dimmed tide was loosed, and everywhere the ceremony of innocence was drowned; the best lacked all conviction, while the worst were full of passionate intensity.”

Yeats wrote this in 1919. But he might as well have been describing the first century. Or our own for that matter.

Is There Another Way?

But Jesus did not see domination systems as inevitable. He insisted there was another way. A better way. And we know that way. It is deep within us. We have the capacity and desire to care for one another. Because we recognize our shared humanity. But when a system dehumanizes, it blinds us to our better instincts and numbs us into a kind of self-forgetting and makes us compliant.

Jesus envisioned a world as if through the eyes of God, as if through the heart of God. He understood from his own tradition that God is compassion. And that we, animated by God’s very presence, are to compassionate as God is compassionate. We have it in us. We are capable of empathy, we can identify with another, and will do our best to do something to help those who are wearied by suffering and the accumulation of grief. We are all aware of our mortal coil, the troubles of daily life, and the strife and suffering of the world.

And we have the capacity to face into those sufferings and courageously take them on. Jesus insisted that the way God cares for human history is in and through us. And that our deepest self is hard wired for compassion. Jesus evoked compassion from those he encountered. And so can we.

At the end of our reading this morning Mark writes “the son of man came not to be served by to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.” The term Son of Man is another of saying Human Being. Mark may be having Jesus self reference here or by saying the son of man he may be referring to all of us. When he says the son of man is to serve, I suggest Mark is saying, we are to be compassionate. Not lord it over.

Liberation

And the word ransom translated from the Greek Lutron means to liberate. For us to be compassionate is to give our life in ways that will liberate many.

Jesus lived such a life. And we are to do the same.

Be compassionate. Compassion does not judge nor discriminate. It is not partial. And Jesus claimed God isn’t either. What do we make of that?

A New Vision

James and John could not image a social structure different from the one they so deeply internalized. Conventional wisdom, conventional because it seeks to secure the conventions of the day, conventional wisdom says that systemic change that challenges the order of the day cannot be done. And that’s just what conventional wisdom wants you to think. That’s one of its functions: to numb us into a kind of collective paralysis where we don’t bother to act for another vision. Because we don’t think it’s possible.

So the disciples seemed incapable of imaging another world, another way, a different kind of “kingdom.” They could only see themselves sitting in recognized positions of power. As “new players” in the same structure. As if that would be enough to make the world a better place.

Mark brilliantly frames this story with two others. In the first story, people bring to Jesus a man from Bethsaida. They too want Jesus to do something for them. They beg Jesus to touch this man and help him see. Gradually this man overcomes his blindness. And comes to see clearly.

The second story, immediately after the story we heard today, is about a blind beggar from Jericho, Bartimaeus. He too asks of Jesus, implores him, “Have compassion on me.” Jesus asks him the same question he asked his own disciples: “What do you want me to do for you?” And Bartimaeus says, “Help me see again.” A far cry from what James and John asked. Bartimaeus recovers his sight and as Mark tells the story he then follows Jesus on the way. And “on the way,” as you know, is short hand for the way of the Kingdom of God.

Seeing Light Again

For both the man from Bethsaida and Bartimaeus what seemed impossible was not. Light filled their world that before only knew darkness. Jesus helped them see what they could not before. And it changed their lives and their sense of world.

James and John are the blind ones in this story of Mark’s. My hunch is Mark’s own community some 40 years after Jesus’ execution were also blind to the call and claim and possibility of the kingdom of God in their day.

I wonder how this story speaks to us.

Mary Oliver says “Oh to see beyond times brittle drift, shaken out of sleep, rubbing our eyes, (the veil parting) like tissue on some vast incredible gift.” The gift that is our life, our life together. The remarkable fact of our existence; our place and responsibility for the family of things.

To take Jesus seriously as HG Wells puts it “is to enter a strange and alarming life,” a different life, to abandon habits and habitual thinking, to engage our imagination anew and “essay an incredible happiness.”

We can author a different narrative; we have a different wisdom than convention. We can secure a human future and a world that can sustain it if we but realize our agency, engage our creativity that can shape a new life, and then see anew. We can do this. But we must make haste. It is late. But it is not too late.