To hear an audio version of this sermon click here.
Sermon for October 20, 2024
Pentecost 22 B
Mark 10:35-45; Hebrews 5:1-10
Rev. Karl-John N. Stone
In my family we have two dogs. Hudson is a tri-color coonhound—he kind of looks like a beagle on stilts, and he just turned 7 last week (49 in dog years). Moxie is our three-year-old Mutt with thick golden fur. They get along pretty well, except when it comes to “Fear Of Missing Out”. If one dog gets a Milk Bone, the other comes trotting over as if to say “where’s my milk bone?”. If I pick up a leash to take one of them outside, the other runs to the door just so you know they want to go outside, too. If one of them starts barking at a squirrel, the other one starts barking, too. Neither one ever wants to miss out on what the other one is doing.
People are not that different from animals, it seems. If you’ve ever spent time around children and heard the phrase “That’s not fair!” then you know what I’m talking about. If my little brother gets a bigger slice of cake, a later bed time, or a new toy to play with—regardless of the reason for why they are being treated differently, then “that’s not fair!”. But really, no one is immune to “Fear Of Missing Out”. We can probably all think of things that we feared missing out on, even if it was something we didn’t really need or didn’t fully understand—and this includes the disciples in today’s gospel.
In the verses just before our reading picks up today in Mark 10, Jesus teaches the disciples for the third time how he will be the Messiah: “Look, fellas” Jesus says, “we’re going to make our way to Jerusalem. After we get there, I’m going to be handed over to the religious leaders and they will condemn me to death; then I’ll be handed over to the political leaders and they will mock me, spit upon me, flog me, and kill me; and after three days I will rise again.”
The disciples hear but they don’t understand—or at least they have selective hearing and selective understanding. They latch onto that part about Jesus “rising again” and have an immediate fear of missing out—missing out on their own glory! So James and John, the brash brothers, tell Jesus “we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you…Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory.” Maybe they were thinking back to the Transfiguration, that amazing mountaintop experience, when the prophets Moses and Elijah appeared in dazzling glory next to Jesus, one at his right and one at his left—and James and John wanted that for themselves, even though they didn’t fully understand it. But whatever their motivation, it was directed toward the lure of their own power and privilege.
And when the other ten disciples figured out what James and John were up to, they get angry! Not because of what those brothers were asking for—but because the rest of the disciples didn’t think of it first! They had their own fear of missing out. But it all goes to show, that even though they’ve been following Jesus all this time, they still don’t really understand what it all means, or how they’re supposed to be part of it. They have faith—but at this point their faith is placed more in their own potential for accomplishment than in Jesus and what Jesus wants to accomplish through them.
And so Jesus offers all of them a course correction: “You know that among the Gentiles, those whom they recognize as rulers lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them.” He’s trying to open their eyes to what is so common that maybe they can’t even see it. Just look at the ways of the world around you, and you can see where the lust for personal power and privilege lead. It’s great for the ones who have it, but if they don’t direct that power and privilege toward serving their neighbors, then it doesn’t do any good for anyone else.
Jesus continues: “But it’s not supposed to be that way among you. Whoever wishes to be great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all.” Jesus is describing the way he leads among us, and it’s also his model for anyone else who wants to be a leader—look for someone who serves others. Surrender to God the lust for power and privilege that can become so tempting to grasp for because we’re trying to prove how great we are. Surrender all of that to Jesus and follow him by meeting your neighbor with a willingness to serve them with a humble heart. This is the model Jesus has given us.
Hebrews chapter 5 sheds some light on how Jesus serves us by describing him as a “priest according to the order of Melchizedek.” But what does that even mean? Well, first, to be a priest is not something you take upon yourself. Instead, it is something that God calls you to. If you remember Old Testament history, all the priests came from the tribe of Levi. God had set apart that one tribe to provide the priests for all the other tribes of Israel. But Jesus came from the tribe of Judah. So this was a conundrum back in the earliest days of Christianity. How could Jesus be a priest if he wasn’t a Levite?
To explain it, the writer of the Letter to the Hebrews hearkens back to “the order of Melchizedek.” This was an order of priests who had been around long before any of the tribes of Israel had come into existence. And Melchizedek himself was a priest-king who met Abraham, and blessed him, and offered up bread and wine to God. The order of Melchizedek goes back into the hazy mists of history, and they served God in the earliest days recounted in the Bible. So, because they had no connection to any particular tribe or people, Melchizedek is therefore a priest for all tribes, for all humanity—like God called Jesus to be a priest for all humanity. So that’s the first point about what the “order of Melchizedek” is about.
Second, as a priest Jesus’ job was to “offer up prayers and supplications” on behalf of others. Jesus did this because he has compassion and mercy—he sympathizes with our human frailties and weaknesses, and he carries these to God in prayer to ask for help. Third, being a priest meant that Jesus was obedient to God. He followed the calling God had for him—even when that calling led to the cross—because he trusted and had faith that even in the midst of suffering and despair, somehow God would fulfill the divine purposes—and God did by raising Jesus from the tomb and defeating the power of death forever.
What does this mean for us today? Well, because we have been baptized into Jesus’ death and resurrection, he calls each Christian to follow him as a priesthood of believers. As we follow Jesus in faith, we can let go of whatever “fear of missing out” we may have, because God has something even better in store for us; God wants to lead us into ways of life that are truly life-giving. This comes not by lording over others, but by surrendering ourselves to Christ—through prayer and a humble heart. And he sends the Holy Spirit upon us to deliver us from the ways that the disciples themselves were falling into—ways of trying to control each other, and seeking power and privilege over each other. Instead he leads us into ways of partnership and cooperation.
The Holy Spirit forms us into a priesthood of believers by calling each of us to serve our neighbors with compassion, grace, humility, and love—trusting that by faith in Jesus, he will show us what true greatness is all about. Amen.