“WHAT’S IN IT FOR ME?”
Sunday, October 22, 2006
United Lutheran---Red Wing

Mark 10:35-45

Grace to you and peace from our Lord and Savior, Jesus the Christ. Amen. The chief personnel officer of a major commercial airline was describing the difficulty of recruiting and training new employees, especially for jobs requiring the employee to give direct service to the public. He said, “Service is the only thing, really, that we have to sell. But it is the part of the job that is the hardest to teach. Today, no one wants to be thought of as a servant.”

I believe there is truth in that statement. No one wants to be thought of as a servant. Servants get little respect and seem to be the lowest of the low on the totem pole of power and status. As a result, good servants are hard to find. And what about the talk of being a slave? Can’t you just hear the protests? As the spiritual says, “Before I’d be a slave, I’ll be buried in my grave!” A slave is the property of another and under someone else’s domination. Such was the system in numerous states of our land during the pre-Civil War period.

But Jesus' slave/servant image bears no resemblance to that wickedness. Christ calls his disciples to be slaves or servants of goodness/godliness. Christ calls people to be God’s persons in a fallen world. It does present us with a serious problem, because the Gospels express what Jesus’ intentions are for each of us. That is, to live in a servant mode. Is the word of God timeless here or is this an example of where the message is hopelessly out of date?

I suspect it isn’t new within the culture in which we live, but I sense that we are profoundly influenced in society and the marketplace to NOT ask the question, “WHAT CAN I DO FOR YOU?”, but rather “WHAT’S IN IT FOR ME?” It’s easy to slip into an entitlement mindset. It’s not a new question in matters of faith either. It seems to be the concern of James and John in the Gospel for this morning. They have heard Jesus predict, not once, twice, but three times of his impending passion. He says he will be heading to Jerusalem where he will suffer, die, and be buried.

We don’t read that in this morning’s text but if we back up a few verses to verses 32-34, we read: “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; THEY WILL MOCK HIM, SPIT UPON HIM, FLOG HIM, AND KILL HIM; AND AFTER THREE DAYS HE WILL RISE AGAIN.” Three times and after each of the predictions the disciples still don’t get it.

They don’t exactly ask it that way, “What’s in it for me?” They request instead, “Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you!” What they ask for are positions of power once Jesus comes into his Kingdom. Positions of status and honor? They’ve heard him talk about his Kingdom, like a potential ruler/messiah and they want a piece of the action. They want their “just desserts” for following and being loyal to him. Thinking this new kingdom will be similar to the old one, the assumption is that when Jesus comes into power he will sweep away the old cabinet and create from his loyal people a whole new regime.
But wait a minute! Jesus is saying that it doesn’t work that way! The great ones are not going to be the persons of power nor the dignitaries. So, are you sure you want to have the positions you request? Do you really want me to give you what you are asking? Be careful what you wish for! In Jesus words, “Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or to be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?” A strange answer, meaning are you willing to accept the fate and potential destiny? To drink the cup would be to accept the outcome which Jesus himself was about to accept. Namely, his suffering and death! Later in the Garden of Gethsemane as Jesus wrestles in prayer with God, he asks God to remove this “cup of suffering from him”. “Not my will, but yours be done!”

And what about the image of baptism he expressed? He uses it differently that we did in worship this morning at the baptism for Jonas Christian where it is a happy, wonderful event of welcoming a child into the family of faith. He has been washed clean of his sin, named and claimed by God as an inheritor of the kingdom. However, the image of “baptism” in the ancient world was much more dramatic. Not like washing hands, it was to be overwhelmed with water.

Submerged, drowned in the waters of death. He is referring here to his coming death upon the cross.
“Disciples”, Jesus is saying, “do you know what you are asking?” Instead of places of honor and glory it meant to drink the cup of suffering and to be baptized in the waters of death.

Paul in the Letter to the Romans writes: “We are baptized into the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ”. Those words are part of our funeral liturgy and remind us that we will walk in newness of life. One of the early Church Fathers, Thomas a Kempis, wrote in THE IMITATION OF CHRIST...”JESUS HAS MANY LOVERS OF HIS HEAVENLY KINGDOM, BUT FEW FOLLOWERS OF HIS CROSS.”

The question, “WHAT’S IN IT FOR ME?” isn’t new and is still a contemporary challenge in our day. How am I going to benefit? What will be my “rewards” in following Christ? It seems to appear at the heart of our faith journey where the struggle of self and the call to service converge. We want to stay in control, to be rewarded-given privilege. Individually and as the church the “old Adam” stays very much alive with our desire to be served rather than to serve. Those early disciples missed the message for to be with Christ meant sacrifice and could well mean suffering and death. Not a popular message then and not a popular message today. But as Christ goes on to say, “want to be great-be a servant, want to be first-be the slave.”
There follows a crucial word from Christ when he cites this last sentence in the reading for today. “FOR THE SON OF MAN CAME NOT TO BE SERVED BUT TO SERVE, AND TO GIVE HIS LIFE A RANSOM FOR MANY.” The Apostle Paul summarizes the life of Christ in an ancient hymn found in Phillipians 2. “LET THE SAME MIND BE IN YOU THAT WAS IN CHRIST JESUS WHO, THOUGH HE WAS IN THE FORM OF GOD, DID NOT REGARD EQUALITY WITH GOD AS SOMETHING TO BE GRASPED, BUT EMPTIED HIMSELF, TAKING THE FORM OF A SLAVE, BEING BORN IN HUMAN LIKENESS. AND BEING FOUND IN HUMAN FORM, HE HUMBLED HIMSELF AND BECAME OBEDIENT TO THE POINT OF DEATH—EVEN DEATH ON A CROSS.”

James and John failed to grasp the cost to be paid by Jesus’ disciples. They missed the point which isn’t difficult to do. We all want a little ease in our discipleship. We are willing to settle for what Dietrich Bonhoeffer labeled centuries later as “cheap grace”. As an aside, it’s rather ironic that when Jesus was crucified that someone would be on Jesus’ right and left. They were the two thieves-crucified on both sides of Jesus.

As Jesus continued to teach, he repeatedly taught that the marks of true greatness in God’s eyes were not what we have tended to recognize as greatness. Rather greatness seems yoked to serving others in Jesus’ name. Don Juel, in his commentary on the Gospel of Mark writes: “IN THE SHADOW OF THE CROSS WE GET A BRIEF GLIMPSE OF A NEW COMMUNITY IN WHICH RELATIONS ARE NOT GOVERNED BY POWER AND STATUS BUT BY SERVICE AND HOSPITALITY FOR THOSE WITHOUT STATUS—A COMMUNITY IN WHICH THOSE WHO HAVE BEEN RANSOMED LIVE FOR OTHERS.”

Martin Luther once described this ransom as Jesus making a “sweet swap” for us. One pays a ransom in order to set others free. You pay the price to release someone from bondage. Jesus insists that his coming death will be his ransom, his sacrifices, for us. In his death and resurrection he exchanged our fate for his, our sin for his righteousness, his life for our death.

He has provided the means to set us free from the obsession of serving ourselves and the obsession that always seems to ask, “What’s in it for me?”

Barbara and David Sorenson in their recent book, LET THE SERVANT CHURCH
ARISE!, suggest what they call the “Hierarchy of Servanthood”.
*The lowest step is where we are simply unaware of the needs of others. In their lives, it’s all about ME!

*A step up would be those who are aware of the needs of others but opt NOT to serve another. At times it may be because their own needs have not been met with a generous spirit, not learned from generous mentors.

*Then there are those who are aware of needs and actually do serve others, but it’s with an US and THEM mentality. There is generosity in their lives but there is a distancing of those helped who remain “out-there”. Or we serve but it becomes a matter of pride (a sad by product).

*Others, however, grow in service and come to realize that serving others is really US helping US. Here we identify with others in their need and walk with them. Instead of saying, “Let US send some food to THEM in Darfur” it becomes, “Some of US are starving in Darfur and WE can help.” Here life steps beyond self and grows in such a manner that we realize in serving others, we too are healed.

Servanthood is, in fact, a gift of God’s grace where the giving heals us of our nature, our self-centeredness, our preoccupation with our needs. Servanthood is a gift to everyone in this God-given encounter.

I’ve come to believe that this transformation within us, where the focus becomes less and less “What’s in it for me?” and becomes “What can I do for you?” is truly the work of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit working to transform us more and more into the likeness of Christ. Frederick Buechner writes in THE MAGNIFICENT DEFEAT, “WE WANT TO KNOW WHO JESUS IS BEFORE WE FOLLOW HIM, AND THAT IS UNDERSTANDABLE ENOUGH EXCEPT THAT THE TRUTH OF THE MATTER IS THAT IT IS ONLY BY FOLLOWING HIM THAT WE CAN BEGIN TO FIND OUT WHO HE REALLY IS.” We might wait forever for the ideal opportunities and conditions to present themselves for our acts of kindness and service. But we have to “seize the day” and not always be so careful and calculating. Service is an act of courage, an act of boldness, and at times what seems to be the “foolhardy” way to live. A possible prayer for us might be, “Let me have the courage to live fully even when it is risky, vibrantly even when it leads to pain, and spontaneously even when it leads to mistakes.”
“What’s in it for me?” The privilege, the honor, the opportunity to give ourselves away by serving and dying for the sake of the world. Truly the only way to live in Jesus’ kingdom. The heart of a servant is the sanctuary of God.

In a sermon given in 1968, the Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King, Jr. quoted Jesus’ words from Mark 10 about servanthood. He said, “EVERYBODY CAN BE GREAT. EVERYBODY CAN SERVE. YOU DON’T HAVE TO HAVE A COLLEGE DEGREE TO SERVE. YOU DON’T HAVE TO MAKE YOUR SUBJECT AND VERB AGREE TO SERVE. YOU DON’T HAVE TO KNOW ABOUT PLATO AND ARISTOTLE TO SERVE. YOU ONLY NEED A HEART FULL OF GRACE, A SOUL GENERATED BY LOVE.” And where does that come from but from the Jesus who came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit. As it was is in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.

Pastor Clark Cary