Scripture text: Isaiah 53:4-12, Mark 10:35-45
Last Sunday, I talked about the rich young man and how he, like all of us, has something he just can’t give up in order to fulfill the demands of the law and earn eternal life. His wealth stood in the way, but I argued that we all have something that we will not surrender. We all have something that we will not give up.
The image that’s been stuck in my mind of this dynamic all this week is that of the conspiracy theory. Talk about people who will not surrender. Ever try to argue with an anti-vaxxer? Ever talk to a 9/11 Truther? Ever try to convince someone that our President was, in fact, born in this country when they don’t believe it? Talk about an exercise in futility.
Underlying every conspiracy theory is the idea that someone, somewhere, is in control of this crazy world. People who believe this stuff take comfort in the idea that there is a plan and that the way history is unfolding is according to a design, even if it is the design of a nefarious cabal of lizard people named Rothchilde.
Control. That’s really what we want. Our idols, whatever they might be, give us control. They give us control over our lives, our environment, other people, or all three. Or perhaps more accurately, they give us the illusion of control. Regardless, control is what matters. It’s our greatest desire and it has been since Eve first heard the serpent’s temptation. “Eat this and you will be like God.” Eat this and you will be in charge. Eat this and you can call the shots.
The church is hardly immune to this insidious desire. Every pastor (and more than a few folks in the pews) has a story about a choir director or an altar guild person or a church treasurer or someone else who decided that the congregation was their little fiefdom and they were lord of the manor. God help you if you crossed them. From pulpits in these prosperity Gospel churches, people are going to hear that if you just believe hard enough and pray hard enough, God is going to make you wealthy, popular, and successful beyond your wildest dreams. And, of course, with wealth, popularity, and success comes power. The power to control.
And then there’s James and John. “Hey, Jesus, make us to sit at your right and and your left in your kingdom.” They want the places of honor. They want the places of power. They want control in Christ’s kingdom. The other disciples are infuriated with them. Why? Because they want those spots too. They all want control.
For many, the Church is a means to an end. It is an avenue for personal aggrandizement. There are those who come to these pews expecting God to make of them a king, to give them power over themselves and others, to remake the world in their image and according to their desires. It’s been a problem in the pews of churches since day one. Behind every internet meme that says we should put prayer back in school is the desire for control. Behind all the talk of us being a “Christian nation” is the desire for control. Behind all the saber rattling towards countries whose majority religion is something other than Christianity (or our “kind” of Christianity) is the desire for control.
And nothing could be more antithetical to who are we are meant to be as Christians.
It’s not about control. It’s about service. It’s not about us. It’s about them. It’s not about self-aggrandizement or get-rich-quick or atta-boys. It’s about sacrifice. It’s not about winning. It’s about surrendering.
If we look to Jesus, this could not be more clear. “The Son of Man came not to be served but to serve and to give his life a ransom for many.” He declares boldly to the quarreling disciples. Here is the Son of God, the one perfectly obedient to the Father. Here’s the one who believes more than enough, who prays hard enough, the one to whom the whole world could rightly be handed to him on a silver platter and what does he do? He shakes his head no.
It’s not about control. It’s about service and sacrifice. “Let us sit at your right hand and your left.” Jesus responds to their request with a question of his own. “Do you even know what you are asking?” They don’t, because who is it that sits in those places when the moment of glory comes? It’s the two thieves, dying on the crosses next to him. Dying alongside the Son of Man as he gives his life a ransom for all.
This is what it means to be Christian. Not the strutting arrogance of what we see so often in the media, of self-appointed Christian kings who see the faith as a means to power and control. Perhaps no better counterexample is what we are going to do today. Today is our Healing Service in honor of the Feast of St. Luke. Today we come forward not in ego and arrogance, but in humility. Asking Christ’s grace and aid against those things we cannot control. Calling for healing and restoration, not power.
And what happens here we are to take forth into the world around us. Our calling as Christians is to help heal the world, to follow in the footsteps of Jesus; to do, insofar as we are able, as he did. We are here to change lives, not beat them into submission. We are here to preserve life, not dominate it. We are here to give and give and give, so that others may have enough.
We are to be that because that is who Christ is. That’s what he does. He surrenders his power and control to be the sacrifice we could never be. He gives up everything to die on a cross, to take on our iniquities and our failures. He lets go of the control that rightly could be his for your sake and mine, so that we may have the life we could never earn. All that he does, he does for you and for me and for the world around us. His whole life is service. His whole life is sacrifice. His whole life is surrender.
And that is how we win. Amen.
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