The Zebedee boys and the meaning of life
St. Andrew’s Church/Richmond Hill
Richmond, Virginia
October 18-19, 2015
Pentecost XXIV
Mark 10:35-45
In this morning’s story of the Zebedee brothers, James and John, we have Jesus’ core teaching about the purpose of life. You are familiar with the story. James and John are hoping that there is some reward in following Jesus. If Jesus makes it big – presumably in the next few years – they would like to have status in his government, or his religious kingdom, or whatever kind of glorious outcome they anticipate he may achieve.
The two guys are so clueless, that it is hard to know where to begin. But Jesus was incredibly strategic when he talked with clueless people – he has certainly been strategic when he’s talked to me – and he laid out for them a definition of the purpose of life that they could spend the rest of their days living into, and coming to understand. Jesus defined for James and John the goal which made life worthwhile – the secret of the kingdom of heaven – the way he himself lived. The words are one thing, but the understanding comes with the living:
- The purpose of life is not status but service
- This goal of service is transformational
- Jesus teaches it by his own life
- And shows us true religion.
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The purpose of life is not status but service.
Jesus said, “Whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all.” The purpose of life is not status, but service.
This comment represents a constant theme in Jesus’ teaching. I could stop for a moment and ask you how you first learned this lesson – well, maybe you didn’t learn a whole lot about service, but you learned that status was not particularly helpful.
I remember working real hard to get elected to an office sometime in high school, only to find out I had no interest whatsoever in doing the work of the organization. I had no interest in service, only in status.
I think I’ll wait a moment: when did you learn that something you wanted wasn’t really much of a reward after all? Everyone does it. The world is full of people chasing after status, after the next reward, the next advancement, the next achievement, the next possession, the next lover, the next million. And many people never stop. They never find any other purpose to life.
I was thinking of what J. P. Morgan is said to have answered when they asked him, “Mr. Morgan, you are one of the richest men in the world. How much money is enough?” “I don’t know,” the great capitalist answered, “but it’s a little more than I have.”
Jesus says the purpose of life is not about status, but about service. But even when we get hints that status doesn’t satisfy, people don’t know how to take the next step.
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The goal of service is transformational.
Service is a very different kind of goal than status. Jesus doesn’t exactly make that clear to the Zebedee brothers. There’s kind of a hidden thing here. “Whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all.” There’s nothing attractive, from a status point of view, in being a servant or a slave. Neither one is attractive or desirable for its own sake.
If you are seeking status, you are enjoying the title, the achievement, the status you obtain. But if you are a servant, you are enjoying being a part of someone else’s goals. The true servant is someone who is in touch with his master’s purposes and finds his meaning in being a part of them. There is something bigger than him or her going on. Their ego begins to subside.
The goal is not selfish, and it may really be good.
Here, of course, is the excitement of the servanthood which Jesus preached: the goals which one pursues are world-changing, soul-enhancing, life-saving, love-making, truth-telling spirit-filled goals that really make a difference. Big or little, they are the real thing. It really doesn’t make much difference in the world who it is who achieves status. The world is fickle, and people come and go. But when people are healed, encouraged, enlivened, and saved from death or despair, it does make a difference. And the person who is privileged to be enlisted in this kind of service becomes transformed himself or herself in the process. There is quality in a life of service. There is only quantity in the search for status.
Servant is not a desirable status. A servant of God is transformed into a humble player in a larger narrative. But life blooms in depth, meaning, and self-expression.
The purpose of life is not status but service. This goal of service is transformational.
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Jesus teaches it by his own life.
Jesus said, “Whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all.” That’s what he told James and John Zebedee and, when she asked, the Zebedee boys’ mother. And that’s how he understood his own life.
I think it’s fairly safe to say that Jesus didn’t seek status. He wandered around obscure townships in Galilee and, when he finally did get to Jerusalem, he followed a course which guaranteed that the authorities would find a way to get rid of him. The fact that he didn’t remain in obscurity is due to his return in the spirit after he died.
You will recall the story of the temptations, at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry. There we get a sense of his own inner questioning about goals. Should he take over the country by military means? Should he try to turn stones into bread and become leader by feeding everyone? Should he try to jump off the Temple and stun everyone into worship or submission? Even assuming these things were possible, he rejected them as having little or nothing to do with what life was really about.
Jesus went for service rather than status. Watch him. And here’s what’s really important to notice: “servanthood,” or even being a slave, as Jesus acted it out, is not being nothing. It is really being something by being who God calls him to be. His full personhood develops. And very important, he does not let himself be walked on just for the heck of it. If he is quiet or passive, it is to give people a chance to respond. He tells the truth wherever he can, and speaks up in many situations where others would be quiet. He doesn’t follow the formulaic religion, exactly, that the Pharisees and scribes are laying out for him, — he is rigorous about what really matters. Loving God and loving his neighbor as himself – that’s his religion.
Service, in Jesus, looks like trying to live out the vision which is set before him, day after day, and following the challenge into Jerusalem and the corrupt and narrow religion that Judaism had become.
The purpose of life is not status but service. This goal of service is transformational. Jesus teaches it by his own life.
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And he shows us true religion.
True religion is about service, not status. That is the hardest thing for religious people to grasp. We can see how hard it is, because status-thinking even infects the church that claims to be built on the spirit of Jesus. Look what happens to the word “salvation” in Christian theology. “Salvation” really means finding life, discovering God and yourself, finding meaning, and loving the vocation to which God calls you. But Christians turn the word into a conferring of status. If you are saved, you are one of the elect. You are going to heaven rather than hell. You are really a good member of the right church, unlike those others who aren’t saved.
But the purpose of life is not status, not even “being saved” as a status. It is service. This goal of service is transformational. If you are into the service of God, you are not dividing people into good and bad, saved and unsaved, because God sends his rain upon everyone and everyone is his child. You are engaged in the joy of his kingdom’s coming.
True religion is not status, but service of God’s people in the spirit. The hour is coming and now is when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for that is what God seeks – the right spirit and the truth.
The Zebedee boys might have been good Christians, but they missed the point. Jesus said, “Whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all.” That’s a transformational concept. Your life is different. You no longer have a plateau or a throne or a destination. You no longer measure your life by your own achievements or status. You no longer think you either need to glorify yourself or humiliate yourself to find God. You are already drinking the wine of the kingdom.
The purpose of life is not status but service. This goal of service is transformational. Jesus teaches it by his own life. And he shows us true religion.
AMEN.
