service

from my sermon on 10/11/09 from Mark 10:35-45

What do you want? What would you ask Jesus for? I know it seems brash, but it is exactly what James and John do. We are uncomfortable with this. Margaret who read the scripture for us today in worship traded e-mails with me during the week. "Isn't there another translation?" We want to tone it down, edit it...this jockeying for position, this ill-conceived request.
The Gospel writers are equally uncomfortable. Matthew has the mother of James and John make the request. Luke and John omit the story entirely.
We don't like this story, but we are familiar with it. Don't we all come to Jesus with our lists? Our wants? It may be for ourselves ....to be healthy, wealthy, and wise. But it is also for others. We pray for Jacob, the 19 year-old, who was injured in a car accident in Italy, as he is barely hanging onto life. We pray for Edith, a charter member of this church who is actively dying, and just wants to be released. We pray for peace in the Middle East between Israel and Palestine. What would you ask Jesus for?
And here is amazing grace...Jesus accepts their request...without a rebuke. But more than that, he reframes their request. "You don't know what you are asking." I was reading my journal from many years ago about a UM church asking for a younger pastor. You have never heard something like this before I know....but this was an older, dying church, and they asked the bishop for a younger pastor to attract younger families back to the downtown Cincinnati church. They got their younger pastor. Then they asked for funds for advertising, to try to get people back to the old cathedral-type church. They got those funds as well, and people started coming back. But what they didnt' ask for was an awareness of the community around them. They started to notice the folks right outside their door. "Where do these people sleep at night? It seems that there are a lot of people who have just been turned out of institutions who have no place to go. It looks like there are a lot of people who have drug and alcohol problems."
The church said, "We have the location. We have the space. We have the money. We see the need. We need to do something." And that church took off developing missions to the community where they were. The pastor said, "I can't imagine our congregation being any other way than it is today. We wanted to pay the light bill. What we needed was to witness to the light of the gospel of Jesus Christ. What we wanted was to survive. What we needed was to serve."
We really don't know what we are asking. We don't get what we ask for. We get what we need.
Jesus gives a sacramental answer. "Can you drink this cup?" What does that remind us of? "Can you be baptized with this baptism?" What does that remind us of? So these are not sweet, sentimental acts, but are cross-shaped answers.
Jesus also gives an example for us to follow. The Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve and give his life as a ransom for many." We want Jesus to be a powerful military leader, politically astute, successful in business, and accepted as a religious leader, but what we get is a Savior who is a servant. Because Jesus is this way, the church, his church is a servant church. Fifty times in 18 different writings in the NT, Christians are referred to as servants.
Today, I am finishing up this series on our vows as United Methodist Christians. If you haven't guessed it so far, it's about service. Now we know that we have to serve, right? NO! We get to. We need to practice saying this word when it comes to all the requests that come our way. Say it with me, NO.
We can say no because we have been set free. Jesus says that he is a ransom. Now we use this word in a limited context....in kidnapping, we pay a ransom. But originally a ransom was paid to release a prisoner of war. You have heard of a king's ransom? Or it was paid to release a slave or a criminal. A ransom is paid to set someone free. We have been set free. We can say no. We don't always do want people want us to do for them; we do what they need. We do what pleases God, not other people. Ultimately, the one we serve is Jesus.
I once had a young man come into the office, inebriated. The front office staff tried to deal with him, but he said, "I want to talk to him "(me, the senior pastor). We sat and talked. He had scars on his leg and scars on his soul. What he asked for, money, I could not do. I tried to send him to Caritas and Salvation Army and a dry out center, but he wanted no part of these. He cussed me out, the church out, and Austin out. We let him use the phone to determine his future.
I am upset by encounters like this, but I understand that I need to let people make their own mistakes and that the body of Christ is a lot larger than just me or this congregation. I like that prayer that says, "Lord, help me to remember that I am not personally, totally, irrevocably responsible for everything that happens today."
I our freedom, we realize that others have gifts to serve too. This past week Minnie invited me to her house. We had a pleasant conversation. She had baked me a cake. I was wary though, I asked Minnie if there was some agenda, something she needed to talk about. You see, people ask me to do a lot of things for them. "No," she said, "I wanted to give you the cake and I wanted to thank you for letting me write the care notes." Please understand, that last week, we took communion elements from this table to Minnie, because she doesn't get around so well. She was thanking me for letting her write notes to people exactly like her.
It feels good to serve. In fact, that's why we serve, because God only wants our deepest happiness. If you would take out the orange sheet on "Christmas in October" you will find 14 different ways you get to serve in the next two months. Here's Terrie, the chair of our Service Committee, to tell you more about it.