Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost

Children’s Sabbath

October 22, 2006

Sermon by Pastor John Marboe

The Holy Gospel according to St. Mark. (Mark 10:35-45)

James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came forward to [Jesus] and said to him, “Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you.” And he said to them, “What is it you want me to do for you?” And they said to him, “Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory.” But Jesus said to them, “You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?” They replied, “We are able.” Then Jesus said to them, “The cup that I drink you will drink; and with the baptism with which I am baptized, you will be baptized; but to sit at my right hand or at my left is not mine to grant, but it is for those for whom it has been prepared.”

When the ten heard this, they began to be angry with James and John. So Jesus called them and said to them, “You know that among the Gentiles those whom they recognize as their rulers lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them. But it is not so among you; but whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all. For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.”

The Gospel of the Lord.

Grace to you and peace from God our Father, from our Lord and Savior, Jesus the Christ.

Two of Jesus’ more audacious disciples, James and John, approach him one day and say to him, “Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask.” Jesus responds, “Well, what do you want” “What do you want?” “What do you want?” Remarkably, Jesus honors the question, and takes them seriously.

One of the deepest, most important questions to ask, and keep asking, is: “What do you want?” Most of us along the road of our lives have been intimidated, in one way or another, out of addressing the question to ourselves: “What do I want?” We have been made variously to feel that question is selfish, shallow, maybe even sinful. Usually that begins to occur early in life. Later in life something else sets in. We become afraid of our own shadow. The question “What do I want?” can become a scary question, when we suspect that what we want deep down is not in line with what we have. But I maintain this morning that the world would be a better place if more people more successfully understood what it was they really wanted.

Today is “Children’s Sabbath Sunday,” and so we, together with churches across the nation, celebrate the children among us, and we lift up the needs and the wants of children. Well, children are pretty darn honest about what they want, I’ve noticed. It’s just right out there. But of course, there are limits. There need to be limits, right? Often the wants that children have are irrational―(sarcastically) unlike my wants, which are never irrational.

I’m thinking of a certain little person who, not too long ago, was standing on the back step of the house, crying, crying, because she wanted her gloves on before she came down the steps. Now, her daddy was late for a meeting and was standing by the open car door saying, “No. Come here and then I will give your gloves. You can put them on in the car.” Crying, crying, unwilling to come, and her daddy standing at the car door, getting angrier and angrier as it was getting later and later. Who was being irrational? From just a little bit of distance, one can see that neither one of us was being very rational, especially when you take into account that daddy would have gotten to work far sooner if he had taken the twenty seconds out of his busy schedule to give her what she wanted!

What do we want? What do we want? How do we honor the wants of our children and yet set wise limits? Of course, that’s a question we could ask regarding ourselves. Here’s where lives hang in the balance, especially for our little ones, because they need to learn limits—but we don’t want to crush their spirit.

The disciples who come to Jesus were young, not much more than boys. And they come, these young men, not really knowing, probably, what they wanted. Who does at that age?

When I was that age, I knew what I wanted. I wanted to be a mechanical engineer, and a military officer, and a fighter pilot. I was in the program. I was sure that’s what I wanted. Who knows what they want at that age? And does it get easier as you get older? Who knows what they want? I’m not talking here about what you want for dinner, what you want to do this weekend, or what you feel like doing. I’m talking here about what you really, really, really—given everything—deep down want in life.

Jesus honors the question of his disciples. But he says to them, “You don’t know what you’re asking. You have no idea what you’re asking.” Jesus honors the question, but he says, “You understand so little. You see glory. I see suffering. Do you want this? You can pursue it. But if you’re going to pursue it, you’re going to have all, that which you think you see and that which you don’t.”

I am thinking now about the many young men and women in our country and in our congregation signing up for the military, with thoughts of glory in their minds, thoughts of education and training. Well and good, but there’s more to it than that.

Jesus says to disciples, “You will drink the cup of suffering that I am to drink. You will be baptized with this baptism that I’m going to go through. But the rest of it isn’t mine to decide.”

What we think we want changes according to how much we see. We want this job, we want this career, we want this person, we want this place, we want this experience, only to find out there is more to it than that. You want that big job? Well, there are big ulcers that go with that big job. You want that sweet lifestyle change? You may find out that your friends are going to change. And that thing that you never thought that you would want suddenly looks a little better as you get older.

We are all in the process of learning how to live, learning about ourselves, learning how to be, how to love, how to serve. Our desires are a huge part of that. And Jesus acknowledged the limited understanding of his disciples. But he did not make them feel foolish or bad for pursuing the question, even when their desire is greatness over and against the other disciples. He says, “Those who pursue being first will find themselves last. Those who want greatness better be ready for some kind of enslavement.” He doesn’t say, “Don’t do it.” He just says, “This is the way life works, and you need to be ready for it all.” “Therefore,” he says to them, “you’re better off not lording it over others, not getting invested in being number one, or being on top.” On top of that, Jesus says this: “My desire is to serve and to be of service, so any of you who want my portion in life better want also to serve, because that’s who and what I am about.”

“Want” is not a prominent word in the Christian lexicon. And that, I think, is too bad. It’s a deep, spiritual, lifelong question for us to keep asking: “What do we want?” Jesus honors the question when his disciples ask it, inviting the disciples to go ahead and say what it is that they want. Then, even in their naiveté, he respects them for having expressed it.

Wants, our wants, are not bad; they are not sinful. They may not always be possible; they’re not always from a place of understanding; they can be misguided. But it’s worse to never really ask ourselves the question than to ask it and get it wrong.

Jesus deals gently and respectfully with the question, with his disciples who are asking the question. And he invites serious consideration ― “What do you want?” ― beginning right where the disciples were. “What do you want?” he asked. “What do you want?” We may never know fully the answer to that question, but in Christ we are invited to move toward it and not away from it.

“What do you want?” A holy question that Jesus himself honors and we are invited to ask.

Amen.