“Greatness in Servanthood”

Job 38:1-7, 36-38; Mark 10:35-45

Rev. Dr. Marisa Laviola

 

Here we are again with the juxtaposition of the story of Job and the story of the life and teachings of Jesus.  The last two weeks we were presented with this juxtaposition of difficult texts, of Job’s suffering permitted by God and relationships lifted up by Jesus; with Job’s transparent cries for answers to his pain and Jesus’ difficult answers about eternal life.  Today again we have juxtaposition, another challenging juxtaposition.

God answers Job.  Yes, God answers Job.  And God’s answer is filled with totally awesome questions.  God’s questions remind us of the unspeakable, unfathomable greatness of the creator of the universe.  God essentially says to Job, you ask questions as mortal, but can you possibly take in the answers as mortal?  Can you even imagine what the eternal is all about?  Were you there at the dawn of creation, could you fathom how creation came to pass?  When earth was put in place at just the right tilt?  When humankind reached the point of gaining wisdom?  Can you count the number of clouds and stars and raindrops?  These questions to Job were not so much rhetorical as they are obvious.  It is obvious that only God knows the answers to any of our questions.  It is obvious that the created human being cannot even begin to grasp those answers; cannot even imagine the vastness of the Creator.  God is saying to Job, don’t ask questions when your questions don’t even begin to understand the answers.  You cannot absorb the workings of ultimate greatness.  Not even the eternal angels can.  All they can do is sing with praise and joy for creation. 

Jesus answers James and John.  Yes, Jesus answers James and John.  And Jesus’ answers are filled with perplexing references to baptism and drinking from a cup.  Jesus presents a very different picture than the Creator who speaks to Job out of the whirlwind.  Jesus speaks of servanthood as a true measure of greatness. At first they have no idea what his answers mean.  Why else would they immediately reply, “yes, we are able to drink the cup and be baptized with your baptism.”  Their minds are on sitting beside Jesus in glory, and they do not understand what Jesus meant by being a servant.  And as mind boggling as the Creator’s answers to Job, as unfathomable as the Creator’s message to Job, so are the Son’s answers to James and John; so is the message from the Son of Man to the disciples.  The question isn’t who will be so great as to sit at the right hand of God.  The question is who will be so great as to be a servant as the Son of God is a servant.

Now isn’t this confusing---God the unfathomable greatness, the unspeakable awe inspiring Creator of all--God the servant of all even to the point of suffering and death.  The Creator knocks Job on his ear with the humility of the human being who cannot possibly imagine what it’s like to be God.  Jesus knocks James and John on their ear with the humility of God incarnate, the servant—who says to follow in example as servant. Now isn’t this confusing—we cannot possibly know the mind of God; yet Jesus says we should live after the model of the Son of God.  And to put the two together:  greatness in servanthood is the answer.  What’s our response to that?  A Job response of silence?  A James and John response of “We are able?”  Or a disciple response of head scratching?

During one of my pastoral internships, I visited a woman who, in my humble estimation,  had truly grasped the concept of the greatness and the servanthood of God, and how we are to live in response.  Her young daughter had been stricken with terminal leukemia.  When I first met her in the hospital room in the pediatric oncology unit, I was quite taken by her peaceful visage amidst her anguish.  I’ll never forget her words to me as we sat there by her daughter’s bedside.  She said, “you’re a minister so maybe you’ll understand what I’m going to tell you.  I have a relevant God.”  As I looked at her quizzically, she said again, “My God is relevant and let me tell you why.  I don’t know why Jenny got sick; why her and not one of her cousins or friends.  Only God knows that and I don’t try to know the mind of God.  God strike me down if I say I know what God is thinking.  But one thing I do know.  God is here.  God is here right now suffering with Jenny.  God is here right now with me suffering.” 

She told me she took a Bible study about the servant Jesus, the One who knew every human pain from the inside out during his earthly life; the Jesus who was poor and lived among the poor; the Jesus who buried his dead and cried with Mary and Martha; the Jesus who spent most of his time with the sick and the infirmed, the Jesus who experienced physical pain beyond measure during his passion and crucifixion.  “That God is relevant to me.  Jesus isn’t just sitting up there saying what a lot of people say to me.  A lot of people say we can’t understand why Jenny’s sick and God knows best or it’s God’s will.  Jesus isn’t saying that.  Jesus is saying, ‘I know all you’re going through because I’ve been there and I’m here with you and Jenny now.’  My God is relevant to me.” 

At that moment, I saw in this woman the innocence of Job and the understanding of a true disciple.  After her daughter died, I met her again on the oncology unit of the hospital.  This time she was not the mother of a terminally ill patient.  She was a volunteer speaking words of comfort to families whose children suffered from terminal illness.  She cried with them and shared her story.  And she shared with them her relevant God, not so much with words, as much as with her servant presence.  In those moments, I grasped the meaning of Jesus’ words to his disciples: "whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, 10:44 and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all. 10:45 For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve."

So what do these words say to us?  What does it mean to be a servant for us?  What does it mean to be slave to all?  And what does it mean that God incarnate came not to be served but to serve?  What does this mean for us in our day to day living?  Do we have to be stricken with terrible pain and illness to even begin to fathom a relevant God who is servant to us?  Must we give up all things to follow Jesus in order to be servant to all?

             The message from God in both these passages, I think, is less about what we should do and more about how we must begin to think.  If we adjust our thinking, maybe the doing will follow.  God’s message to Job in a whirlwind was to change his attitude.  Job, although a blameless guy, wanted what he couldn’t have.  He wanted to know the mind of God and why bad things happen to good people.  And God came in a whirlwind to get the point across.  Another name for whirlwind is tornado.  How appropriate for the unfathomably great God to come to Job in a tornado!  And the point is that Job needed this attitude adjustment.  He had himself tied up in knots trying to figure things out, with friends around him spouting off the theology that only bad people suffer so Job must be bad.  Job needed to be told to stop his hand wringing and obsessively torturous searching for answers he just could not have.  Much later in chapter 42, he finally gets it when he answers God’s questions with, “I have uttered what I do not understand, things too wonderful for me—which I do not know.”

             Jesus had a task of attitude adjustment for the disciples as well.  They had already been told by him three times that he is a servant and will suffer.  They didn’t want to hear that, of course.  They wanted him to be great by earthly standards, to bring liberation to the people by worldly means.  Perhaps James and John’s questions were not so much about being the greatest in heaven.  Perhaps their questions came out of their obsessively torturous searching for answers as they attempted to grasp that their Jesus would suffer and die and what that meant for their lives.  Where would that leave them?  After all, they had left everything to follow Jesus.  They desperately wished to avoid their fears of being left alone and desolate.  But if they could have a place with Jesus in glory, maybe they could feel better. 

Jesus adjusts their attitude.  First he tells them that only God the creator knows who is going to sit where in heaven.  In the verses before these Jesus spoke of the last being first and the first being last.  No one knows the mind of God.  Here he tells them that in order to truly be with him, they must accept that suffering happens and it is inevitable that they will suffer and that they are to be with others in their suffering.  As much as the disciples hoped beyond hope to remain in control of themselves and what happened to them, as much as they wished to avoid the suffering of life for themselves or others, they cannot.  All they can do, Jesus says, is to be present with Jesus and with other people.

Jesus said the disciples must drink from the same cup as he drinks:  the cup of salvation.  Now salvation means to heal, to be made whole.  For Jesus, wholeness included service, suffering, and death, as well as resurrection, with emphasis on resurrection, new life.  According to the woman whose daughter died of cancer, Jesus suffering brings salvation to her in this life as much as his resurrection brings ultimate salvation to her daughter—healing and wholeness in the midst of life’s trials and tribulations.

How can the disciples, how can any of us adjust our attitudes to grasp the true meaning of salvation, healing, wholeness, new life?  In last week’s scripture, Jesus said with God all is possible.  This week Jesus says with Jesus all is possible:  to sit at the right or left hand of Jesus in glory requires healing, wholeness, new life beginning right here and right now.  That new life begins with an attitude adjustment.  The new attitude says for the disciples, for us, to share in one another’s suffering, to serve others as Jesus serves us.  And Jesus serves us right now.  In every joy and suffering, in all our trials and triumphs.  Jesus serves because Jesus knows from the inside out what we’re going through in this world.  He went through it himself.

Could we imagine a Church where we live with the attitude that Jesus is that much with us right now?  That as we worship together, pray together, share our lives together, serve together, Jesus is right here in the midst of us, intimately present to us?  Could we imagine a Church where we grasp Jesus presence so truly that we all share in one another’s suffering, serve one another and enjoy the fullness of salvation, wholeness, healing?  Can we imagine a Church with an attitude adjustment that lives into the possibility of a new life, where all drink from the same cup, where all are whole, where all are welcome?

Can we imagine this church, our church, echoing the attitude of Paul’s words in Philippians:  “be of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. . .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 exploited, but emptied himself. . . and humbled himself”  Can we imagine this church, our church, being filled with humble servants, serving one another, serving our community, serving God’s world? 

Sound daunting?  Perhaps if don’t quite understand, as the disciples did not quite understand, the true meaning of servanthood.  It means living anew in Christ:  healing, whole, loving, compassionate, giving to one another and to all whom God calls us to serve. 

If we could imagine such a church, our church, then we would truly experience what the woman in the hospital experienced:  A God who is present to us as a servant, a God we do not fully understand as we cannot possibly grasp the eternal, but a God who is intimately present to us and with us whatever mortal life sends our way.  We would offer Christ’s presence of healing, wholeness, love, compassion, giving to one another.  We would receive healing, wholeness, love, compassion, giving, from one another.  Such is the meaning of true servanthood.