Let’s meet for coffee.
I
receive or extend this invitation almost every week of my life, often multiple
times in a week. What’s so special about
coffee? Nothing! The phrase ‘let’s meet for coffee’ actually
means, ‘I want to sit with you and talk with you and get to know you.’ The translation of ‘let’s meet for coffee’ is
‘I want to get to know you. You matter
so much, I think the best way for me to spend my time is in your presence.’ Let’s
meet for coffee. I say it or hear it
from church members; people who are new in our church; new pastors in the area;
people outside our church who want to talk with me in my role as pastor; people
who want to spend time we me as just “Rob,” not “Pastor Rob.”
It’s got nothing to do with
coffee. You could meet over cokes or
beers or for lunch. Let’s meet for coffee is an invitation to relationship.
It’s a question Jesus
puts to each of us, yet He asks it this way.
“Can you drink the cup that I drink?”
Are we able to drink the cup with Jesus and undergo the baptism Jesus
experienced, a baptism that included water and a cross and a burial?
Mark’s Gospel, and especially Mark
chapter 10, has Jesus on the move. Last week’s passage, 10:17-31, began, “As he
was setting out on a journey.” Today’s
reading, 10:32-45 begins, “They were on the road, going up to Jerusalem, and
Jesus was walking ahead of them.” This
is God in human flesh, a man like other human beings, but unlike any
other. The disciples know they’re moving
toward the city, but they trail behind in a cluster unsure of where this all is
headed. They are amazed, it says. And the crowd following is afraid! Afraid?
Things around Jesus are
intensifying, moving more quickly, becoming more serious. “See, we are going up to Jerusalem,” he
says. “The son of man will be handed
over to the chief priests and scribes, and they will condemn him to death; then
they will hand him over to the Gentiles; they will mock him, and spit upon him,
and flog him, and kill him; and after three days, he will rise again”
(10:33-34). Jesus has to look back to
say this to his closest friends because, as Mark said, he’s walking alone,
ahead of them. They can’t keep up and
aren’t sure if they want to. Sharing
coffee with him will lead them down dangerous paths.
So James and John pretend they only
heard the “rise again” part of what Jesus said.
They jog to catch up. “Teacher,”
they say, very respectfully, “We want you to do for us whatever we ask of you.” They’re like that rich man we read about last
week who bragged that he had kept all the law with perfect obedience. No, they’re worse than him. At least he knelt
before Jesus. And all he asked was that
he promised a place in God’s kingdom. He
just wanted to get in.
James and John do not kneel before
Jesus. They walk alongside him. Well, they hang back for the part about being
mocked, spat upon, and crucified. But
when he says, “rise again,” they’re ready to listen and even more ready to
speak. “We want to sit at your right and
left hand in your glory.”
Do we do that? Do we assume that when we take on ourselves
the title “Christian,” we are on God’s side; or, more accurately, do we assume,
God joins our side? Thus anyone who
opposes us, opposes God, and God joins us in opposing them? This could be in politics or in interpersonal
relationships. Are we with Jesus when he
talks about being crucified, or are we hanging back? Do we, like James and John, when we hear “rise
again” come running with our requests that Jesus give whatever we ask for?
As he did with the rich man in the
previous episode, Jesus joins James and John in their shortsightedness. “What
do you want me to do for you?” He asks.
He’s about to go to cross, about to suffer absolute humiliation,
torture, and then death; and he’s doing it for all of humanity. To be with him is to give of yourself as he
gave of himself. They only want to be
with him when it’s good for them. “Allow
us to sit one at your right hand and one at your left in your glory” (v.37). They
want reward without sacrifice, glory for themselves without regard for anyone
else. Jesus gives of himself for
everyone else.
What do we want when we think of God
and faith and life? Do I live in way
that I am all about me, my needs, my wants?
The results I am concerned about the results that affect only me? Am I am indifferent about the suffering of
people around me? Am I unaffected by the
tears other people cry? If so, then I am
not drinking with Jesus.
That’s what he asks James and
John. They talk about glory, assuming
they and Jesus and God are on one side with opponents on the other. Jesus said, “To sit at my left or right hand
is not mine to grant.” He defers all
authority to God, including his own life and death, suffering and
happiness. Jesus puts it all in God’s
hands. James and John want him to
guarantee their glory. He asks, “Can you
drink the cup that I drink?” Ignorantly,
arrogantly, they declare, “We are able.”
It is not for us to stand before
Jesus Christ our Lord and declare, “We are able.” We offer this. “We are willing.” He makes us able. In humble worship, we say, “We are here.” He tells us where to go and what to do. He tells us who we are in the world. We do
not tell him who he is supposed to be for us.
“Can you drink the cup?”
“We are able.”
No
you aren’t. Jesus tells them, “The
cup that I drink, you will drink. And
the baptism with which I am baptized, you will be baptized” (v.39). And he’s already said what that means:
mocked; spit upon; flogged; crucified; resurrected. In order to have the seats in glory requested
in verse 37, we have to follow Jesus. He’s
not looking for people to believe in Him.
He’s looking for people who want to follow Him. Jesus has no interest in admirers. People will say, “O Jesus, he was a great
moral teacher; a wise rabbi; a true prophet.”
He has no time for empty, uninformed flattery like that. Jesus is Lord and is to be recognized as Lord
by people who will commit their lives to following Him. To sit in glory, as requested in verse 37,
one has to follow Jesus even when he walks the road of suffering described in
verses 33-34. He tells them they don’t
understand it, but they will walk that road.
Of course Matthew and Peter and
Judas and Nathanial and the other disciples don’t find much to like about James
and John’s request. Who do these
brothers, these sons of thunder think they are?
An argument ensues and Jesus will have none of it. “You know among the Gentiles those whom they
recognize as their rulers lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants. … It is not to be so among you; but whoever
wishes to be great must become your servant and whoever wishes to be first must
be slave of all” (v.42-44).
Mark writes that when the other 10
hear James and John’s request they become indignant. That might be a word that encapsulates our
political moment in America: the politics of indignation. Our president calls someone “horseface” or
describes African nations as “-hole” countries or mocks a victim
of sexual assault, and we become indignant!
He’s done things like this all his life.
Why would we be surprised? Senate
Democrats do everything they can, not to provide leadership for our country,
but to block him. And the Republicans
among us become indignant. Why? Politics in America is not about leadership;
it’s not about what’s good for our democracy; it’s not about what actually
helps people; it’s about winning. Why
would we expect anything else?
“It is not to be so among you,”
Jesus tells us. The community of His
followers, the church, the body of Christ, must be different. And our loyalty, our calling, our identity, is
not primarily as American citizens, but as followers of the Lord Jesus Christ,
subjects in the Kingdom of God.
Yes,
we should vote. As November approaches,
we will pray for our nation, for our elected officials, for all the candidates,
and especially for all the voters. In
your heart of hearts, you may pray that one party does very well. You do so knowing that your brother Christ with
whom your worship every week is praying just as earnestly that the other party
does well. That’s OK. We can pray that entrusting our thoughts,
dreams, and hopes to God. We give it to God
and trust God to do something with it.
But
more importantly, we give ourselves to God.
We do what God directs us to do. We
go where God sends us. We vote as God
leads us to vote. We don’t pray that God
would lead other people to see things the way we see things. We pray that we would see the world as Jesus
sees the world. We renounce the politics
of indignations because that is the way the world operates and we are in the
world, but we are not of the world. We
are of the Kingdom of God where our Lord came “to serve and to give his life as
a ransom for many” (v.45). We follow Him
in that, giving of ourselves that others may be blessed. We sacrifice time, money, reputation, glory,
power so that others, the undesirables and unwanted around us may know the love
of God and the life Jesus gives to all the broken people who come to Him.
As we renounce the self-serving,
ego-driven politics of indignation and instead live in self-giving love, we
come to understand what it is to drink with Jesus. We drink the cup and even in the parts that
are painful, we see Him and walk in His blessing.
Keep this in mind as you look around
and decide if you want to drink the cup of Jesus or become indignant because
the side opposite you is making you mad as
you knew they would. Drinking the
cup of Jesus sets one apart. Remember
the sequence at the beginning of the reading.
The crowd is trailing behind, afraid.
Ahead of them, but considerably behind Jesus are the disciples, thinking
they knew what’s what, but actually quite confused. Then, out front, Jesus walks alone to the
cross and then to resurrection.
When,
and if, you decide you want to catch up and walk with him, you will be walking
toward resurrection and glory. However,
there’s a valley of death between here and there that cannot be avoided. To walk with him, we have to go there with
him. There is life and love and joy
every step of the way, but every step is not easy because death never is. And to drink His cup and walk with Him, we
know we will be set apart from our neighbors, our families, and our
culture. He told the disciples and he
tells us, the world is one way; it is not to be so with you. We are invited to drink Jesus’ cup and walk
Jesus’ path.
So, ponder that invitation. Picture your life in the world, but not of
it. Knowing what it means, decide if you
want to drink with Jesus.
AMEN
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