FINDINGS II
Proper
24- B - October 18, 2009
Mark 10: 35-45
(Isaiah
53: 4-12; Psalm 91: 9-16; Hebrews 5: 1-10)
 By Harry T. Cook
10/12/09
RUBRIC
As anyone who is serious about and devoted to a job, or a
relationship, or the attaining of a goal can tell you, focus is everything; and
focus on the right thing needs to be of laser-beam intensity. Major league
players call it "keeping your eye on the ball." When focus is lost and purpose becomes vague whatever is
underway bogs down in confusion and eventual failure.
When you read Mark 10: 35-45, you are seeing that process
playing out. The apostolic company is on its way to Jerusalem where push will
very quickly come to shove, and when and where it will be necessary to keep
one's wits about him and his eyes fixed on the mission. For Mark that mission
is to break down the barriers set up by entrenched religious and social
establishments that people -- especially the disadvantaged -- should be free.
How, then, can it be that two of the chosen followers got
lost in a plot to aggrandize themselves? Is it possible that the institutional
religions that have grown, sometimes very weirdly, out of the apostolic age
have too often succumbed to the same passions, that they have taken their eye
off the ball, so to speak, and have ended up perverting the mission?
WORKSHOP
On the road again (10:32). Thus does Mark ratchet up the
tension. The apostolic company is literally "going up to Jerusalem," Jesus
walking ahead as did the typical revered teacher with disciples
following obediently behind. If 10:32b (just previous to where today's gospel
picks up), the group was divided in two: the first "amazed" and the second
"afraid." The amazement was apparently over what is depicted (the first
becoming last) in 10:31. The fear was over the predictable fall-out from the
same event. Jesus has been depicted as challenging society's treatment of
women, its disregard for children (or the uninitiated) and its fixation on wealth
at the expense of redeeming the poor. The disciples' amazement was on target,
and their fear well-placed. And that leads to another passion prediction in
10:32-34 just prior to where we pick up in the passage at hand.
Why at this juncture the narrative places the inappropriate
representations of the Zebedee brothers (in Matthew's parallel at 20:20ff, it
is carried off by Mother Zebedee) is unclear. The concern seems to be for a
future beyond any time of testing, of which the disciples' mixed feelings of
amazement and fear are a foreboding: "Grant us to sit, one at your right hand
and one at your left in your glory" ("doxa") -- meaning something like "when
your reputation or public estimation is fully realized." We usually see "doxa"
translated as "glory," perhaps because the evangelists' intent was to make sure
Jesus' was a good "doxa."
What, then, the Zebedee brothers wanted was to share
prominently in what they may have assumed was going to be the public
vindication of Jesus' challenge of the religious and social status quo, prompted
Jesus' sharp retort: "You don't know what you're asking!" (10:38) Jesus goes
on: "Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or to be baptized with the
baptism with which I am baptized?" The word "cup" here may be a synonym for
suffering. The use of the present tense suggests that Mark imagined Jesus
thinking that his time of suffering had already begun, what with the entrance
upon Jerusalem but half a chapter hence. "Baptism" may be more along the lines
of Psalm 69:3: "I have come into deep waters, and the torrent washes over me."
(Matthew's version of this -- probably borrowed in the first place from Mark --
omits any reference to baptism. Interesting to note.)
My reading is that the Brothers Zebedee did not get it. They
were still with "doxa." Jesus had moved on to the cup and the baptism. Yet, they
are depicted as saying they were able, i.e., "We have what it
takes." But they may still not get it. Jesus is made to tell them with a
certainty born of his own sense of what is coming and has, indeed, already
begun: "You will drink of that cup; and you will be baptized, but it is not
mine to promise any reward. It is for those for whom it has been prepared." Is
this a double entendre? Is what "has been prepared" a one-way trip up to
Calvary?
With 10: 41-45 we may be getting a glimpse into the early
history of what became Christianity as competition and jealousy manifest
themselves. It will not be the last time that supposed followers of Jesus will
miss the point and substitute individual aggrandizement for concern for others,
thus rendering the community dysfunctional and the point missed. See the irony
in 10:42 about how the supposed rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them.
Again, not the point.
The ending of this passage is its principal theme: that
servanthood is leadership to the point of self-immolation for the sake of
others, or as the text puts it λύτον άντί πολλων a ransom for many. Λύτρον
comes from the verb λυτρόω meaning "to release on payment of ransom." The
Hebrew cognate appears at Exodus 21:30 where it is used of slaves and at
Leviticus 19:20 where it is used of captives.
The servant song from Isaiah 52 and 53 and the Hebrews
reading are appropriate accompaniments to the Marcan passage as both make
mention of intentional sacrifice on behalf of others. Isaiah: "Surely the
servant has borne our infirmities and carried our diseases . . . he was wounded
for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities." Taking this verse too
literally as a prophecy of the crucifixion of Jesus and its interpretation as a
Yom Kippur kind of atonement is, of course, a mistake. The point is to see it
as of a piece with the "greater love hath no one" kind of disposition --
exactly the opposite of what the Zebedee brothers are depicted as seeking for
themselves.
HOMILETIC COMMENTARY
It has taken me nearly half a century to see how badly
institutional Christianity has garbled its message. It has kept on talking
about sacrifice and servanthood, yet undermining itself at almost every turn.
The Quakers seem to have understood. Dietrich Bonhoeffer understood. Many who
have responded to the monastic vocation seem to have seen the light. The rest
of the Christian establishment has distorted the picture by the terms of its
very existence and institutional behavior.
Every time I see a photograph of a pope or a cardinal or a
bishop arrayed in the vestments of his (and even sometimes "her") supposed
authority or the TV image of a strutting evangelist haranguing his arena-sized
congregation about sin, I can see how the Zebedee brothers' panting for
preferment and prominence came to characterize the church. Every time I have
been part of or a spectator at some solemn high mass with processions and
trumpets and high altars and higher pulpits, I have wondered what any of it had
to do with the suffering servant.
The church largely communicates by way of edict, encyclical,
pronouncement and judgment. Perhaps at the local level it suffers what looks
like discussion but is really a sop to those who wish, usually in vain, to
question and explore.
I am a retired priest of a church structure in which the
clergy have a whole lot of say, and generally say a lot. A bishop cannot be
elected without the votes of a majority of the clergy, even though the lay
order vastly outnumbers the clergy order in any diocese. The bishops have their
own legislative chamber in meetings of national synods, and no church policy
can be made without their consent. More and more bishops function like CEOs and
demand due deference.
That kind of attitude tends to seep downward to parish
clergy for many of whom authority and power is everything to the exercise of their
ministry. Canon law is written in such a way as to preserve the powers of the
incumbent pastor against intrusion by an uppity laity, though clergy occasionally
overplay their hands and get taken down for their trouble.
The debates that go on in the ecclesiastical stratosphere
about this rubric and that canonical provision are laughable for their
irrelevance while hunger and homelessness, poverty and destitution stalk the
natural constituency of the Jesus one often sees depicted in the gospels --
especially perhaps in the Gospel according to Mark in which he is credited as
saying, "Whoever wishes to be great among you must become your servant."
"Servant" does not mean the nice man in decorative livery
proffering the engraved menu at a four-star restaurant, nor yet the uniformed
maid placing chocolates upon the turned-down the king-sized bed in the suite
upstairs. It means the poor wretch bearing the basin of murky water who kneels
before you to wash the street filth from your feet.
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Readers Write
[re: FINDINGS II 10/5/09]
Fred
Fenton, Concord CA: "For rational 21st-century people, 'heaven' means neither a spatial nor a
temporal entity but a quality of life in the here-and-now that can be achieved
through self-regulated human behavior." Thank you for that. I like that so much and will use it to define 'heaven' from
here on out.
Cynthia Chase, Laurel, MD: Your "Findings" are always edifying. I am even building up
my vocabulary. I was sure at first that "etui" must be a misprint. While we are
not rich, except by Mexican or Haitian standards, we are more than comfortable.
I like to give money and things away . . . My husband likes to keep things,
monetary "things" especially. He grew up in a far less affluent family than
mine. It makes for interesting discussions. And yet, yesterday, he willingly
wrote a generous check for our church's Help the Homeless Mini-Walk Fundraiser.
I used to buy just about anything I wanted. Now I am learning to say to myself,
"Do you really need this, or do you just want it?" While I don't look like I am
"into" clothes and jewelry, I like things that are well-made and comfortable. I
have a good friend -- a Friend, as
it turns out -- who buys all her clothes at the thrift store. I am unwilling to
do that. But I am becoming more willing to cherish the well-made and
comfortable things I already have and be content with them.
My husband doesn't give two hoots about his own clothes. He'll hang onto things
forever. "Seedy" is the word that comes to mind. One time he went into LARS,
the nonprofit where I do my volunteer work. One of the social workers actually
said, "Can I help you?" assuming he was a client.
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