Mark 10:35-45

James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came to Jesus and said to him, “Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you.” Jesus said to them, “What is it you want me to do for you?” They said to him, “Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory.”

Jesus said to them, “You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink and to be baptized with the baptism I am baptized with?” They answered him, “We are able.” He said to them, “You will drink the cup that I drink and be baptized with the baptism with which I have been baptized. But to sit at my right hand or my left is not mine to decide. 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 regard as their rulers lord it over them; and their great ones are tyrants over them. But it is not so among you. For 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.”

Their nerve is laughable. To ask Jesus, so boldly … with so little shame … to get the best seats in the Kingdom? I’m as embarrassed for these jokers, James and John, as the other 10 disciples were angry at them for it.

But you might say it’s as endearing as it is surprising to know they would be so bold. Endearing – maybe – because they’re doing that “faith like a child” thing Jesus mentions in some other Gospel stories we’ve heard, lately. You know, “whoever doesn’t receive the Kingdom of God like a little child, will never enter it.” James and John sound to me like those little kids in school who ask to be first in line; who beg to get the best snack; who shoot their hand in the air and bounce around in their seat, hoping the teacher will call on them to do – or to get – whatever the next best things might be.

And we can’t know for sure, but I imagine Jesus might have been both endeared and exasperated by it, too, like any good teacher. “What is it you want me to do for you?” he asks them back. And when they request the best seats in the kingdom – when they tell him they want to be front and center on the other side of God’s heaven – Jesus tells them they don’t understand what it is they’re talking about; that they really have no idea what they’re asking for.

Because, when Jesus says they will “drink the cup” that he drinks, he’s not talking only about the cup of wine they’ll share at the next wedding in Cana, or at the table of the Last Supper, even. The cup he’s really talking about is the one he prays about in the Garden of Gethsemane just before his arrest and crucifixion. (“Father, if it be your will, let this cup pass from me.”) It was a cup full of suffering and struggle Jesus wasn’t sure even he could drink, in all its fullness.

And the baptism he’s talking about isn’t just that holy moment in the river with John the Baptist, when he came up from the water, when the dove descended, and when the voice from heaven declared him to be God’s beloved Son. All of that was and would be part of it. But James and John didn’t know, they couldn’t imagine – or they had forgotten about – the temptation in the wilderness that followed the beauty of that moment in the river and, of course, the promised suffering and death that were to come along with that baptism, too.

Just like James and John, none of this is what we always want to hear. None of this is how the world operates. All of this is summed up in the promise we’ve heard so many times before – and in the way Jesus wraps it all up for the disciples this morning: “whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant. And whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all. …the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve; and to give his life a ransom for many.”

A front row seat in God’s kingdom means becoming a servant. Glory is achieved by becoming a slave. It means heading to the end of the line. It means giving more than you take; it means sharing more than you ask for yourself; it means not being served, but serving. And it’s not about making a reservation on the other side of heaven. It’s all about sharing and experiencing the Kingdom of God on earth, as it is in heaven, first.

I’ve been fascinated and captivated and heartbroken to follow the story of Hersh Goldberg-Polin over the course of the last year. He was one of the Israeli-Americans captured and held hostage by Hamas over in Israel, a year ago, October 7th. He was at that Nova musical festival when the attack started and he took cover, with a group of others, packed into one of the cement bomb shelters that are surprisingly common-place in Israel; they sit like park benches or bus stops along the side of the road.

Anyway, Hersh’s parents have been some of the more outspoken advocates for their son and the other hostages in Gaza. Maybe you’ve seen them. I think his mom, aptly named Rachel, is the one who started the trend of wearing a piece of tape on her shirt to mark the number of days since the attack and to count the number of days that her son and others were being held captive. (Rachel, in the Biblical narrative, remember, is the matriarch who wept for her children taken captive by the Babylonians.)

Well, this Rachel’s 23-year-old son Hersh is a hero by all accounts because, just before his capture on October 7, 2023, he was trapped in one of those bomb shelters with a handful of others and, as the attackers lobbed as many as 11 grenades into the shelter’s open door, one after another, Hersh risked his life over and over and over by grabbing and throwing the grenades back until one exploded and blew his arm off below the elbow. He was ultimately captured and hauled away to Gaza.

And it was heart-wrenching over the course of the last year to see his parents interviewed and marching, giving speeches and making appeals to governments and politicians, each day marked by the climbing numbers scrawled onto the masking tape that they wore so faithfully in his honor. Hersh was found dead on day 330 – about a month shy of one full year in captivity.

We want to be first, but we think that means being the fastest. We want to know peace and comfort, but we think that means having more power and money and stuff. We want to walk more closely with Jesus but we’re not always willing to follow where he leads. We want to be successful, but we use all the wrong measuring sticks to determine what that means.

What Jesus shows us, and what people like Hersh Goldberg-Polin lived, is what it looks like to serve rather than to be served; to choose others over and above ourselves; to give instead of take; to become a suffering servant like we heard about from the prophet Isaiah a minute ago.

What Jesus shows us, and what Hersh-Goldberg-Polin lived in ways I can’t fathom, is that to sit at the right hand of God isn’t just a position to which we will be promoted someday. To sit at the right hand of God is a position to which each and every one of us is called to experience, somehow, right where we live, on this side of heaven, not just the next. This is where we are called to drink the cup. Here is where we’re invited to live out the calling of our baptism.

And as hard as that is sometimes. As much courage and faith and generosity and sacrifice as that may invite us to, we are blessed with this God – in Jesus – who never calls us to something God hasn’t already done, first, for our sake: to give generously … to sacrifice … to suffer … to die, even.

(I’m in no way suggesting that God ordained or orchestrated the suffering and death of Hersh Goldberg-Polin or any of those captured or killed in the October 7th attacks in Israel, or since. I am saying that Hersh responded like a saint … like a selfless servant … in that bomb shelter, likely inspired by the Jewish faith he shared with the likes of James and John and Jesus.)

And that’s Jesus’ invitation to James and John – and to each of us, just the same – as we live in the strange pull of God’s Kingdom … on this side of heaven and the next. And there are a million ways we can practice drinking this cup and answering the call of our baptism that don’t look anything like the struggle and suffering of a hostage in the war-torn middle east, thanks be to God!

I think it means giving away our money. I think it means helping refugees. I think it means building homes in Haiti, helping the SonRise Bible Study, serving as a Stephen Minister, working in the food pantry, spending time with the Agape ministry’s sex workers downtown.

I think it means cleaning the bathrooms at church, mowing the lawn at church, doing yard work around the church. I think it means working in the nursery and teaching Sunday School at church, too.

I think it means saying “I’m sorry,” and proving it. I think it means saying “I forgive you,” and meaning it.

I think it means sitting with the lonely kid in the cafeteria or picking the last kid, first, on the playground some of the time, too.

Because we are called to be servants. We are called not to ask “what can I get?”, but “what can I give?”, instead, and “how much?” and, “who needs it most?” … like Jesus did when he climbed onto a cross and out of a tomb and into our hearts, minds, and lives so that we would share the grace of God in as many ways as we can manage – and so that, through sharing it – humbly, selflessly, generously, bravely, even, without hope for recognition or reward – we will experience God’s kind of glory most fully ourselves – and for the benefit and blessing of somebody else, in Jesus’ name.

Amen

Matthew 6:25-34

‘Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life? And why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? Therefore do not worry, saying, “What will we eat?” or “What will we drink?” or “What will we wear?” For it is the Gentiles who strive for all these things; and indeed your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.

‘So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today’s trouble is enough for today.

When you are really worried about something or have a lot of anxiety, doesn’t it just warm the cockles of your heart when someone says to you, “hey, don’t be worried, just stop being anxious, calm down, relax”. Ah yes, of course! Why didn’t I think of that? Oh wait, you did. You have tried that. And if it were that simple, if you could just stop, you would. If anything, someone telling you don’t worry, stop being anxious, makes you more worried and more anxious. Why then, does Jesus say don’t worry, don’t be anxious. Doesn’t he know this? Apparently not because he says, be like the bird and the lilly who have no worry or anxiety. The birds aren’t concerned about where their next meal comes from just as lilies don’t worry about what they look like. It’s so easy to read or hear this and think Jesus is saying, be like plants and animals - don’t worry. Which got me thinking, but don’t animals worry? Do they feel anxiety too?

Take for example my goldendoodle Mazie. All you need to do is come over on 4th of July to see her cower in fear from all the fireworks, shaking with anxiety until it’s all over. Perhaps the same is true for you and your four legged. Or maybe your furry friend suffers terrible separation anxiety everytime you walk out the door.

It’s not just dogs. There are other, more complex examples and anecdotes of animals that worry or have anxiety. Young elephants that have witnessed the hunting and killing of close family members develop something akin to Post traumatic stress order, causing them to be very aggressive and even have nightmares. Tell me that’s not anxiety…

Or a lab study from the University of Wisconsin - LaCrosse found out that fruit flies that have been socially isolated suffered from sleep deprivation. Do you ever have trouble sleeping when you are worried about others? Apparently so do fruit flies.

Or perhaps even crazier, researchers from Ohio State found that when small fish called sticklebacks experienced lots of exposure to predators, they passed that trauma off to their children in the form of anxiety and risk taking.

Marc Bekoff an evolutionary biologist from the university of colorado put it this way: “It's clear that animals can be worrywarts and stress out and be anxious about many different things. We are not alone in worrying about events in our lives although we may be unique in having the luxury of obsessing on what's causing us stress.”

So we all worry, animals and humans alike. What then do we do with Jesus' command “not to worry”? Well I think there is a difference in the kind of worry from the animal examples and the kind Jesus says not to do. I don’t hear Jesus saying don’t worry about basic needs, after all he tells us to pray for daily bread. What I do hear him saying is don’t obsess over them. Let enough be enough. Trust more that God will provide and less in our desire to get more than we need. In other words, don’t worry in such a way that turns you inward, that focuses on yourself, that makes you unaware, or worse unconcerned, about your neighbors needs, people and animals alike.

Instead, worry like the animals. What I mean is we ought to worry when we are disconnected from others, like the dogs and the fruit flies, or when we see others harmed, like the elephants, or when we fear for our children, like stickleback fish. In other words, worry because things aren’t right. Have an anxiety of love, of care and concern for the wellbeing of our family, our neighbors, the people of the world, the animals in our homes, and all creation. We know this worry, you likely felt it all week, like for the people in Florida as we watched and waited for hurricane milton to make landfall. Or the worry we have about the ever increasing conflict in the middle east, the lives already lost, and the carnage of creation that continues. We worry about our children and grandchildren and the kind of world they will inhabit. We worry about the devastation of creation and how we humans contribute to it.

That’s the kind of worry we should have and the kind I’d say Jesus has too. And the normal reaction to worry or anxiety is to do something or do more, or to help in some way. And we should. But I want to make the case this morning that in the midst of our worry or anxiety, our first response shouldn’t be action, but praise. Because when we give praise we acknowledge to God, to ourselves, and to all creation that we are not in charge of the world, let alone our own lives. When we praise God, we are acknowledging that God is God, and we are not, and we need God’s help.

And here again we can learn from creation and our animal companions. The psalmist tells us that all of creation praises the Lord: sun and moon, the seas and all that's in them, wild animals, trees, flying things, and even creeping creatures, they all praise the Lord. How, you ask? Simply by being the creatures they are. Nadia bolz weber puts it this way “creeping things of the Earth praise the creator by simply being creatures. Their being is praise of the source of their being.”

When the dog barks and the fruit fly buzzes, when the elephant sways their trunk and the fish swims, they are praising their Creator, even in the midst of their worry. The same is true for us. You are a part of creation and your being is an act of praise to the One who created you. And even in our worry and anxiety, no matter how great, we give praise when we do the things that we were created to do: love God, love our neighbors, and care for creation. So this morning I won’t say don’t worry, but rather when you worry, give praise. Amen.

Servanthood

Worry and Praise