Free, For Real--June 18, 2020

Free, For Real--June 18, 2020

"So Jesus called [the disciples together] 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'." [Mark 10:41-45]

This is it, folks.  This is the way of Jesus in all its simplicity, all its breathtaking beauty, all its radical power.  We lay down our lives for the sake of one another.  In turn, others lay down their lives for us as well.  We put the interests, the needs, the feelings of the other before our own--and at the very same time, on the other side of the equation, the others who walk this way with us are putting our needs, our interests, and our feelings before their own.  It is an elegant dance, where each one bows to the other and is lifted up in turn.  And it is given to us as a gift, with Jesus himself taking the lead and bending low for all of us first to set the tempo and bring us into his cadence.

Like so many places in the Scriptures, this scene cuts me to the quick and at the same time moves me to joyful tears.  And strangely enough, both happen at the same time.  One the one hand, these words seem so clear, the vision so obvious and compelling, that I think we should all be experts at this way of being "great" by serving.  And then I take a look at our actual track record, we Respectable Religious folk... and I look in the mirror... and I look at social media... and I find myself so utterly... disappointed.  Disappointed in myself, sure, and in an awful lot of what we allow to pass for Christianity.  

Maybe it's the difference between the actual way of Jesus and what Frederick Douglass called "slaveholder religion," but whatever the phrasing, however we call it, it seems to me that Jesus has got to be heartbroken over us.  He seems to be disappointed in his own inner circle of disciples, so much so that he has to call them over for a literal "come to Jesus" moment so he can get them to see how wrong they've gotten it again.  They have started fighting with one another about who is greatest, and they have been vying with one another for the best positions at Jesus' side in glory, seeking after their own benefit, their own name, their own cushy, privileged positions... and Jesus has to figuratively smack them upside the head (in love) to get them to see they've got it all backward.  And he has to make the contrast clear to them: "The powers of the day, and the rulers of empires play the game like that, sure.  They all grab for power. They will not concern themselves for who they step on.  They are interested only into what's-good-for-themselves, and they will try and convince you that Me-and-My-Group-First is the way everybody operates.  But don't fall for it.  It's a lie.  It is not so among you."

When Jesus calls the disciples on the carpet for falling for the diabolical lie of "Me First," I know he's got me in his sights, too.  He sees into me and this crooked heart of mine, too.  He sees the way I let my own ego get the best of me.  He sees the ways I want to assume I'm right and block out or ignore anybody who says something that might upset my assumptions.  And he brings me up short.  

And yet, there is such hope in the way Jesus speaks, too.  "It is not so among you."  That's an indicative-mood declarative sentence--it's not a wish or a hope or a possibility.  It is reality.  For us, who seek to be followers of Jesus, the Me-and-My-Interests-First mindset just isn't an option for us.  We are free to discard it.  We are free not to listen to its squawking.   We are free not to not to insist on our own greatness or to get as much for ourselves as possible.  We are free to be humbled and to learn from others rather than getting defensive.  We are free from the need to abuse or exploit others, and we are free from the compulsion to block out and ignore the ways we have abused and exploited them, too.  We are free, too, to look at our own stories, our own histories, big and small, with honesty, rather than looking for ways to make ourselves into the heroes all the time.  We are free from all that garbage because Jesus just simply says, "It is not so among you."

When we catch ourselves playing by the world's rules again, Jesus' words just come in and shake us up.  "No--it is not so among you."  And with that we are free again.  Free, for real.  It is not conditional upon a waiting period or adequate test scores.  But we are free.  Jesus pulls us up out of the death-dealing ways of the world's game-playing, and he just plants our feet on solid ground again, makes us alive again, and says, "You are free.  Because you don't have to do things the old way anymore.  You just don't."

It's like being raised from the dead with each new day.  Every time I plunge myself back into the rottenness of "Me-and-My-Interests-First," Jesus will not let my dense thinking or selfish attitude be the last word.  And he keeps on pulling at me, calling to me, compelling me into the beauty of his way in the world.  And that means, too, that for all the ways I am sure I let Jesus down, he does not give up on me.  For all the ways any of us Respectable Religious Folk say and do some pretty terrible things (or defend terrible things on social media... or stay silent in the midst of rotten things in front of us... or ignore the awfulness lurking in our history that we don't want to face and would rather whitewash), Jesus doesn't give up on us, or on his way.  

I need that.  I need him to keep tugging on my arm to pull me back on track, and I need the assurance of knowing he is not done with me even when I'm a disappointment.  And what do you know--there he is again.

Lord Jesus, don't give up on us.  Show us how we have blown it.  Shake us up to help us let go of the terrible things we are entangled in.  And pull us close to you again.