10.20.24 "Two Ambitious Disciples" - Westminster Presbyterian Church, Pasadena, CA

 Isaiah 53.4-12; Mark 10.35-45

Two ambitious disciples … do they whisper? side-eyes? …, We want you to do whatever we ask of you!

What is it you want me to do for you? replies Jesus.

When you claim your kingdom, give us the seats of power … we want to sit at either side of you … we’re all for your glory, but we want some of that glory to come our way.

You’re nuts! says Jesus - well, at least that’s my translation.

Jesus goes on: You have no idea what you’re babbling about … 

The other disciples get wind of it, and they’re angry.

They’re not ashamed … they’re not distressed, disappointed, sorrowful, apologetic … no, they’re angry … that’s the clue.

They’re angry at being out-maneuvered by James and John!

Angry because James and John beat them to the punch!

Jesus says to all of them, You’re clueless … you ask for what I don’t have … for something I can’t give … you ask for what the Devil offered me, and I refused … and now you ask me for it.

If you want to be great, learn to be a servant.

If you want to be first, learn to be last.

Good advice for those who want to share in the journey of Jesus … but in the wrong hands, this kind of advice turns deadly.

Deadly for women - told by powerful preachers and belligerent husbands - knuckle under, don’t raise your voice, make your man happy, and you’ll be happy … if your man goes off the rails, it’s your fault … your role in life is to have babies, as many babies as you can … your role in life is found in the home, the kitchen, the bedroom.

Deadly for millions enslaved by colonial powers … God has made you to serve us … 

Deadly for the poor … you are poor by God’s design … after all, even Jesus said, ‘You’ll always have the poor.’

The words of Jesus must never be separated from Jesus himself … 

His words are always HIS words … embedded in his life, his love, his dedication, his sacrifice. These are not just words, but a way of life.

A way of life that liberates … grows larger every day … welcomes and never sends away … blesses the meek, the lowly, the lonely, and the sad … cautions the rich and the powerful  … crosses boundaries, looks beyond race and religion … blesses the children … takes up a cross and does the hard, hard, work of love.

Jesus is painfully aware of ambition and power … he was tempted by it in the wilderness … 

Now, he sees his own disciples reaching for it …

Ambition unchecked and immature power drive the suffering in our world … war and rumors of war, as the Bible says …  and worst of all, the church is a part of it … guns blessed with holy water, bombs anointed with prayer … the Bible quoted, or shall I say misquoted, and Jesus presented as John Wayne with an AR-15.

And what about so called “natural disasters”  … insurance companies call them “acts of God.”

But are they? Entirely?

Floods and famine, storms and earthquakes - the failure to plan, invest in infrastructure, take the needed precautions … corporations strive for profit and stock value … legislators stand in the way of social development and environmental safety … fracking in Oklahoma and earthquakes as never before … global warming and hurricanes devastate Florida … the ice caps are melting, the deserts are growing … 

Acts of God? 

Not entirely.

Ambition unchecked and immature power! 

Deadly forces in the human heart, in corporations, cities, states, nations.

The Bible is a survey course on ambition and power without moral balance … Adam and Eve want the fruit … Cain kills Able … folks build a Tower to heaven … kings and queens rise and fall … mad King Herod wantonly kills … Pilate condemns … the rich and the powerful conspire to kill Jesus.

Jesus has ambition: it’s the kingdom of God … Jesus has power: to free a soul from fear.

Ambition and power are part of the human story … not inherently evil, but dangerous … if unmanaged and poorly handled.

How we manage ambition and power, Jesus makes clear: … strive first for the kingdom of God and God’s righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.

… those who want to save their life will lose it, 

and those who lose their life for my sake will find it. 

For what will it profit them 

if they gain the whole world 

but forfeit their life? 

Or what will they give in return for their life?

 Jesus says of himself: … the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.

An early Christian poem: though he was in the form of God, he did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited …

Jesus doesn’t reach for a throne … he wades into the Jordan River … 

John the Baptist protests: you ought to baptize me, but Jesus says, No, not at all! My baptism is the mark of my humanity … I am with you … 

Isaiah says of the Messiah: he has borne our infirmities and carried our diseases … he was wounded for our transgression, crushed for our iniquities … and by his bruises we are healed.

 

Jesus is committed to us … 

Why?

Why not whales or chimpanzees? or dogs and cats?  The ox and the butterfly? 

Jesus is for them, too … Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? asks Jesus. Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father.

The little story of Jonah … God saves the city of Nineveh … but Jonah is bummed … Nineveh is the enemy … Jonah doesn’t want Nineveh saved - Jonah wants Nineveh destroyed.

 God asks Jonah: Should I not be concerned about Nineveh, that great city … more than a hundred and twenty thousand souls … and also many animals? 

Jesus is devoted to us, because we’re pivotal for the life of the earth … 

our decisions, 

the values we embrace, 

the candidates for whom we vote, 

the schools we want, 

the books we read, 

the people we honor …

Determines the future of the earth … 

the destiny of all its creatures … 

the dogs and the cats, the whales and the chimpanzees … the butterflies and the ox - they all depend upon us … they wait for us … 

in their own way, they pray for us … 

God hears the voices of the animals.

Job 12.7: … ask the animals, and they will teach you; the birds of the air, and they will tell you; ask the plants of the earth, and they will teach you; and the fish of the sea will declare to you.

You ask: What can I do? 

I can’t tell you what to do … no preacher, no prophet, no soothsayer, no palm reader or tarot card, ouija board or the latest influencer … only the Holy Spirit … through the words of Jesus …  

We learn something from everything … but Jesus must be the center … 

His words must live and move and have their being in our souls … Jesus, take my life, and let it, consecrated to thee …

Amen and Amen!

1.29.23 "Finding Our Way!" Westminster Presbyterian Church, Pasadena, CA

 Micah 6.1-8; 1 Corinthians 1.26-31

I’ve never been lost … in a mountain wilderness, or at sea … cast adrift in a lifeboat, or whatever …

There was a time in northern Michigan, a friend and I went hunting for morel mushrooms … he went one way, and I the other, and for a time, I was lost in the forest … not quite sure which way to turn for the road and our car, nor did I have a clue as to where my friend was.

Several years ago, D and I were traveling in Southern France, and in the city of Arles, we had a hotel reservation, and some directions … with google, we got close, but ended up going literally in circles … we were “this close,” and couldn’t find our way … even asking some locals for help, who provided us with suggestions, but language-differences made it difficult at best.

We parked the car, I called the hotel, and learned that the street we needed to be on was on the other side of the area where we had now parked our car … so, we started all over again … retracing our way, and finally came to the right road, blocked by a pylon … and when we called back to the hotel, the lady at the desk pushed a button, and, presto, the pylon went down into the roadway … we drove on and arrived at our hotel.

There have been times when I’ve been emotionally lost … having spent my all … too tired to go any further … coming to a point when nothing had a point … nothing had purpose … faith seemed a waste of time, and God? … maybe a figment of my imagination, or the imagination of the world.

A part of living is being lost now and then … something changes, things get turned upside down, bad things happen, friends disappoint, relationships crumble, life falls apart … worst of all, when we disappoint ourselves … when we make really bad decisions … when we quite blaming others, and find the fault to be ours.

We’re all lost now and then … 

We’re human beings … with an incredible capacity to screw up … hurt others, make crummy choices … follow the map when the map is upside down, and somehow or other we know it’s upside down, but we’re too stubborn to flip the map.

Finding our way?

A hiker might have a compass, maybe a map … we have google, we have Amazon … we have friends who stand by us, family to help us … here in this place, we have the deep traditions of faith, hope, and love …

We have a “sacred” text … a source of light and hope for millions who have opened its pages to read of God’s creation, God’s covenant with a people called Israel, the gift of Christ, God’s Lamb, who takes on the sins of the world, to chart a new course, Paul the Apostle to the nations, and that wild and wooly book of Revelation.

Myself, personally, I have found the text from Micah to be vital to my own story … vital to the welfare of the church … 

Micah asks the right questions - what do we have to bring to life to make life good? How much effort will it take? What kinds of sacrifice? How much will it cost?

Micah’s questions are the questions of ambition … whatever the ambition might be - a material ambition … a spiritual ambition … the ambition of power … the ambition of hurt and hate, to get even with others … the ambition to love, the ambition to build a better world.

What must I do to gain my place in the world? And what should that place look like?

The world never runs out of advice … every ad touches the ambition-button in our lives - fame, fortune, happiness … winning the lottery … being cozy and comfortable … eternally youthful skin, endless energy, chiseled abs - getting your child into Yale or Harvard, how to ace the tests … the latest in styles, … a new car with all the gizmos and gadgets we could want.

What will win the day? 

Micah goes through the usual list - expensive and dramatic things … burnt offerings, calves a year old, thousands of rams, rivers of oil … even my firstborn? … a hint of what human beings are willing to pay for ambition.

The Prophet Micah goes to the heart of the matter … his counsel, his advice, his word: move away from the self; move toward the needs of the world … celebrate the love of God, affirm creation’s diversity, engage the world in deeds of love and kindness.

A justice-love … to see the needs of another and never rest until those needs are met … 

Micah says to each of us: God has made clear what’s needed … God has made clear what is good … God has made clear what is right … do justice, love kindness, walk humbly with God.

Paul the Apostle invites us to consider our calling …  in other words, put on our thinking caps … give some thought to who we are, and how we live … do some soul-searching - to find our greatness, and our sin … to know our power to love, and our power to be small-minded and selfish … our ability to love God, and our ability to be be hateful … yes, the whole kit and caboodle … know who we are, in the light of Christ, and by the light of Christ, find our true selves.

Paul writes to the church in Corinth … a church troubled by ambition …

Spiritual ambition of the worst kind - to be better than others … those with money flaunted their wealth to the embarrassment of those who had less … those with spiritual gifts used those gifts to elevate their own sense of importance and power. The Corinthian Church was a mess.

Paul shifts the center of gravity - reminds the Corinthians that God has chosen them, given them everything … no one becomes a Christian on their own volition - people can join the church, but becoming a Christian is the work of the Holy Spirit … every spiritual gift, given by the Holy Spirit, for the sake of the church, for the world, and everyone in it.

Finding our way?

We have Micah’s words in one hand, Paul’s counsel in the other, and Christ in the center … we have a roadmap … a plan, a method, a blueprint - to keep our ambitions aligned with the kingdom of God … our life purpose focused in Christ … our hopes and dreams, real and godly … the years of our lives, thoughtful, balanced, and wise …  

Finding our way? … indeed!

To God be the glory. Amen and Amen!