Status Anxiety - Mark 10:35-45
Preached by Joshua at St John’s on 17th of October 2021
From the playground to the workplace – status plays a role in human society. We learn from a very young age to judge one another, to work out where we stand with one another and to compete.
As much as we might like to claim we are a fairly egalitarian in New Zealand, status still plays a role in our day to day lives. Whether our hierarchies are formal or informal we tend to judge one another according to what jobs we do, what clothes we wear, where we live and so forth. At parties these status games are often at their most painful as people ask “So, what do you do?”
With the advent of social media, we now have other ways to flaunt our status, to compare, to discern between “somebodies” and “nobodies”
In his book titled “Status Anxiety” Alain de Botton says this:
“According to one influential wing of modern secular society there are few more disreputable fates than to end up being 'like everyone else' for 'everyone else' is a category that comprises the mediocre and the conformist, the boring and the suburban. The goal of all right-thinking people should be to mark themselves off from the crowd and 'stand out' in whatever way their talents allow.”
And so, humans play the game of comparison and status, and we always have. It’s startingly clear in today’s reading from Mark’s gospel.
James and John make a request of Jesus. “Grant us,’ they said, ‘that when you’re there in all your glory, let one of us sit at your right, and the other at your left.’”[1]
James and John have aspirations, that one thing is clear.
They aspire to some status in the kingdom of God. With Jesus, they want to sit at the head table at the party, to be seated with Jesus in prime position.
We see in James and John personal ambition and a very accurate portrayal of human nature. They are grasping, reaching, striving to be like God rather than to worship and enjoy God in their rightful place as God’s creatures – this is in many ways expresses the very essence of what it means to be a sinner – to have a disordered relationship to God.
James and John have high hopes and dreams.
James and John get one thing right – they recognize that Jesus is the Messiah, and they recognize God’s kingdom is being established through him, but they don’t understand the journey to get there.
The context of the request is very important.
In verse 32-34 we read this:
And they were on the road, going up to Jerusalem, and Jesus was walking ahead of them. And they were amazed, and those who followed were afraid. And taking the twelve again, he began to tell them what was to happen to him, saying, “See, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be delivered over to the chief priests and the scribes, and they will condemn him to death and deliver him over to the Gentiles. And they will mock him and spit on him, and flog him and kill him. And after three days he will rise.”
This is the context of the request.
Jesus was going up to Jerusalem. He is walking ahead of the disciples –leading the way to the cross. Mark’s gospel picks up a momentum as Jesus journeys toward that moment where he will be crucified.
Jesus along the way has been revealing the nature of his true vocation to his disciples.
In hindsight to us, it is plain. Jesus speaks of his suffering and death.
Yet to the disciples this is incomprehensible.
They have different visions for what the Messiah will do. In their mind a more glorious and obvious way of the kingdom coming through might and power.
The disciples don’t get it! Jesus says to James and John – You have no idea what you are asking for! This is classic portrayal of the disciples in Mark as they struggle to understand Jesus’ vocation as king and messiah.
As we read this, let us not be smug. We ought not forget that often we don’t get it either.
As J C Ryle aptly put it:
“There are few true Christians who do not resemble James and John when they first begin the service of Christ. We are apt to expect far more present enjoyment from our religion than the Gospel warrants us to expect. We are apt to forget the cross and the tribulation, and to think only of the crown.”
We like the disciples will often struggle to understand the journey of Jesus – because it runs so counter to so many of our assumptions about what we think life ought to be like.
James and John articulate all of our desires for status, to be seen, to be recognized, to be adored, to succeed, to make it – and so on and so forth.
What Jesus will teach them is that the kingdom of God operates very differently from worldly kingdoms obsessed with status.
Two images – the cup and the baptism
Jesus questions James and John using two images: the image of the cup and the image of baptism.
The cup can be understood in various ways.
In Scripture, particularly in the prophets, the image is used to talk about God’s wrath being poured out. On the cross, Jesus will face God’s wrath at sin on our behalf.
Baptism, connects with the beginning of Mark’s Gospel and Jesus’ journey as the beloved Son, baptised in the river by John.
Mark’s first readers, the early Christian community, would have connected these two images with their own worship too.
As they celebrated eucharist, as they shared the cup, they would remember the sacrificial death of Jesus. (1 Corinthians 11)
As they were baptised, they would remember that in their baptism they were participating in the death and resurrection of Jesus. This is how Paul puts it in Romans chapter 6.
New Testament scholar, Larry Hurtado says:
“It is possible that Mark’s purpose in this was to clarify for his readers that to drink Jesus’ cup and to be baptized with his baptism—truly—meant more than partaking in the rites; it meant partaking in his mission and the attendant sufferings. The two disciples in the story think they understand Jesus’ question and answer glibly (v. 39). Mark may have been concerned that his readers might have thought they knew what being a Christian meant, when in fact they too were shallow in understanding.”[2]
To follow Jesus, is to participate in his mission to the world – which will involve a path that runs through suffering to glory, not from it to glory.
When James and John ask to sit at the left and right hand of Christ on his throne, they don’t have the cross in mind.
As we continue to read the story, we will see that those who are at the left and right of Jesus are the two thieves crucified either side of him.
Did James and John really know what they were asking for?
As we continue to read the New Testament, we see that for James particularly sharing in the cup and baptism of Jesus mean that he suffered and died for him. We read in Acts chapter 12 of James’ martyrdom.
When the other disciples get wind of James and John’s request, they become angry.
I don’t think it is likely that this is a holy outrage. I wonder if instead they can’t believe James and John got their request in first. Why should they be the top dogs?
And so, Jesus, as he so often does, uses this moment as a teachable one – as a moment to paint a picture of what the kingdom of God is all about.
In verses 22-24 Jesus makes it clear that God’s kingdom is very different to the kingdoms of this world. The leaders in God’s kingdom don’t lord it over others but rather they are to be servants to all.
Jesus flips worldly power and status on its head.
Giving insight on this, New Testament scholar, Tom Wright says:
“The cross isn’t just about God forgiving our sins because of Jesus’ death (though of course this is central to it). Because it is God’s way of putting the world, and ourselves, to rights, it challenges and subverts all the human systems which claim to put the world to rights but in fact only succeed in bringing a different set of humans out on top. The reason James and John misunderstand Jesus is exactly the same as the reason why many subsequent thinkers, down to our own day, are desperate to find a way of having Jesus without having the cross as well: the cross calls into question all human pride and glory. This is bound to carry political meanings, and dangerous ones at that.”[3]
I think Wright names the clash of kingdoms so well. Sadly, what happens when we ignore the witness of the cross is we too easily slip into forms of worldly power. Where the church has done this throughout history we have undermined our own witness in devastating ways.
Jesus reminds us of his calling, his vocation, when he says that the Son of Man came as a servant, to give his life as a ransom for many.
Here Mark draws our attention to Jesus’ death as bringing benefit to many. It wasn’t like any other death.
Through his death on the cross, Christians believe that Jesus has defeated sin and death, reconciling us with God and establishing his kingdom.
The way God rescues the world isn’t through a show of might and power but rather through sacrificial love.
Jesus through his death on the cross brings salvation.
As we say when we gather to celebrate communion:
“By his death on the cross,
he made the one perfect sacrifice for the sin of the world
and freed us from the bondage of sin.” (NZPB 404)
As well as this, what Mark emphasizes here is Jesus’ call for us to follow in his way of service and love to the world.
Jesus calls those who follow him not to be concerned with status but rather to be committed to service.
Mark 10 has an exemplary tone. As one commentator puts it, this passage is not about “what would Jesus do?” but rather “What has Jesus done”[4] - our ministry and live as followers of Jesus as grounded in Jesus’ saving work on the cross.
Saints and celebrities[5]
Our world is obsessed with celebrities. Many young people grow up simply wanting to be famous.
John and James would get it.
But what we see in the rich history of the Christian tradition is the story of the saints. People who exemplify in their lives the love of Jesus Christ.
These two examples to imitate have a radically different emphasis – the saint and the celebrity.
The celebrity is about glamour and being in the public eye. The celebrity is usually celebrated for some kind of talent, however even that isn’t a given anymore.
Yet the Saint is held up for the richness of their life – service and virtue are at the heart of the picture.
The Bible uses the image of saints in a broad way speaking of all those who follow Jesus and are made holy through Him.
To become a celebrity is unattainable for most people. An impossible ideal that involves looking a certain way, being at the right place at the right time, knowing the right people etc. And honestly, most modern examples don’t particularly inspire me.
To become a saint is possible for anyone. To be a saint, really is to be formed wholly by Jesus to be the person that God has made us to be.
Today’s reading, like the other readings in this section on Mark invites us to consider discipleship – what does it mean to follow Jesus.
As we see John and James come to Jesus with their ambitions, we might feel a mirror being held up to us. What are our hearts desires? What does it mean for us to be successful? How do we measure what matters?
St Paul summarizes the invitation beautifully in Philippians 2, calling us to follow in the way of Jesus when he said:
“Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves.” (Philippians 2:3)
That really is the heart of today’s message.
Let us pray.
[1] Tom Wright’s translation in Mark for Everyone.
[2] Larry W. Hurtado, Understanding the Bible Commentary Series; Mark.
[3] Tom Wright, Mark for Everyone.
[4] Robert H. Stein, BECNT: Mark.
[5] This thought was sparked by Jon Mark Comer’s podcast in which he interviews writer David Brooks.