Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost



Twenty-second Sunday after PentecostIsaiah 53:4-12October 21, 2018Hebrews 5:1-10Cycle B RCLMark 10:35-45Grace and Peace from God our Father and our Lord, Jesus Christ.The year before the team had been district champions, having gone 10 and 1. They were unstoppable, but 80 percent of the starters had been seniors who graduated on an athletic high note. Not so this season. Instead, 80 percent of the starting players were freshmen and sophomores – small, timid, inexperienced, and it showed. My good friends younger brother – Jeff – was good, but one good player doesn’t make a winning team. Jeff’s senior year the team was lousy – to be truthful they were pathetic. The district had a rule – if one team got more 7 touchdowns behind, the game would be called regardless of the time on the clock. Of the eleven games his senior year 5 were called in this way. The team never won a single game that season. Watching was painful. People told Jeff just to quit the team, saying you shouldn’t have to go through the humiliation of losing every game so badly. Jeff refused saying, “Look. I know we’re lousy, but They’re still my team.” To his credit, , he played the entire season: every game, every minute. That season I pitied him, thinking, “It must be a real struggle to suit up knowing every time you’re going to get the stuffing knocked out of you.” It was his team. If they were to triumph – as they had in previous seasons – he shared in the glory, but if humiliation was in store, he would suffer with the rest because that’s what it meant to be part of a team.I recalled Jeff and that terrible team as I read this morning’s texts about "Suffering Servanthood". Jeff’s example informs our understanding of the Suffering Servant texts from the book of Isaiah. We tend to assume that Isaiah is talking about Jesus without ever considering any other possibility, but that’s not the original context.The Jewish community to whom Isaiah speaks have been prisoners in Babylonian capital city for half a century. Isaiah 53 speaks of a prophet or servant of God who is crushed and caused to suffer by God's will, as He brings God’s message to other Jewish exiles. Though he himself does not deserve suffering, Isaiah – a good team player --suffers through the punishment, even though he has remained faithful. The point of all this when taken with today's gospel lesson is that walking with God will mean serving the human family under the curse of sin as Jesus did. Serving as part of a team or family still n bondage to sin means suffering its burden. It doesnn’t make sense. In the days of Isaiah, as is the case today, God's people fully expected the righteous to prosper, not suffer. Yet, the suffering servant's reward for faithfully walking as God's prophet involves sickness, public scorn, and constant threats to his life. The details of what happened to him are lost to us, but one thing is clear. Isaiah suffers anyway, and all because he was part of a team, the people of Israel.Jesus suffers through unimaginable, unfair suffering, Himself. He omes not to be served, but to serve. He walks many miles to feed the hungry, heal the sick, love and forgive the downcast, and bringing news of God's Kingdom along his way. For his faithful steps, he received not a losing season and wounds to his pride, but a poisonous cup to drink and a baptism of agonizing death. Innocent of any wrongdoing against Jew or Roman, Jesus is "numbered with the transgressors" and executed between two thieves. If they were to be humiliated and ridiculed because of their waywardness, he would suffer along with the rest because that’s what it meant to be part of the human family. That’s the reward the faithful servant receives.Like the people of Isaiah's day, James and John think they know what the faithful servant would receive: a seat at the right and left of Christ in his glory. Though they look foolish this morning and are reprimanded by the disciples, the Church has always had the problem of wanting to sit rather than serve. They wanted wine and roses rather than a cup of suffering and a baptism of death. The people of this world – the gentiles as Jesus refers to them – share this idea of fair play. Many Christians share James and John's view: a Christian business will prosper, a Christian family will be full of harmony and love, a Christian's faith will cause all his prayers to be granted, and the faithful Christian'ssickness will be healed. Preachers on the radio and television or who write books on successful Christian living tell us this everyday. Unfortunately, this rose colored picture of Christian life doesn’t bear out – more importantly – it’s not consistent with what’s I the Bible. Ask Paul; Ask the martyrs; Ask James and John or they other 8 apostles who die sharing Jesus with the wolrd; Ask Mother Theresa, Bishop Oscar Romero, Martin Luther King, Jr., or Dietrick Bonhoeffer.Luther saw this idea that the Christian faith is all wine and roses as an example of what he called a theology of Glory. This golden glory theology must be countered, he said, at every turn by the truly biblical theology of the cross. In the life of every believer, God hides himself in the suffering, humiliation, and downright unfairness of the cross. And this implies for each of us, as for the prophet of Isaiah 53 or for James or John, serving means a certain amount of unfair suffering. To promise otherwise is not just cruel, misleading, and unbiblical, it is destructive to Christian faith. Anyone who looks for painless service or comfortable mission in this life will soon be writing God off as a liar and a cheat. God never promised us a rose garden, but a life of rich and gratifying service, marred now and then by a good deal of unfair suffering all for the sake of redeeming the world or which we are a part.Of course if Christian living were merely pointless, unjust suffering, we all would have given up long ago. But serving God means purposeful, meaningful living as part of the Body of Christ redeeming a fallen world. Remember that it is the will of God that causes the prophet to suffer. He faithfully walked the road of God's spokesperson, wielding the Word of God, turning his life into a sort of offering for the people's sin in order to re-establish their closeness to God. His prophetic words and deeds cause many to be justified – that is, his teachings brought them back into right relationship with God. This was also true of the purposeful suffering of Jesus: "The Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many"(Mark. 10:45). The injustice of it all was absolutely necessary for the purpose. Our Lord's purpose went far beyond that of the prophet in Isaiah 53. His life and death arere an offering for sin, not just in a symbolic way, but in a very real way. When he walked to the cross, he "bore the sins of many" not simply by sharing in our deserved punishment as the prophet did, but by taking it ALL upon himself even to death. By his suffering and humiliation he lends His righteousness to all humanity that we might have our relationship with God reestablished. Instead of the immediate glory they sought, Jesus gave James and John a road of purposeful suffering to walk for the sake of the world. James and John suffer many things witnessing to the Good News of Jesus’ victory over death; John is imprisoned and exiled, James dies a martyr. Indeed, the original meaning of the word "martyr” is "witness." They drink Jesus' cup and share his painful baptism. When we drink His cup and share in His painful baptism by willingly entering into our neighbor’s suffering, we too, demonstrate to the world's people just how fully and completely and deeply God loves them. Walking with others in their pain or hurt or hunger or sickness reveals God's desire to be with them even in the pain and sorrow of their lives. "Whoever would be first among you must be slave of all"(Matt. 10:44).The prophet in Isaiah finally receives mercy, but only as part of Israel’s redemption. His prize is what every Old Testament believer hoped for: the reunion of a wayward people with their loving God. For Jesus too, beyond the cross and grave lay the resurrection and glory, but first he willingly plays through a long humiliating season to its miserable conclusion as part of the team with his human family. We walk the road of the suffering servant not for any reward, but because Christ plays right along our side, win or lose. We do our service out of thankful love knowing that we are walking with God who cares for and walks with us. We have God's word that whoever would be first in the Kingdom must be servant of all, and that is hope enough.Who is called to walk as the suffering Servant? Is only Jesus called to suffer for the sins of the world? Jesus reminds us this day that being on God’s team means suffering with the team in loss, but the victory awaits us all. AMEN!!! ................
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