"Where Shall We Sit?"
October 19, 1997
Text: Mark 10:35-45
Rev. James R. Gorman
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The modern Church often confuses being nice with being good. In fact,
we often refer to nice people as "Christian" people. Or sometimes,
"Nice Christian Folks."
It was the great Rabbi Abraham Heschel who once observed that God is not
an Uncle. God is not nice. And bringing his fist down on the table he raised
his voice, "God is an earthquake!"
The Gospel story, if the truth be told is not a nice story. And the main
character in the Christian Story, Jesus, was not a Nice Guy. He was good
to be sure, but not always nice.
Now don't get me wrong. The world needs nice people. People who smooth
over difficulties in the workplace, in the PTA, in the United Nations.
Nice people oil the gears, they keep things going, they keep people relating
to one another. An organization or group without nice people in it will
drive other people away. But an organization or group with only nice people
in it gets very little done. It's a fun group to be a part of but few tough
decisions get made. Everybody is so busy being nice to everyone else that
no hard decisions get made and therefore the status remains comfortably
quo.
A little bit of nice goes a long way.
Reminds me of a meeting some 10 years ago when we were working at putting
together the Interfaith Program for the Elderly. That program has grown
over the years to one of enormous stability and has done so much good in
helping folks stay in their homes for as long as they can. Faith Church's
support over the years has been instrumental in keeping it going and on
its feet. Our Christmas Eve offering goes to support this project.
But at that meeting 10 years ago, before we hired our first director, before
we even had an organization on paper, we were splitting verbs and dangling
our participles over the constitution and by-laws. Nice people like to
deal with procedural issues like constitutions. And these issues are crucial
to any organizations life, but our conversations and arguments over words
did go on for a long time. Meanwhile, one of the priests, Father Carl,
from Corpus Christi Church at 84th and Villard finally lost his patience
and said, "Look, we have not got enough money together from our participating
churches to get this show off the ground and if we don't show some improvement
in the financing, all the hair-splitting over the constitution is not going
to make a bit of difference." Or words to that effect.
Father Carl was not being very nice. But he made us face the tough issues
that Nice Civilized people like to avoid. MONEY.
For the most part, our most successful churches are good at being nice,
but they must also at some point be more than nice. They must be good.
The Church must also do what is good and true and tough. It must also confront
suffering and the causes of suffering, and perhaps in the process, make
some judgments and say and do some things that are not nice.
I think of the Nestle's boycott of some years ago. When Nestle was selling
infant formula under false claims, the Church and other groups began a
boycott of Nestle products. It was not a very nice thing to do, but it
was a good thing. Now those products are more carefully marketed so that
mothers in the third world are not hoodwinked into thinking that milk substitutes
are just as good as mother's own milk. The church, in that instance, did
a good thing, even if it wasn't a very nice thing.
It was not nice, but it was good.
Within the church, we sometimes think that members and pastors ought to
be nice to one another. But I think we could spend some more time being
good to one another, which at times may mean not being polite.
That is the gist of the confrontation between Jesus and two of his disciples
in Mark 10. James and John come up to Jesus and they ask if they can sit
one at his right and one at his left in the realm of God. And Jesus is,
as he often can be, rather abrupt. He asks them whether they can drink
the cup that he is about to drink. It's a tough question in which Jesus
is not being very nice. They of course, not knowing the implications of
that, say yes without hesitation. "Of course, we'll drink that cup."
The implication of that is that James at least will be killed by Herod
as recorded in the Book of Acts (12:2). And Jesus says, "Yes, you
will drink of that cup."
Taking up our cross and following Jesus is not a nice way to get where
we want to go. Most of us, me included, would want to avoid the bitter
cup of suffering at all costs. I'd rather take a taxi and have someone
else carry my burden. We think that service to the world means being nice
and that then and therefore, people will like us. Jesus, however, seems
to want to make clear that sitting at his right and left hand means more
than being nice:
it means being good. And it means being willing to accept into our hands
. . .
and onto our lips, . . .
the bitter cup of suffering.
The answer to the question "where shall we sit?" is not a nice
answer. The answer is another question, as is often the case with Jesus:
"Can you drink this cup?" And it's Jesus' way of telling us up
front that we are not being called to be nice to a nice world, but to be
good to a broken world.
The haunting question for the church is this one and it is not a nice one:
"Can you drink this cup?" And the implication is that the cup
does not contain Chateau Lafitte Rothschild, 1957. It contains some of
the gall that was placed on the sponge and handed to Jesus on a stick of
hyssop. Something like Chateau Menominee River Embankment.
For when the Church strives to be good rather than nice, the result is
rarely great praise. We may be forced, Jesus informs us in no uncertain
terms, to drink from his cup.
Let me get back to my earlier statement about Jesus not being nice. I know
that is hard to swallow, for most of us were raised on the notion of Jesus
meek and mild. And certainly for his followers, he was the counselor, the
one who provided balm for the wounds, the one who loved us when we least
deserved it. And that is nice.
But for those who challenged him and his authority, he was not nice. I
think of Jesus on trial before Pilate. Poor Pilate, you see, caught in
the middle of a religious dispute that he would just as soon have go away.
He would give anything to let Jesus off the hook. He asks Jesus leading
questions, "Are you the king of the Jews?" (John 18:33 and following
verses).
Now if Jesus were nice, he could have responded by saying something like,
"You misunderstand, your excellency, my kingdom is not of this world,
I make no political claims, so you really haven't anything to worry about."
That's all that Pilate really wanted to hear. He seemed to be saying in
his desperation, "Let me off the hook here Jesus and save yourself."
But Jesus replied with silence. Thus sentencing himself to drink of the
bitter cup of death by torture and sentencing Pilate to a lifetime of bad
dreams.
Jesus was not nice. But he was good. He said nothing, and the bitter cup
that he had prayed about the evening before was handed to him.
"Can you drink of that cup?"
Sometimes I can; sometimes I can't.
I take great comfort from the fact that Peter couldn't. In fact, none of
the men in Jesus' life distinguished themselves with great acts of heroism
in those last hours. There weren't any GI Joes, no Rambos around Jesus
on that last day. The Gospels tell us that there were only women at the
foot of the cross at the time of Jesus death. The men were gone.
And I don't blame them. Because I think I have deserted Jesus often enough.
I go to church because I need to be reminded that all is not sweetness
and light in the world that God so loved, and discipleship requires a drink
or two of some pretty nasty stuff.
I don't think that that is all there is to the Christian life. We are also
called to embrace one another and care for one another. We are all called
to a ministry of love and compassion. But there are times when compassion
leads us into valleys of terror and we are moved to say the unsayable,
and Jesus says we must then be ready to drink the undrinkable.
The Church would be in better shape if we would ask each member upon joining,
"Can you drink this bitter cup?"
My answer would be, "Sometimes I can and sometimes I can't."
And rest in the assurance that God forgives the morally lazy. Me and Peter
and James and John.
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