Pentecost 20

Pentecost 20 Proper 24
The Son of Man came not to be served but to serve.

The disciples were religious consumers.

A religious consumer looks at God and makes the statement: do this for me. James and John were not unique in this aspect of their religious life. Their attitude toward God formed their relationship with Jesus.

James and John came to Jesus with a very blunt and self serving statement: we want you to do for us whatever we ask. They probably believed it was time to cash in on their close relationship with Jesus. Along with Peter they formed an inner circle who received special training and special revelation.

James and John knew Jesus was going to Jerusalem. They knew things were going to happen. They wanted to be in on the action. They wanted to secure their place in the new kingdom Jesus was about to establish. They had their list of goals. At the top of the list was power. They wanted Jesus to make them his vice regents. They wanted to rule over the new kingdom in Jesus’ name with absolute authority to give orders and to make laws.

The other disciples were angry with the brothers. They were angry because James and John had the effrontery to ask for what they all wanted. They asked first. The disciples shared the brother’s desires and demands. They were angry because they were jealous and envious.
Jesus had been teaching the disciples that the kingdom of God is not of this world. Jesus had been revealing that his Heavenly Father’s Plan of Salvation was not a political program. The Plan of Salvation is the fulfillment of the Torah, the Law of Moses. That law has two parts: the commandments and the sacrifices.

Jesus obeyed all of the commandments in thought, word and deed. He had formed his life by the prayer: Father, not my will but Thy will be done. Jesus was now ready to fulfill the sacrificial aspect of the Torah. Jesus was about to offer his perfect life as the one, pure, perfect and final sacrifice for sin.

James and John and the other disciples ignored all of this. They heard the teaching and immediately distorted it to fit into their basic demand. That basic demand is the voice of the separated soul that cries out from the pain of separation: what’s in it for me? My will be done. Give me the power. Me.

Consumer religion is the corruption of God’s call to all people everywhere to hear the words of Jesus Christ and to heed the words of Jesus Christ: I have come not to be served but to serve.
Consumer religion, regardless of the religious label, starts from the place of separation and lives from the place of rebellion. It comes to God, life, other people with the demand: do what I ask of you. My will be done.

That voice perpetuates the pain of separation from God.
For, that voice simply sees God as an extension of its own self will, fear and pride.
The disciples sought rule. They sought power. They vied with each other to become the Messiah’s co regents and co rulers.

Jesus will have none of it. Jesus is the suffering servant prophesied by Isaiah. Jesus is the co eternal Beloved who came, who comes, and who will return with the fulness of divine love, divine compassion, divine holiness.

James and John reveal to us, to all people, the great challenge in the spiritual life. The challenge is two fold. The first challenge is to accept Jesus as the one who reunites a separated, fallen, and lost humanity with the eternal love of God.

Our sin nature wants Jesus to be anything other than who he is. Our culture wants Jesus to be a teacher, a prophet or a myth. Our sin nature rejects the clear and concise message that Jesus is the Divine Presence. Our sin nature rejects the reality that our relationship with Jesus Christ is the meaning and purpose of our lives.

James and John wanted Jesus to be a new King David, a warrior king who would destroy Israel’s enemies and plunder the wealth of the gentile nations to enrich the chosen. This is the demand of a soul that seeks to dominate. This is the demand of a soul that is empty and seeks to be filled with wealth, power, pleasure, prestige.

The human soul was never designed to be filled with these things. Consumer religion is cotton candy religion. It is bright, and sweet and fun. A little bit brings temporary pleasure. Too much bring sickness. An exclusive diet brings suffering and death.

The human soul was designed by God the Father according to the pattern of God the Son to be a living Temple for God the Holy Spirit. That is why the kingdom of God is not about what I am getting to make me happy or powerful. The kingdom of God is the total immersion of the soul in eternal love.That total immersion opens the way to the second part of our Heavenly Father’s Plan of Salvation: transformation.

There are three initial levels of transformation: the mind, the heart, the will.
Moses and the prophets repeatedly and consistently taught and warned: if you place God second in your life you place God last. If you place God last you are starving your soul of the very essence that created it, sustains it, and expands it.

Jesus repeats this teaching over and over and over again in many different ways. Here, in this passage, Jesus warns the disciples and through them- us, that the voice of demand is the cry of a soul that is standing at the gate to a great banquet and starving because it refuses to accept the invitation to be filled.

How we believe does matter. How James and John viewed Jesus revealed the emptiness of their soul. Consumer religion always demands: do it my way. Give me what I want, on my terms and at my time.

Jesus invites us to consider another way. It is the way of service. It is the way of surrender to the divine will. It is the way of renewing our minds in the Word of God so we may take every thought captive and transform the negativity and frustration of our thoughts into clarity.
It is the way of the transformation of our desires through the total immersion of the soul in divine love.

James and John didn’t understand. Their culture had no place for the real Jesus. Their way of thinking could not understand the concept that the all powerful God would not accomplish his purpose in the world in any way other that through power and dominance. They were selfish and in their selfishness they were lost. They were filled with pride that they would rule. Their pride turned to fear when Jesus was arrested. When Jesus did not use his power but rather his love to meet the anger and fear and demand of human sin.

John finally did get it. As he ran away in panic from the Garden of Gethsemane John felt the reality of divine love. He turned back and with Holy Mother Mary followed Jesus to the cross.
The message of the servant is two fold. To serve is not to demand. To serve is to ask the question: how may I help.

The second aspect of a servant is personal transformation. That question is: where must I change? Where do I need to grow?

Consumer religion redefines Jesus according to the demands of the separated soul. It is the way of command and control. It is the soul both asking and demanding: what’s in it for me? In the end, consumer religion consumes the soul and leaves it contracted, collapsed in on itself, broken, empty and lost.

Jesus offers a different way of living. It is the way of service. It is the way of by which the soul empties itself in serving others. As the soul emptiness itself in service the Holy Spirit fills the soul with grace, joy, and peace. That infilling of the Holy Spirit brings expansion to the soul. In that expansion we experience the fullness of life Jesus promised.

The choice is always ours. Jesus invites us to choose wisely as he reminds us that he did not come to be served through command and control. Jesus came to serve through divine love and compassion. The heart of the servant is the heart overflowing with eternal love. It is the heat overflowing with eternal life.