The Stories We Are (Mark 10:35-45)

This sermon was originally preached on October 20, 2024 at Gethsemane Lutheran Church in Hopkins, MN.
You may view the service here.

Today's gospel is Mark 10:35-45.

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I’ve been thinking a lot about stories this week: Stories we tell, stories we believe, stories we know to be true and the ones we wish were true — or may yet become true.

And how, in today’s Gospel, Jesus is telling a story in which the life of the disciples hinges on just a few words. Words that are a doorway into another way of seeing, of being, where the history they’re all currently living through is just prologue to the New Creation they’ll write together.

image: “Zechariah and St. John the Baptist" Medieval Georgian fresco from the Monastery of the Cross, Jerusalem

"But it is not so among you."

So begins a yet-unwritten post-apocalyptic epic where worlds are resurrected, redeemed, and rebuilt; full of restored relationships and radical reciprocity, of deep reverence for how all life — from the deepest roots in the earth to the wildest winds hovering over distant planets on the cusp of life’s first breath — cooperates in communion in order to create, rather than destroy. 

We’re still in the prologue, though — the part in which Jesus’s backward teachings about greatness precede his days-away triumphal entry and crucifixion. The part in which power and greatness are measured by the ease and scale of the destruction done. And where the disciples, God help them, still think they have a chance at defeating the empire and transcending its “greatness” on its terms.

We know that this story which began with John the Baptist declaring, “Prepare the way for the LORD; Make straight the path before him,” will end with that Lord’s death march, crucifixion, and burial; with a boulder removed from his empty tomb, and a trio of terrified women fleeing from the one who brings word of the impossible: Resurrection. 

And From a narrative standpoint, Mark’s gospel is the best kind of prologue, because it begs a turn of page.  

But we’re not there yet, and the disciples aren’t even close to being able to metabolize that fantastical a story.

  Their feet remain squarely planted in the Now, when Empire slaughters babies, tortures thieves, and -- as Jesus tells them for a third, final, and most gruesomely detailed time -- crucifies anyone deemed a threat to their tyrannical enslavement and hegemonic power. 

That is the When that leads to the Wow: The awkward opening of today’s gospel where, naturally, James and John, the reactionary and fiery zealots Jesus nicknamed “the sons of Thunder,” respond to his prediction by demanding Jesus give them anything they ask. Like… excuse me? What?

But listen: If they’re starting to understand the gravity of what Jesus is saying (and they are), and it scares them (which it does), their reaction, maybe, isn’t as dismissive as it first appears. In fact, given they’re all about to face down the Empire, it makes sense to ask — like the thief will on the cross — to be remembered and promised a special place in glory. And though Jesus warns them that they don’t know what they’re asking, the brothers insist that they do and are ready to endure anything — be it the cup or the baptism — to earn that glory. 

Such will come to pass, when all’s told: James will be the first of all but one disciple to be martyred by the Empire; leaving John alone, to survive the baptism of their deaths over and over, and live out his days, eventually maybe even losing his mind. 

But again: we’re not there yet.

For now, as the disciples teeter on the brink of the coming catastrophe, they're sensing the shift in energy, and It’s amplifying everyone’s need to feel important, like they matter and are part of something that matters. It’s such a common story.  

Indeed, the first story that came to mind as I read today’s gospel was Madeleine L’engle’s A Wind in the Door, which is my favorite book of all time, and is, at its core, the story of how every piece of creation — from the most supermassive blazing star in the farthest Galaxy, to the most microscopic cell in person’s body — is crucial in the eternal battle between the Powers of Creation and Annihilation, Especially when the latter seem to be winning. 

The story centers around one of those tiny cells, named Sporos, who who lives within the mitochondria of a dying boy, where he refuses to “deepen”  — to root down, mature, to take his place among the choir of cells within the boy and across the cosmos, who are all singing the song of life, because he is afraid. He’s afraid of becoming stuck in one place, indecipherable from the rest of the matured cells. He is desperate to be himself, to be important, to be great, and he believes the Annihilators who’ve told him he’ll become nothing if he deepens. 

And so it is our protagonist Meg’s job, to journey with a cherubim, into the body of this dying child, who is her little brother, and convince Sporos to deepen, because — paradoxically — that is the only way he will learn the unique timbre and feel the particular resonance of his own voice. It is only in communion with all the singers that his full uniqueness has any meaning. It is only in becoming part that can he become whole and truly free. It’s the only way the boy can live. If the boy dies, so will he, and the powers of annihilation will take the upper hand. It’s High stakes.

In the end, of course, Sporos deepens. And liberated within communion he sings, “Now that I am rooted I am no longer limited by motion. Now I may move anywhere in the universe. I sing with the stars. I dance with the galaxies. I share in the joy—and in the grief.” 

Sporos becomes himself, the boy lives, “the pattern throughout Creation” is proven. “One child, one man, [one cell] can swing the balance of the universe.” 
The disciples will all learn in time how critical they each are in the story of Christ which is the Story of Creation, but for now, they’re exactly where we left them, grumbling about greatness, when Jesus calls them together and utters the pivotal words on which the rest of the story will turn: 

“It is not so with you.”

And those words reminded me of another story. How many of y’all have seen the movie Moana? It’s about an island princess born to sea-faring people who are now land-bound for fear of a Te-Ka, a 300 Foot Lava Monster whose powers of destruction have reached their shores and are slowly killing their crops. They don’t know what to do. But Moana believes the ancient stories. And she knows the only way to save her people is to return the heart of Te-Fiti, the life-giving goddess of creation, which was stolen by the demigod Maui and led to the reign of Te-Ka, who now blocks the way to Te-Fiti. 

As Moana navigates across the sea, she comes face to face with Te Ka at the climax of the story, and something astounding happens. Let's watch:

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I love this scene so much, especially in concert with our buddy Sporos and the disciples in today's text. These stories tell us so much about our own, about the duality within us all, and the irony of our own destruction if we aren’t careful. To protect the sacred power of creating Life, Te- Fiti becomes Te Ka, the bringer of death, just as Sporos’s refusal to deepen for fear of becoming nothing would have ensured he did. Just as, in trying to guard Jesus against the imperial powers of destruction and death which are coming to steal him from them, the disciples end up using the weapons of empire against each other, and so become agents of empire among themselves. Like all of us, they forget that empire will never create a weapon that can be used for its own destruction; nor will it ever tell the story of its own demise, so we must write a new one, with new words and new ways.

And That is what Jesus calls them back to when he says, “you know how empire works but it is not so with you.” 

“That is not your story. That is not who you are,” he says, “you know who you are”..
And folks, when Jesus tells them how it is, he is not suggesting what they can be, or even should be — grammatically speaking, Jesus tells them who they already objectively ARE. Just as Te-Ka IS Te Fiti, they are ministers of communion, sowers of Life no matter how badly they mess it up, because that is who Jesus is, and He is their Heart. 

They are His body, We are his body. So it goes without saying that every cell in His Body is absolutely essential to  His Life and His story. These other stories are for when we need reminding, and thank God, because we do.

In our world, greatness is still defined in terms of extraction, supremacy, and subjugation, where the many are Owned and controlled by the few. The empire’s heroes are still determined by race, geo-location, and the destructive force of their firepower, while those who join our imaginations to the communion of all that Creates Life are still called traitors and terrorists.

Which just means we are still within the story of Christ. He is still calling us out of the stone coldness of the imperial core and into the softness of His beating heart. He is still moving New Life to every cell through every cell. He is still making us into who we already are: Members of his body, whose particularities and uniqueness only makes sense in communion with each other, who can only be whole by being part, who can only Be Love by Being Loved in Beloved Community.
This is our story.  This — is who we are.

Amen.