Mark 10:35-45

When humorist Dave Barry landed a college internship with a magazine in Washington D.C., he wasn’t prepared for “the great Washington totem pole of status.” Barry writes, “Way up at the top of this pole is the president; way down at the bottom, below mildew, is the public. In between is an extremely complex hierarchy of government officials, journalists, lobbyists, lawyers, and other power players, holding thousands of minutely graduated status rankings differentiated by extremely subtle nuances that only Washingtonians are capable of grasping. For example, Washingtonians know whether a person whose title is ‘Principal Assistant Deputy Undersecretary’ is more or less important than a person whose title is ‘Associate Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary.’” Washington parties, Barry says, were serious affairs at which everybody worked hard to figure out where everybody else fit on the totem pole, and then spent the rest of the evening sucking up to whoever was higher up.

In the Mark passage, the brothers James and John approach Jesus to ask for special treatment. Interpreters disagree about what motivates them. Is this a totem pole way of looking at discipleship? Could they be so clueless about who Jesus is that they’re imagining a triumphant scene with themselves sitting in positions of honor at King Jesus’ right and left? Or is it that Jesus has just told them for the third time what lies ahead in Jerusalem and they’re starting to wonder about their own futures? Either way, their request is grounded in their love for Jesus. Maybe that’s why Jesus doesn’t reprimand them, and instead, tells them they don’t know what they’re asking. He gently brings them back to the hardships that will come first, through the images of the cup of suffering and the baptism of death.

The other disciples aren’t pleased that James and John are jockeying for position. It seems that all the disciples are stuck in a totem pole way of looking at power: who’s on top, who gets the best seat at the table. Meanwhile, Jesus is up-ending the seating arrangement. He says that what the world usually calls greatness is not great at all. He refers to the Gentiles, the Romans who occupy Judea. These Gentiles think tyrants are great. Then Jesus gives the disciples a new recipe for greatness. “Whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all.”

To be great is to serve. I believe many of us struggle with Jesus’ words as much as the disciples did when they first heard this, even if we’ve heard it many times. Sure, we know serving is good, but if you wish to be great, you must be a servant?

In order to grasp why serving leads to greatness, and not just in some sort of irrational, Jesus-always-loves-a-paradox sort of way, we need to remember that Jesus has been steering his disciples toward transformation – and along with them, us, and the whole world. Jesus knows that what’s behind the totem pole scenario is fear: fear that we won’t have enough, be loved enough; that we are not enough. He knows that what’s behind it is a way of looking at the world that says there are only so many pieces of the pie and so I’d better get my piece; that there are winners and losers in the world, and I’ll do whatever I can to be a winner.

It’s a way of looking at the world that has caused much of the suffering, disconnection, and violence that humanity brings upon itself. It’s this way of looking at the world that Jesus turns on its head when he heals people, forgives sins, touches the untouchable, includes the outcast, and breaks the rules that drag people down and disconnect them from community. From the beginning of Mark’s gospel, he’s insisted that God is near and claims us as God’s beloveds. Jesus has modeled the compassionate life that God wants the whole world to live; this, he says, is what God’s kingdom looks like. Jesus proclaims that this is good news, not just for those at the bottom of the totem pole but for all. Now, Jesus is showing the disciples that serving is the way out of the fear of “not enough,” and even the way out of “not enough” itself. Serving changes us, and changes our world.

Serving helps others, and it helps us. It heals others, and it heals us. It connects us with others, and it connects us with ourselves and with God. Serving is how God transforms the world and transforms us. Jesus’ lesson here is summed up by Richard Rohr this way: “Unless and until you give your life away to others, you do not seem to have it yourself at any deep level.”

“Unless and until you give your life away to others, you do not seem to have it yourself at any deep level.” Good parents always learn this. People in recovery in Twelve Steps groups learn this. The twelfth step is about serving others who need help with recovery, and the universal experience is that it turns out to be life-changing and healing for the person who is doing the serving, as well. A woman in recovery writes, “At first, I didn’t understand when my sponsor said, ‘You’ve got to give it away to keep it’ but after being around the Program for a while, I began to feel a lot of gratitude. I wanted to give back some of what was given to me so freely. I began to be a temporary sponsor for newcomers. It was then that I realized how this helping others business revitalized and strengthened my own personal recovery. I needed to help others as much for my own recovery as for theirs.”

“Unless and until you give your life away to others, you do not seem to have it yourself at any deep level.” The predictable trio of money, power and fame cannot give you yourself or protect you from the fear of “not enough.” The drive to be at the top of the totem pole cannot give you yourself, and in fact it feeds the fear of “not enough.” The greatness promised by the totem pole is illusory, a trap that leads to more fear, and more disconnection from self, others, and God. “Unless and until you give your life away to others, you do not seem to have it yourself at any deep level.” In a very real, non-paradoxical way, that is greatness.

© Joanne Whitt 2024 all rights reserved.

Resources:

“Dave Barry Goes to Washington,” 2002, http://www.thisisawar.com/LaughterDaveWashington.htm. 

Richard Rohr, Falling Upward (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2011).