What Do You Want Me to Do for You?

Isaiah 53:4-12; Psalm 91:9-16; Hebrews 5:1-10; Mark 10:35-45

“It is not so among you; but whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant. For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.”

Six Sundays ago, we read the gospel in which Peter first articulates his belief that Jesus is the Messiah. And Jesus told the disciples for the first time what he tells them again in today’s reading:  What’s going to happen to him in Jerusalem. And then Jesus and his disciples started together to travel to Jerusalem.

And in each of the six gospel readings over these six Sundays, the disciples of Jesus reveal that they are bad disciples – that they do not understand what it means for Jesus to be the Messiah and that they do not know how to follow him.

So six weeks ago, Peter tried to talk Jesus out of the cross. The next Sunday, the disciples got into an argument with one another about which of them is the greatest. The next week the disciples tried to stop people from fighting evil in the name of Jesus because they didn’t get the right paperwork. Then we had potential disciples of Jesus who were offended because Jesus told them that they were looking for loopholes, instead of softening their hard hearts and allowing themselves to be vulnerable to love. And then last week we had another potential disciple put off by the invitation from Jesus to let go of things that actually hold him back from following him and entering into the kingdom of God.

So we’re used to this by now, in this series of Mark’s Bad Disciples. We’re used to it now, in week number six, that even still, this far into the story, after all this time following Jesus, the disciples still don’t get it.

James and John hear the prophecy of Jesus about what’s going to happen to him in Jerusalem yet again, and their reaction is to tell Jesus, “We want to be your chief assistants when you come into your glory.” They think Jesus is going to drive out the Romans and become the promised King of Kings, and they want him to know that they are ready to take on the top jobs in the coming kingdom.

When the other disciples hear that James and John have asked this, they’re angry at them. And I can tell you, they’re not angry because James and John asked such a bad question! They’re angry because James and John got their first, and asked for what they also really wanted to ask for – but didn’t have the courage to ask. And so Jesus once again has to explain that this is not how the kingdom of God works.  It’s not about power but about service. It’s not about being first of all but being the servant of all.

You would think that after the five weeks of readings on this same theme, the disciples would have gotten it by now. James and John, who were with Peter on the mountain of transfiguration.  You’d think that they would know better. And still they don’t understand who Jesus is and what Jesus is trying to do. Even still!

So, at the very start of this passage, James and John come to Jesus and say, “Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask.” And you can just see Jesus rolling his eyes. Oh, here they go again. You are ready for Jesus to say, What, do I look like a genie that just came out of a bottle, to grant you three wishes?  It wouldn’t surprise us if Jesus had said, You know, you can trust God to provide for you no matter what, and that God already knows what you need even before you ask.  You can imagine Jesus seeing where this is all going and cutting James and John off at the pass by saying something pithy, like: Do not ask what God can do for you, ask what you can do for God and for the least of God’s people.

It wouldn’t surprise us for Jesus to say any of these things, but in fact he says none of them. And the response of Jesus to this question that James and John ask is, I think, the most interesting part of this whole passage. “Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you,” they said. And Jesus answered them, “What is it you want me to do for you?”

“What do you want?” That’s the question Jesus asks his wayward disciples. Jesus does not respond by telling his disciples what they should want. Jesus does not tell his disciples what God wants them to do.  Jesus asks them a simple, straightforward question. “What do you want?” “What do you want?”

What do you want? It’s a hard question to answer, you know. Often times, we don’t know what we want, what we really want. I think it’s something parents often see. A child starts behaving strangely, maybe getting in trouble at school, or hurting a sibling, or themselves. Then you sit down and listen to them and you find out that they’re worried about something, they’ve been hurt by something, they’re confused about something, there’s something that they want and need and don’t know how to ask for it. They want friends, they want love, they want forgiveness, they want a sense of being included in family or at school. And they don’t know how to ask for what they want, they don’t know how to articulate it, so it comes out as skipping school or sneaking a drink or whatever.

Even with adults.  I often find that when someone expresses a view that I don’t like or agree with, whether it’s about politics or at work or even in church – how do I respond to somebody who says something I think is wrong? Well, I could put up an argument, I could debate them. But we all know that rarely changes anyone’s mind. I could ignore it, and hope that the person in charge will just make a decision and everybody else will just keep quiet and live with it.

But in my experience, it’s often very helpful when somebody says something troubling or problematic, to be curious what would lead someone to the views that they have, to dig around and find out what it is they really want – get it out on the table. And when that’s not possible, to ask myself, why does that bother me so much? What do I really want, that this person’s views seem to be an obstacle to? And I often find that, even for myself, I really don’t really know what it is that I want until I have to try to articulate it, and other people often don’t know either.  But actually, in a situation of conflict it’s often very helpful to be clear about what everyone actually wants.  A lot of conflict can be resolved when everyone is being straightforward about what they really cares about, what they really want. Not all conflict, but a lot of it.

Jesus knows that James and John are not in a good place, when it comes to this discipleship thing. But Jesus doesn’t argue with them, or call them out. He doesn’t condemn them or judge them, he doesn’t or ignore them. He asks them to tell him what they want.  “What do you want me to do for you?” And then they say what they want. And then, at least, it’s out there on the table for everyone to have to deal with. And it turns out the other disciples all wanted the same thing too; they just didn’t want to say it.  But now it’s out there, and now Jesus can respond.

And, we often – especially with God – don’t want to come out and say what we really want.  We’ll ask God for things in prayer.  We may pray for health (for ourselves or others), for a new job, for help on a test or a project, but we often feel obligated to say at the end, “But not my will, but your will be done.”  We often don’t want to tell God what we want.  Because, at the end of the day, when we are praying for health or for help, what we really want is to feel safe and secure, even though we know we live in a world where there is sickness and tragedy and everyone eventually dies.  We still want to feel safe and secure.  We want to love and to be loved. We want to know that our lives have meaning and purpose. We want so many things from God. Ignoring those wants never works out. It’s better, as Jesus does in today’s gospel passage, to get it all out on the table.

And so Jesus asks James and John, “What do you want me to do for you?” And they say, “We want to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory.” And I think Jesus knows how to hear that request.  They want to be right there with Jesus when he comes into his glory. They want the positions of greatest honor and highest rank in the kingdom. Because they’ve been to the mountain of transfiguration, they’ve seen the glory of the resurrection, they’ve know the wonders that God can do, and they want it for themselves.  That’s not a bad thing.

But of course, they’re not asking for it in the right way. They’re asking for positions of honor and status. And Jesus tells them, “You don’t know what you’re asking for.” On one level, we who know the end of the story know that you don’t want to be at the right side or the left side of Jesus when he comes into his glory, because we know that’s going to be the place for the two thieves who are crucified along with Jesus.

In the moment, though, Jesus takes their wants seriously – even though they are not really asking for the right things.  And I think we can trust Jesus to take us seriously too, even if we want things that we think we’re not supposed to want. Jesus still wants us to tell him, to put it out on the table, to say it openly.

At the end of the passage today Jesus calls the disciples together and tells them, “Whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant.” Jesus hears what they want, and what they want is to become great. And he tells them: If what you want is to be a great person, to be a great disciple, to live a life of significance and meaning and accomplishment, before others and before God; if that’s what you want, that’s fine. Let me tell you how to get what you want – it’s not by bossing people around, it’s by serving them.  If you want to be a great Christian, follow my example, Jesus says.  Because I’m not here to boss you around, I’m not here to tell you that what you want is bad and you shouldn’t want it, I’m not here to impose myself on you or on anyone. I’m here to serve you, I’m here to set you free, to set many people free.  If greatness is what you want, that’s fine, I can work with that.  The way to get what you want is to model yourself on me, to follow me.  Now following me may not look like what you think it’s going to look like, but if you follow me and you trust in me, you will receive what you really want.

To put it simply, I think we do not set aside our wants and our desires when we follow Jesus. That’s really not the “Christian thing to do.” The Christian thing is to give our wants and desires to Jesus, and let him transform them so that God can truly fulfill them.  That process of transformation takes a lifetime. James and John had a long way to go, and their lives – like our lives – rarely turned out the way they imagined it. But for Jesus to transform our desires, the starting point is owning what it is that we want. If it sounds noble or ridiculous, if it seems worthy or not.

And so Jesus asks us, “Tell me, honestly. What do you want me to do for you?” He really wants to know. Like James and John, let’s tell him truthfully what we want. And let’s be prepared for Jesus to mold and shape and transform that desire. Trusting that God will, in God’s own way, fulfill it.