Isaiah 53:4-12; Hebrews 4:14-16; Mark 10:32-45

This passage from Isaiah we hear first,

is quoted at greater length on Good Friday.

You may recognize some of it.

The prophet raises the question of suffering,

how to explain it, especially the suffering of the innocent.

The prophet’s faith maintains three things:

it can happen that the innocent suffer because of

the evil other people have done;

some especially gifted people choose not to respond with violence;

this non-violent struggle leads to the liberation of all the people; indeed

the innocent sufferer even prays for their enemy.

This is the non-violent strategy that has inspired freedom movements

from South Africa to Central America and the American South.

Here is the inspiration. This passage also inspired Jesus.

Isaiah also believed that God was involved in these events, bringing them about,

because anything that happens to promote the purification of the world

must be caused by God.

Reflection in our own day would rather say that God does not cause this cross,

but suffers with the innocent, in Christ, and in us.

So we find in the letter to the Hebrews

that Jesus is called--not a victim struck down by God,

but the priest who offers himself to God even in his own human weakness.

He is the last priest, and in him we are all offered to God, at one with God,

and we receive mercy and grace in our own suffering and needs.

This mystery of suffering, the struggle we need to appreciate,

is the inner heart of today’s Gospel story

as we move closer toward the end of Jesus public life.

This little story is part of a bigger picture from these last few weeks.

Jesus is on the way to Jerusalem, to bring his word and mission

to the heart of his religious and political world.

Now, as before, he is intent on making disciples

who will see the point of his view of God,

of the surrender of our attachments and entitlements,

the priority of compassion and attention to the poor,

and his trust in the abundance of God’s kingdom right in the midst

of a world that does not naturally work for the good of people.

He sees that this intervention in his own nation

will not be acceptable, and he will be rejected.

Nonetheless he continues to trust what he’s here to do.

That is the way Mark tells the story, the first of the Gospels.

And the group of followers, especially those closest to Jesus, do not get it.

They make judgments in more worldly ways:

do we have enough bread, who is the greatest among us,

should we call fire down upon our enemies–

you know the story.

In other words, we, ourselves, who are followers of the Christ

are frequently enough unaware of our ignorance about Christ

in this world of ours as it goes from year to year.

We feel a need for spiritual security, of course,

but often enough find our security in being better than other people,

or, I know from experience, we set out on various reform projects of our own,

hoping to master our addictions or our fears

and to get somewhere. Spiritual seeking can be self-preoccupied,

as with John and James, "where will we end up sitting?"

Besides, when we look out upon the suffering of our world

it’s easy to feel frustrated and overwhelmed, unable to change much.

Everything people suffer is connected to international systems, global networks,

whether terrorism or genocide or sweat shops.

You can’t buy a shirt without somehow supporting something

you’d be appalled to see close up.

Besides Iraq, there are another half-dozen small or big wars going on,

as a matter of policy, a way to get things done.

So I tend to keep all that stuff on the back burner,

and devote myself to the predictable aspects of my job, keeping things going.

And then comes Sunday and you have to face the Gospel

in the midst of our own century.

What would Jesus do? I don’t know.

But the word to us is this:

"The cup I must drink you shall drink.

Open your sense to realize al that is happening.

You cannot escape your actual world and the time you are living in,

and it’s not enough to separate yourself, to just be baffled at this."

He says, "what I can promise is this: if you know me,

you will be frequently at odds with the values of the powerful,

and you may lose your comfort or even your life.

And as for a big moment of success at my right hand,

I can’t give you any assurance."

That’s it, pretty direct. Unapologetic. What would Jesus do?

He puts it this way. "The Son of Man,

meaning THIS Son of Man, himself,

did not come to this messy place to be served,

but to give his life for the sake of people.

Among the pagans, there is a jockeying for position,

but among you who know me," Jesus would say,

look out how to be of service, to give your life for the sake of life.

Pay attention to that."

Maybe that’s a kind of flat conclusion to a vast problem. Servant leadership.

And yet it is what I look for in leadership today: can you offer to us

any practical way to serve life, to do the next right thing.

There’s a modesty in Jesus’s invitation to be slave and servant.

There’s actually more power in taking action that will actually work

than in maintaining just the righteousness of your ideas.

Or as Al Bischoff said earlier today,

this isn’t a time for big moves and grand plays,

but for doing that small thing which is like planting a seed, for life to come.

I think many of you find life to serve in this way,

and I’m only wanting to encourage you in that direction, toward those places

where you are able to do the next right thing.

People talk to me of their amazement helping out at Douglas School

or Oyler School before that, listening to second graders read,

reading with them, and starting to notice the bigger picture

of how schools work, how children arrive at them, who the teachers are,

which, who knows, could lead to an interest in why things are that way,

and whether other choices are possible for parents or school financing.

Just to want to notice from the inside,

so much more liberating than complaining from a distance.

That’s where servants are, on the inside.

Where do you do this? Can you see how it is deeply important,

your mission, where you are sent. Specific and tangible.

Servant leadership, like Christ’s, is a matter of turning your imagination

to the place below the stairs and in the basement where servants work,

to the one-on-one touch of another that starts to change things.

And of course the secret heart of this mission is a willingness in your own self

to change and see the world differently,

just to know where the public schools are, where the food pantries operate,

what your congressional representative believe and vote for,

to notice what you spend, what you need,

what you read and believe from the media,

to take on the mind of a servant who has to find out how things work,

rather than the mind of the owner who just wants results, and fast results now:

the smart bomb approach to a happier world.

So it is that we follow the servant leader Jesus Christ,

unwilling to be afraid of the many possible deaths around us,

because ultimately there is no need to carry fear, even in this era,

when we keep looking for the life we can serve.

We do what we do in company with this Christ present and here,

expecting that the cross is part of his reality,

it is embedded in the reality of the world we’re given to live in,

and our mission is here for the sake of that world.

This is the discipleship held out to us as Good News,

the cup of blessing we come to drink each week.