Scripture: Mark 10:35–52
Has that question ever worked?
“Hey, Mom and Dad, I am going to ask you a question, and no matter what it is, I’m going to need you to say yes to it.” I am pretty sure that question has had an all-time success rate of zero percent. But even though that question never works, that doesn’t keep children from asking it, and it didn’t keep James and John from asking Jesus. It comes on the heels of the third time in rapid succession that Jesus has told them that he would be betrayed, arrested, tortured, and killed…
So maybe James and John are finally starting to get it. So, they play for the end game. Before they lose their chance to secure their place in eternity, they make a bold move: they ask Jesus if they can sit on his left and his right hand in his glory. After all, they think, they have been part of the big three of James and John and Peter, who have been invited to be somewhat closer to Jesus than the other disciples…they were up with him alone a couple of weeks ago on the Mount of Transfiguration to see his glory there. Of course, the other disciples get mad at them for asking, but it seems kind of like they are not mad at them for thinking such a ridiculous thing, but mad that they had the guts to actually do it first. So James and John take a risk…they approach the Teacher and Master asking him to grant their audacious request. Go big or go home.
We’ll get more to their request and Jesus’ response in a moment, but first I want to place their request next to the second story from this morning. A couple of weeks ago, we talked about a Markan sandwich, where Mark packages a couple of stories together with common themes and messages. It often comes in a series of three: the bread of the first story, the meat of the second story, back to the bread of the resolution of the first story again. We might call today’s passage an open-faced Markan sandwich. If we were in Kentucky, we’d call it a Markan Hot Brown. Because the bread and the toppings of these two stories seem meant to go together…
Right after James and John’s request and conversation, a blind man named Bartimaeus comes out of the blue, asking for Jesus to heal him. Actually specifically, he asks for “mercy.” The language he uses is loaded by the power dynamic of that day and time. This would have been a technical term used by the subject of a king or royalty: “I know of your power and my relative lack of power, but as a subject of your good kingdom, I ask you to care for one of your subjects by granting me this favor by your grace.” He knows that this is a pretty huge ask of the Master, and it could have been dangerous for this man to make such a public request. But I don’t have to say much for you to imagine what it must have been like to be blind in that time and place. In the cultural surroundings, he would not have had much value. He would have been powerless and helpless, isolated physically, socially, and even spiritually. So he took a risk, too. Perhaps he thought he had nothing to lose. Go big or go home.
Scholars Bruce Malina and Richard Rohrbaugh talk about the dynamics going on behind the scenes in both of these stories. In that context, society operated with a construct of patrons and clients. The patrons were the ones in charge. They were the rich, the powerful, the kings and governors and politically elevated. Their clients would have been the ones who worked on their behalf, served under them, lived under their patronage, and worked their fields and vineyards and households. In both of these stories, this is the operating construct. James and John approach Jesus as if he is the patron and they are his clients, asking for a favor of place and position. Bartimaeus asks mercy of Jesus, as a client would ask mercy of a patron.
Let’s pause and check in on how this stuff might connect with you and me. First, I would suggest that we are more like James and John than perhaps we like to admit. It is a little too easy to beat up James and John here, that they are arrogant and missing what Jesus is all about. There is some of that in there, but a) we shouldn’t assume that we would have been much different if we were in their shoes, and b) perhaps there is something deeper happening here. James and John want to matter. They want to make sure that they have been given what they need to survive, to thrive, and get what is owed to them for their sacrifice for following Jesus.
Which again isn’t that different than you and me. Let me suggest that all of us want to matter. We want to matter to someone. We want to matter in this world. We want to matter to God, even those of us who don’t use that language. Perhaps you have followed the culture war skirmish about who “matters.” Several years ago, folks started using the phrase Black Lives Matter. They came under fire because some felt as if that phrase assumed that it meant that “Black Lives Matter…more.” But the way I read it is that they were saying that “Black Lives Matter…too.” Their point is that by their experience, our nation and culture don’t treat Black lives as if they matter, at least not as much as others, and that we as a nation and culture need to make room for those lives, too. I think of the language of theologian and preacher Howard Thurman, who suggested as much when he said that there are those whose “backs are against the wall” in our society, and these lives matter, too. In response to this phrase a second phrase has risen up: “all lives matter,” coming from some folks to suggest that “hey, my life isn’t easy either, and I don’t want you to get any kind of special treatment that I don’t get!” Again, I think that Black Lives Matter means that all lives matter, but that Black lives matter, too. Corollaries abound. The phrases “Asian lives matter” or “Hispanic lives matter” both parallel ways that we treat those with non-white bodies. Even “blue lives matter” is an attempt to respond to the response to police brutality to say, “Hey, most of us are pretty good people and are laying our lives on the line to protect and serve, so shouldn’t we matter, too?” Now, I’ll save for another day the relative merits of each of these phrases, but for today I want to use this whole public discourse to highlight a point: all of us want to matter. James and John and Bartimaeus suggest that this is not a new phenomenon.
The problem comes when we want to matter so much that we force the issue. In the quest to feel like we matter, sometimes we want to push others down or out of the way. To make us matter more if we can make them matter less. James and John were on the edge of this. They wanted to make sure that they had a place, but it came at the expense of others who didn’t get to sit at the right or the left. In our yearning to matter in this world, we can slip into some pretty toxic hierarchical thinking. I matter more. You matter less.
Second, that’s why Jesus’ response is so important. But first, we need to understand that there is this third role in play: a patron, a client, but there is also the role of a broker. A broker is a kind of middle management. Technically, they would have been clients, but they had a special client status with higher responsibility. We see examples of these through the Gospels: The vineyard manager. The workers who were given stewardship of the talents. Local officials or royal representatives. These were not patrons, and had no power beyond what their patron allowed, but they were given special responsibility to manage the patron’s assets.
What Malina and Rohrbaugh point out is that in today’s stories, Jesus sees himself not as a patron, but a broker. Really in the whole Gospel. The first words Jesus says in Mark are “The Kingdom of God is here.” In other words, he proclaims from the beginning that he is acting on behalf of God’s patronage, not on his own behalf. When he goes into the wilderness where Satan tempts him, it is a temptation to take up the mantle of patron instead of broker…to use the assets at his fingertips for his own benefit. Throughout the Gospel of Mark, people want to keep lifting him up as patron, but he insists that he is a broker of God’s kingdom and God’s glory. When Peter tells him to use his power to protect himself from those who would arrest him, Jesus calls him Satan. Throughout the Gospel, Jesus is the broker of God’s power: when he heals people and forgives sins and rids them of demons, he is doing it because God has given him the authority to do so. When Jesus sends the disciples to do the same thing, he uses that broker concept that they too are to act on behalf of God’s kingdom and God’s power. This, by the way, is not the way that the Gospel of John reads, but we have to suspend our reading through that Gospel or through 2,000 years of Trinitarian theology to get this. Marks’ Trinitarian theology is much more simple and raw: Jesus is here on behalf of God to serve God and God’s purposes.
So in Mark 10, James and John come to him as clients seeking a favor from their patron, but Jesus tells them that this is not up to him to grant. He is but a broker for the power and authority of God. Likewise, when Bartimaeus comes to him as a client, Jesus doesn’t say “by my mercy I heal you my son” or “my power grants you sight.” But “your faith has made you well.” In other words, “because you and I together approach the throne of God’s authority and healing power, you have been granted sight.” In response, the man joins Jesus in his work, now with sight and purpose, and shares with Jesus in the brokerage of God’s good grace.
Now hear Jesus’ words again: “Whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all. For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve and to give his life a ransom for many.” Two requests are made, but one request is honored, and the other is not. One is brought up into a place of belonging, and invited to follow him. The others are brought back to earth a little, reminding them that even if they will know the cup of suffering, they have to accept their place as co-brokers of God’s power and authority. They are meant to serve, to bring others out of their pain and isolation and struggle. Not to be served, but to serve.
So, back to us now. We all want to matter. Of course we do. But we see that there are more helpful and less helpful ways to go about this. I have talked before about the concept of anavah. This is a Hebrew concept, and one that James and John and Jesus would have known well. It is sometimes oversimplified in translation as “humility,” but it is more about finding and occupying your God-given space in the world. For some—like James and John—it is about humbly taking a step down and learning to serve instead of be served. For others—like Bartimaeus—it is about taking a step up and learning to contribute equitably as a full member of society. Jesus models for each of them differently what it means by way of anavah…find your God-given place in the world, as a broker of God’s grace.
So for us, here and now, part of our discerning is to ask, “Are we more like James and John or more like Bartimaeus?” Are we truly living with our backs against the wall, as Howard Thurman wrote? Or are we actually doing relatively well, dealing with some struggles, but perhaps not as fragile as we sometimes claim. My guess is that fewer of us are Bartimaeus and more of us are James and John. But that means we are capable of amazing things! What Jesus gives James and John is not a punishment, but a gift. They, too, are receiving a healing. Instead of remaining beholden to a life worshipping earthly hierarchies of greatness, he is freeing them to join his ranks as a broker of God’s grace. He is elevating them to his place of greatness. In a way, all three of these men in Mark 10 are given new eyes to see! So, for a lot of us, our task today is to open our eyes to see. To see ourselves more rightly. And to see where is Bartimaeus in today’s world, and how might we broker God’s power into the lives of those kinds of folks?
All of us matter. You matter. I matter. And the way that we participate in that is not by trying to one-up each other or push someone else down, but by finding our space, our appropriate place on earth…not too much or not too little…and then helping others find theirs too. Jesus seems to be saying that as we help others feel like they are more worthy, like they matter…as we serve, that’s when we are blessed with the gift of knowing that we too are worthy. The more we look to those whose backs are against the wall, and help them see their own place in this world, the more we experience God’s grace!
Amazing grace! how sweet the sound,
That saved a wretch; like me!
I once was lost, but now am found,
Was blind, but now I see.
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