| |
|
|
| |
No Road To Success
Pentecost 20B
October 17-18, 2009
Mark 10:35-45
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ! I want to tell you a story – it is a true story, about a woman whom Cindy and I knew quite well when we lived in northern California. Her story ties in with our Gospel this morning. Maybe between us we can figure out the connection. This woman was from a small town in northern Minnesota, not too far from here. She ended up going to the Lutheran Bible Institute in Los Angeles where she got a two-year degree and met her future husband, who was from the Sacramento area. After graduation, they got married and set about starting a family. Because her husband came from a family of builders, they bought some land in a town just outside of Sacramento and built a house. Along the way, their first-born, a little boy, came along. Not too long after the house was completed and they had moved in, she was expecting their second child. Just before he was born, her husband surprised her by suggesting that she invite her mother, a widowed farm wife, to move in with them. So she did so. Her mom moved to northern California and moved in with them. She gave birth to her second child, and what should have been a time of great rejoicing instead became a time of mourning. Mourning because now that the baby was born and her mother was there, her husband announced that he was leaving her, filing for divorce. There she was, a young mom, newly divorced with an infant and a toddler, and her mom, living in a big new house. She had joined a local Lutheran church where she found she had support – members who were willing and able to watch her kids while she went off on job interviews. She finally found a job, an entry-level bookkeeping position, at a local company. Now, she quickly realized that she would not go very far in the company, that she would barely be able to support her family on what she was earning, so she decided to go back to college for a four-year accounting degree. As a talented pianist, she also started accompanying the choir at the church where she worshipped. After a while she became a once-a-month organist as well. And she continued to take classes, a class here, a class there, actually taking nine years to finish her degree program. But she persevered, graduated and got a better paying position with more responsibility, and began to do better. Along the way she also began accompanying the men’s chorus at her church, took part in Bible studies, became the youth chair on council, became a Stephen Minister, worked on a building program, and a few other things as well. Her mom asked her if she would take in her older brother, until he could get established. It was only going to be for a while, but with a debilitating stroke, and being unable to work, plans changed. So she worked with him and with counselors to help him get back on his feet, at least as far as he was able. But along the way, something else happened. When her boys were about junior high school age, maybe 8th and 10th grade, somewhere in that range, they came home one night with their best friends, two brothers, who were the same ages as they were. They also brought their younger brother and sister. Turned out that their mom had just been sentenced to prison, and since she was a single mom, the family would be broken up and sent to foster care, unless, unless someone was willing to take them in. So she took them in, the spare room was no longer a spare room and the family room became a bedroom. She visited the prison where the boy’s mom was incarcerated, got the necessary paperwork signed so she could authorize medical treatment, meet with school authorities, and so on. So her family grew from her own two boys and her mom to her own two boys, her mom, her brother, three additional boys and a girl. But the story does not stop there. She played an Easter Cantata with the choir a few years back and told the director, my wife, that she needed a couple weeks off because she was in such pain. Turned out that she had developed fibromyalgia and could no longer play at all. The great love of her life was gone. And the story goes on. Her best friend’s husband, knowing her love of Bible studies, and in seminary himself, suggested that she audit a Hebrew class with him, telling her it would give her a new outlook on her studies of the Bible. So she did. After a couple of weeks, she quit auditing the class and became a regular student. Several years later she graduated with her Master of Divinity degree, got laid off from her job, “outsourced” is the term that was used, so she did her required chaplaincy in a local hospital, and proceeded to attend a Lutheran seminary so she could finish the “Lutheran” requirements for a pastoral call. And right now she’s awaiting call to an ELCA church. So what is the point of this story, and how does it relate to our Gospel today? Here we have James and John who ask to be at the right and left-hand of Jesus in his glory. They wanted to be number one, and maybe number one-and-a-half, considering that in the ancient world the most important place was in the center, but the next most important places were at the right and left hands, respectively. They did indeed share in the cup from which Jesus drank, and share in the baptism with which he was baptized, but not in the manner they expected, even though one of the meanings of “cup” in the Hebrew world was “suffering” as in Jesus asking that “this cup be taken from me” when he was in Gethsemane. They had no way of knowing that the two on Jesus’ right and left when he entered into his glory would be two dying thieves on crosses on either side of Jesus’ own cross. But that was not the “glory” that they had in mind, nor was it the “glory” that Jesus knew would come after he suffered, died and rose again. So what is the point of my story about the woman in northern California? Is it that she wanted to be “first” so she became “slave” or “servant of all,” wanting to be great among those who knew her? No, I do not think that being “first” was on her mind when she took in her brother, the friends of her sons, when she accompanied the choirs or choruses, when she started seminary. Might it be that she took to heart the example that Jesus set by coming not to be served, but to serve? I think that is it! I think, I know, that she has done her level best to follow his example, serving as a way of life. I think that if you were to ask her what kind of life she has led, what kind of life she has had, she would think for a few moments, recount the sadness of her divorce, but then move on and talk about how rich her life has been, how abundantly she has been blessed. I am not sure she would see what she has done as a life of service, as a road to success. But Cindy and I have seen it, we have witnessed it, we have been a part of it for some two decades. And the story continues, as we walk together, following the way of Jesus who gave his life for us, that we might die to self and giving, live our lives for others. AMEN. Rev. Bruce Hannem, Associate Pastor
Lutheran Church of the Cross, Nisswa, Minnesota |
|
|
See the index of our
online sermon collection |