22nd Sunday after Pentecost
October 20, 2024
Mark 10.35-45
We’re going to play a little bit of a guessing game this morning. I’mgoing to give you some facts and you have to see if you can come up withwho you think I’m talking about. When you think you know it just raiseyour hand; I want to see how long it takes the majority of us to figure thisout. So here we go. She was born January 19, 1946. She has beennominated for 54 Grammy awards and won 11 of them, including a LifetimeAchievement Award. She has been nominated for 2 Oscars, 1 Tony, and 5Emmys, having won one Emmy. She has sold more than 100 millionalbums worldwide. She became a member of the Grand Old Opry in 1969,ten years after her first performance there at the age of 13. She has receiveda Living Legend Medal and has been a Kennedy Center Honoree. Shecreated the “My People Fund” in 2016 with the goal of giving $1,000 amonth for six months to victims of the Tennessee wildfires. In 1995, shestarted the Imagination Library in the hopes of spreading literacy andavailability of books to kids around the world. Last three quick facts, she isknown for the hit song, “Jolene,” the movie “9 to 5,” and is the founder ofDollywood in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee.
Talk about a renaissance woman who is in the midst of a bit of arenaissance herself, and has been for the last five years or so. Dolly Partonhas become an icon of incalculable description in ways that I don’t think122nd Sunday after Pentecost October 20, 2024 Mark 10.35-45anyone was ever anticipating. There are memes now about how when yougrow up you should aim to be like Dolly, and it’s kind of astounding reallybecause while her music and film career is the thing of legends, it isn’t thestuff people really talk about anymore. When I was little, Dolly almostseemed like a little bit of a joke. She was big-chested, wore outrageousclothes, and had that Southern drawl. She opened a theme park, sang treaclysongs with Kenny Rogers, and was on one of my favorite episodes ofDesigning Women. She was a big personality in a tiny body, all bleachblonde and sequins, but now…now she’s Dolly, the woman who wants toput books in the hands of kids, work with victims of natural disasters, anddonate as much as she can to medical research for childhood cancer andCovid. She’s a rock star, not only in the literal sense of the term, but alsoand probably more deeply in the metaphorical sense of it. From a one roomcabin to the Rock ‘N Roll Hall of Fame. As she sang herself, what a way tomake a living.
My thoughts turned to Dolly this week as I turned over a question thatgot asked in Bible study that was mostly meant rhetorically, but hasn’t leftmy brain. Someone asked, “What does it mean to be somebody?” And inmy mind, I just kept thinking, we all have very different definitions of whatit is to be somebody, and then there was Dolly. A somebody in everymaterial success definition of the word. Fame, accolades, glory. But I feellike I can say with almost 100% certainty she would rather be known forbeing a somebody for all the ways she used that fame for good, forphilanthropic aims, for trying to leave the world a better place. If Jesus hada phone and memes were a thing back in his day, I think our gospel couldhave been summed up by him showing James and John the “Be like Dolly”memes and calling it a day.
These disciples, man, they just get me every single time. I want tojust put my head in my hands and be like, “GUYS!!! Have you not beenpaying attention?!” Which I’m sure Jesus also felt pretty deeply too. Jesusand the disciples have been on a steady trek towards Jerusalem at this point,with zero question as to what lies ahead at their destination. Jesus has nowtold them three times that he is going to Jerusalem to face arrest,persecution, and ultimately, death. He hasn’t sugar coated this at all, butbeen blatantly honest. They have just watched Jesus tell a would be discipleto go and sell all his things because disciples are called to servanthood. Hehas said ad nauseum the first shall be last and the last shall be first, and yet,here we are, on this dusty road to destiny and James and John just get theirmessy humanness all over everything.
I would love to have been there for the lead up to this conversation. Iimagine the two of them hanging back from the group and bickering likebrothers do. “This might be our last chance.” “I’m not going to ask him,youask him.” “It was your idea, you ask him!” “Alright, fine, we’ll bothgo!” We have no idea who actually speaks, James or John, but theirquestion is clear, in these final days of Jesus’ life, they want to cash in afavor. Jesus simply asks them what they want, and they just put it out there,they want to be seated at his right and left hands in his glory. You have toimagine Jesus just wanting to face palm right there, like, have you guys notbeen listening at all? With a tinge of heartbreak added in because after allthis time, here at the end, they still don’t seem to get it.
Jesus has no time to mince words. He tells them flat out that theyhave no idea what they are asking for. They are so focused on the whole “inyour glory” part of their question that they have no idea what they’re reallydesiring. They want to be somebody, with the accolades, joy, and goodvibes that that comes with. Jesus asks them if they’re able to walk the roadhe is about to walk, and they just say, oh yeah we can do that, with zerothought to what that means. Jesus tells them, they will in fact follow him, inways they probably can never anticipate, but that it isn’t up to him who is onhis right and on his left, and frankly none of that is the point anyway. Heturns to the rest of the group who are angsty and annoyed with what has justtranspired and he reiterates for the zillionth time, this isn’t about you, thisisn’t about what you can get out of this, this isn’t about being great, this isn’tabout being somebody as the world would dictate. This is about being asomebody to someone in need, a somebody that is a servant, one who iswilling to give up everything—even their very lives for the sake of others.To be somebody you must give of yourself, not just be interested in thetaking, and Jesus fears that message hasn’t sunk in yet in these the last days.
It would be so much easier, honestly way more fun, to just sit backand have an incredulous laugh at James and John and the ridiculousness oftheir request, and yet…again as one of our Bible study folks said, this doesnothing but hold up a mirror to our own messy brokenness. We might notbe asking Jesus to sit at his right hand and his left, but we certainly aren’timmune to the but please love me the most, Jesus thoughts. We compareand contrast ourselves against those around us, and we feel with absolutecertainty that Jesus loves us more than them. We might not be asking Jesusto let us bask in his glory, but we certainly want to present the biggest, best,most lovely picture to the world, not only in our own lives, but in our churchlives. We want our building to be beautiful and adorned and look the part ofChrist’s church, while ignoring the fact that Jesus wandered around in dustysandals and probably smelled like fish most of the time. We get concernedabout aesthetics and Sunday morning best, and all of those glorious things,and so quickly forget that the Messiah came and said nothing about clothingor how you or your place of worship is supposed to look.
We, like James and John, become so enamored with the ultimate goalthat we forget the kind of journey Jesus calls us to, a journey of servanthoodand service, a journey focused on how we can be with and for others asopposed to just blindly and blatantly serving ourselves. We want to put the“me” in Messiah and ignore that Jesus was uninterested in self-service orgrandeur, but focused solely on teaching others how to walk together andcare for one another with servant hearts.
And let’s be honest, even in the way we think about celebrities andpeople of power and influence reflects this thinking. Yes, we can sit backand say look at Dolly, using her wealth and status for kid, helping kids read,giving back to the communities she came from, but are we doing anythingwith the opportunities we have in our own neighborhoods for the same typeof kids. We’ll tell people, no don’t go downtown, because it’s scary, ablatant code for racism, instead of asking what opportunities are there towork with kids who are at risk, how can we get books in their hands, howcan we make the education system serve them and not put them at adisadvantage. We let opportunities for service and servant work fall by thewayside more often than not because we’re busy, because we have too muchto do, we have more important places to be, and frankly because we don’tthink we can make a difference, which is nothing but another way ofthinking about ourselves versus those we could be serving. Thinking there’snothing we could possibly do, is a simple excuse to not look within and havean honest conversation with ourselves about where and how we can serve inGod’s world.
We, like James and John, want the assurance of our place and ourstatus and our glory, but we don’t want to hear that none of that is the point.Jesus brought salvation to you, me, and the person we ignore on the cornerand there is zero question about that. But there is also zero question thatJesus came to ask us to serve that person, to see that person, to use what wehave for the betterment of our communities, to not build ourselves up, but togive of ourselves so that everyone has a chance to thrive. Is it hard work?Yes. Is it demanding and will take of your time? Yes. Does that mean youcan ignore it? No. These are demands Jesus lays at our feet and on ourhearts, how are you going to serve your neighbor today? Are you going todare, in a world of James and John’s, to be bold and brash for the sake of thegospel, are you going to be a Dolly? AMEN!!!