We're all backseat drivers

 

Woe to him who strives with Him who formed him, a pot among earthen pots!  Does the clay say to him who forms it, "What are you making?" or "Your work has no handles"?  --Isaiah 45:9

Deep down, we're all really just a bunch of back seat drivers.  We say we don't want to be in control, but who among us hasn't been tempted to say, "Hey, God, did we miss our exit?  Didn't we want to take a right turn back there?  Can we turn around now?"  The problem with trying to steer from the rear is that you have limited vision, and can't see what the driver sees.  You don't know what the driver knows.  You have to put your complete trust in the one behind the steering wheel.

A recent joke going around the internet says, "When I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I am reminded that you can't always trust Google Maps."  Thankfully, we do know we can always trust Jesus, because He has walked down this road many times.

This is the quandary for James and John in our passage today.  You'll remember from our study last week that the disciples were desperately trying to make Jesus turn back from His final trip to Jerusalem.  Some of them looked at the courage of Jesus, and resigned themselves to "also die with him." (John 11:16).  The sons of Zebedee, however, remembered how Jesus always spoke of "the Kingdom of Heaven."  Maybe they heard Him says in Mark 10:34 that He would "rise after three days" and thought that He would set himself up as King at that time.

And James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came up to Him and said to Him, "Teacher, we want You to do for us whatever we ask of You."  And He said to them, "What do you want me to do for you?"  And they said to Him, "Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one on your left, in your glory."  Jesus said to them, "You do not know what you are asking."--Mark 10: 35-38a

 When I was growing up, every sermon I ever heard on this topic was preached with the assumption that James and John meant they wanted to be elevated to positions of power in heaven.  After all, when folks today are asked to trust in Jesus, we know it means they want to go to heaven and avoid hell.  In context, however, it is not so clear that this is what they meant.  Taken to its extreme, it would make Jesus like a cult leader such as Jim Jones, and make Thomas the Twin's exclamation in John 11:16 a desire to "drink the Kool-Aid" like happened at the People's Temple in Jonestown, Guyana in 1978.

We see in the companion passage in Matthew 20:21 that it was their mother, the wife of Zebedee who actually made this request to Jesus on behalf of her sons James and John.  If this woman was a follower of Jesus but not one of the disciples, perhaps she foresaw Jesus as a political leader, One who would throw off the yoke of oppression that the Romans had held over them for so long.  As such, she knew that He would need trusted lieutenants, either advisers or vice-consuls that Jesus might put in charge of hundreds or of thousands when He set up His kingdom on earth.  She may have thought them particularly qualified, not just because they were her sons, but because they were loud, blustery men who could get people's attention--after all, Jesus called them "the sons of Thunder" (Mark 3:17).

Jesus tried to gently correct them by re-directing their thoughts.  He noted their error in their thinking by saying, "You don't know what you are asking."  He continues:

Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or to baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized?"  And they said to Him, "We are able."  And Jesus said to them, "The cup that I drink you will drink, and with the baptism with which I am baptized, you will be baptized, but to sit at my right hand or at my left hand is not mine to grant, but it is for those for whom it has been prepared."  --Mark 10: 38b-40

 Jesus may have been trying to focus them on the near term rather than have them wishing it was over already.  Jesus would have to drink the cup of martyrdom, to be baptized with fire, so to speak.  That's what Jesus was facing: the imminent and present danger of death at the hands of the Pharisees on a Roman cross.  James and John responded again in the future tense.  Yes, they would eventually also die a martyr's death.  Eventually, they would also go through a baptism of fire.

Yes, eventually there would be a time for looking at the long-term.  In time they would look at the world through the lens of the cross, and it would come into clearer focus for them.  For now, however, before the cross, they needed to focus on the near-term.

With whiplash speed, their attention was drawn back to the present.

And when the ten heard it, they began to be indignant at James and John.  And Jesus called them to Him and said to them, "You know that those who are considered rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them.  But it shall not be so among you.  But whoever would be first among you must be slave to all.  For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many."  --Mark 10:41-45

The focus came back to the present, but for the wrong reason.  How dare these two brothers set themselves up as leaders or try to promote themselves over them in the hierarchy of Jesus's followers?  Jesus used it as a teaching opportunity.  He pointed to the occupying force at the present, the Romans.  Everyone knew about centurions (rulers over a hundred men) and prefect or proconsul (ruler over a centurion) and Caesar (ruler over all).  Using this framework, Jesus mentioned it to show what didn't work for His kingdom.  In order to be the first in God's kingdom, you must be willing to be last.  You must be a servant.  You must be like Jesus, who was willing to give up His own life, not for Himself, and certainly not for political gain or personal promotion.  He was willing to give Himself up for the sins of the world.  He was willing to go all in for me, and for you.

Jesus was trying to tell James and John and the other disciples not to try to control things so much.  Give up trying to influence things.  Tear up the back-seat driver's license.  Be the servant of all, for the glory of the Lord of all.