“…the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.” (Mark 10:45)
Sometimes we have to ask ourselves: what is Jesus going on about? These past weeks reading through chapters 9 and 10 of Mark’s Gospel should have provided ample opportunity for us to raise this question. And here in church, we should feel free to put the question directly to Jesus: Jesus, what are you going on about? Because Jesus has been pulling the rug out from under a lot that matters to most of us.
Back in chapter 9, when the disciples were arguing about which of them was the greatest, Jesus told them that they couldn’t vie for status, and still be fit for the kingdom of heaven.
Next he undermined their easy sense of self-righteousness when he wouldn’t let them interfere with good works being done by someone who was not following him.
Then, in no uncertain terms he knocked the stool out from under them if they thought they could evade personal responsibility for their decisions and actions when he told them, if your hand causes you to sin, cut it off!
Next he attacked patterns of male dominance which came quite naturally to them, when he told them that God only allowed Moses to permit divorce because of their hardness of heart.
In blessing little children and telling his disciples that it is to children that the kingdom of God belongs, he was reversing common power dynamics.
When he told them that it would be easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven, he repudiated the supposed virtue of wealth and the wealthy, and he rejected the love of money.
Week after week, if you’ve been listening to the Gospel in church on Sundays, Jesus has been unsettling the priorities that make our world go ‘round. And although many of us have heard these teachings before, like so much else, we have learned to rationalize and dismiss them. Well, we say… Jesus didn’t really mean it the way it sounds. And from pulpits to Bible study groups, we find ways to ‘splain all these teachings to one another in ways that avoid their real implications - namely, that if we were really listening to Jesus, if we were really learning from him, if we were really following him, we’d have to live our lives differently.
Today, we hear that James and John, the sons of Zebedee, are back at it, wondering what positions they will have in the court of honor when Jesus comes into his kingdom. Jesus pulls another rug out from under them. The rulers of the Gentiles, he says “lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them. But it is not so among you; but whoever wishes to be 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.”
Oh, Jesus, what are you on about? How can we ‘splain this to you? Don’t you know that we can evade your teaching a thousand different ways?
There are ways, I suppose, to ‘splain to one another that Jesus didn’t mean that real greatness is to be found in serving others… just as there are ways to ‘splain, I suppose, that when five thousand hungry people had gathered to hear him, and he said to his disciples, “You give them something to eat,” he didn’t actually mean, “You give them something to eat.” … just as there are ways to ‘splain, I suppose, that when he told them that his new commandment was to love one another as he had loved them, he didn’t actually mean that such love would extend to washing one another’s feet, even though he had just washed their feet on his hands and knees. So maybe there is a way around hearing Jesus’ teaching that access to the kingdom of God is a function of servanthood. I’m going to try to sit with that for a while and see what I come up with. Maybe I can ‘splain it to myself and to you. I don’t know.
But then Jesus really throws us for a loop, with what you’d have to call an apparent non-sequitur, when he adds to this teaching not only that the Son of Man (by which he means himself) came not to be served but to serve… but then, he adds “and to give his life a ransom for many.” What’s that? A ransom? Jesus, what are you on about? How am I going to ‘splain this?
Now, everybody knows that a ransom is what you pay, when you have a hostage situation on your hands. And a hostage situation is one in which a person or persons are being held as surety to try to effect a particular outcome of a negotiation, normally under duress. Definitions of the word “hostage” are actually quite nuanced, because the keeping and exchange of hostages was, in ages past, a part of diplomacy, and not, strictly speaking, a matter of criminal conduct. But today, the taking of hostages is invariably considered a crime, very likely an act of terrorism.
And here, toward the end of a section of the Gospel in which Jesus has undermined all kinds of norms in society, he declares that he is a ransom for many. But who is the hostage? You see, there is no hostage situation here, never was. James and John were prattling on about the seat of honor. So, Jesus, what are you going on about? How are we to ‘splain your claim that you are a ransom for many?
It is a fact of modern life that you can be a hostage and not know it. The fact that we live so much of our lives online means that we can easily be taken hostage electronically. Hence: identity theft. Hence: Russian hackers with organization names like EvilCorp and Dark Side (I kid you not). Hence: ransomware. Ransomware: a kind of malware (yes, malware: that is, software designed with malicious intent); ransomware is malware used to hold your electronic information (which usually means access to your money and/or your reputation) hostage until you pay a ransom. You can be taken hostage without anyone ever laying a finger on you, and without even knowing it, until they tell you.
So, what is Jesus on about when, after trying to disrupt all our social norms, he says that he gives his life as a ransom for many? Where’s the hostage?
Oh, twenty-first century American, says Jesus, have I been with you this long and still you have not learned that you can be taken hostage without even knowing it? You, of all generations should have been able to understand this. Do you not see how your status-driven, self-righteous, irresponsible, male-dominated, power-mad, money-hungry society has made you all hostages, without even knowing it?
No. Nope. Sorry, no. We do not see that. Let us ‘splain to you, Lord, that generally speaking, everything is just fine, as far as we are concerned. There are no hostages here! The role of hostage, implied by the language of ransom, is not one that most of us are ready to accept.
In fact, the word that we hear translated as “ransom” had a very specific meaning in first century Palestine under Roman occupation, and it did not have to do with paying off kidnappers or hackers in order to free a hostage. It is the word that was used for the money paid to buy the freedom of a slave. It is the word for the price of freedom, not from some criminal act of kidnapping, but from being forced into servitude by a status-driven, self-righteous, irresponsible, male-dominated, power-mad, money-hungry society.
Now, if you are keeping track, this piece of information should be a little confusing, since Jesus has just held up servanthood as an ideal. He has literally just said “whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all.” And now, he says that he gives his life as ransom - as payment for the freedom of those held in slavery. Jesus, what are you on about?
Now, look, you know that this is not the type of sermon I like to preach. You know that I would rather tell you a story about foxes, or horses, or Oscar Wilde. But you also know that I like, at just the right moment, an opportune turn of phrase. And Thomas Cranmer provided one of the most densely compact an insightful turns of phrase in the Christian tradition, when he wrote what was essentially a flourish at the beginning of his Collect for Peace from Morning Prayer, and he addressed God as “the author of peace and lover of concord, in knowledge of whom standeth our eternal life, whose service is perfect freedom.”
“Whose service is perfect freedom.” It sounds like a nice turn of phrase. But in fact, it shows us in five words that Cranmer understood what Jesus was on about. That Cranmer gave his life (martyred by his own church, his own queen) in order to deliver to us a phrase like this is further evidence that Cranmer knew what Jesus was on about. Cranmer knew not only the freedom that came from choosing to serve the Lord Jesus, he also knew that he, like all of us, was a hostage in need of ransom, a slave to sin and to the world in need of freedom. And Cranmer knew that he could never ‘splain this to us. Instead, he packed an explanation into five words at the beginning of a prayer, addressing the Lord “whose service is perfect freedom.” With these words, Cranmer shows us that he knew that our status-driven, self-righteous, irresponsible, male-dominated, power-mad, money-hungry society has made us all hostages in need of a ransom, slaves in need of freedom that would only come in the service of the Lord of love.
There is a great deal of machinery in this nation and throughout the world, working to keep you and me from understanding any of this. There is a tremendous amount of advertising and marketing that does not want us to hear what Jesus really taught, since if we did, we would treat each other differently, and we would buy fewer things; if we really wanted to call ourselves Christians. The result leaves us very uncomfortable when we hear all this teaching from Jesus, even for those of us called upon to preach the Gospel. And so, we often find ways to ‘splain it to on another instead. Which is to say, we find ways to pretend that Jesus’ teaching does not in fact, unsettle the priorities that make our world go ‘round, or disrupt our social norms. We find ways to argue that we are not, in fact, participating in a status-driven, self-righteous, irresponsible, male-dominated, power-mad, money-hungry society that has made us all hostages.
But if that’s true, what was the point of Jesus?
The point of Jesus is to free us from the power of sin, from all that misery that makes us less than we are meant to be, and then to free us from even more: to free us even from the power of death. That’s the point of Jesus.
No amount of ‘splaining can un-do the truth of that. But all that ‘splaining can prevent us from ever knowing that were are hostages, which would also mean that we’d never know that we can be free… if we’d give our selves to the One whose service is perfect freedom.
Preached by Fr. Sean Mullen
17 October 2021
Saint Mark’s, Locust Street, Philadelphia
