Gene LeCouteur
St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church
Richmond, VA
Palmer Hall Chapel 9 a.m.
October 21, 2012
The Twenty-first Sunday after Pentecost, Year B
“Teacher’s Pet”
First of all, during my sermon today I am going to ask you some questions. I
want you to help me out by giving me answers to those questions. I promise not to
make fun of you or anything like that. I really want your help. Can you promise to
try and answer the questions when I ask them? If you can say yes! Good.
When I hear today’s story with the two brothers asking for special treatment
and the other ten disciples getting mad at them I cannot help but think about being
in elementary school. Here we have two guys who want to be teacher’s pets so they
go and ask the teacher in this case Jesus for special privileges. When I was in
elementary school that special privilege was to clean the blackboard erasers. Does
anyone even know what I am talking about when I mention cleaning the blackboard
erasers (grandparents, moms and dads you can raise your hands). Kids do you have
blackboards in your classrooms? Great, so a least some of you know what I am
talking about.
So back in elementary school everyone wanted to clean the blackboard and
dust the erasers. Dusting the erasers seemed like something everyone wanted to do,
but I am not sure anyone knew why. Once you got to dust the erasers you had chalk
dust all over your hands, clothes, and in your hair. And if the erasers were really
dusty the chalk got in your nose and mouth no. It was gross. Yet everyone wanted to
do it.
Compared to dusting the erasers, what the brothers James and John ask for
seems pretty cool. They want to sit on either side of Jesus in his glory. It is like
having the best seat at the table. They want to sit closest to the coolest guy in the
world, Jesus. However Jesus tells them that they do not know what they are asking
for. He tells them you are going to have to drink the cup he drinks and be baptized
as he was. At first this could sound pretty easy right? But do you think Jesus means
they are going to have a drink and then be baptized or do you think Jesus means
something else? I think he means something else.
He is telling James and John that they are going to have to go through what
Jesus will go through. That means being persecuted by the Romans and the Temple
authorities and being killed by the rulers by them. That is what happens to Jesus,
and Jesus is saying that will happen to James and John. I am not sure that James
and John understand this, because they agree so quickly. But they do agree and
Jesus says that they will get that cup and baptism (that is the persecution and
death), but, and here is the catch, they get the hard stuff, but Jesus cannot promise
them that they can sit on his right and left in glory. It seems that Jesus does not
make that decision.
Now if Jesus does not make the decision who do you think does make the
decision? Do you think it could be Jesus’ parents Mary and Joseph? Parents get to
make decisions sometimes. Perhaps it is the emperor of Rome? Kings and emperors
get to make decisions. Well if it is not them then who could it be? God of course.
So James and John ask Jesus for special privileges, but instead they get the
hard stuff, and maybe they don’t get what they wanted. What’s more all of their
friends get mad at them for asking for special privileges, for wanting to be the
teacher’s pet.
But when Jesus hears all of the disciples arguing we learn something
important about the gospel. Jesus tells the disciple to stop arguing, because what
Jesus is teaching people is that being special is not what God wants from us.
Instead God wants us to learn to help people, to serve people, to love people as God
loves them.
To put it another way, to be Jesus’ bestie is not about getting to hang out
with Jesus and have the good seats at the table. It is about living the way Jesus
lives and loving the way Jesus loves. That means that we do not think about
ourselves first, but we think about other people first. We are to think about how we
can care for people, help them, and love them, just as Jesus does.
Maybe that is why when I was in elementary school we all wanted to dust the
erasers for the teacher. It wasn’t that we wanted to be special, we wanted to help
her because we loved and cared for her. It is finding those things, big and little, that
help others and shows our love for them that Jesus wants from us. As for where we
sit at the table, well only God knows, but just being at the table with Jesus will be
pretty wonderful, no matter where we sit.
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©2012 Eugene LeCouteur