18 October 2015 - getting served

"Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you." 

Isn't this how we approach prayer? We look down on the arrogance and greed of James and John when they make this request. But don't we do the same thing? Sure, we don't ask for positions at the right and the left of Jesus in glory. But aren't we asking for them implicitly? From there, after all, we can best to Jesus how to do his job. We can best tell God how to be God. Thanks to James and John for saying all of this out loud so that we can see how ridiculous it looks from the outside.

And yet we are supposed to "confidently approach the throne of grace to receive mercy and to find grace for timely help." How can we do this and yet not risk bringing our own selfish agendas into the mix? First, we must reminder to whom we speak. It is no abstract wish granting machine to whom we make our requests. It is instead someone very similar to ourselves. It is someone who is tested in every way and yet without sin. It was someone who suffers to unlock these graces for us, to justify us, and to bear our own guilt. He endures the baptism and chalice of the wrath of God for us. When we see this we begin to realize that maybe our own agendas aren't so great. We begin to pay more attention to God's agenda than our own. We are able to trust God without specifying all of the specific conditions or all of the timing. We are able to let God be God while still trusting him to help us.

See, the eyes of the LORD are upon those who fear him,
upon those who hope for his kindness,
To deliver them from death
and preserve them in spite of famine.

Only in this way can our hearts be changed into the hearts of servants. After all, as long as we insist on telling God how to do his job how much less will we be willing to serve those who are not God. Yet it is precisely to this that we are called.

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;

It is precisely in realizing that the Son of Man did not come to be served that we ourselves become true servants.

But it shall not be so among you.
Rather, whoever wishes to be great among you will be your servant;
whoever wishes to be first among you will be the slave of all.