Sermon — October 20, 2024

The Rev. Greg Johnston

I came across an article this week entitled “The Road to Hell is Paved With… ‘Other Duties As Assigned.’”

The author, a recruiter and consultant, writes, “I spend a lot of time talking with employers and candidates about job descriptions. Almost universally, employers list ‘Other duties as assigned’ among the bullet points outlining a given role. The intention is well-meaning on the employer’s part… I mean, the job description cannot effectively capture every job or task you’d ever ask an employee to consider, right?”

But he goes on to describe all the ways in which “other duties as assigned” can become a trap. The phrase is ambiguous when the org chart isn’t quite clear—other duties, “as assigned” by whom? Inessential tasks can end up being prioritized over the core part of the job. The work someone ends up doing day-to-day can be quite different from the task they thought they were signing up for, or what they’re skilled at. “Other duties as assigned” can provide a rationale for all sorts of ill effects.

And yet it occurs to me that much of life consists of taking on “other duties as assigned.” What’s true at work for working people is even more true outside of work for all of us. I think of all the spouses whose relationships transform from a romantic story of love to a less glamorous caretaking role some time later. I think of all the parents whose children’s roads to adulthood aren’t quite the smooth highway they signed up for—surely the job description is to keep them “alive until 25,” right, and then you’re done? I think of church wardens who become, in the event of an emergency, the acting rector of a church; and of clergy who feel God calling them l to preach the good news of Jesus’ love for the world, only to find out that the work of ministry consists in large part of folding and unfolding chairs.

I think of the apostles James and John, who ask to sit at Jesus’ right hand in glory, and at his left; and find that his idea of what that means turns out to be quite different from theirs.

I want to give James and John some credit this week, because their part in this story is actually even worse than it seems. There’s a bit of context skipped over in the transition between last Sunday’s gospel and this one. This story begins, with Jesus and his disciples “on the road, going up to Jerusalem… And, once again,” Mark writes, “taking the Twelve aside, Jesus began to tell them about what was about to happen. ‘Look,’” Jesus says, “‘we’re going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be handed over to the chief priests and the scribes, and they’re going to hand him over to the Romans… who will beat him, and kill him, and after three days, he’ll rise again.”

And it’s then, in the middle of this speech, that James and John come up to ask: “Is there still space in the C-suite here? Have you filled those openings for a left- and right-hand man?”

I’m sorry— Were you even listening to what he just said?

They clearly weren’t, and Mark gives it away with a single, well-placed word in the narrative. He writes that Jesus began to tell them about what was to happen… and while Mark the narrator lets Jesus finish for our sake, James and John jump in, interrupting Jesus before he’s had to finish saying the rest.

But they already know it all. This isn’t the first time he’s predicted his suffering and death. They’re going up to Jerusalem, where it’s all going to go down. But the disciples are stuck in an old frame of mind. They’re still thinking he’s going to establish a new kingdom on earth. They want to be enthroned at his right hand and his left “in glory.”

But if you’ve ever seen a painting of the crucifixion, or heard the story of the Passion, you know what it means to be seated at Jesus’ right hand and at his left. It means to be nailed up there, on a cross, one of the two bandits who’ve been crucified on either side.

So Jesus tells them: You can be my right-hand man, or left. You can be my second-in-command—“and other duties, as assigned.”

Well, he doesn’t quite say it that way. He checks: “Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or to be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized?” Absolutely we are, they say. Maybe they’re still imagining the royal cup at the feast and the luxurious bath in the palace. Jesus sizes them up. “You’re going to drink that cup, all right, and you’re going to be baptized like I am. But to sit at my right hand or my left? Well, that part isn’t in my hands to give.”

It’s the Romans, after all, who will choose which of the criminals before them deserve death. And it’s God who’ll decide who sits at Jesus’ right hand in the end.

And then, as he often does, Jesus follows his specific response to a specific situation with a more general point. Among the Gentiles, he says, the leaders “lord it over” them, and their great ones are like tyrants. But not among you. “Whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant,” Jesus says. James and John come looking for a promotion, trying to outmaneuver the other disciples with a kind of naïve office politics, as though they could secure the top jobs by simply calling dibs.

But Jesus responds: If you want to be a leader in the church, you need to serve. It’s not the scale of your ambition that matters, but the depth of your service. If I, Jesus, the Son of Man, came not to be served but to serve, to give my life for you—how much more should you be servants of the others in this world? And we extrapolate from this conversation to build up an idea of “servant leadership,” the kind of leadership in which authority comes from being a servant first.

There’s a nuance to what Jesus says here that’s missing in nearly every translation I see.

Jesus doesn’t use what’s called the “jussive” here, the third-person imperative form, in Greek. He doesn’t actually say, “those who wish to become great among you—let them serve!” or “they should serve!” It’s simply the future tense: “Whoever wants to be great among you will be your servant.”

That isn’t a command: “Your leaders must serve!” It isn’t a strategy: “If someone wants to become a leader, she ought to put some service work on the resume.” It’s a simple, declarative claim: Whoever wants to be great, will serve.

Greatness, for a Christian, is found in those “other duties as assigned.”

This implies something for every one of us, whether we think of ourselves as leaders or not. It tells us that our greatness in God’s eyes is not measured by the moments in which we think that we are great. The measure of our greatness is not how close we rise to the top of the organizational chart, but how tenderly we serve whoever’s at the bottom. The moments in our lives when we are closest to Christ are not when we’re surrounded by adoring crowds—they’re the moments when we are barely hanging on.

Ten years after I move on from this church, nobody will know how many times I changed the cover on the changing pad in the bathroom, and brought it home to wash. No one will know that I once spent thirty minutes on the phone trying to help a senior citizen install Zoom—only to fail, because she didn’t have her email password written down. You’ll see me ritually washing people’s feet on many a Maundy Thursday to come, but will you ever ask—Who empties out the foot-wash water? Who washes out the used foot-washing bowl?

No one will know but me, and God, and that’s the way these things should go. And this is true for every one of you, as well. No one will ever stand and applaud you for the diapers you have changed. You might never be thanked for cleaning up the abandoned muffin tray after breakfast at work. No one will know how often you visited a parent or friend who was sick; sometimes they won’t even know you were there.

The things we do to care for one another day to day are some of the most draining and least-prestigious work. But they are the moments in which we are especially dear to God. Because greatness in God’s eyes is not found in sitting in glory at Jesus’ right hand or his left; our greatness comes, day after day, in unnamed, unnoticed, “other duties as assigned.”

Sermon — October 13, 2024

The Rev. Greg Johnston

Lectionary Readings

So, I have a confession to make, although you’ve probably realized by now. I am a bit of know-it-all. Whatever the subject, whatever the topic, I have always yearned to be the smartest kid in the class.

I remember one day in seventh-grade biology class when there was a quiz that I was rushing through as fast as I could because I wanted to be the first one to hand it in. And I brought it up to the teacher, and I remember he just looked at me, and he looked at the paper, and he said, “Are you sure you’re done? You’ve got some time. Go check it over and come back.” He knew what was up. I didn’t just want to know it all. I wanted to look like I knew it all. And while he wasn’t going to dock me points for showing off, he was going to send me back to my chair, with that quiz still in my hand, because there were no bonus point for finishing a thirty-minute quiz in ten.

I’m not bitter about it. That would be crazy, right? …But I’m reminded of this story when I think about how Jesus responds when he’s confronted on the road with a question from this rich young man.

Jesus is heading out for the day, and a man runs up to him, and falls down on his knees—this doesn’t often happen to me, thank God—and says, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” (Mark 10:18) Now, you might think that this is exactly the sort of question that Jesus is there to answer. You might think that religion is about how to get to heaven, and so on, and so you might think that Jesus will have something to say. Jesus is a wise and thoughtful teacher, after all. If there’s something we need to know, some wisdom from on high, surely he can give it to us.

What Jesus says instead is a little strange. “Good Teacher,” the man calls Jesus, and Jesus replies, first: “Why do you call me good?” And then, “You know the commandments” already, he lists them off. They aren’t hard to learn. Murder, adultery, theft, perjury, fraud; dishonoring your parents. You call me “Good Teacher,” Jesus says, but no one is good but God, and I have nothing to teach you but things you already know. There’s no secret knowledge you need; just go do it.

And the man says, “Well yeah, I mean, I’ve done all those things.” But he seems to want something more. And Jesus looks at him, and loves him, and says, “Okay, then… there’s just one thing that you lack: it’s to give up everything you have.” “Go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor…. Then come, follow me.” (Mark 10:21)

And the man is shocked, and goes away grieving, for he has many possessions. (10:22)

It’s easy to misinterpret these words, in one direction or the other. On the one hand, there’s a long tradition of interpretations that try to explain them away. My favorite example of this is the claim, which some of you may have heard, that there was a gate in the wall of Jerusalem called “The Eye of the Needle.” It was a narrow gate, the story goes, too small for a camel to walk through loaded up with all its goods. But if you unloaded all that baggage off the camel’s back, and if the camel got down on its knees, it could just squeeze through.

Now, this is the kind of thing that preachers crave: the historical tidbit or missing piece of context that makes it all make sense. If this is true, then it gives a different tone to what Jesus says. The wealthy can get into heaven, Jesus would be saying, if they unload themselves of their attachment to their wealth, and get down on their knees, and enter through the gate. (And, conveniently, then you can carry the baggage through and load it back onto the camel and be on your way, unchanged but for a moment of humility.)

There’s just one problem with this illuminating fact: it’s entirely made up. While it would be nice if it were true, there is in fact absolutely no evidence that there ever was such a gate. It’s a neat story, but it’s too neat; it seems almost perfectly designed to let us off the hook, without having to engage with what Jesus really says.

Of course, it’s possible to over-interpret what Jesus says in the other direction, too; you might understand his words as too general a rule. You might, for example, extract from this story the general principle “it’s as impossible for the rich to go to heaven as it is for a camel to fit through the eye of a needle,” and the general commandment, “go, sell what you have, and give the money to the poor.” And if you don’t consider yourself rich, then this can come with a certain kind of satisfaction. I may not have much in this life, you might think, but at least God likes me, unlike those people over there.

But of course, every one of us “has many possessions” in some sense, by comparison with our ancestors, or with other people in other places in the world. Some of us have significant wealth, others don’t, yet almost every one of us has, in her pocket, technology that would astound even the 1990s versions of ourselves, and that’s not to mention things like refrigeration and indoor plumbing that would astound our ancestors. Every one of us is rich, if only relatively so.

But even more than that, the story here matters. Jesus doesn’t deliver these words as universal truths. He tells the disciples, in private, that it’s easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God. But this is a specific case of the truly general rule: “How hard it is to enter the kingdom of God!” (10:24) He doesn’t address a crowd with a speech, “All of you who are wealthy, you must sell what you own and give the money to the poor.” He answers a specific man, when pressed, with a specific invitation.

And the specifics of the story make a difference, for me. The man comes running up to Jesus, wanting to be the best. It’s a public question: He wants to be seen handing in his quiz. He asks, “Good Teacher, what must I do?” And Jesus deflects. No one’s good, but here’s what God has given you to do. “Oh yeah yeah yeah!” the man seems to say, I know that no one’s good, but I’m good. I’ve done all those things you said! What else do I have to do? And Jesus looks at him, and loves him, and asks him to give up what he’s holding onto most dearly.

Peter and the disciples misunderstand. “But Jesus,” they say, “we’ve left everything we have.” (10:28) Are we good? At least we’re better than him, right? As usual, they’re missing the point. There’s nothing they can do, no action they can take, that can achieve the kind of self-justification they’re looking for. Whether it’s the rich young man who keeps all the commandments or the poor old disciples who’ve given up everything to follow Jesus, there is nothing they can do, nothing any of us can do, to become worthy of God’s love.

And yet God loves us, and God loves them—God loves you—nevertheless.

Every one of us, in one way or another, has something in common with that man out on the road: “Yeah, yeah! I’ve done everything right! Now would you validate me please? In front of everyone?” Every one of us is in some way like those disciples later on, who say, “Okay, Jesus, but—We’re not like that other guy, right? We’re doing things right?” I’m rich, but I’m not that rich? Or, thank God, for once, I’m poor? Some of you might even be like me, wanting to be the one to hand in the quiz first, because that must mean we’re worth something, right?

And Jesus looks at us, and loves us, and challenges us to give that up.

“For we do not have,” as the Letter to the Hebrews writes, “a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who in every respect has been tested as we are, yet without sin.” We have a Savior who comes down among us, and is like us. We have a God who knows what it is to be us, who can empathize with our every weakness and lend us another ounce of strength, who walks alongside us so that we can “approach the throne of grace with boldness,” so that we may “receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.” (Hebrews 4:15-16)