Unearned

Mark 10:35-45

Maybe they were just looking for reassurance.

Asking to sit at Jesus’ right hand and left in glory does seem to be a pretty clear demonstration that James and John still have no idea what Jesus is talking about – much less what Jesus is all about – after he tells them for at least the third time that the Son of Man must be handed over to the government, beaten and killed, and rise again.  It’s a signal that they don’t understand when Jesus tells them that in his glory, the first will be last and the last will be first.

And they get grief for it – from their fellow disciples, who actually probably wish they’d thought of it first – and from lots of later scripture readers and critics, who complain that they haven’t been listening to Jesus.

But maybe they asked because they were listening to everything Jesus has been saying, and now they don’t know if they can still believe Jesus really is going to save the world, like they’d been expecting him to. So they want reassurance that this dying and rising thing isn’t going to leave them falling off a cliff.

Maybe they were tired of listening to Jesus preach what sounds like doom and gloom, tired of how anxious it made them when Jesus kept talking about money and divorce and rules and sacrifice, and they want to talk again about the joy and the glory.

Maybe their question about whether they can have the good seats is really a question about whether there are going to be any good seats – any happy ending to this story at all.

If that’s what’s going on, I can’t really blame them. Because I want reassurance, too. I want to know it’s all going to work out in the end. That salvation is real, eventually, even if Jesus isn’t going to fix the world right now.

I pray for that assurance. Like James and John, I’ve been known to try to change the subject to eternal glory when Jesus keeps talking about things I don’t want to do right now, that sound too hard for me.

And I invest in backup reassurance, too. I confess that I invest in church relationships that promise short-term success, as well as the ones that demand a lot of love and sacrifice. I buy a nice house to sit in, and nice sofa to sit on, so I can feel secure while I try to get close to Jesus in prayer. (I like the good seats as much as anyone.)

That’s not what Jesus hopes for in me, but I do hedge my bets, and look for reassurance, just like James and John, and I suspect I’m not the only one.

So John and James ask their question – or you or I ask for reassurance – and Jesus asks his own question: Are you able to drink my cup, and share my baptism? Will you follow me so closely that you experience what I experience: blessing and suffering and everything that goes into God living right here in the world?

Yes, sure, you bet! James and John respond. They want to be close to Jesus. And there may even be something reassuring about this invitation. It might feel like earning their place at the table; like assurance is back in their own hands again, if they can just meet this challenge.

But drinking the cup, sharing the baptism, meeting a challenge are still not going to get them the glory seats. Because you can’t earn your way to salvation. Can’t earn your way to closeness with Jesus, or to assurance, either.
And we can’t control our own access to God and God’s grace; not by meeting challenges, overcoming odds, or laying dibs on the good seats.

We can’t earn it, and we can’t control it.

All God’s grace, and all Jesus’ glory, and all the good seats, are for those for whom it has already been prepared.

There was a time when I thought that the annual pledge drive in church was a challenge that I had to meet in order to get status with Jesus. That I could earn some kind of spiritual rank by making or increasing my pledge.

When I was a child, I believed that pledging to the church was what would make me a “real member” – an adult, with a seat at the table, and grown-up respect - something I really craved at the age of twelve or thirteen.

So I tried pledging at that age. I liked putting my envelope in the plate, but it certainly didn’t get me honor and access. No glory seat for me. Those seats are for those for whom it has been prepared.

So I gave up pledging for a while, then tried it again as a spiritual challenge in my 20s. I wasn’t yearning to be a grown-up anymore at 25, but I did sort of think I could work my way closer to Jesus by giving.

And that…sort of worked. I did start to feel more invested in the life and mission of the church, since investing money draws your attention to something (Jesus knows about that – famously pointing out that where your treasure is, your heart is also.) It didn’t seem to get me a seat next to Jesus, though. And it didn’t take long to figure out that pledging wasn’t going to earn me anything.

That assurance of God’s favor can’t be earned, after all. We can’t earn salvation, or relationship. Or control our own access to God and God’s grace. And the places at the table close to Jesus aren’t for the early bird, or the over-achiever, or the super-giver, but for those for whom it has been prepared.

That’s a hard truth,

but there is another truth that Jesus also teaches:

you are the one for whom God has prepared a place.

I am.

John and James are.

Not because we earn God’s favor. Or achieve it by meeting challenges.

But because it’s just who God is that God has been preparing that gift and that glory for us all along. It’s just how God is, that God invites us into that complete closeness and sharing in the full experience of creating the world’s salvation that Jesus offered James and John. And God is working to create the unshakeable assurance of salvation and love within us all the time.

I didn’t earn my way into glory by financial giving,

I can’t earn it now by growing the church, or by self-denial, or sacrifice or suffering.

And you can’t, either.

I don’t know exactly when it changed, but I give now – I tithe now, and work for more – specifically because I never earned this. Never earned the love and glory and healing and salvation that God has prepared for us.

I give because that’s just who and how God is, to have prepared for me all along that assurance I keep looking for. And because God has prepared it for you, too, and that reassures me even more.

And in my everyday life with God, I sacrifice, or serve, or celebrate specifically because God has already made me – you, us – part of salvation, as Jesus made James and John a part of the work of resurrection long before they asked or agreed to share his cup.

We give, we serve, because it’s how we say “Yes” to God.

Not, “Okay, yes, I’ll do what you’re asking,” but “YES!!”: that fist-pumping affirmation of what God is doing with us and in us.

It’s how we say “Yes!!” in joyful recognition and assurance of the glory and the purpose and the place God has prepared, for you, and me, before we even thought to ask.