THE SUFFERING SERVANT
October 22, 2006
sermon given at St. Thomas Episcopal Church,
Medina, Washington
In a classic episode of The Simpsons, Homer Simpson walks into the living room to find his children, Bart and Lisa, arguing and shoving each other. He breaks up the fight and then asks them what they were arguing about.
Lisa confesses, “We were arguing about who loves you more, Dad.”
Homer grins and steps back. “Oh, really! Well, in that case … proceed.”
So Bart shoves Lisa and says, “YOU love him more!” And Lisa shoves back and says, “No, YOU love him more!”
As human beings, we naturally organize our lives by hierarchy. Who has more power? Who has more authority? Who has the right to say something when others must stay quiet? Who is the ultimate decision-maker? Who is invited and who is not? Who is more pure and who is less pure, more deserving and less deserving? Who has more to learn and who knows enough? Who has more love and who has less love? Who has more stuff and who has less stuff?
My wife Christy and I had a realization recently about why money is such a taboo topic in our culture. Let’s say that the money’s been tight lately, and you feel the need to unload to a friend about the difficulty of your situation. If you talk to a friend who is richer than you are, you’ll sound like you’re passive-aggressively angling for a loan. But if you talk to a friend who is poorer than you are, won’t your complaints sound hypocritical? And so we don’t talk about money—all because of our assumptions about the hierarchy of wealth.
This tendency creeps into every corner of our lives—even into the church. Most Episcopalians imagine that deacons are lower on the hierarchy than priests, and priests are lower than bishops. We support this perception by making people become deacons before they can be priests, and priests before they can become bishops. But there’s a new understanding emerging about the roles of our clergy. What if they’re not really in a hierarchy? What if they’re just doing different jobs, jobs for which they have differing skills?
Hierarchy is exactly what Jesus spent much of his energy trying to dismantle. And I think one of Jesus’ biggest influences was the Prophet Isaiah.
What do you think of when you hear the word “prophet”? Most people think of a person who is given, by God, the ability to predict the future. Indeed, this is part of the definition of prophecy. But more importantly, a prophet speaks God’s truth to people, whether or not they want to hear it. Indeed, it is because they are privy to God’s truth that prophets sometimes predict which way the wind will blow.
In our first reading today, Isaiah speaks of the Suffering Servant. Many Christians argue that this passage predicts the coming of Jesus 700 years later, while Jewish scholars claim that this passage refers to the nation of Israel as a whole. Both sides are intent on answering this question: “To whom does this passage refer?”
Listen to the version of this prophecy from Eugene Peterson’s paraphrase in The Message: “Who would have thought that God’s saving power would look like this? … He was looked down on and passed over, a man who suffered, who knew pain firsthand. One look at him and people turned away. We looked down on him, thought he was scum. But the fact is, it was our pains he carried—our disfigurements, all the things wrong with us. We thought he brought it on himself, that God was punishing him for his own failures. But it was our sins that did that to him, that ripped and tore and crushed him—our sins! He took the punishment, and that made us whole. Through his bruises we get healed. We’re all like sheep who’ve wandered off and gotten lost. We’ve all done our own thing, gone our own way. And God has piled all our sins, everything we’ve done wrong, on him, on him.”
So let’s try asking that hazardous question ourselves: “To whom does this passage refer?”
Let’s ask James and John, who in today’s Gospel ask to be Jesus’ right- and left-hand men. Hierarchy is the air they are breathing, but Jesus retorts: “You don’t know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink?”
The silly fools are cavalier in their answer: “We are able.”
“OK then,” says Jesus, “you will drink that cup.” (At this point, a shiver is in order, because we hear about that cup every Good Friday. James was murdered by King Herod Agrippa I a decade after Jesus’ crucifixion, and although nobody knows for sure, some traditions hold that John, too, died a violent death.) And, sure enough, when the other apostles hear about James and John’s request, they are jealous. What if there’s not enough room in the hierarchy for them?
Jesus goes on to imply: “Your image of hierarchy—of sitting at my right and left hand—is completely the wrong image. If you really can’t operate in any way other than hierarchy, then you’d better flip that model upside down and start being Suffering Servants.”
In other words, it’s useless to play the game of who loves Jesus more. It’s useless to do good deeds because you expect a reward. It’s useless to try to be good so you can get into heaven. These attitudes are misplaced and selfish. Doing God’s work in the world should be a labor of love—not of ambition, and not of martyrdom. But if you can’t get past your hierarchical images, it’s better to go with martyrdom than ambition.
Jesus knew Isaiah’s prophecies. He knew that Isaiah spoke the truth when he wrote of the Suffering Servant: this is the only model of leadership that can dissuade people from trying to claw their way to the top, ignorant of those they step on. The Suffering Servant transforms the entire situation.
The author of the letter to the Hebrews also has servant leadership in mind when he refers to Melchizedek. Who was Melchizedek, anyway? I’ve often wondered this, and this week I finally had a compelling reason to look him up. It turns out that he was a minor character early in the Abraham saga, when Abraham was still Abram. Melchizedek was the king of Jerusalem, yet he brought Abram bread and wine and blessed him after a hard battle. For this humble show of kindness, he is immortalized in one of the Psalms, and later in this letter to the Hebrews. He is held up as a model for priesthood.
I think Isaiah may have had Melchizedek in mind when he wrote, but he took that servanthood idea even further—not just humble stewardship, but also suffering. And then Jesus, reflecting on both Melchizedek and Isaiah, went even further, embracing death on a cross rather than desire for power—even power for positive change. Jesus could have been a political revolutionary and accomplished wonderful things for the Jews, but instead, he took on a much more powerful, long-term work for the entire world.
So to whom does Isaiah’s passage refer? It refers to a girl named Anne, who wrote in her diary that she loved God and humanity with her whole heart, but who died in a concentration camp. It refers to the people on our TV sets who had no means to flee from Hurricane Katrina, and whom nobody rescued in time. And it refers to a man who taught us to love each other, who healed us and blessed us and fed us, and whom we executed as a criminal.
These are the suffering servants of God. These are the people who become prophets by what they experience. And if you really can’t get hierarchical metaphors out of your head, if you must imagine seats to the right and left of God, then these Suffering Servants are the people you must place in them.
Have you been like Melchizedek, stooping from a position of power to offer kindness and hospitality to those in need? Have you given of your own wealth to help others? If so, you are truly a leader. But don’t stop there. Make your gifts of time, talent and treasure the centerpiece of your life.
Have you been a Suffering Servant, enduring difficulties that you don’t deserve and wondering when things might finally get better? It’s hard for me to stand here and say something helpful to you. But I can quote Jesus, who said in the Sermon on the Mount, “You’re blessed when you’ve lost it all. God’s kingdom is there for the finding. You’re blessed when you’re ravenously hungry. Then you’re ready for the Messianic meal. You’re blessed when the tears flow freely. Joy comes with the morning.” Amen.