Series: “Jesus’ Message: You Are Integral For Unity Being One Race And One Blood” – “Crushed and Waiting” : Job 38:1-7 and Mark 10:35-45
Grace Presbyterian Church aspires to make fully devoted followers of Jesus Christ who are remembering, telling, and living the way of Jesus. Today’s Bible readings remind us that God enters our real-life circumstances and experiences. And some of those circumstances and experiences crush us and leave us waiting for rebuilding to begin.
Jesus teaches that living as a servant-leader is the key to a life that matters. And, how we live as a servant leader in those crushing and waiting circumstances and experiences is important. Let me tell you the story of Rudy:
Rudy is the true story of a young overachiever and his tenacious pursuit of his dream to attend the University of Notre Dame and play football for the Fighting Irish. However, the road leading to his goal was filled with obstacles. First, because he was small and had barely average speed, there was little chance he would be able to make the Irish’s football squad as a walk-on. Second, Rudy was dyslexic, and his high school grades had suffered as a consequence. It would be almost impossible for him to be accepted by the prestigious university in the first place. Refusing to give up, he took a Greyhound into South Bend and met Father Cavanaugh, a scholastic priest who agreed to get him into a semester of Holy Cross Junior College. If his grades were good enough there, perhaps Notre Dame might consider letting him in…. Rudy’s grades…. improved dramatically. But three semesters and three rejection letters later, he is devastated and hopeless. His next semester is his last chance, because Notre Dame never allows seniors to transfer. He…. managed his way to South Bend, labored in class, and even scraped up enough odd jobs so he can [could] eat. He has been diligent and worked every angle he knew. But it hasn’t been enough. Rudy finds himself in the chapel where he had first met Father Cavanaugh. And once again, he pours out his soul to the elderly priest. “Maybe I haven’t prayed enough,” Rudy says, almost frantic. Father Cavanaugh answers with kind, narrow eyes, “I’m sure that’s not the problem. Praying is something we do in our time. The answers come in God’s time.” Rudy isn’t satisfied. There has to be something else he can do. “Have I done everything I possibly can? Can you help me?” Father Cavanaugh’s answer is measured but sure. “Son, in 35 years of religious studies, I’ve come up with only two hard, incontrovertible facts: There is a God, and I’m not Him.”[1]
Rudy was pursuing something that mattered, playing football at Notre Dame. What mattered most, from Father Cavanaugh’s perspective, was Rudy to deepen his sense of belonging to God.
Succeeding and resting in the truth that you belong to God and know who you are in Christ matters most. In this regard, Bobby Schuller in Change Your Thoughts Change Your World writes, “Bonding is my greatest need. There are people in my life who love me and want to know me better.” [2] The Old Testament and Gospel Readings remind us that participating in God’s mission through service, building personal and intimate relationships with God and others, is how we grow as followers of Jesus.
Job 38:1-7
Job 38 demonstrates that we have no understanding of God knowing each one of us from the laying of the foundation of the world. Job has characterized God’s creative purpose as a design of darkness. Job lacks understanding. But he truly wants to know why this persecution is happening to him. Job has distorted God’s creative intent in his argument with God. Job 38:4 reads, “Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding.”
Mark 10:35-45
Mark 10 exhorts the community of faith to be selfless and grasp the meaning of the prediction of Jesus’ death. Jesus knows what’s ahead for his ministry and life. He doesn’t fully understand but knows the outcome. There is a profound lesson for the disciples. It’s not about who sits on the left and right side of Jesus, but an invitation to enter the known and unknown of the path of Jesus. Disciples then and now must enter into that known and unknown path of being a follower of Jesus Christ. James and John behaved exactly how we do. Mark 10:43-44 reads, “…. but whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all. For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”[3]
Leaving everything, following Jesus, serving others, and being a slave to all would appear not to be a great marketing strategy. However, Jesus attracted twelve initial disciples and by the time of Pentecost thousands and thousands and thousands of new disciples were following Jesus with what appeared to be a flawed marketing plan.
James and John expected Jesus to do whatever asked of him, like who is the greatest and which one got to sit on the right or left side of Jesus. They wanted a special place in Jesus’ coming kingdom. They didn’t understand surrendering their wants in order to attain God’s. James and John struggled accepting the life God was giving them and wanted a life they were creating in their minds and hearts. They struggled with understanding the gospel, the good news, as a message of giving oneself up through service for the sake of others.
God does not abandon the faithful.[4] It’s not equal giving, but equal sacrifice. Leveraged giving spends your intellectual, emotional, spiritual, financial, physical, and time capital, sacrificially. Sacrificial and responsible giving makes the community stronger.
My friends, dependency on God combines God’s action and human action into experiencing the kingdom of God. Depend on God as you ponder your 2025 Pledge of Time and Treasure and a gift to replenish our cash reserves. Believe that dependence on God will lead you to obedient and sacrificial behavior in the volunteering and financial aspects of your Christian discipleship.
Grace Presbyterian Church exists to demonstrate and offer others a better way to live. Jesus says, “…whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave to all.” Leverage your giving by spending your intellectual, emotional, spiritual, financial, physical, and time capital, sacrificially, particularly in those crushing and waiting times. Amen.
This sermon was preached the Twenty-Second Sunday after Pentecost on Sunday, 20 October 2024
by the Rev. Dr. Steven M. Marsh in the Great Room and Sanctuary at
Grace Presbyterian Church in Wichita, Kansas
Copyright Ó 2024
Steven M. Marsh
All rights reserved.
[1]The source is the film Rudy (Tristar, 1993), directed by David Anspaugh. Found October 12, 2021, on preachingtoday.com.
[2]Bobby Schuller, Change Your Thoughts Change Your World (Nashville, Tennessee: Nelson Books, 2019), 191.
[3]In the four paragraphs of textual analysis above, I have benefited from the thinking of Brady Banks, Jennifer T. Kaalund, George R. Hunsberger, Alicia D. Myers, and Nontombi Naomi Tutu in Joel B. Green, Thomas G. Long, Luke A. Powery, Cynthia L. Rigby and Carolyn J. Sharp, editors, Connections, Year B, Volume 3 (Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster John Knox Press, 2021), 389-394, 398-400, 400-401, 402-404, and 404-406.
[4]This insight is gleaned from Kathleen Bostrom in David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor Feasting on the Word, Year B, Volume 4 (Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), 154.
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