The Cup

Mark 10:35-45           James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came forward to him and said to him, “Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you.” And he said to them, “What is it you want me to do for you?” And they said to him, “Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory.” But Jesus said to them, “You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?” They replied, “We are able.” Then 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; but to sit at my right hand or at my left is not mine to grant, but it is for those for whom it has been prepared.”

When the ten heard this, they began to be angry with James and John. So Jesus called them and said to them, “You know that among the Gentiles those whom they recognize as their rulers lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them. But it is not so among you; 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 a ransom for many.”

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When I was 13 years old, just shy of my 14th birthday, I was received into the church with the confirmation class of 1974 at Messiah Lutheran Church in Park Ridge, Illinois.  Back then, the day of your confirmation was also the day of your first communion, and for most of us the first time we tasted wine.  I remember kneeling at the communion rail around the altar in alphabetical order.  We all watched one another as we received the bread and the cup for the first time.  And I remember clearly seeing Marilaine Anderson take the cup, cock her head, and mouth the word “cheers!”  I was scandalized.  Mortified. I had never been so close to such sacrilege in all my years.

Clearly, Marilaine hadn’t learned anything in our two and a half years of confirmation classes.  All those hours spent memorizing Luther’s Catechism had apparently not penetrated her soul.  I was afraid, because she took the cup and she didn’t know what she was doing.  Much like James and John did not know what they were doing when they boldly approached Jesus with their demand.

They are astoundingly thick.  Go back and reread the paragraphs leading up to this passage and see for yourself.  Jesus has taught them repeatedly about the need to accept the kingdom of God like a little child; he has told them more than once that the first shall be last and the last shall be first.  And just seconds before they come up with this request he has told them that he will soon be handed over to the authorities, he will be mocked and beaten and condemned to death.  Then James and John skip up to him and say, Ooh ooh, Teacher, we want you to give us what we want.  We want to be seated at your right and left hand in glory.  Talk about denial.

Did they still imagine that, in spite of everything Jesus was saying, he was going to call out his army at any moment and defeat the Romans?  Did they still think he was going to set up his kingdom right there in Jerusalem?  And that they were going to ride his coattails into the palace and be handed some sweet position like Secretary of State or Chief of Staff? 

Clearly, James and John had not been listening.  They did not understand the meaning of sacrificial leadership.  And I believe the others were just as clueless, because when they found out what happened they got angry. Were they angry at the presumptuousness of James and John?  We would like to think so, but I am afraid they were angry because they didn’t get there first. 

I am amazed at these men.  And a little appalled.  And I would be more annoyed than I am, except that I wonder if they were not so much cocky as they were afraid – afraid of what Jesus was really asking of them.

Are you able to drink the cup that I drink?  Can you receive the baptism with which I am baptized?  Can you go where I am going?

Are you able to drink this cup?  You know, if you are never asked, you never have to face it.  But once you are asked, the moment of decision has arrived.

Are you able to drink this cup?  This may have been the point at which James and John began to know the truth.  This may have been the moment when their denial began to crack open, just a little bit, and they began to realize they were not riding into victory, in the conventional sense.  But they were on a ride toward life, in the fullest sense.

The cup holds contradictions for disciples.  It is both a celebration and a sacrifice of blood.  It holds both freedom and obedience.  It holds both treasures but also persecutions.  It holds death – but it also holds life.

To drink the cup means drinking all of it.  You can’t push the bitterness over to one side, like you might push your Brussels sprouts over to the side of the plate.  You drink all of it.  Where do you find the courage to do that?

Henri Nouwen wrote the story of a man named Bill, who lived in a residential community for disabled adults where Nouwen worked.  The community is called L’Arche, the French word for ark.  Like Noah’s Ark, L’Arche is a container to hold God’s creatures safely through the storms.  Bill had Muscular Dystrophy; he had a weak heart, he had difficulty breathing, and he lived in constant fear of falling.  He had no family to visit him.  Bill’s parents had given him up at a young age because they were unable to care for him.  Bill’s life had plenty of storms.

Bill didn’t have any early memories when Nouwen first met him.  His youth, before entering the community, had been too painful, too lonely and difficult for him to want to recall.  But when he entered L’Arche at the age of 16, he began to experience love and friendship and an extended family, and he gradually began to trust and love in return.  In this community, this container of love and care, Bill slowly began to be able to recall some of his early life experiences, making them a part of his life story.  To recall the past was something that took courage.  But in recalling the past and sharing it, Bill was finally freed from the pain of having it locked up inside of him.

After 25 years, Bill began to put together his Life Story Book – a collection of photographs, anecdotes, and letters that told the story of Bill’s life – all of it.  Bill’s book held the pain along with the love, the sorrows along with the joys.  In this work, Bill was able to claim his life, all of it; and be grateful.

The cup that Jesus offers us is not easy to swallow.  It is not bland as water, but it is complex with the flavors of life – the bitter along with the sweet.  He asks Can you drink the cup?  And we must ask ourselves that same question.

Will we take a small sip and spit it out?  Will we push the cup away because we have no time for regrets, no taste for the harder things, the sorrowful things?  Will we turn away from the cup because we prefer to think positive?  Some might.

Others might like the bitterness of the cup!  To dwell on the sorrows, nurse the resentments with moldering anger, and ignore the blessings. 

To drink the cup that Jesus offers is to drink of both the sorrows and the joys; to acknowledge the fullness of life, to embrace the hardship and the pleasures.  Because to ignore one or the other is to choose to live only a half-life.

I often say that sorrow and joy are merely two sides of the same coin.  If you think of the coin as your life, you may like one side more than the other, but you can feel them both at the same time.  In fact, to grasp it in your hand you must hold on to both sides. 

I am reminded of words from the Heidelberg Catechism, possibly my favorite of all our confessions of faith:  That our God rules in such a way that leaves and grass, rain and drought, fruitful and unfruitful years, food and drink, health and sickness, riches and poverty, and everything else, come to us not by chance but by his fatherly hand.  And that we are to be patient in adversity, grateful in the midst of blessing, and to trust our faithful God and Father for the future, assured that no creature shall separate us from his love. 

Only in experiencing our sorrows deeply can we hope to find true joy. 

And so the cup that Jesus holds out to his disciples, holds out to us, is a complex mix of the stuff of life.  Can you take it?  Can you drink it and receive the fullness of life?

When we sit around a table with our friends and families, and we lift our cups, we do it as a celebration.  We drink to our hopes and deep desires; we drink in gratitude for the gifts of life.  We lift the cup and say, to health! To the newly married couple!  To life!

L’chaim.  To life – the life that, paradoxically, we find through death.  This is what we must remember – the life we are offered in Christ asks us to die to the old values and rise to the new, to be a servant of many, to be the last rather than the first.  Because the definition of sacrifice is to give up something good for the sake of something better.

The cup we receive through Christ is a profound and somber thing, but also a celebration of the life that is ours to claim if we are willing to receive it all – the joy and the sorrow, the pain and the pleasure, the death and the life.

So today I look back at that moment on my confirmation day, with Marilaine Anderson, who would go on a few years later to be captain of the cheerleading squad and homecoming queen, and think maybe Marilaine was on to something, something we hadn’t learned in our somber catechism classes.  The sacrament is a celebration of life.  The cup of Christ’s sacrifice is also the cup of salvation and the life we are saved for is fullness of life.  Not a half-life – a full life.

May you accept the cup that is offered. 

May you drink deeply of the cup, both the bitter and the sweet. 

And may you celebrate.