The fact that Christianity is an Eastern faith in origin and we come at it with Western trappings doesn't make it any easier for us. Jesus is "outside our box" so much of the time we have trouble catching His drift. However, sometimes the things His followers wanted are not too far from our own desires even a couple millennia later. As we discover what some of His followers wanted from life, we struggle to see much wrong their desires, because they are so close to our own.
The request of a couple brothers is good case in point. In Mark 10:35-45 (also see Matt. 20:20-28), two brothers come to Jesus with a request. They want Jesus to do whatever they ask of Him. At this point, they have witnessed some incredibly powerful things from Jesus... the healing of the blind, healing of the deaf and mute, the feeding of over four thousand people with seven loaves of bread, among other things... usual miraculous Jesus stuff! So... these two brothers have apparently put their sibling rivalries down long enough to make a request of the Messiah. "Let one of us sit at your right and the other at your left in your glory" (10:37). (I've always wondered, if Jesus had given them the positions, would they have fought over which was "right" and which was "left?" My hunch is, they would have and Jesus wanted nothing to do with that stuff...).
As it was, Jesus was prepared to take the moment and move them one step closer to being real members of the kingdom of God. They had no clue what they were asking, but Jesus takes the moment to give them an essential clue as to what it means to truly follow Him. If you want to "win" at life, you are going to have to be willing to "lose" something is the thrust here and that lost is very personal!
Here is where our culture runs off the rails. What's so wrong with wanting to secure a little position in the organization? Isn't that what we are taught from childhood? Work hard, play hard, win hard! Success is in the position and whatever it takes to get to the position is justified by the position. So Western... but not so Jesus!
Jesus tells them, "You know that those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. No so with you..." (10:42-43).
Ambition can do weird things to people. It isn't that we become such power hungry monsters (though that sometimes happens) that our dispositions become overwhelmingly intolerable. The reality for most is that we miss the subtle nuance of self-sacrifice and self denial. Jesus tells people who follow Him to think "slave" in a culture of "masters" and incline the heart to "serve" as we complain about slow service at the take-out window.
Entitlement is huge in our culture. Many actually begin to think we deserve or are even owed something more than what we have, let alone simply be satisfied by what we have already. It is so difficult in our Western world to grasp true sacrifice, surrender, submission and service. To simply serve in simple kindness. To live the "ransom" as Jesus would put it.
To deny yourself is alien in our culture. To truly practice self denial (rather than self-promotion) is not only seen as weird, it will often get you "run over" by the aggressive, upwardly mobile self-promoter. Jesus gave the two brothers just enough discipleship rope that they could of hung themselves on the tree of self-promotion. Instead, He used the same length of metaphor and corralled them into a life of simple kindness and self sacrifice. A tough transfer, but they made it eventually.
"What do you want me to do for you?" Jesus asked the brothers. What do you want Him to do for you? What do I want Him to do for me?
Lord, teach me to surrender in spite of myself. Craft me into being a true sacrifice for the sake of another. Break my heart so that I'll finally submit to your ways and lead me to serve until there is nothing left of me... and an ever-increasing reflection of you.
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