I heard the Bishop preach on this text on Wednesday, and he said that based on this text the mission statement for all of our churches could be as follows: “[blank] Lutheran Church, on the road, to the cross, following Jesus.” Since we’ve been doing a lot of work around our vision statement and core values recently, his comment really stuck with me. And here let me insert an explanatory fact about the difference between a mission statement and a vision statement. Per the consulting firm Bain and Company, “A Mission Statement defines the company's business, its objectives and its approach to reach those objectives. [Whereas] a Vision Statement describes the desired future position of the company.” Basically, a vision statement is who we want to be, a mission statement is who we are as we get there. So, given that definition, if at the November fourth special meeting we adopt as our vision statement, that the thing we want to be, is “a gathering of God’s people, anchored in the Post neighborhood, reflecting God’s freeing power to our congregation, our neighborhood, and our community,” what would it mean if our mission statement, who we are as we get there is “Trinity Lutheran Church, on the road, to the cross, following Jesus”?
In our Gospel reading for this morning James and John, whose mission statement was quite literally “on the road, to the cross, following Jesus,” verse thirty-two reads “They were on the road, going up to Jerusalem, and Jesus was walking ahead on them,” clearly had a sense of the vision they thought this mission statement was out to accomplish. For James and John, the vision statement of their journey could probably be summer up as, “Jesus, in Jerusalem, in his glory.” And, let’s face it, they weren’t wrong. That was the exact vision for which the trip was headed. And they got this vision from Jesus himself. It was just a couple of months ago in Mark eight that we heard Jesus talk about “when [the Son of Man] comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.” Immediately before today’s reading, in verse thirty-three, Jesus said, “See, we are going up to Jerusalem…” The disciples knew the Old Testament prophesies, about how a leader would emerge from the line of David who would restore the kingdom of Israel. Certainly, just a few short verses before the Passion narrative starts, they surely felt the gathering tension around Jesus. It’s easy to see how they came to catch the vision of “Jesus, in Jerusalem, in his glory.”
Of course, then Jesus told them how “the Son of Man will be handed over to the chief priests and the scribes, and they will condemn him to death… and flog him, and kill him; and after three days he will rise again.” The disciples again had clearly completely missed that part about what the vision statement “Jesus, in Jerusalem, in his glory” was going to mean.
So James and John asked him, “Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask.” Jesus had to know where such a request would be headed; these two had not earned the nickname “Sons of Thunder” for nothing. These were the men who when Jesus came calling, immediately left their father sitting alone in his boat with his nets to follow, the Zebedee brothers were not known for carefully weighing pros and cons. They were all in, one-hundred percent, all the time. Yet Jesus’ response to this brazen request was amazingly calm. OK, “what is it you want me to do for you?” Given the opening, James and John dove right in, “Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory.” If I was Jesus, the response would have been an immediate face palm. Come on guys, Jesus just finished telling you he was going to suffer and die in Jerusalem, and the response you had was, OK, but when everybody’s worshiping you, let me be right up there with you.
But Jesus is not me, and Jesus kept his cool, “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?” This question may sound weird to us, but it would have been a familiar idiom for the disciples. “Cup” in the Old Testament was a common metaphor for suffering. And the linked baptism reference calls to mind all the imagery in the Psalms of sufferers being overwhelmed by water. So James and John had to have known Jesus was asking them if they were prepared to suffer. But they bowled right on through, “We are able.”
But here’s the incredible thing about that statement. As arrogant and misguided and big-headed as it was, as much as James and John had absolutely no idea what they were saying, it was also true. Not in the way they meant it certainly, but it was still true. James and John would both face the kind of suffering Jesus faced, they would both “drink the cup” of persecution, they would both be baptized into Christ’s death. Acts chapter twelve tells us that “James, the brother of John,” was killed by King Herod. We don’t know how John eventually died, but at least twice he ended up in prison with Peter so one can assume his life after Jesus’ resurrection also didn’t involve being worshiped and adored in the way he seemed to have envisioned when he and his brother asked to sit at Jesus’ right and left in his glory.
So yes, John and James had no idea what they were saying when they brashly told Jesus, “we are able” to suffer as he would, but also yes they were correct, they could and they would. They didn’t know what was ahead of them on that day on the road to Jerusalem, but by the time of Acts, James and John certainly knew the stakes of continuing to proclaim the good news of Jesus, and proclaim they would, all the way to the end.
And Jesus, before all of this, before the true nature of his glory was revealed, back on the road to Jerusalem, with John and James following him to the cross, knew that they were in fact able, and honored that. “The cup that I drink you will drink; and with the baptism with which I am baptized, you will be baptized.” Jesus knew James and John better then they knew themselves, he knew their future, he knew the great things they were capable of, the great things they would do. He knew their faith, their trust, their devotion, even though they did not know it themselves, though they did not know what they were asking. This cup that I drink, you will drink. You are more than you know.
To bring this around full circle, on November fourth we will have the opportunity as a congregation to vote on adopting our new vision statement and core values. And I admit a level of bias here, I helped write the vision statement, but I think it is a very good one. “Trinity Lutheran Church is a gathering place of God’s people, anchored in the Post neighborhood, reflecting God’s freeing power to our congregation, our neighborhood, and the wider community.” Given the earlier definition of a vision statement as a statement about who we want to be, a congregation anchored, and anchoring a neighborhood that really needs to know it is loved, reflecting the power of God to each other, to the neighborhood, and to the world, is a pretty great aspiration. I think it is the sort of vision of how we might be a part of spreading the Kingdom of God that is what we as church are called to. And while it is impossible to know what is ahead of us, your history of presence in this community, from your founding as a neighborhood church until now, seems to assert that it is a vision that we are capable of reaching. But the example of James and John is a caution, just because we are able, and just because it is the right vision, does not mean that we know the form the vision will take. We may feel we are called to be a gathering of God’s people, to be anchored in the Post neighborhood, and to reflect God’s freeing power, and that may well be true, but there are a million different forms that vision could take. Just like James and John were able to drink the cup Jesus drank, were able to be baptized in his baptism, and yet still had no idea the road that would take them. And the good news in all of this is, while James and John did not know the form of the vision, they still had the mission, who they would be as they went there. The mission to be “on the road, going up to Jerusalem, [to the cross], and Jesus was walking ahead of them.” And so, as we live out the vision to which we feel called, maybe the bishop’s suggested mission statement is a good one for us as well. “Trinity Lutheran Church, on the road, to the cross, following Jesus.” Thanks be to God. Amen.
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