When I was younger (I think I was 13 or 14), I had the sense that I wanted to do some sort of work that made the Word of God better understood among people of faith. I wanted others to experience the sense of freedom and peace that I felt when I heard the stories of the Bible. So I thought I might be a biblical scholar or a theologian when I grew up. Contemplating ideas felt comfortable, as opposed to how awkward I felt among my peers. I didn’t think I’d ever be given the grace to be a pastor, to work directly with people, to have actual relationships, which might be uplifting to others.

To my surprise, I’ve had the privilege to serve in a variety of settings over the years. At St. Mary’s College of Maryland, I watched as the size of the campus ministry doubled over four years, with the growth in the Bible studies I led jumping from four young men to forty, requiring not just one leader but four. The Rev. Bonnie McCubbin, another United Methodist pastor in this Conference, who at the time was a fellow student in the fellowship, saw the same expansion in her own women’s Bible study. It was a marvel to behold. That fellowship attracted eighty new members over four years.

Following college, I spent another four years of seminary in internships with a homeless shelter, a crisis response agency, a young adult outreach program, and a cross-cultural community of faith. After graduating, I even spent a year building affordable housing in Washington, DC, with Habitat for Humanity, encouraging volunteers to push through their fatigue and make something transformational for a neighbor. Then, finally, I got to experience eleven years of full-time ministry in The United Methodist Church, which sent me to towns and cities around Maryland, as a pastor in congregational settings, as well as a hospital chaplain, and even as a director of Christian formation when I was just starting out.

Over these past twenty years, the circumstances were each unique, but what was a consistent experience for me was the difficulty in leaving one context for another. It was tough. I remember sharing the news at a previous church during the welcome and announcements before worship. I then trudged slowly through a liturgy with a gathering of uncertain and stunned parishioners, wondering what might happen to them next.

What followed afterward were conversations with confused congregants, a lot of file organizing, and transitional meetings with the incoming clergy. A few such people are so similar to me – having had work experience in the same college fellowship, a sense of God’s justice which resembles mine, and sharing a love for the neighborhoods of the congregations. We would run into each other when they were out for a jog and I was out for a walk with Walker and Arthur. The churches thrived after I left. Take from that what you will.

But I feel do bad about one church. I left the pastor’s office there in such a mess before leaving. I remember that long before I had arrived, it was filled with junk that had never gotten cleaned out, disposed of, recycled, repurposed, or rededicated at another church. In the center of the room, there was a heavy, wooden typewriting desk with a heavy, metal typewriter. There was no ink for it. There was also no air conditioning or heating in the office. There were fliers and correspondence from the 1980s still hanging on the bulletin boards, and there were dusty and broken decorations and accessories for worship piled along one wall.

What stopped me from cleaning it all out, as I had successfully done in the Sanctuary and in the entryways to that building, was not a lack of interest. It was an excess of grief. I saw by that church’s mess what it had become, as well as what it had stopped trying to be, and what I worried it might end up declining into one day.

Leaving that office unfinished, leaving that church unfinished, I was weighed down with disappointment. I don’t like to leave a job without seeing its conclusion. I never like to leave work – especially difficult work – for the people coming after me. I want to make sure I’ve done my best, that I can count this experience among the things I am proud of, the things I want to remember, the things I want to see as a part of who I am. I want to count it among my accomplishments.

You do too. We do this every time we share what we do or did for work, what kind of marriage or home life we have had, how up-to-date our technology is in our house, how clean it is, how valuable it is, how precious it is – and, we believe, how special we are. We try our best to project an image of stability, placidity, generosity, and control. We try. We try to look as if we are God’s gift to the world, as if we are the light of the world, as if we are the most special, the worthiest of praise and adoration, the most worthy of inclusion, acceptance, and love. We try to see ourselves as those deserving to sit at Jesus’ right and left hand. 

But inevitably, the suspicion begins to gnaw at us, that we are not the light. We are not the bearers of the world’s burdens. We are not the saviors we think we are. We are not the creative problem solvers and wise decision makers we want to be. We are not the capable and handy fixers. We are not the bright and gleaming, well regarded community leaders of our day. 

The suspicion gnaws at us, and if we are lucky, we can begin to peer past our delusions to see ourselves in the light with which God sees us – which is just as we are. But it’s a frightening thing to look at ourselves in the mirror. We don’t know what we will find: What if we don’t see anything that makes us special? What if we discover we are not made out of sparkles and starlight? What if we can’t find a reason to be loved? What if we’re forgettable?

It’s that fearfulness of discovering our fragility – our tenuous connection to others, that our belonging is never fully secured or ensured – it’s that sense of dread and doom, which freezes us where we are, leaves us hiding our faces, burying our eyes into the ground, because we cannot bear the thought of being seen for ourselves, being exposed and vulnerable. And I think that’s because we are trained to expect to be rejected, to be deemed unworthy, to be cast out.

We tend to sort the things around us into liabilities or assets. How often at the grocery store do you examine with a frown the produce which does not look good and pleasing to eat? How often do you grimace when you see a car drive by with poor exhaust or unrepaired panels or broken tail lights? How often do you compare the success of your sibling to that of your own life? How often do you look at the world around you and assess it for its value to you, its use to you, and only you?

So, what would people think of us? Of course, we would expect to be rejected if we were ever found wanting, ever found insufficient, ever discovered to be what we are – which is human, fallible, prone to error, given to selfishness, entitlement, and myopic folly.

When will we learn the truth? When will we realize our humanity isn’t a source of shame? When will we arrive at self-acceptance, at understanding that God delights in us?

In the Gospel, Jesus reveals who he is. He is a teacher, not a boss; he is a support to those around him, not a tyrant. He isn’t gritting his teeth as he uneasily watches us make mistake after mistake. He values the lives of those who are discounted and discarded. He is a servant of all. And his word reveals to the disciples a deep truth about themselves. They are not the light; they are not in charge; they are not the saviors, the winners, the successful, the ones to look up to, the authority figures. They are, always and only, human.

The disciples make a very human request. If it wasn’t asked by one of them, it would have come from another: “Give us whatever we ask.” Make us sit at your right hand and your left. Let us be the important ones. Let us show our father Zebedee that when we left him to work with the hired hands, it wasn’t for nothing. Let us make him proud. Don’t let us let him down. Don’t let him be ashamed of us. Don’t let us be ashamed of ourselves.

Their demand would lead to a lesson for us all. The other disciples heard their request. They were angry. I wonder if they were thinking of kicking out the sons of Zebedee from the group. And I wonder what James and John thought, as they faced their own expectations of rejection by the teacher they followed. You can imagine that perhaps they buried the heads in their hands, hiding in shame, waiting in confusion for what word might come next from their lord. They already were getting yelled at by their companions.

For the disciples, all of their lives, they were conditioned to cover up their insecurities, their vulnerabilities. Every day, they grew up learning exactly where they stood in relation to their peers – who was faster, stronger, smarter, braver, more charismatic, more clearly blessed. Every day, they knew what tier of society they occupied and where they fit in, if they fit in.

Nothing about this world could prepare them for what Jesus would tell them. Nothing could help them to anticipate Jesus’ acceptance of them – his embrace, his hopefulness and love – in telling them, gently, and with compassion, that one day, they will drink the cup of suffering that he drinks, and they will be baptized and descended upon with the Holy Spirit, just as he is. Jesus asks them to keep following him, to stay close, and to do whatever he asks of them.

One day, they will have the privilege to serve under a variety of conditions over their years. They will be given the grace to be apostles, to work directly with the people around them, to have actual relationships, which would be uplifting to others. They will make the Word of God better understood among the people of faith. They will help others to experience the sense of freedom and peace that they felt when they walked with their savior. They will, one day, share in the cup that Jesus drinks from, a path of suffering, all out of a boundless love for the world.

It’s not just James and John. Jesus calls all of his disciples to share in the cup, even you and me. What do you think you would do? Will you do the drink of it, too? I pray you will. Amen.