Not What I Want

Mark 14: 10-38

There is very little that I know for sure.  And there are very few things on which I would be willing to stake my life.  It is hard to know if this is a story of the world being broken or the story of the broken finding a place in the world.  Every time I greet Palm Sunday and face yet again the week that Jesus walked, I find myself wondering what, if anything would be rooted deep enough in my heart to compel me to follow God all the way to the cross and to death.  Scholars disagree about whether Jesus knew that he was the messiah, whether he knew exactly how the end would unravel before him, whether he knew what would be asked of him, but we do know a few things for sure.  We know that there were two processions in Jerusalem.  One was led by the man from a peasant village followed by people who lived and died in the peasant class.  The other was led by a man who governed the Roman provinces of Idumea, Judea and Samaria followed by people adorned in the region’s finest.  One man entered Jerusalem proclaiming the Kingdom of God.  The other entered the city proclaiming the power of an Empire. 

And as little as we know about what Jesus was thinking or feeling, as little as we know about what he might have asked of God, we know that he taught and preached and lived the most radical message of his day.  The message was simple: Rome is not God.  He said it with his words, he said with the way that we welcomed lepers and prostitutes, children and women.  He said it with his life:  there is only one God and it is not the Roman Empire.  Empires cannot tell us who is worthy of life.  And Empires do not have the last word.  Christian thinkers and writers, theologians and preachers have argued that Jesus knew all along how it would go.  They say that God had it mapped out, that Jesus had to do what he did.  They say that he had no choice, that this was the only way and that no other path would suffice.  But I am not convinced.  You see, there is very little I know for sure.  And there are very few things on which I would be willing to stake my life.  It is hard to know if this is a story of the world being broken or the story of the broken finding a place in the world. 

But there is one thing I know for sure or at least as far as faith can be certain, and that is that while I believe that God has a plan, not all that unfolds in this life is a part of that plan.  And because not everything that happens is God’s will, our job is to spend time figuring out what it is that God has in mind. 

To be sure, discerning God’s will is tricky business.  We human beings often confuse what we want, with what God wants because it is so much easier than risking the possibility that what we have in mind might not be what God wants at all.  So when it comes to Jesus’ final week, I wonder if he did what he did, not because he had to, but because he chose to.  As Christians, if we proclaim that Jesus is the one that points us to God, if he is really the one to save us from ourselves, then his walk to the cross shines so much brighter if he chose it. Or at least if he did what he did out of faith, out of a deep and abiding conviction in his message, in God’s message of radical love, rather than from coercion from God.  To me, Jesus’ walk to the cross holds a power stronger than any Empire, when I know that he said yes to God in each tiny moment that invited him to bow out.  He said yes to God when he arrived in Jerusalem with palms on the ground and crowds cheering, crowds filled with people whose lives had been broken and beaten down and torn apart by an Empire who knew them not as people, but as subjects.  He said yes to God when the winds changed and word spread and it was clear that his message of love was stronger than Caesar.  He said yes to God when his friends betrayed him and he was left alone with the hard truth that not even he could escape what was coming.

Maybe we tell ourselves that Jesus had no choice to go to the cross because then we are off the hook.  If it was all mapped out ahead of time, then there was nothing the complacent crowd could do to stop it.  The suffering that soaked that hill has no claim on us.  If God made it happen, then we can take comfort in the fact that we cannot be found in the crowd that found Jesus’ message too bold, too radical, too unpalatable, and too messy.  If God pushed him to the cross, then we can more easily sit from a distance and join the laments of the ages, as we watch God’s messengers while they are beaten and stoned, battered and broken.  But what if Jesus chose this path?  What if he knew that this was the only way his message would live?  What if Jesus knew that the only way to kill an Empire is to be willing to die for love?

There is very little that I know for sure.  And there are very few things on which I would be willing to stake my life.  It is hard to know if this is a story of the world being broken or the story of the broken finding a place in the world.  So, what if Jesus’ said yes to the cross so that the world would know that God says yes to us all?  Jesus said yes to God when he sat in the Garden with his friends praying.  He said yes to God when he prayed that maybe he wouldn’t have to do this, “Abba, Father, for you all things are possible; remove this cup from me; yet, not what I want, but what you want.”  Not what I want, but what you want.

Those eight little words are the difference between life and death.  Not what I want, but what you want.  As Jesus sat there in the Garden, we see his fear, we see his longing to live, we see his yearning for a life that he knows cannot be and we see that he his human.  And I think that God’s power lies not in the fact that Jesus had to go, but in the truth that he knew enough of God to know that God wouldn’t require it.  Unlike Rome, the God that Jesus knew, was not one that demanded suffering, but one that required love.  The God that Jesus knew, was not one that caused pain, but one that would be present with him in it.  The God that Jesus knew, the God that Jesus shows each of us, is a God that asks us to follow not because we have to, but because we believe that God has something amazing, something life giving in mind for each of us.  When Jesus says, “Father… remove this cup from me; yet, not what I want, but what you want.”  We can glimpse even if just for a moment, that we might be able to walk with him.  There is a sort of vulnerability and tenderness in his request.  I am not sure I can do this but if you are with me, I am in.  And there is an invitation for us too as people of faith.  We too, might be able to offer to God our hopes and dreams, our deep fear and then say, yet not what I want, but what you want.  We too can stand before God, with wobbly legs and a beating heart, yet not what I want, but what you want.  We too can wonder if the possibilities God has for us are really the best ones.  We too can question and doubt and still say, yet not what I want, but what you want.

And I wonder what it would be like for us to claim these words for ourselves.  What would it be like for us as a church to keep these words on our hearts, in meetings, in prayer, in worship and discernment about what is next for us- what would it look like for us to share our hopes and dreams and then to say with profound openness, yet not what I want, but what you want?  There is very little that any of us can know for sure.  And there are probably very few things on which we would be willing to stake our lives.  But we know that God is.  We know that God has a plan, and not all that unfolds in this life is a part of that plan.  We know that God’s will is something we must discern together.  We know that God is the one who brings a message of life and hope even amidst unimaginable suffering.  We know that God is the one who remains when the Empire crumbles.  And we know that this is a story not of the world being broken, but a story of the broken, of all of us finding a home in God.  Amen.