Sermon:
January 23, 2005
Sunday Night Alive  

Scripture:
Mark 10:35-45

I don’t know about you, but one thing I love is parades. I just love them. If there’s a parade of kids pulling their wagons down the street, I’m going to be in the front row. A couple of years ago, in one of the highlights of my parade-going experiences, I had a chance to be at the Rose Parade. I didn’t think that was going to be such a big deal. But there I was at the granddaddy of all parades, trying to be cool. And when the first float came by with all those flowers on it, Bridget looked over at me and I was tearing up. I just love parades. 

When I was in college, I got active in the state political scene. Every summer was campaign season. If you grew up in little rural towns like I did in western Wisconsin, you know that every little town has a summer festival. And every summer festival has its summer parade. When you’re trying to stump for someone to win elective office, you can guarantee that every weekend, you’re at a parade….eating a bratwurst and some fried cheese curds. It doesn’t get much better than that, my friends. It doesn’t get much better than that. 

I loved the parades. We’d go to these little towns like Alma for the Friendship Day or Richland Center for the Let’s Go Dutch Days. Every one of those little towns would have a pageant where they would elect the queen and her court. And they would go to every other little town’s parades, so we got to see the Friendship Queen every week, waving to the crowd. I always felt bad for the girl from Reedsburg, though, because she was the Butter Fest Queen. You know, who really wants to be the Butter Fest Queen? 

When you get down to it, what I love most about parades is not the floats, not all the local dignitaries who come out to wave their hands, not the antique cars that get polished up and brought out for special days like that. What I love more than anything is the marching bands. There’s nothing like a marching band coming down the street. And what I love most about the band is that one person who gets to stand at the front of that band. Everybody else in the band is wearing the same uniform so they all look alike. Except for that one dude up front. He gets to have some kind of shiny coat or some tails, and he gets to wear a really cool hat. You know that guy, right? You know who I’m talking about. When everybody else in the band is trying to march in step and not be noticed, that guy is right up front, high-stepping it. He’s the guy blowing the whistle. He’s the guy adding the color to the event. I just love to watch the drum major. 

And every time a parade went by, I would imagine what it must be like to be the drum major—to be the guy at the front of the parade, to be the guy who blows the whistle, to be the guy who calls the shots, to be the guy who adds color to the ordinary, to be the guy that everybody’s eyes turn to. Oh, to be the drum major. 

At one time or another, I think we all wish we were the drum major, the person at the front of the parade. In today’s scripture, we meet two brothers, James and John, who come to Jesus and ask if they can be the drum majors. Because there’s a parade that’s about to begin in our story. We’ve just finished chapter ten in Mark, but if we were to go to the very next chapter, the beginning of chapter eleven, we would discover that what is about to happen is Jesus’ Palm Sunday entrance into Jerusalem. Talk about the parade to end all parades! It is just about to happen. These disciples, and these brothers in particular, sense the excitement that’s brewing. They know what is about to happen. And when this great parade goes right down the streets of Jerusalem, those two want to be right up front with the leader. They want to be calling the shots. They want to have on the funky coats. They want all eyes to be turned towards them. They want to be the drum majors in the parade. 

And that’s really an honest instinct. If you think about that time, people were waiting for this great moment in Israel’s history when the Messiah would come and restore Israel to its promise. And many of the disciples believed that Jesus was the guy. But, as is often the case, they misunderstood the mission. Because you see, yes, there was going to be a parade, but Jesus wasn’t marching in with an army to overthrow a government. He was marching in with his life to transform the world. So these brothers got caught up in the excitement, except they just didn’t know what the excitement was really all about. Again, Jesus teaches us to expect the unexpected. He is the unexpected Messiah. 

I think when we first read this story, we are pretty hard on James and John. I mean, what a question they ask. Think about this question: “Lord, Jesus, God incarnate, Prince of Peace that you are, the Holy One, the Son of David….would you mind if we kinda had your right and left spot? Would that be all right?” I mean, that’s quite a question to ask. So when we first hear it, we think: “Man, those two just didn’t get it. I’m with the other ten who say, ‘Guys, what are you doing?’” I know that when I read this story, I am forced to look at myself in the mirror. Because it’s hard to admit, but I have a part of James and John in me. When it’s about to happen, I want to be the drum major. I have that drum major instinct within me. I want to be somebody. 

I think there comes a time when all of us have that need deep down within us. In fact, one of the great psychoanalysts of our time, Alfred Adler, says that the desire to be recognized, to be praised, to be seen in the light, is the most powerful and basic impulse that runs through humanity. That drum major instinct, that desire to be somebody. 

So if it runs through all of us, it’s something we all wrestle with and struggle with. And truth be told, if that desire is left unchecked, if it’s not harnessed, it can cause more damage than any other desire, any other impulse that is within us. For example, nations that don’t harness the drum major instinct—that don’t understand what Jesus is calling us to, that just want to be first for the sake of being first, for the sake of being recognized—will use their force and influence only for themselves, only for their own protection. Groups of people who misunderstand the drum major instinct—who want to be first, who want to be recognized, who want to be special—those groups of people can become very exclusive. In fact, I would argue that every single “ism—racism, sexism, classism—comes out of a misplaced understanding of the drum major instinct. 

I remember a time when I was a social worker in Detroit. Brand new to the city of Detroit, I was working with Big Brothers, Big Sisters. Part of what I got to do as a part of that job was to go into people’s homes to interview kids. I would meet them and their parents and assess their needs, so we could help them get a mentor who would be helpful in their journey through life. I’ll never forget this one day. It was the absolute poorest place I have ever been in my life. It was dirt poor. It was hard to believe that I was in the United States. I’d never seen anything like it in my life. And in that family, I met a mother with two sons. I felt a special connection with Michael, the oldest son. Michael had been in and out of a lot of trouble. 

I stayed connected with this family. I couldn’t get this boy a Big Brother. I mean, he was a handful. One day I got a call from Michael’s case worker at another agency that was trying to help the family. He asked if I could come to Michael’s school, because Michael had gotten in trouble, and I seemed to be one of the only adults he could connect with. So I went down and visited Michael in his school. He had gotten in a huge fight that day. I said, “Michael, what did you do to get in this fight?” He said, “I used the N word, and I told those N words what I thought.” You see, Michael was a white kid, the poorest white kid in an almost-all black city. And I said, “Michael, what were you doing using that word? You’re gonna get killed.” And he said, “I may not have anything, but I don’t want them to think they’re better than me.” 

You see, he had that desire deep down inside to be recognized, to be appreciated. And with nothing else he could latch onto, he latched onto racism. Because racism told him that he could be somebody simply because he was white. 

I learned something that day about the drum major instinct. You see, churches that misunderstand the drum major instinct, that want to be great for greatness’ sake, will never preach the full gospel. They will never invite people into the reality of the pain and the brokenness of our lives. Because pain and brokenness don’t put you at the first of many of our world’s lists. So churches that misplace the drum major instinct won’t invite people into a healing ministry where they can be honest about their brokenness. 

And finally, what happens to the individual who misunderstands the drum major instinct? I want to tell you a little bit about my story. I don’t think I’ve ever publicly told this part of my testimony to the group before. 

When I was in high school, I was everybody’s All American. I was the kid with all the right moves. I was the kid with the golden touch. I was the kid you either liked or hated. Because everything just seemed to work out. Great student. You name a club, I was president of it. You name a team, I was captain of it. You name an award, I received it. And I bet on that. I thought that’s what life was about—being great, being number one, always being on top. It was no surprise when I was voted Most Likely to Succeed, because I wanted that award. I wanted to get that award because I thought it would validate my desire to be recognized.

I went off to college with that same desire, and I had a checklist of things that I needed to accomplish in order to continue to be that drum major, in order to continue to be that up-front, number-one presence. And within a year and a half, I literally had checked everything off my list. By my sophomore year, I was Vice President of the Student Body. I was the first sophomore in the history of my campus to be elected Homecoming King. I was a resident assistant. I had received the lead in a play. 

Then something happened. At the beginning of my junior year, my third year of college, I found myself standing at the mountain of this success. I had everything that the world said was supposed to validate me. But as I stood at the top of that mountain of success, I tell you, I was empty. I was absolutely empty on the inside. And I felt cheated. And I felt lied to. And I remember very vividly calling my mom in the middle of the night and saying, “Mom, I’ll finish this semester. But when this semester is over, I’m going to come home. Because I have to figure out who I am.” And on that night, my mom said to me, “Jeff, I think it’s time you got to know God.” 

Great, Mom, what does that mean? What does that mean? Well, my mom must have thrown up some great prayers that night. Moms, I want to tell you, God listens to the prayers of mothers. I think my life has been saved more than once because I had a mother who believed in prayer. On those nights, she must have prayed real hard, because sometime within the next month, uninvited, somebody from a campus ministry organization just showed up at my door. And on that day, they talked about what it might mean to have a personal relationship with the God made known in Jesus. 

But do you know what word I heard for the first time in my life? It was the word “grace.” And the word grace said to me, “Jeff, God loves you just the way you are. No award is going to change that. No accolade is going to change that.” For the first time in my life, I literally felt like the pins were pulled from my diaphragm and I could just breathe. I’d worked so hard my whole life to be number one, but I never just took time to be the person God had always created me to be. 

On that night, I began my discipleship journey. And I began to understand the truth of what tonight’s scripture is talking about. Because Jesus then goes on to tell those brothers and disciples what we are supposed to do with that drum major instinct that is within each and every one of us. Jesus does not say what we expect him to say, because he never says what we expect him to say. We expect Jesus to say to James and John, “What kind of request are you making? You want the seats of right and left? That’s the most selfish and self-centered question I have ever heard. Get over yourselves.”

But Jesus doesn’t say that. He say doesn’t say that at all. In fact, he says something really different: “You know that desire within you? Keep that desire to be first. You want to be recognized and you want to be a notch above. My disciples need to be. But if you’re going to be first in something, be first in love. Be first in service. Be first in moral excellence. Be first in justice. If you want to be first, be first in that.” And then, in what may be the most paradoxical saying in the entire Gospel, Jesus transforms the very meaning of greatness. He says it talking about himself: “The Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give his life for many.” 

So how does that happen for us? Tonight’s story talks about that, as well. When James and John ask for those seats of greatness, Jesus turns to them and asks a question: “Are you willing to drink from the cup that I drink? Are you willing to be baptized in the baptism that I will be baptized with? If you want to know what it means to be great, follow me. Live like I live. Walk where I walk. Love like I love.” And remember, we just said the parade in Jerusalem is about to happen. That means the cross is around the corner. And when Jesus says, “Can you drink of the cup that I drink of?”, we cannot escape the scene from the Garden where Jesus asks God to take that cup from him. Jesus then says, “Not my will, but yours.” 

We have within us that desire to be first—to be first in love, to be first in service, to be great in discipleship. And it always comes back to discipleship. I’m starting to sound like a broken record, I know. But there’s no greater invitation than the invitation to discipleship. So I invite you again tonight to choose to take that first step, or that next step, into what it means to be a follower of Jesus. I tell you, by the end of the weekend with our seniors and juniors in high school, in their own voices and in their own unique giftedness, each of them talked about the ways they desire to be disciples of Jesus Christ. 

This Lent, we’re going to do a five-week Lenten journey together in small groups meeting on different nights at different times. And during those five weeks, we are going to continue to work on what it means to be somebody. But what kind of somebody are we going to be? I hope you’ll join us. 

Just this last Monday, everybody got the day off, and we celebrated the life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. It’s really easy to forget that Martin Luther King, Jr. was a pastor, a reverend, and that all of the work he did for social justice and racial justice came out of his understanding of this very instinct that we’re talking about. There was no doubt he was a great leader, a great orator. But when it came down to it for Martin Luther King, it had to do with understanding what it meant to be a disciple. If he was going to be great, he wanted to be great at love. 

In one of his last sermons, preached just months before he died, he closed his sermon talking about just that. I want you to hear these words. Almost projecting his own death, King said: 

If any of you are around when I have to meet my day, I don’t want a long funeral. And if you get somebody to deliver the eulogy, tell them not to talk too long… Tell them not to mention that I have a Nobel Peace Prize—that isn’t important. Tell them not to mention that I have three or four hundred other awards—that’s not important. Tell them not to mention where I went to school. 

I’d like somebody to mention that day that Martin Luther King, Jr. tried to give his life serving others. 

I’d like for somebody to say that day that Martin Luther King, Jr. tried to love somebody…

I want you to be able to say that day that I did try to feed the hungry. 

And I want you to be able to say that day that I did try in my life to clothe those who were naked. 

I want you to say on that day that I did try in my life to visit those who were in prison. 

I want you to say that I tried to love and serve humanity. 

Yes, if you want to say that I was a drum major, say that I was a drum major for justice. Say that I was a drum major for peace. I was drum major for righteousness. And all of the other shallow things will not matter. I won’t have any money to leave behind. I won’t have the fine and luxurious things of life to leave behind. But I just want to leave a committed life behind.

Brothers and sisters, there is no doubt that this church, positioned in this community, is among the most educated, most talented, most resource-rich churches in our area. Perhaps one of the most in the state of Michigan. Which would mean it is one of the most in this country. In this room and in this church, we have the possibility of impacting the world in tremendous ways. If we simply take that drum major instinct that is within us and take the next step of discipleship, this room, this church, is filled with somebodies. The question to us tonight is what kind of somebody are we going to be? 

Note: Much of the inspiration for this sermon came from Martin Luther King, Jr.’s February 4, 1968 sermon entitled, “The Drum Major’s Instinct.” It can be found in a collection of King’s writings and preaching entitled A Testament of Hope, a must-have for any who want to dig into the powerful and prophetic words of this modern-day saint.