A Matter Of Want
And Jesus stopped and called them, and said, "What do you want Me to do for you?"
Matthew 20:32
These days the words of our Lord are rarely meditated on as they were originally intended. Instead of searching for the depth that strengthens and fulfills, people try to search out everything and instead find nothing.
However unlikely it may be to find a verse like this mentioned in a sermon today (and even less likely to be commented on), an ordinary sermon would probably be content to note that Jesus cared about the needs of others and served them for the single and solitary purpose of setting an example for us to love others.
And not ourselves.
Yes, it is true. Jesus does want us to care for those God sends to us. This is perhaps the most successful way of expressing God's kingdom on earth. More imporantly than caring for others, however, is caring for others in a particular way:
The way we want to be cared for.
And so the cursory examination of the verse -which settles for mere appearances- fails to grasp the fullness of God's message. In this way we altogether miss the assurance He provides and the audacity with which He provides it to us.
Perhaps it would be easier to understand the audacity of Christ's question by contrasting to other questions, particularly the questions we ask.
'What do you need me to do for you?'
'What do you need me to do for the poor?'
'What does the community need me to do for the uneducated?'
'What does the world need to do to reform pollution standards?'
And so we spiral farther and farther from the heart of God as our questions lose their relevance to the godly desires God has placed in the center of our hearts.
The word translated to English as "need" does not appear very often in the Gospels.
When Jesus gave the sermon on the mount he noted the pagans desperately search for physical provisions: food, clothes, and shelter. The spirit of paganism is continually focused on needs and not on wants, and Jesus rebuked this spirit when he said, "your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things".
And again there was an occasion where many followers of Christ were listening to him preach and the disciples asked Jesus to let them go find food to eat. Their thoughts were on how people need physical food more than they need Jesus. But Jesus responded saying, "They do not need to go away; you give them something to eat!" Again, putting the emphasis on something other than what commonly passes for "needs".
But if there was one disciple who appealed to the needs of others more than anyone else it was Judas.
When the prostitute came and emptied the pure nard -the very expensive perfume- on the feet Jesus, it was Judas who suggested the perfume should have been sold and the money given away to the poor.
By the standards of this generation, Judas was a praiseworthy fellow. If such a person lived in our day he would be cajoled into running for office and have his face put on the cover of every magazine.
Yet, the person who appealed the most to the physical needs of others failed to recognize his own inner longing. Unlike the sick who came to Jesus to be healed, Judas had no knowledge of what he wanted Christ to do for him.
Unlike the gift of the woman which the Scriptures called "pure", Judas instead gave a suggestion in thievery which was corrupt. The woman received what she wanted from Jesus, and Judas also received his cravings: money.
May the children of God reflect on the power of their Lord to richly supply them with every gift for their pleasure as they meditate on and consider how strongly their weak and passing frames wish and long to serve and be with their master forever.
Amen.
2 Comments:
Hi Micah,
Your meditation on that verse was interesting and thought-provoking. It was also cryptic in certain ways, so I apologise if I have misunderstood parts of it with my following comments.
You're taking a verse from a situation in which Jesus healed two blind men (from compassion). Immediately preceding this story was one where Jesus told his disciples that the hierarchy of the kingdom of God was not based on power and authority but service. Your mention of caring for others the way 'we want to be cared for' is the golden rule, but i'd argue it goes deeper than that.
In John 13:34 and 15:12 Jesus commands us to love one another as he loved us. The distinction is small, but you can see how it'd be important in certain circumstances. So often we treat others poorly while thinking "if I did that to him i'd expect the same kind of treatment, so its ok". Anger distorts what is appropiate and inappropiate in our mind. Extending the new commandment to loving as Jesus loves us prohibits us from treating others poorly even if we 'think' we would want the same in return.
You have a point regarding the concepts of needs in the Gospels. So often we look at things and perceive of morality in a purely utilitiarian manner. This is, I believe, the error of Judas in the passage you mentioned. He looked at that act and thought only of what the perfume could have been used for instead, and then rebuked her. He ignored the passion, humility, and the love that was being displayed by the woman. She showed no materalism because she took what was an incredibly valuable perfume and used it on the feet of a very poor man. What she did she did in love, and should under no circumstances be criticised.
Judas, I think, was right in an objective intellectual sense, but to reduce service and love to a numbers game is to miss the point entirely.
Jesus critique of materalism strikingly displayed how poor our conception of 'needs' really are. We think we need three square meals a day, and house insurance, and a car, and alot of friends, and a bare minimum of entertainment and material possessions. What Jesus did was live a life that was practically destitution (he did not earn a living but relied on the generosity of others for food and shelter), encouraged his followers to do the same (if they wanted to, it seemed to be voluntary), and their ability to live a meaningful and spiritual had not decreased after the loss of material possessions. Instead, it had increased.
Nevertheless, I dont see how it is possible to divorce Jesus message of service and love with the imperative to help the poor as much as physically possible. It is, you rightly note, not all about the numbers. Jesus elsewhere mentions the situation where a poor lady gave a coin to the church offering, and a pharisee gave a whole bag of coins, and yet because it was the lady who gave more in proportion to her earthly possessions she was commended.
As Kierkegaard suggested, the value of religious truth isn't based on what we do/know, but how we relate to the truth.
Hi Tim,
I've been wondering how you would respond to that.
You are right that I was appealing to an old command, one which explicitly appeals to the way one "wants" to be treated. The new command trascends the old command and the wanting is a trascended form of itself. Indeed, how could it be said Jesus wanted to be crucified, yet Christ counted it a joy set before him.
I do not deny this is difficult to understand.
You cannot have the Good News without giving. If it is separated, from the inner prompting of love, however, it would is worth nothing as Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 13. The greatness of Christ was not simply a matter of his spartan surroundings (many Spartans will be thrown into hell, if you don't believe me watch 300), although Christ made note of it several times ... foxes have holes, it is more blessed to give, etc. Christ also made a point of how meaningless sacrifice can be when he cited the Scripture: "I desire mercy not sacrifice".
Christ found His greatness in the greatness that proceeded from the Father. In negating his will he found the will of the father, and this became his new will. In the same way Paul noted that it was not Paul who lived but Christ who lived within Paul (whereby Paul truly lived).
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