A Better Argument

The Gospel says, ‘when the ten heard this, they began to be angry with James and John….’ I am always reassured when I hear about James and John, Peter and the others squabbling with one another: it reminds me that we who follow Jesus today come by our occasional arguments honestly.  

While many of the disciples’ more attractive charisms have proved sadly elusive in my pastoral life, these ones I put my hand up to say I have received  – contentiousness, defensive petulance, struggle for position – this is not just about our inheriting a propensity for argument, but a propensity to have the WRONG argument.  With the wrong people, at the wrong time.

As a Methodist let me assure you that the Church of England does not have the corner on this legacy, even if some will feel it has received a double share.  

Press reports in November 1788 noted that John Wesley himself, preaching at the dedication of his new Chapel, spent the first 13 minutes excoriating the women in the congregation for their overly ostentatious hats.  I think about it when I climb up the steps into that same pulpit every week – why did it seem right to him, at that particular moment, to attack those women – to shame them – those same women who were on the whole, the ones paying his bills?

May I say, you all look lovely today – truly gorgeous – not a thread or feather out of place!  Even if the Bishops among us have left their mitres at home.

Today I have only two points, only slightly tongue in cheek.

One, I want to ask what a better argument might look like – and two, I want to get us some help to make it.

Because evil is real.  Evil will demand more from us than a disinterested civility – we who follow Jesus Christ not just as teacher, but as Saviour of the world and think that means something.  

We who think that public safety, say for an MP or other public servant meeting someone - comes not from higher walls or body guards with guns, but from a climate of trust in communities.  A climate in which conflict, the better argument, can happen without violence.  

And that climate of trust, so easily lost, demands slow and patient work, demands a better argument than James and John managed that day with Jesus.

SO my two questions – what is the better argument?  And how can we have it?

Spoiler here, Job is going to be our guide.  But not just him.

James and John didn’t hesitate when Jesus asked them ‘what do you want me to do for you,’ – didn’t have to think – they just wanted assurance that they would get good seats in heaven.  Specifically, seats maybe a little better than the others.

I note that there was less worry about this kind of thing when it was just them and the fish – this kind of conflict comes with power, and success.  

Fortunately the capacity for argument, and for the wrong argument at the wrong time done in the wrong way, with the wrong people – fortunately this is not our only inheritance or legacy from James and John and the other disciples.  

It was also they who, when Jesus asked them ‘are you able to drink the cup I drink or be baptised with the baptism with which I am baptised,’ said ‘WE ARE ABLE.’  

This is also part of our inheritance.  God started with them and God starts with us where we are, before they knew what they were saying.  To make the better argument is consciously to inhabit THAT part of our inheritance, the ‘We are able’.  This needent take much thought – we do it every day, every time we blithely proclaim AMEN after the words ‘thy kingdom come.’  

To say AMEN, to that prayer, knowing what we do of the world, of our own privilege and complicity, our desire for glory?  It is an extraordinary, breathtaking thing – we have no idea what it means, any more than James and John knew.  And sometimes we barely notice we say it.  

Let no one take from you ever the power of your AMEN said together – the courageous ‘so be it’ that commits us to one another and to God’s work.  God answers prayer.  

And Jesus’ question resonates with me and I want us to sit with it.  ‘What do you want me to do for you?’  How would you answer, how should we?  Because God still asks.

Here is where we can learn to have a better argument –  

Jesus ever so patiently coaches us, shows us how we might answer: ‘the Son of man came not to be served, but to serve.  And whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant., whoever would be first among you, must be slave of all.’  This is the cup he drinks, and it is our cup too.

How might I abandon my will to power, without abandoning the will for justice, for God’s kingdom?  That is the nub, the defining characteristic of the better argument, grounded in repentance and forgiveness and service – all what Jesus has said here about greatness.

Here, we turn to Job.  Because Job is a good model for that better argument.  He gives us the how.

Just to remind us, Job a righteous man had become the devil’s pawn – God allowed the devil to afflict Job, to try to prove that love for God would last only as far as blessing.  So God allowed the devil to assault Job grievously, in every way –from the death of his children, cattle, camels and sheep, to the covering of his body with oozing sores.  

And Job grieves, and rages, and laments, and finally Job argues – oh my he argues across tens of chapters of scripture - with his wife, his friends, and in the end, with God.

But as he argues, even in his own deepest personal grief, it is on behalf of others.  Deeply personal – but never private, like all proper religion.  He is a servant of all.

And Job is specific - he complains that the wicked ‘drive away the donkey of the orphan’, and ‘take the widow’s ox’ – that they ‘thrust the needy off the road,’ that the ones doing work do not get the just reward, that the children of the poor have to scavenge for food.  

What would Job list today?  He cites big issues about power and inequity, economics and politics.  But expressed in ways small enough to make a difference.  

Would he speak about the hidden algorithms that drive our search engines, laden with prejudice - that privilege some over others?  Would he cite the tyrannical idolatry of dividing people by passport, or about the aftermath of war, and lack of access to education?  

Job’s own pain becomes an engine of compassion, even his argument and most personal conflict a service for others.  There is our pattern.  

Job’s argument with God seems to me a better argument than many I have had.  And many I see other disciples have.  More like the kind Jesus asks us to have.

And of course, God answers Job.  God’s answer does not remove the bewilderment, awe, or frustration – but God’s answer, taking us on a tour of creation both intimate and majestic, is about unfinished work.  God describes a creation still in movement.  And Job is satisfied, vindicated – and justice comes.  

Today, we are weary.  We grieve.  We are tired.  A registered homeless single mum taking her 11 year old son to work with her every night as a cleaner, because she can’t leave him alone in their temporary accommodation.  A ward nurse at the London Royal who has been working short staffed without a break for 2 years.  A teacher, a parent, a carer, a person separated from a loved one.  Certainly every minister and church goer.  
What if right now, our own weariness, our frustration with every kind of bureaucracy and international politics and the failure of peace making, what if right now our own pain and grief could bind us together in common cause, rather than divide us?  

What if we were to take Job as our pattern for better argument, serving the weakest among us?  
We inherit the disciples legacy of argument honestly.  But we can have better arguments, at better times and in better places - not stepping away from conflict - it is needed, but allying our argument, with Job, with the coming kingdom, with God’s still unfolding work.  Just like Job, about big things, worked out in ways small enough to make a difference. 

This is not just about coming to church and being disappointed and angry in company.  Like Job, we too have a chance for satisfaction.  Things can change.  The kingdom of God, this majestic creation is unfinished.  We will know ourselves safe and free not because we hide behind a high wall wringing our hands but because we have said Amen, ‘so be it’ together.  

When Jesus said ‘whoever wishes to become great among YOU must be your servant,’ he wasn’t making a request, but stating a fact – a fact as true, as immutable, as mysterious as the creative forces which chain the Pleiades, or loose the cords of the stars in Orion’s belt.  For the Son of man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.  

Even James and John, even the ladies in hats, even John Wesley – even us.  We have inherited well.   

The Revd Canon Dr Jennifer Smith
Superintendent Minister
Wesley’s Chapel and Leysian Mission