You Can't Always Get What You Want

10-21-18 (Proper 24/Ordinary 29B, Semi-Continuous)

Job 38:1-7, 34-41; Mark 10:35-45

You Can’t Always Get What You Want

In this day and age, we’ve gotten pretty used to knowing that we can pretty much always get what we want.  Our business models are even often structured around this concept - the idea that “the customer is always right,” even though anyone who has worked in retail knows this is all too often the farthest thing from the truth.  Think about the slogans that have defined some of our different restaurants and businesses: Burger King’s “Have It Your Way,” the old Domino’s guarantee of “30 minutes or it’s free,” Visa’s “It’s everywhere you want to be,” or Holiday Inn’s “Pleasing People the World Over.”  We are a people who are used to instant gratification, to expecting to get what we have paid for and more.  I know that, all too often, when I’m looking at purchasing something or trying out a new place, I’ll turn to the customer reviews and see what others have experienced - was the food good?  Was the service adequate?  Did the item meet up to their expectations?  These are important things for us to make sure that we get what we want.

But then again… we don’t always get what we want, do we?  The restaurant that had such excellent reviews ends up making you wait over an hour to get your meal.  The new car’s bumper falls off as you’re driving it out of the lot.  The item you ordered falls apart after five minutes and you can’t get a hold of a customer service representative to save your life.

Today’s scriptures invite us into these kind of situations.  We see it most clearly in the Gospel reading today - James and John, known to their friends as the “Sons of Thunder,” come up to Jesus just a few moments after he has told his disciples once again that he is going to be betrayed, that he will be killed, and that he will rise again from the dead.  They ask Jesus to grant them a favor, and Jesus asks them what it is that they want.  The brothers ask Jesus to grant them the status of sitting at his right and left hand in his glory.  The disciples thought greatness was being willing to follow Christ to wherever he led.  To be willing to die alongside him when the time came.  The Sons of Thunder thought that their faithfulness at the very least should earn them choice spots in the future regime.  The trouble is, Jesus tells them first that it isn’t his choice to make, and next, that they don’t really seem to get it at all in the first place.  They may be capable of getting what they want, even worthy of those spaces… but in more ways than one… they’re still not getting it.

It gets a little tricker in today’s Job passage, but as we look at the larger story that has unfolded throughout the book, we see a similar process in Job’s thoughts and situation.  After he has suffered tragedy after tragedy after tragedy, Job has spent the better part of this book arguing back and forth with his three friends.  They’ve tried every rationale they can to make Job see reason, to help him to understand that all his woes are things that he has somehow brought down upon himself, because that’s how the world works.  But Job continues to stand his ground, to insist upon his innocence and righteousness.  He laments and mourns his situation, he proclaims his innocence, and speaks from the deepest yearnings of his heart that God would at the very least state an accusation of some kind against him, that he could hear what it is that he has supposedly done that has brought this suffering upon himself.  He speaks his desire for a mediator, for a trial, for even just an indictment, and as he makes some of his final statements in argument against his friends, he proclaims his belief that the world is simply unjust, that God has abandoned God’s creation and left the foxes to guard the henhouse.  Job laments that it is impossible for him to get what he wants, because he is mortal and what he wants is an audience with the immortal.

The thing is… as the Rolling Stones put it, “You can’t always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, you just might find you get what you need.”  It’s at this moment, as the last of Job’s three friends finishes his sermon, that God suddenly enters the scene, speaking out of a whirlwind.  And as we listen to just a portion of God’s response from today’s reading, it can seem pretty harsh - God comes in with a mighty demonstration of power and glory, asks “Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge?” and then proceeds to go on for two full chapters in questioning Job’s credentials and asking Job where he was when the earth was created, what powers he had ever shown, what kind of knowledge he had about all the goings-on of the earth… to be honest, as God answers all these questions, it seems like Job is yet again being given the short stick.  Job still doesn’t really get what he wants, even as God literally comes down to speak with him.  But Job does get what he needs.

Professor W. Dennis Tucker suggests that reading God’s response to Job as a kind of “verbal beatdown” is inaccurate and fails to recognize the book of Job as a specific genre of Biblical writing known as “Wisdom writings.”  Professor Tucker argues that God is not chastising Job here, but re-orienting Job’s worldview and educating him, instead.  He writes, “Job has repeatedly suggested that the world seems disorderly, that God has ‘taken his hand off the wheel,’ so to speak. Yet rather than confirming that the world is a disorderly place, the questions directed at Job affirm that not only does the world operate in an orderly fashion but that God is the author of that order.”  Job complains that God is absent and that God doesn’t care, but God tells Job that it is exactly the opposite, that God does care and that God has always cared and always been there.

We see the same thing happen with Jesus after James and John make their request of him.  After Jesus tells them that it’s not his position to give, the rest of the disciples start bickering all over again - whether they’re mad at James and John for asking in the first place or mad because they didn’t think to ask him first, we don’t really know.  But Jesus steps in and offers the same kind of re-orientation.  In fact, Jesus turns the entire argument on its head as he says,  “Whoever wishes to be great among you must be your servant.  And whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all.  For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”  He doesn’t chastise the two disciples for their ambition, but gently shows them how their ambitions have been misplaced - instead of seeking greatness in the Kingdom by getting in close to the King, they are instead to use that same ambition in service to others in order that they might truly become great.  Jesus shows them, not just in his teaching but through his entire life, death, and resurrection, what the true exercise of that power looks like, and as they finally begin to understand that power, the disciples are able to use it as Jesus had taught them.

We can’t always get what we want - as a camp co-worker of mine used to say frequently, “This isn’t Burger King - you can’t always have it your way.”  But very often, when we take the time to let ourselves be guided by the God who knows us, loves us, and cared enough for us that God gave God’s only Son for us… we might just find that we can and often do get what we need.  To God be the Glory.  Amen.