On October 21, Pastor Jim preaches on Mark 10:35-45.

One of my early college memories of Texas State, aka “Southwest Texas State,” aka “The Harvard of the Hill Country,” was buying my first semester’s books at the campus store. I took them to my new home in Jackson Hall,  aka “The Tiltin’ Hilton,” and took a shot at reading them.

I opened the text book for “Political Science 101.” As I read, my heart began to sink. It might as well have been Portuguese. I couldn’t make sense of it. At that moment I decided that I just wasn’t cut out for college.

Thankfully, persistence won out over fear, and eventually I got with the college program. Actually, my favorite subject was political science. I remember how someone once defined politics as, “Who gets what and when.” I’ve remembered that and have remained an avid, though admittedly amateur, observer of power and politics.

Our present cultural climate provides unlimited opportunities for power watching. Washington, D.C.; state government; schools; clubs; families; and even Christian organizations are vibrant arenas for the pursuit of power.

Yet it’s nothing new. In Mark Chapter 10, two brothers who were nicknamed “Sons of Thunder” (How’s that for power language?) came to Jesus and asked that they, not the other 10 disciples, be allowed to “sit, one at [his] right and one at [his] left in [his] glory.”

James and John had no clue what they were asking. They also were clueless about leadership, at least as defined by Jesus, who “came not to be served but to serve, and give his life as a ransom for many.”

He told them, “You know that among the Gentiles those whom they recognize as their rulers lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them. But it is not so among you; but whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant,  and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all.”

It gives a new meaning to the phrase, “who gets what and when.”