It is a sign of our extreme peril that when I speak of Siwanatorz, Beliebers, and the Beyhive, I must explain, but I can say “Just the facts, ma’am,” and almost everyone in the room is old enough to know I am referencing Joe Friday on Dragnet, a television program that broadcast its last episode a half century ago. Nonetheless, we start our engagement with today’s gospel reading with “Just the facts.”
The three male disciples we get to know best in the gospels are Peter, James, and John. Peter, of course, is traditionally understood as the leader of the movement after the public torture and execution of Jesus. Like James and John, he has a brother in the movement, though Andrew is at best a minor character.
James, the disciple, brother of John, and son of Zebedee, should not be confused with James, the brother of Jesus, who becomes a follower only after the death of Jesus and is the head of the church in Jerusalem. John, the disciple, brother of James, and son of Zebedee, should not be confused with John who receives the revelation on Patmos, despite the tradition that conflates the two. And none of the three likely wrote any of the texts given their name in the New Testament.
Peter is actually a nickname, given to Simon by Jesus, Simon the Rock, flatteringly “upon which Christ will build the church,” more likely, because he could be a bit thick at times. James and John also earned a nickname, for they were rowdy, and were called “the Thunder Brothers.” And it is the Thunder Brothers who take center-stage in our reading, for they ask Jesus if they can sit, one at his left and one at his right, when he comes into glory.
In the dialogue that follows, Jesus teaches his disciples about servant-leadership, a concept at the absolute heart of the Christian faith and of our United Church of Christ understanding of ministry, a belief first articulated in the Suffering Servant passages of Isaiah. But Jesus also says it is not for him to decide who will sit at his left and at his right.
This is important, and a reminder that we always err when we isolate pieces of the story, when we have neglected our Bible, for this left side and right side is meant to point forward to that moment when there is someone at his left side and someone on his right side, when he is on the Cross, certainly an odd way to come into your glory. Today’s reading should end with “to be continued,” for the meaning will be revealed in later chapters.
In the same way, the question Jesus asks, whether James and John will drink the cup he drinks and receive the baptism he receives is a pointer to the Passion, for it is in Gethsemane that he prays “Abba, take this cup away from me, though thy will, not mine, be done.” And that cup is the cup of crucifixion.
The Man in Black, the Dread Pirate Roberts, not Johnny Cash, once said “Life is pain, Highness! Anyone who says differently is selling something.”
Well, I’m not quite that grim. I mean, life is also beauty and joy. But it is absolutely true that pain comes to all of us at times, often as a result of or prompt toward growth, and it is a non-negotiable truth that discipleship, the Way of Love and Justice, is going to cost you something. Grace may be freely given, but it is not cheap, not in the traditional theology of costly grace, and not in any modern interpretation, for once you have eyes to see the brokenness of the world, you cannot pretend you haven’t seen. Life may not be pain, Highness, but it is always a risk, a flicker of love at risk of going out.
You can’t unring the bell, and you can either pursue that difficult path of love, or you can lose your soul, for once you know, you know.
Which isn’t so scary as long as I’m just throwing around some pop culture references and abstract theology. So let’s get real.
Facebook. Yeah. Ironic it is that the biggest and most dominant social media platform should once again be at the center of a scandal at the precise moment when The Park Church finally brings someone on board to help us leverage those same social media platforms to grow our church and serve our mission of changing lives through love and justice. For the revelations of Frances Haugen, the Facebook whistleblower, confirmed what many of us suspected, though the picture she painted was far darker than our most dystopian nightmares.
It is absolutely true that on the internet, you either pay for the product or you are the product. And when it comes to Facebook, you are the product.
Shoshana Zuboff, the social psychologist at the Harvard Business School, famously called this “surveillance capitalism.” But it is not just surveillance. Facebook has not been content just to watch what you do and try to match paid advertising to your interests. It turns out, Facebook has been actively manipulating its users, deploying algorithms to change behavior and belief, and has continued to do so even after it became violently clear that the platform plays a significant role in the rise of disinformation, in the attempted coup d’etat on January 6th, in the deaths of literally hundreds of thousands who have refused to be vaccinated because social media platforms, from Facebook to Google’s YouTube, have amplified the voice of both run-of-the-mill crazies like basketball star Kyrie Irving and sophisticated actors like Russia’s psychological operations forces. Facebook has continued to place profit above all else, even when it was clear that the algorithms were creating division and, I dare say, contributing to mental illness.
The thing is, there is no going back to Mayberry. The Elks Club has closed, as has the bowling alley, and the local newspaper is good for little more than lining the cat litter if it exists at all. There has been a social revolution in the last thirty years, one driven by Silicon Valley, Madison Avenue, K Street and the C Suite, and we are deep deep in it, and have exercised no agency, passive and swept along.
A platform like Facebook has value as a tool. I have a network of colleagues and friends from one end of the globe to the other that I’d never be able to keep up with using snail mail and the telephone, even before Louis DeJoy pulled a “Shining” on the U.S. Postal Service.
Early in the pandemic, I set up a Facebook group to help merchants and anxious customers connect in the county I served in Wisconsin, something that went from masking information to a ministry. There were more than 1500 members, and for many, I was their only pastoral support.
So what compromise am I willing to make with the Devil? Because full immersion in Facebook is like being in the Matrix, a false reality served up by super computers, and I choose the red pill, the uncomfortable and unsettling truth rather than the contented ignorance of the blue pill. I choose escape from the Matrix.
In the last couple of weeks, I’ve cut my time on Facebook to somewhere around five to ten minutes once a day. I’ve deleted the app from my cell phone.
I’ve given up something. This is costly. Because Facebook the tool had real value in my life. It was exactly what it was originally meant to be, a network. Who am I going to tell now when I discover how amazing Wegman’s Maui Onion Potato Chips are? I mean, besides you. Who is going to hear me vent about the stupidity and cruelty of the world? I mean, besides you.
Because my snarky posts on Facebook were doing so much to make the world a better place. Right? Because I am important enough that people care what I made for dinner. Right?
Discipleship is not some abstraction we talk about on Sunday morning, if we happen to be in town and the weather is good but not too good. Discipleship is a dozen decisions a day, and they are not all easy, and sometimes they are going to cost. You will make decisions this week that will impact you, your moral, mental, physical, and financial health. You will make decisions that will impact the moral, mental, physical, and financial health of others. Even if those decisions are to not make a decision, to close your eyes and your hearts.
“The Human One didn’t come to be served but rather to serve and to give his life to liberate many people…”
May we be disciples in ministries of liberation. May we escape the Matrix.
Amen.