I Don’t Get No Respect
Do you remember Rodney Dangerfield, the rubbery-faced comedian with sad hound dog eyes? For many years, he used to do all his routines around the line, “I don’t get no respect.” This was a line that strongly resonated with people, and perhaps our childhood helps to explain why.
When we were young, our parents praised us for the least little accomplishment — tying our shoes correctly, not spilling our milk, coloring within the lines. But in adult years, many months passed before anything even resembling a compliment came our way.
It’s not that we want banner headlines or center-stage attention, but at least some appreciation would be nice.
Describing this problem, and identifying with it, John Henry Jowett wrote:
The applause of men may not gratify our ears. No worldly garland may be put upon our brow. We may climb unto no high place in the world’s esteem. We may stumble along a painful way, we may be continually jostled and elbowed into the rear of the competing crowd ….1
Others may overlook you. Generations may come and go without your name ever drawing attention. Historians may never say a word about you.
True, the newspapers will have cited your name at least twice: in your birth announcement and in your obituary. But after that, nothing.
Just like those long genealogies in the Bible where only basic facts were given — name of parents, name of children, age at the time of death—there seems to be nothing worth remembering.
The winds blew, the seasons kept their appointments, the years became decades, and the decades became centuries. Perhaps your grave marker can be found, but more than likely it isn’t there anymore. You are forgotten!
So did the broad sweep of history, like the dirt over your grave, cover you up?
And did eternity also cover up all that you did while time unfolded? Your love, your loyalty, your faithfulness; have these been eclipsed?
If the answer to these questions is yes, yes, yes, and yes, that would drastically deflate your significance. So it’s just like Rodney said, “I don’t get no respect.”
Addressing this issue of little recognition, British evangelist Leonard Ravenhill offered this encouragement but with a challenge:
Near-exhausted, lonely missionary, are you forgotten and neglected on some tributary of a tributary of the Amazon? Never! It is his plan. He is fashioning you for eternity. Fellow pilgrim, if the blessed, anointed Son of God could wait with patience, and walk with endurance, and wait in the shadows for his vindication, why then should you and I itch for vindication?2
But is it wrong “to itch for vindication,” to want to be recognized and not forgotten, appreciated and not overlooked? Maybe not, if we go about it in the right way.
And what exactly might that way be? Turning to Scripture, we will search for an answer.
In Mark 10:35 we find two of the disciples, James and John, approaching Jesus one day, saying, “Teacher, we want You to do for us whatever we ask.”
Their proposal was sort of a blank check. Just sign it, Lord, and hand it over; we’ll fill in the amount.
Not in any way put off by this (probably because God wants us to set our sights high), Jesus said, “What do you want me to do for you?”
And they answered, “Grant us that we may sit, one on Your right hand and the other on Your left, in Your glory.”
Do you see what they were wanting? Power, prestige, preeminence — in a word, honor!
The reason there’s no rebuke from Jesus at this point is because God’s highest honor is a worthy goal. Ambition, in this respect, must not be removed from the dictionary of faith.
Favoring that view, A.J. Gordon, the nineteenth-century Boston pastor, offered the observation:
We have come so much to regard humility a cardinal virtue of Christianity that we may have forgotten that the Christian should be ambitious. I think he should be the most ambitious person on the earth.3
Ambition — directed by God and energized by God — is indeed worthy. And therefore, instead of rebuking their ambition, Jesus redirects it by asking, “Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, and be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?”
The cup? The baptism? What was Jesus talking about?
Just hours after this conversation Jesus begged the Father to remove the cup. So apparently the cup was so bitter, so galling, no one would ever want to drink from it!
Like the cup, baptism also speaks of something foreboding, a suffering associated with passing through deep waters.
What we have here, then, is an equation that posits the cup and the baptism on one side and God’s reserved seat of honor on the other. In other words, the closer we get to Christ the crucified, the closer we’ll get to Christ the glorified.
This isn’t marching orders for masochism, obviously, since the goal — and a very worthy one at that — was Heaven's honor.
In response to Jesus’ question about being able to drink of the cup and to undergo the baptism, the disciples answered quickly and confidently, “We are able.” Sure, Lord, whatever. Bring it on; we can handle it. No matter how great the challenge, no matter how severe the suffering, you can count on us!
Now, about that throne … when are we going to get it?”
The naiveté in this response is almost humorous. But once again, Jesus didn’t douse their dream. Instead, with much tenderness he looked down the corridors of the future and saw how James would be beheaded with a sword and John would be exiled on an island, and some say boiled in oil.
You must realize that the bitter cup and engulfing baptism aren’t speaking of how one dies, since Jesus made it clear in this same chapter he was referring to a lifestyle of serving.
Interestingly, the story that follows this account seems to be an abrupt change of subject; and for this reason, most commentators see no connection with what transpired just before.
To them, Mark chronicles sequentially what came next. But we’re not dealing with chronology here; because if we were, this is where the story of Zacchaeus would fit in. Yet, for some reason, Mark deliberately omitted that account and instead, inspired by the Spirit, tells this story:
Now they came to Jericho. As He went out of Jericho with His disciples and a great multitude, blind Bartimaeus, the son of Timaeus, sat by the road begging, And when he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to cry out and say, “Jesus, Son of David have mercy on me!” (Mark 10:46, 47).
What does this account with Bartimaeus have to do with what James and John were asking? God gives us a clue. Notice the double designation: Bartimaeus, the son of Timaeus. Bar means “son of.”
So by giving the name twice, God was saying there is something here that I want you to see. Timaeus means honor. And what were James and John asking for? Honor! And did they know what that was? No, like Bartimaeus they were totally blind.
Continue reading this story and you’ll see the two stories structurally linked, in that Jesus asked Bartimaeus the same question that he asked James and John, “What do you want me to do for you?”
Good question. Maybe you feel like a nobody on the road to life, the easily unnoticed one, the one unblessed by the advantages of others and therefore stranded on the sidelines.
But, through his Word, the Lord God of the universe confronts you with a question that at once thrills you even as it sobers you, “What do you want me to do for you?”
Do you want the world’s honor — the fanfare of royalty, the popularity of people, the adulation that comes from tabloid enthusiasts and all the benefits that come with it — an array of pleasures, others ready to do your bidding at the snap of your fingers? Is this what you want?
If instead it is God’s honor you want, then in his strength and for his glory, you must lay down your life for others.
By displaying a servant’s heart, and by crucifying ego until all wiggle room is gone, you must sacrifice for their good instead of promoting your own.
Now, if you’ll drink that cup, and if you’ll immerse yourself into that way of life, then the increased honor God has for you will be far greater than what a statesman, athlete, or entertainer could ever achieve.
The divine declaration on that last day, the day Heaven's rewards are given, won’t be greeted by a round of polite applause, or by the officious rewarding of some token gift, but will result in something far more exalting — the eternal elevation of your place in the bridehood of Christ!
Now, if you and I had any idea what this elevation entails, we would be dreaming about it every day! Morning, noon, and night, our thoughts, our motivations, would be singularly focused on this one goal — the securing of God’s honor.
The good news is if you live your life in way Jesus described, you won't be overlooked and you certainly won't be forgotten.
The Lord went to his death that night asking to be remembered. So, surely, he who told us to remember will do so himself.
Yes, he whose eyes are too pure to look upon evil, and too sure to overlook our works of righteousness, will surely get it right on that last day.
What the world failed to see, and perhaps what even the church failed to see, will be clearly seen by him.
Paul Billheimer declared:
In heaven’s book, the nameless saint in the most remote and secluded spot, completely lost to view, and overshadowed in the battle, is just as important, and if he is faithful, will receive just as great a reward, as the most heralded and gifted leader.4
That dear woman who gave herself to the hard work of intercessory prayer, a ministry few enter and even fewer appreciate, may, in the final reckoning, be accorded a place of honor far ahead of some megachurch pastor or globe-trotting evangelist.
Respect, you say? You complain about not getting that?
Why, you’ll get a lot more than that! You will be revered! And not for a day or for a season only, but forever!
Notes:
1. John Henry Jowett, Things that Matter Most: Devotional Papers, Kindle Edition, 2010; Kindle locations: 512–514.
2. Leonard Ravenhill, Sodom Had No Bible, (Bethany House Publishers, 1984), p.72.
3. A.J. Gordon, Fifty-Eight Quotations of A. J. Gordon extracted from Northfield Year-book (Wenham, MASS., Gordon College Archives, 2007), p.367.
4. Paul Billheimer, Destined for the Throne, (Minneapolis, Bethany House, 1975), p.106.
