There is an old saying that “To the victor belongs the spoils.” Nowhere is that more evident than the period following a presidential election. That is the time when the new president-elect begins to divvy up the various cabinet positions and political plums and reward those who helped him get to that exalted position.
I.SOMETHING LIKE THAT FORMS THE BACKGROUND FOR TODAY’S SCRIPTURE LESSON.
Jesus had just told the twelve that the road they are traveling will ultimately end in his trial, torture, and death. He told them that he is going to have to drink the cup of suffering. “They will mock him, and scourge him, and spit upon him,” He said. (Mark 10:34) Then it was that James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came forward to him, and said , “Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you.” (10:35) Jesus asks them what it is that they want, and they reply: “Grant us to sit, one at your right hand, and one at your left, in your glory.”(10:37) How inappropriate! How out of place! Matthew’s Gospel says that James and John did not have the nerve to ask such an awkward favor themselves, and so they got their mother, Mrs. Zebedee, to do it for them! (Cf. Matthew 20:20-28) Our first reaction is shock and dismay. Jesus, too, seems to have been shocked by the request, and so He said to them: “You don’t know what you are asking..... Are you able to drink the cup I will drink?” And they answered, confidently, “We are able.”
Our first reaction is to be shocked at the arrogance and insensitivity of these two clowns. They seem to have ignored everything that Jesus had just said about His own suffering and death, and jump way forward in time to focus on His coming glory. Then, they imagine, they will be rewarded by Him for having stuck by Him through the tough times. They talk to Jesus like politicians expecting rewards of patronage. They want cabinet positions in the new administration.. “Grant us to sit, one at your right hand, and one at your left, in glory.” On the king’s right-hand was the prime-minister. Today, we might say “Secretary of State.” On the left, the Chancellor of the Exchequer...or, as we might say, the “Secretary of the Treasury.” James and John’s request seems completely out of order. Mark says that “When the (other) ten heard it, they began to be indignant at James and John,” (v.41) but I wouldn’t take that at face value. Perhaps they were indignant because they had their eyes on those same seats, themselves.
II. HOW COULD THE DISCIPLES BE SO DENSE?
David H. C. Read is amazed that Jesus did not turn on these two pushy disciples with anger and scorn, and say to them (as any other leader might say at such a time,) “Here I am facing the final crisis of my life, expecting to be torn in pieces by my enemies, and all you can think of is booking the front seats in some future reversal of our fortunes.” (National Radio Pulpit, October, 1980.) But instead Jesus says, gently, “Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or to be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized?” (Mark 10:38) To drink of Jesus’ cup does not mean sipping a bit of grape juice from THOSE little Methodist shot-glasses, or even dipping the bread into the chalice. It was a metaphorical way of speaking of His own suffering, crucifixion, and death. Jesus had just explained all that. That is why it seems so strange that they could make such a request. Had they not been listening as Jesus spoke to them along the way and over the months? It seems even stranger to hear them say, “Lord, we are able!” Talk about confidence and self-assurance! These guys must have just finished reading Norman Vincent Peale’s famous book, THE POWER OF POSITIVE THINKING. (A seminary professor of mine used to say that “Those who find Peale appealing would find Paul appalling.” That’s not quite fair to either Peale or Paul, but you get the drift).
Jesus wasn’t inviting the disciples to a church picnic. Were they wrong? Of course they were. Mark makes that abundantly clear. He tells us in graphic detail just what happened when the Roman soldiers came to arrest Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane: “They all forsook Him and fled.” (Mark 14:50) They said, “Lord, We Are Able”—but when the chips were down, and the cross went up, they were not. They were not able. And so, just a few verses later, we read that Jesus used this occasion to teach the disciples a much-needed lesson in humility. It was a lesson which they had a hard time learning. Again and again, even on their way to the Last Supper, the disciples argued among themselves as to who was the greatest. But Jesus told them that the greatest among them would be the servant of all. Jesus turned everything upside-down (or rightside-up). Here, as Mary said in her Magnificat, Jesus has “put down the mighty from their thrones, and exalted those of low degree.” (Luke 1:52) It is a complete revolution, the whole social pyramid is inverted, and everything is turned topsy-turvy to our usual way of looking at things.
The main problem with these two was that they wanted the rewards without the suffering. They wanted Easter without Good Friday. They wanted the crown without the cross. They did not yet realize that the two places at Jesus’ right and left hands would soon be occupied by persons hanging on a cross! And so Jesus had to teach them. He said, “You know that those who are supposed to rule over the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great men exercise authority over them. But it shall not be so among you.” (Mark 10:43) But down through the ages it has been so. The world’s standards have been absorbed by the church, almost by osmosis. Think of the contradiction in terms in such a phrase as “princes of the church” (as Cardinals are called). I confess that I have some difficulty with the phrase “Senior Minister.” If minister is taken for its literal meaning, “servant,” the words mean “Senior Servant.” That sounds like an oxymoron if ever there was one. Sort of like “Boss Slave.” I recall the story of the Dominican monk who said that, “The Jesuits are known for their learning, and the Franciscans for their piety and good works, but when it comes to humility, we’re tops!” We all find it hard to accept Jesus' complete reversal of values. Halford Luccock asks, “Suppose our lives were to be measured only by the amount of real service we have rendered to people?” (The Interpreter’s Bible, New York and Nashville: Abingdon-Cokesbury Press, 1951, p. 817) How great would they be, then? But Jesus is telling us here that is precisely the way in which they will be measured. So one can understand why most preachers across the years have singled out James and John as Horrible Examples Numbers 1 and 2 of how NOT to be a follower of Jesus.
III. BUT WAIT A MINUTE: THEIR CRASS REQUEST REFLECTED A DEEP FAITH, DIDN’T IT?
I am indebted to David H.C. Read for this insight. Yes, James and John did desert Jesus just a few days after they made their brash promise. Peter did the same thing: “Lord, even though they all fall away, I
will not!” (Mark 14:29) We know how that came out, don’t we, as we remember Peter warming himself before the fires of Jesus’ enemies, swearing that he did not know the man! But that wasn’t the end of the story, was it? Something happened at Easter, and then again fifty days later, at Pentecost. Peter, James, and John were gathered up into that Spirit-filled community known as the Church which went out to turn the world upside-down for Jesus. Tradition tells us that all of them eventually died a martyr’s death for their faith in Jesus.
Let us, then, not point the finger at these two who dared to aim so high, but whose aim fell so short; we who are so weak and wobbly and wavering in our faith. Let us not point the finger unless and until we are willing to take the road they eventually took - the road of costly discipleship.
David Read says: “The more I ponder it the more sure I am that these two disciples were right in their response and that our inclination to dismiss them as a couple of brash, boastful young men derives from our own unwillingness to commit ourselves, from the lack of nerve that has been paralyzing the Church today. Aren’t most of us so conscious of our shortcomings as Christians, so aware of the times we have failed our Lord, that we are reluctant to engage ourselves, to accept a responsibility, to take stand?
We call it modesty, knowing our own frailty, dislike of promising what we cannot deliver - but is it? We forget that there are no supermen and superwomen who have lived up to every single commitment they have made. If everyone let their sense of human frailty hold them back from responding to a challenge, where would we be?” (David H. C. Read, National Radio Pulpit, October, 1980, p.5) Give these two guys credit for one thing: they believed that there would be a “glory.” That’s more than most of us believe. We are pessimists, most of us. We say in church that we believe in God, trust God, but once outside the sanctuary, our lives reflect something else. And even in here, we hedge our bets. It’s O.K. to put a token gift into the offering plate, but God forbid that we should do something daring...like making a really sacrificial commitment. We are like the old story of the pig and the chicken who were walking down the road, when they saw a sign advertising ham and eggs for breakfast. “Let’s go and have some breakfast,” said the chicken. “Oh no,” replied the pig, “for you that is only a token offering, but for me it would mean total commitment!” And we shy away from total commitment. There is an old saying, often used as a banner slogan, which says that we should “Expect great things from God. Dare great things for God.” We freely do the first, but forget the second. Those two disciples dared to take the big risk, make the bold commitment. So when Christ looks at us on this Advent Sunday, and says, “Are you able to drink of the cup...” What is our answer? All things considered, I suppose most of us would answer, “No.” To which Jesus might well reply, “If not, why not? Remember...the power behind you is greater than the problems before you.” With His help perhaps we can dare to say: “Yes! We are able! We are not perfect, but we’re going to give it our best shot. With Your help we can become able. If you could still use those two clowns who hid behind their mother’s apron strings to ask You for a favor, You might even be able to use us! And who knows, then, what might happen?” The amazing thing is that, in the Gospels, it is just to such as these two misunderstanding, pathetic, confused, self-centered disciples that Jesus promises the Kingdom. They didn’t deserve it, but Jesus gave it to them, anyway.
Dr. Earl Marlatt was Professor of Religious Education at Boston University School of Theology, when he wrote the hymn “Are Ye Able?” 1926. For him, the pivotal message of the hymn was not just in James and John’s (or their mother’s) request that they be given places at Jesus’ right hand and His left, but the fact that, strictly speaking, the ones on Jesus’ right hand and His left are crucified!! Pondering this Gospel account, he went to Oberammergau to see the Passion Play. In his own words, he said, “The most moving scene in the Passion Play was at the Crucifixion and the most moving moment in that scene was one where a thief turned to Jesus and said, ‘Remember me when Thou comest into Thy kingdom.’ Jesus, seeing both the faith and the penitence which flashed from those uplifted eyes, answered: ‘Today thou shalt be with me in paradise.’ As Anton Lang said those words, immortality suddenly became as real for me as the sunlight at that moment driving the clouds from the mountains, and I knewthat nothing, nothing could ever shake my faith in that vision.” (Robert Guy McCutchan, OUR HYMNODY, New York and Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1937, p. 306)
So Jesus accepted the penitent thief “just as he was,” along with whatever ignorance or misunderstanding he may have had about the kingdom. And He accepted James and John, with all of their inadequate notions of discipleship. And he accepts us, as well. That’s what makes the “good news” Good News.
I read of a family out in Texas which had the custom of putting large plywood letters bordered with Christmas tree lights on their roof each year. The letters spelled out the word “NOEL!” But one year the father who usually did the job, had been especially busy. It was almost mid-December, and he had not yet put up the word “NOEL.” The family had been after him to get it done, for the letters were big and clumsy, and only he could manage them. So he decided one Saturday that he would get it done that day, regardless. Well, that day was a windy day, and the struggle was great. He fought the West Texas wind and muttered some rather unChristmasy comments under his breath as he wrestled the gigantic plywood letters up onto the roof. It was nearly dark when he finished, and he clambered down the ladder triumphantly to tell the kids to plug in the lights. They did. And the letters blazed forth against the darkening sky -“LEON!” (From an Advent “Calendar of Devotions” by Jo Carr and Donna Cash, Abingdon Press, 1980, p. 29)
Leave it to us, like James and John, to get things backwards.“...but whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be slave of all.” (Mark 10:43-44) If the coming of Christ into that world on that first Christmas teaches us anything, it should teach us that.