In Matthew 20:17–19, Matthew provides Jesus’s third passion prediction to his disciples, this time making explicit that Jesus’s death will be crucifixion at the hands of the Gentiles (20:19). Without narrating a specific response of the disciples (as he does at 16:22 and 17:23), Matthew implies a continuing incomprehension on the part of the disciples as to what Jesus’s mission is really about by telling the story of a bid for status in the kingdom by James and John.

The request for second and third positions in the coming kingdom (to sit at Jesus’s right and left) comes through the mother of James and John (20:20–21). Yet it is clear that James and John are involved in the plan since they answer Jesus’s question about drinking the cup he will drink (with cup language used in the Old Tes…