Anyone who has gone through that social maze and emotional gauntlet known as “high school” knows that there is always an established “elite” as well as a definite “out” crowd. In every school system there are the “chosen few” and the untold “unchosen.”

This week’s gospel text reveals that the desire to be the cream of the crop has been with humanity for far longer than there has been adolescent slam books. In today’s gospel text we read about the “sons of Zebedee” and yet these disciples of Jesus come across as nothing less than “Mean Girls.”

Biblical historians suggest that the origin of this week’s exchange between James, John and Jesus finds its source in Peter. James, John, and Peter were the unofficial “inner circle” within the Twelve — noticed and present at such momentous events a…