Historically speaking, the church has usually painted a pretty picture of the twelve original disciples of Jesus. All except Judas have been considered saints. Pious people have named churches after them, often referring to the first disciples as the rocks upon which Christ has built his church. Yet anybody who hears the Gospel of Mark's stories about the disciples gets a different picture of who they were and what they wanted. Sure, the disciples walked the road with Jesus. They listened as he taught. They watched as he did signs and wonders. They followed where he led. However, according to Mark, they never really got the point. In fact, they frequently looked foolish.

Today we hear about James and John scurrying up to Jesus while the others weren't looking. "Teacher," they said, "we wa…