We live in a world where people crave power, as though it should be the ultimate goal in everyone’s life.
Newly elected politicians enter parliament with their eye on the top job, no matter how strident their message of service to others might be. That is just how the system works.
Newly appointed employees enter a company with their eye on the boss’s office. Being seen as ambitious is often the very quality that earns the aspiring applicant the job. That is just how the system works.
In the church, many seek to be the person everyone turns to for advice, and decisive action. Those people revel in their influence and power. They come to see themselves as being indispensable. That is how the system works.
We are presented with a role model for this attitude in today’s reading, if we choose to misread scripture in that way –
- James, the brother of John, who, with John and Peter, constituted the innermost circle of Jesus’ companions;
- James, the one who was an eye witness to Jesus’ life, work, death, and resurrection;
- James, who had seen the raising of Jairus’s daughter, the moment of transfiguration and the agony in the garden;
James, along with his brother and his mother, comes to Jesus, to ask for a position of power. That may be how he saw it all working, but Jesus’ response makes it clear that he could not have got it more wrong.
Our place in the pecking order is set by God. It is for us to set aside our ambition, and to trust in God.
The system we live in does not understand this. But that is the Christian calling.
- For some, this will mean living a life of humble servitude to the needs of others.
- For others, this will mean being promoted way beyond where we feel our competence and expertise lies.
- From all, it demands a faith that is humble and accepting of God’s generous grace and love.
As Jesus challenges the motivation that lies behind the request of James and John and their mother, he asks them just how far they are prepared to go in his name. Are they prepared even to drink from the same cup that he will have to drink from?
At this point, they still do not fully understand the purpose of Jesus’ journey towards Jerusalem, and, therefore, cannot really understand the meaning of the cup of self sacrifice, from which Jesus is destined to drink.
But they do commit themselves to the total journey of lifelong faith.
Therein lies the message for us all, today.
- Are we ready to share in the cup from which Jesus had to drink?
- Are we ready to set aside our need for power, in order that we might follow the path he has laid for us?
- Are we ready, in fact, to take the lowest place, rather than dash for the highest, in order that we might draw ever closer to our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ?