Superlative Servitude
Climbing the rungs of life’s ladders is what we do. Up and up and up we go, provided we are not pulled back and stepped on by other scrambling climbers. It is good to be industrious, especially when good things are produced. We tend toward an internal drive of ambition, not always in the modern, neutral or positive sense. Often it is in the original sense: ambition—“a going around this way and that”, especially to solicit votes, hence “a striving for a favor, flattery; a desire for honor, thirst for popularity”.
This may be what James and John are doing in the story we look to this Sunday in the Gospel. Before there are such things as jockeys, the sons of Zebedee are jockeying for position among the Twelve. Predictably it backfires with the other ten disciples; they get angry. But these two are really only wanting that one main vote, that of their rabbi:
James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came forward to Jesus and said to him, “Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you…Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory.” …But Jesus said to them, “You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?” They replied, “We are able.” Then Jesus said to them, “The cup that I drink you will drink; and with the baptism with which I am baptized, you will be baptized; but to sit at my right hand or at my left is not mine to grant, …but whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all. For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.” (Excerpts from Mark 10:35-45)
You can see that the ambitious ones are redirected by Jesus. He can’t give them seats at his right and left in glory. He can only invite them to take a drink from the cup and be immersed in the waters he, himself, has chosen. They agree. They opt for that cup and baptism.
Then Jesus clarifies, he is heading for the ultimate sacrifice of serving others: the gift of his life for the ransom of many. We almost expect James and John to interrupt with, “Wait, can we think it over?” But they don’t. They are down for it. They are stepping steadily on the rungs of the ladder, but following Jesus, they are climbing down.
James and John do, as it were, take that drink and that baptism of self-emptying to which Jesus challenges them. James is the first of the Apostles to suffer martyrdom, beheaded at the order of King Agrippa I, about the year 42 AD. As tradition has it, James’s fearless preaching of Christ crucified took him all the way to Spain, his body carried back there for burial. Should you make a pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela, on the northwest coast of Spain, you will be visiting his burial shrine.
John gave away his life in the form of pastoring, preaching, and writing. He is thought to have died of old age on the island to which he and his flock were banished. His was taken not into “red martyrdom” with its spilling of blood, but “white martyrdom” with his purifying gift of all his days. If you make a pilgrimage to Patmos, you will be honoring Christ, occupying that final ministry spot of the disciple that Jesus loved.
These two were called to Jesus’s side along with Peter, at special times. On the mount of transfiguration, they were there (Mark 9). In the Gergesene district, the daughter of the synagogue president died. This ruler, Jairus, had Jesus into his home. Jesus brought Peter James and John in with him when he raised the girl to life again (Luke 8). Finally, these three were again called to accompany Jesus in prayer in the garden, Gethsemane, as he faced his final days (Matthew 26).
Jesus had given Simon, the name Peter, “the Rock”. He had given James and John the name, Boanerges, “Sons of Thunder” (Mark 3:16-17). Surely, these “Sons of Thunder” applied their rumbling, dynamic energy in self-sacrificing ways that fulfilled their early agreement with Jesus to partake of his cup and baptism.
How about us? Will we take that dip and that draught? It is a paradoxical climb on the ladder If we descend with Jesus, offering ourselves for the sake of others, we are actually ascending with him into heaven’s version of glory. We have no spiritual ascent if we are clawing and climbing up the worldly ladder at the expense of others. As always it is up to us. As always it is a complex application of Jesus’s figurative challenge of the baptism and cup he chose. Do keep this in mind: it always clarifies things for us if we gauge our choices against the rule of Jesus’s selfless love.