James and John are certainly pushing their luck today! (Mk 10:35-45) Once again we are shown how far they are from understanding what Jesus is teaching them. The reaction of the other disciples is hardly surprising – we would feel the same, I’m sure – “who do they think they are!!”. Jesus however doesn’t get mad about how dumb they are. He treats it as an opportunity to engage with them – first with James and John, and then with the other disciples.
Jesus isn’t out to criticize, to put people in their place. But he does use the occasion to correct a common misunderstanding. In his world, in the kingdom of the Father, power and authority doesn’t come from being on top, it comes from service – accepting that the most important thing in our relationships is to support others, not control them.
And service goes beyond being nice, or helping people. For Jesus it is the ultimate act of service, giving his life. Isaiah had also understood that God’s ultimate purpose could involve dying for others – that death wasn’t a meaningless failure, but led to light and new birth (Is 53:10-11). Jesus told James and John that they would share in his power, in the power of service, in service to the point of death. It seems likely that James and John had no idea at this time as to what they were signing up for, in saying they would share the cup that Jesus would drink, and share in his baptism (that is his relationship with the Father).
All this may seem overwhelming for us. We perhaps understand a bit better than James and John what Jesus was going to go through, what sharing his life of service might mean. We’re not going to sign up for the sacrifice that Isaiah foretold. We certainly don’t want to be told by some authority that we have to.
Jesus didn’t tell James and John what they had to do. But he did accept when they offered, even if they maybe didn’t really understand the significance of what they were saying. And so it is for us. We don’t necessarily understand what is being asked of us, but we do accept that we are called to serve, not control. But the real key is that our choices about what we do are not controlled by some higher authority, in that case they would hardly be choices at all. For the Jews of Jesus’ time they were very used to being told what to do by the priests and the scribes, and told how they would suffer it they didn’t. With Jesus it’s different. As the writer of the Letter to the Hebrews noted (Heb 4:14-16), we have a High Priest, Jesus, who sympathizes with our weaknesses, who has been in our place. We have a ruler who doesn’t lord it over us but who serves, even to the point of death. He invites us to follow him as far as we are able.