Sunday 31st January 2010: A Mother's Request

Matthew 20.20-28

T.S.Eliot once said: Most of the trouble in the world is caused by people wanting to be important.

 

In this morning’s New Testament reading the sons of Zebedee, James and John certainly appear to hold that ambition.

 

In the early summer of 1994 Rachel and I felt very important for an afternoon.  We went to Buckingham Palace for a Garden Party.  True we were not the only ones there; to our great surprise 7,998 others also turned up.  All went well for half the afternoon.  The sun shone and the band played.  There was then a huge clap of thunder, a flash of lightening that struck one of the guests and the heavens opened.  For about one and a half hours it rained on our parade - big time!  Even the Queen, we were told, gave up and retreated indoors 15 minutes earlier than scheduled.  The rest of us – all 8000, crammed into the Bow Room and Marble Hall making the red carpets very soggy indeed.

 

Now the reason I tell you this sad tale, apart from just enjoying myself as I recall it, is that it’s very hard to look important when you are dripping wet.  At 4pm we all looked so smart.  At 5pm we resembled drowned rats.  The ladies’ hats were drooping and the gent’s Moss Bross suits were damp.  The weather had cut us all down to size, a great leveller.

 

James and John wanted to be important.  Promotion – that’s our first point.

 

Verse 21: their mother says: Lord grant that one of these two sons of mine may sit at your right and the other at your left in your kingdom.

 

She wanted the best seats in the house for her boys!

 

Now if you put all the biblical evidence together from the other gospels it appears that James and John were probably full cousins of Jesus, their mother was the sister of Mary.  So in verse 21 Jesus is actually listening to his aunt.

 

A little more detective work reveals that in Mark’s version of events it’s actually the brothers themselves that make this request.  So why, then, does Matthew attribute this rather presumptuous enquiry to their Mother? 

 

Well Matthew was written 25 years later than Mark and by now John, one of the brothers, has become a revered elder statesman in the church.  Matthew seems keen to protect John’s reputation and not sour it with an episode of self-importance, so puts the words into John’s mother’s mouth instead.

 

Whether or not we are here talking about a mother’s pride, it is clear that the brothers certainly shared with her a desire for promotion.  Perhaps they felt it was a family privilege due to them or maybe they considered themselves to have earned it.  Either way, in Eliot’s words, they wanted to be important.

 

The late David Watson, a prominent evangelical leader within the Anglican church during the 70’s and 80’s once wrote in a book of his how much he disliked the various titles given to ministers in the Church of England. He had in mind Venerable Archdeacons or Very Reverend Deans, and worst of all he thought were Lord Bishops.  Even though he himself was a Canon he wrote that he didn’t much care for this part of his church’s tradition.  He was much keener that Christian ministers should view themselves primarily as servants.

 

James and John wanted to look and sound important, so they asked for promotion.  One to sit on Christ’s left and the other on his right hand side.

 

Now secondly this morning here’s another word that springs from this story and it the word Devotion.

 

Matthew 20 doesn’t say only negative things about the sons of Zebedee.  We are rarely as bad as other people  paint us! 

 

As they bring their request Jesus says in verse 22: You don’t know what you are asking?  Can you drink from the cup that I am going to drink?  We can they answered.

 

We can, they said, and in a way they did.  James and John these early friends of Jesus became committed and devoted disciples.

 

Jesus was here talking of his Easter suffering.  His Gethsemane and Calvary. 

 

So Jesus doesn’t get angry at their impertinence, he simply challenges their assumptions.  He points again to part of his Messiahship we take for granted but which probably shocked and confused those first disciples: that he was the Suffering Servant.  As he suffered, so might they.  Were they prepared for that?  Could he count them in?  And they said ‘yes’.

 

I doubt if they fully understood the commitment they were making that day.  Fortunately none of us do.  When we become Christians, take our baptismal or ordination vows, become a church member – we don’t know what the future may bring.  When we start a new job, move to a different area, become parents – we don’t know what the future may bring.  But we often make promises to ourselves, each other or God at the start of these episodes in our lives, promises to do our best, to see it through, to give it our all.  We don’t know, we cannot know, what the future may bring, but we believe in our hearts that God will walk beside us every step of the way giving us enough grace and strength for each new day.

 

In the long term it’s worth saying that James and John fulfilled their promise. 

 

Under the persecutions of Herod Antipas James becomes the first of Jesus’ 12 disciples to be executed.  Jesus had said to him: Can you drink the cup of suffering?  He said he could and just a few years down the line he made good his vow.  James’ cup was a premature death, an execution because of his faith.

 

His brother’s experience couldn’t have been more different. John lived until he was 100 years old.  Eventually he died in the town of Ephesus as a revered saint of God, someone who had proved in his long life the faithfulness of Christ.  James’ life was short and John’s was long.  Yet both in their own way had fulfilled their vows of devotion to Christ.

 

It is always futile to make ill-founded judgements on who serves Christ best.  Was it James with his martyrdom or John with his long ministry?  Is God today better pleased with a full time Christian worker or a full time banker, engineer or teacher? 

 

The reality is that we are all called to different contexts, my journey will have similarities with yours but it will be different.  As different as yours is from the other people in church this morning. 

 

The path may be different; the challenges may come upon us from a different quarter, yet the call to commitment is the same.  We are to be disciples living under the Lordship of Christ.

 

A recent report published by the Methodist church asked the question: Why are people leaving?  Why are they giving up?  It made the comment that as well as trying to reach out to new people, we in the church really do need to work hard at nurturing and sustaining the ones we’ve got.  Because, the report said, statistically for every person, and they were specifically talking about a Methodist context here, for every person in a Methodist church today, there are four who used to attend but have recently given up.

 

The report raised many questions – as all reports do, but it did make the point that maintaining discipleship, being devoted and committed – these are necessary and invaluable characteristics of the people who make up our churches.

 

Devotion - for John that meant a long life full of speaking and writing, leading and teaching.  For James it meant an early death, standing up for Jesus and being counted. 

 

Now I want to end this talk about the sons of Zebedee with another word: Promotion, Devotion and finally (don’t groan, not out loud at least!) Commotion.

 

That’s what their request caused – a Commotion. Verse 24: When the ten heard this, they were indignant with the two brothers.

 

You can understand the reaction of the others.  Jesus has a revolt on his hands and this in fighting, jealousy and even the accusation of nepotism would quickly send the mission of Jesus off message.

 

So according to verse 25 Jesus calls them altogether in an attempt to clear the air.  He wisely and brilliantly turns this incident round and makes it a teaching moment.  In doing so Christ acknowledges, I think, that ambition is a very real force for many of us.  Now how do we cope with the desire to do well and get on?  Well we must balance it by putting other considerations and other people into the picture.  So here’s what Jesus says to his disciples that day – he’s grasped the moment and they are all ears, verse 26: Whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant.  And then that beautiful self-disclosure of his found in verse 28: The Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve.

 

In other words Jesus Christ – the Man for Others – turns all that afternoon’s conversation on its head.  James and John had been talking about power, prestige and status, but Jesus talks about service, commitment and even suffering. 

 

Jesus came to serve.  To wash their feet, to heal the sick and feed to hungry, to die for us.  As he served so he calls us to serve.

 

So what did T.S.Elliot say again: Most of the trouble in the world is caused by people wanting to be important.

 

People like James and John?  Well, yes, I suppose so.  And if we are honest by people like you and me.

 

I feel I’ve been a bit rude about archdeacons and bishops this morning.  So as an ecumenical gesture here’s a final illustration.  When Michael Ramsey became Archbishop of Canterbury he declined one of the trappings of power given to all bishops, the new chauffer driven rover car. He took the chauffer but asked to be driven about London as he arrived to see the Prime Minister or take a service at Westminster Abbey, in his old Morris Minor car.  I think that was a great picture.  The incumbent of the See of Canterbury, the Primate of All England, the worldwide leader of the Anglican Communion being driven around in his little, old green car. He just thought, it seemed, that the Morris Minor was more appropriate vehicle for a servant of Jesus Christ.

CLOSING PRAYER: The Clown’s Prayer:

Dear Lord,
I thank You for calling me to share with others Your precious gift of laughter.  May I never forget that it is Your gift and my privilege.  As Your children re rebuked in their self-importance and cheered in their sadness, help me to remember that Your foolishness is wiser than man’s wisdom.  Amen