James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came to Jesus and said to him, “Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you.” He replied, “What do you wish me to do for you?” They answered him, “Grant that in your glory we may sit one at your right and the other at your left.” Jesus said to them, “You do not know what you are asking. Can you drink the cup that I drink?” (Mark 10.35-38)
As any student of American history will tell you, one of the most famous adages from the mid-19th century was the one attributed, rightly or wrongly, to a newspaperman named Horace Greeley who was supposed to have said in 1865, “Go west, young man, go west and grow up with the country.” The expression is often cited as one of the causes for the westward expansion that occurred in the decades after as young men and women went west to seek their fortunes.
Many of these westward travelers went in wagons, loaded down with their worldly goods, a team of oxen slowly leading the way. Others went by stagecoach, a popular means of transportation since the 1830s. What few people nowadays know is that stagecoach companies sold three classes of tickets, much like airline companies do in our day.
Each class showed a hierarchy, as we might expect, with first class ticket holders guaranteed the right to remain seated through the entire trip, regardless of what was going on outside the coach, such as a broken axle or a steep climb. Second class passengers were permitted to remain seated so long as there were no problems. In the event of a problem, these customers were required to remove themselves from the coach until the problem was remedied.
Third class passengers, on the other hand, the lowest ticket holders, not only had to get off the stagecoach when there was a problem, but they had to help fix the problem. They were required to do whatever it took to get the stagecoach back on the road, often pushing or pulling the wagon, repairing broken wheels or axles and tending to the horses. They were, to use another common phrase, low on the totem pole, considered less important and less powerful, an irony when you consider their work was essential to the stagecoach completing the trip.
High and low on the totem pole was not a new concept to the mid-19th century, even if stagecoach companies made the distinction abundantly clear by their levels of ticket holders. Thinking oneself better than others is a concept as old as creation, when Adam passed the blame for breaking into the fruit basket onto Eve, claiming “she made me do it,” his words painting her as morally inferior to him.
Well, today, the scriptures paint another instance of the same phenomenon, people claiming or exaggerating their importance, looking the world like lobsters clawing their way to the top of the basket. As the scene is presented to us, Rabbi Jesus and his followers are making their way, not west, but south, on the road to Jerusalem, where the Rabbi’s fortunes await him, a conniving and contriving coterie of hypocrites concocting a course that will spell condemnation for the Galilean.
Along the way–an image central to Mark’s gospel, the way to Jerusalem a symbol of the path of suffering that the Galilean endures for the sake of the world–two of the Rabbi’s closest followers approach him, asking a favor of him, insisting that “we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you,” their words already a hint of their sense of entitlement or specialness.
Noncommittal, the Rabbi sensibly inquires what it is that they want him to do for them, his mind surely directed already to the dark days of doom and dastardly deeds that lie in wait for him like a sharp-toothed cougar prepared to pounce on a powerless creature of prey. “Grant that in your glory,” they say to him, “we may sit one at your right and the other at your left.”
Now, hearing their request, surely his heart breaks, seeing how little they have understood his teaching, how opposite their concerns are to his concerns. It is like a teacher who marks an “F” on a paper turned in by a student, saddened that the student has learned so little, the time in the classroom wasted, no grasp of the material manifested on the page.
Having been told before that the first will be last and the last will be first, still, the brothers, already called “sons of thunder” by the Rabbi early on their journey because of their impetuousness, show by their statement that their schooling is nowhere near complete, their understanding of the Rabbi’s lessons far from satisfactory.
In fact, nothing could have been more opposite of the Galilean Teacher’s way of life than that of seeking places of honor, his days lived humbly, his activities in the service of others, never in the service of himself. Answering their request, he simply tells them, “You do not know what you are asking.” Then, he asks them a question that, given their answer, reveals again their lack of understanding, “Can you drink the cup that I drink?”
Boldly answering, “Yes, we can,” they fail to see that the road on which they walk with the Rabbi will lead them, not to places of power, but to a place of utter powerlessness, where, upon the cross, the Rabbi will expend his last breath, tormented by demented powerbrokers who want to be ridded of this troublemaker who had stripped away their facade of propriety, showing to the world the corruptness and ugliness of their inner selves.
This is the cup that Rabbi Jesus asked the brothers if they could drink, a cup of suffering, a cup of serving others, a cup of subservience. “Whoever wishes to be great among you,” he tells them, will be your servant; whoever wishes to be first among you will be the slave of all.” Then, drawing their attention back to his own way of living in the world, he tells them, “For the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.”
It is not without purpose that the evangelist brackets this episode with the healing of a blind man at the start and at the finish, these dual healings of blindness serving as bookends to accentuate the blindness of the apostles who seem incapable of seeing clearly the way of life that the Rabbi is calling upon them to live, a way that puts them, not at his left and his right, but with the least and the last.
Of course, this blindness, this refusal to see rightly is not specific to the sons of Zebedee, the reserve of these two imperfect and impetuous brothers, but is a common affliction among humans as a whole, no surer sign than the other disciples becoming angry when they learn of the request made by these two companions of theirs.
As the evangelist points out, “When the ten heard this, they became indignant at James and John,” their indignation rooted, not in the failure of the brothers to comprehend the central message of the Rabbi, but in the pair’s outmaneuvering and outgunning them, the same desire for courtside seats found in every one of the other disciples.
Wanting to be seen as better, more important, or in first-class seats therefore seems endemic to humanity at large, a creature that continually fails to see the other as an equal, but always wants to see the other as less than or inferior to oneself. And therein, in that contrast between the way of the world and the way of the Galilean Teacher, we find the continual challenge or contest that occupies our souls, our natures so contrary to that of Rabbi Jesus.
Some years ago, a man named Jeffrey who worked at an organization called Love and Action told about an experience that he had, one that opened his eyes, removing the blindness from which he also suffered. It was close to five o’clock on a Friday afternoon when Jeffrey, eager to put a busy week behind him, wanting only a quiet dinner with friends, heard the phone ring.
Answering the phone, he heard the voice, weak and shaky on the other end, say, “Jeff, it’s Jimmy.” Recognizing the voice, Jeffrey knew that Jimmy was one of their regular callers, someone who suffered from several AIDS-related illnesses. Jimmy hoarsely said, “I’m really sick, Jeff. I’ve got a fever. Please help me.”
Although he tried not to show it, Jeffrey was not happy. After a long work week, he didn’t want to hear from Jimmy. Even if the organization was geared towards doing good, Jeffrey wanted nothing but a quiet evening with a few friends, not one more grueling thing to do for the Jimmys of the world. Still, he promised Jimmy he would come to his house, although Jeffrey complained to God all the way over.
As soon as he walked in the door, Jeffrey smelled the smells of sickness, the distinctive odor of vomit in the apartment. He found Jimmy on the sofa, shivering and shaky. Gathering together a few supplies, Jeffrey cooled off Jimmy’s forehead with cold water, washed off the vomit from his clothes, and cleaned up the mess around the sofa. His unhappiness only increased as his hands scrubbed away the unseemly sights and smells.
One of Jimmy’s friends, Russ, also suffering from AIDS, came down the stairs carefully, weak steps and a weak walk indicating his own weakness. Assaulted by the smells, Russ also vomited onto the floor, Jeffrey now left to clean up two messes.
Seating himself in a chair next to the sofa, watching as Jeffrey tried to finish the job of cleaning up the vomit on the floor, Russ suddenly spoke, startling the other two men in the room, as he almost shouted, “I get it! Now I get it!” Jimmy, looking at Russ, weakly asked, “What Russ? What do you get?” “I understand who Jesus is,” Russ said, tears flowing down his cheeks, “He’s like Jeff!”
As Jeffrey heard the words, something broke in his own hardened heart and tears washed the blindness from his own eyes, seeing clearly now what he had not seen before, understanding now what Jesus meant when he said, “Whoever wishes to be great among you will be your servant; whoever wishes to be first among you will be the slave of all.”
Sadly, it would take a while longer for the two brothers to come to the same understanding, James and John nowhere to be found as Rabbi Jesus was nailed to a cross. Instead, on his left and on his right, the places of honor that the brothers had requested, were two common criminals, a reminder to the brothers that the promise to drink of the same cup that the Rabbi drank of was a promise they could not keep.
–Jeremy Myers
Sunday Brunch 