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The Feast of St James the Apostle, 25th July 2010

The cost of service

If you have a moment to do so, compare the Gospel today with Mark's version of the same event, Mark 10: 35-45. Mark's account is almost identical apart from the absence of one significant person, namely, Mum. In Mark's Gospel it is James and John themselves who come forward with the modest request that they sit on either side of Jesus in his glory. In Matthew's version it is their mother who makes that request.

Given that we understand Mark was a primary source for Matthew's Gospel, what made Matthew add this detail? Did he feel concerned that James and John were putting themselves in a bad light? If he did, then it was an ingenious idea to put the words of the request in the mouth of their mother - after all, she would naturally be concerned for her sons.

Either way Jesus addresses his answer to the two disciples. He doesn't criticise them, even though the other disciples are indignant at their request - perhaps indignant that they got there first. Can they, he asks them, drink the cup he will drink? They are certain that they can, but at this stage they can have little idea what he is talking about. He then says that they will drink the cup, but even then it is not for him to grant places in the Kingdom. What James and John have done is provide the perfect opportunity for a lesson in one aspect of the essential paradox of the Christian faith: to be great you must learn to serve.

In the reading from Acts we understand that St. James did indeed come to share the cup with his Lord, dying suddenly, violently and quickly as the young Church came into being. The absence of detail is interesting. Remember how much Luke tells us about the death of Stephen, his testimony, his trial, his death like an angel, its impact upon the young Saul who looked after the coats of the men who stoned Stephen to death? Not a word of detail here about James - but in my book that makes it just as if not more effective. Here's the young Church already moving into the realms of sending people out for specific tasks, making provision for its communities in need. And then suddenly powerful King Herod reaches out and snatches some of those believers and has James the brother of John, killed with the sword. It strikes a chill. At that moment Jesus' words are realised for James: you will drink my cup. At that moment the church realises what the cost of faith might be.

There are times when we are all inclined or tempted to think, what's in this for me? I would say that most of us say it when we feel that things have become rather difficult. Perhaps children are making a fuss about going to church, or we have just received the latest request for stewardship review; those who have built their career on faith also experience times of doubt and depression. These are the times when we have simply moved a long way from the essential paradoxical truths of our faith, have perhaps fallen out of love with it, lost the sense of joy and commitment that came when we first embraced it. Perhaps James and John were finding the journey with Jesus so perplexing and so hard that they came to the conclusion that it was okay as long as they would get a reward, as long as their sacrifice - walking away from their father and his boats and their inheritance - was noted and honoured and rewarded.

Jesus doesn't give them much comfort but his words take them and the others to another place, to a different vision: to have you must give up, to live you must die, and to be great you must learn to serve.

There are times when you can hear those words and say Yes and there are times when you want to say I know this in my head, I just can't get it in my heart. Jesus, as Psalm 114 verse 3 says, "knows our frame and remembers that we are but dust". But looking at James and John at that moment he must have known that a world away one of them would indeed give his life and be remembered for it. As we drink his cup today we might remember that his knowledge of us extends far beyond the knowledge of any other person in our lives and indeed beyond our own. Only by knowing him can we find it possible to comprehend the true significance of the realm in which dying means living, losing means finding, and there is no greater power than that of service.

Amen