For Sunday
Easter 6B
Collect
Almighty and everlasting God, in Christ you have revealed your glory among the nations: Preserve the works of your mercy, that your Church throughout the world may persevere with steadfast faith in the confession of your Name; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. **
Amen.
Reading
Reflection
This passage comes immediately after Jesus’s third prediction of his coming Passion: and the one most detailed about the events that will occur. They are finally approaching Jerusalem, their destination. The place of the final confrontation with the authorities that have proven themselves principally focused on silencing Jesus’s message about grace and God’s dream in a new Kin-dom.
What is obviously striking about the passage itself is that James and John brazenly ask for a special place in the new order—at least as far as being his most trusted lieutenants. Their mistake seems to invite another.
Their request is obviously an act of hubris that, given their special place already, seems at least partially justified. The reader is supposed to be frustrated with them—just like the other disciples are. And this, I think, is the other mistake.
James and John have elevated themselves above the rest—asking Jesus to crown them as the greatest among the disciples—which is deeply problematic. But the disciples’ response—to condemn them—invites another hierarchical distinction. One that Jesus shuts down. He tells them that these ways of seeing the world is how the powerful in our world lord their power over others.
This is why God has to reset the relationships: because we’re constantly feeling justified in making ourselves “great” and putting others below us. We say that we are good and they must be bad.
It isn’t hard to see this in our world now. We rank ourselves at school and work, by money and status, through voting behaviors and ideological convictions, through immigration status and place of birth, and the color of our skin and gender identification. What may be harder is acknowledging that loving someone is actually easier than holding a grudge. At least when we have faith on our minds, rather than certainty.