Patrick Comerford
We are continuing in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar, and today is the Twenty-First Sunday after Trinity (Trinity XXI).
We have been staying for the past week in the Marian boutique hotel, beside the Anglican church compound in Kuching, and later this morning I hope to attend the Cathedral Eucharist in Saint Thomas’s Cathedral.
But, before the day begins, before having breakfast, going for a swim or going to the Cathedral Eucharist, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, and for reflection, prayer and reading in these ways:
1, today’s Gospel reading;
2, a short reflection;
3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;
4, the Collects and Post-Communion prayer of the day.
Mark 10: 35-45 (NRSVA):
35 James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came forward to him and said to him, ‘Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you.’ 36 And he said to them, ‘What is it you want me to do for you?’ 37 And they said to him, ‘Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory.’ 38 But Jesus said to them, ‘You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?’ 39 They replied, ‘We are able.’ Then Jesus said to them, ‘The cup that I drink you will drink; and with the baptism with which I am baptized, you will be baptized; 40 but to sit at my right hand or at my left is not mine to grant, but it is for those for whom it has been prepared.’
41 When the ten heard this, they began to be angry with James and John. 42 So Jesus called them and said to them, ‘You know that among the Gentiles those whom they recognize as their rulers lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them. 43 But it is not so among you; but whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, 44 and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all. 45 For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.’
Today’s Reflection:
We have done a lot of travelling in the past few weeks. Between last month and this month, I have been back in Ireland three times, and the journey to Kuching last Sunday, Monday and Tuesday was a 48-hour epic marathon that involved four flights and five airports, taking us through Birmingham, Amsterdam, Paris and Singapore before reaching Kuching.
I realise that travel is a privilege and not a right. It is a privilege that brings with it responsibilities: for carbon footprints, for the use of fossil fuels and diminishing resources, for respecting cultural differences and being aware of the dangers tourism poses to many local cultures and life.
So, when I say I am back travelling, I want to avoid being smug about it all.
But, over recent weeks at airports, I have once again watched people queuing at boarding gates, in the way Desmond Morris looked at human behaviour in the 1960s in his television series and books, The Naked Ape and The Human Zoo.
It is interesting how so many people want to get on their plane first. They book ‘Priority’ boarding, join the ‘Priority’ queue, and then are shocked to find that the Priority queue is longer than the Non-Priority queue.
And that’s just the beginning of it. We all then find we are on the one shuttle bus that takes us on a two or three-minute journey to the plane, we all board together, and, when we get to our destination, we all get off together, once again get on the same bus together, and still have to queue up at the same passport control desk.
Priority booking and non-priority queues make no difference to how we get to where we are finally going.
Watching those queues at so many airports over the last two months, I thought, of course of this morning’s Gospel reading (Mark 10: 35-45), and I thought of James and John, the sons of Zebedee, who want priority boarding or priority seats in the Kingdom of God, ‘Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory’ (verse 37).
Is that what discipleship is all about? Booking the best seats?
But they are told, ‘whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all’ (verses 43-44).
James and John remind me of: wanting priority booking, wanting to be the first to get on board, wanting the best seats.
No wonder the other ten were upset when they heard about this. But they are upset, not because they want to take on the servant model of discipleship and ministry. They are upset not because James and John have not yet grasped the point of it all. They are upset because they might have been counted out, because they might have missed out on getting on first, on getting the choice seats.
And their upset actually turns to anger. Not the sort of young men you might expect to be role models as mature apostles.
Do James and John think that opting to follow Jesus, becoming disciples, is a good career move?
And what do James and John want in reality?
They want that one would sit on Christ’s right hand and the other on his left.
Now, even that might not have been too bad an ambition. The man who stood at the right hand of the Emperor in the Byzantine court was the Emperor’s voice. What he said was the emperor’s word. And so, in the creed, when we declare our belief that Christ sits at the right hand of the Father, we mean not that there is some heavenly couch on which all three, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, are seated, comfy and cosy, as if waiting to watch their favourite television sit-com or this evening’s match.
When we say that Christ ‘is seated at the right hand of the Father,’ we mean that Christ is the Word of God. When James and John say they want to be seated at the right and left of Christ in his glory – not when they were sitting down to a snack, or watching a match together, or even at the Last Supper, but in his glory (see verse 37) – they are expressing an ambition to take the place of, to replace God.
Little do they realise, it seems, that to be like God is to take on Christ’s humility. We are made in the image and likeness of God, and then God asks us, invites us to return to that image and likeness when Christ comes in our image and likeness – not as a Byzantine Emperor or a Roman tyrant, but just as one of us.
Just as one of us: he did not seek glory, or honour or power. He came to us as an exile, he came in tears and crying, he came in suffering and in death.
Those who serve Christ today are those who attend to the crying, suffering and dying.
If we would seek to stand alongside Christ today in all his glory, then we should seek to stand alongside those with ‘loud cried and tears’ (Hebrews 5: 7), those who weep, those who suffer, those who are powerless, those whose lives are worth little and those who are ransomed.
In its crudest meaning, the word liturgy (Λειτουργία) comes from the word λαός, meaning the people, not nice people, good people, people like us, but in its crudest use in Greek it refers to the many. The liturgy is for the benefit of the many, the riff-raff, even the beggars: ‘this is my blood of the new covenant which is shed for you and for many …’
A theatre poster in Crete some years ago reminded me that The Beggars’ Opera translates into Greek as Η λαϊκή όπερα.
In other words, the liturgy of the Church only becomes a true service when we also serve the oppressed, when we become God’s ears that hear the cry of the poor, and act on that, when through the Church Christ hears that cry of the bruised and the broken.
And to do this great task, as our ambitious pair, James and John, are reminded in the Gospel reading this morning, we must first be servants and slaves (Mark 10: 43-44).
To be a great Church, to be the Church in its fullness, we must be a Servant Church, ‘For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for [the] many’ (Mark 10: 45).
If we would follow Christ, as Christians and as the Church, then we are called first and foremost to serve the suffering, those who call out in loud cries and who are in tears.
In responding to their needs, to their cries, to their prayers, we shall find ourselves drinking the cup that he drinks, or to be baptised with his baptism (see verses 38 and 40), that we shall find ourselves at Christ’s right hand and at his left in his glory (Mark 10: 37)
Of course James and John found their request was granted, but not in the way they expected. This hot-headed pair, the sons of Zebedee, went on to serve the community of the baptised and the community that shared in the one bread and the one cup, the community that is the Church, the community that in baptism and in the shared meal is the Body of Christ.
It is said James was executed by the sword and became one of the first Christian martyrs (see Acts 12: 1-12). John too lived a life of service and suffering: he was exiled on Patmos, and although he died in old age in Ephesus, there were numerous attempts to make him a martyr.
According to tradition, during the reign of the Emperor Domitian Saint John was once given a cup of poisoned wine, but he blessed the cup and the poison rose out of the cup in the form of a serpent. Saint John then drank the wine with no ill effect.
It may be pious myth, but it seeks to tell us that Saint John too takes up the challenge to drink the cup that Christ drinks (Mark 10: 38-39). For there is another poison that can damage the Church today – we can fail to love.
It is in sharing and serving with those who are most like Christ in his suffering that the world becomes united with the Christ we meet in Word and Sacrament here this morning.
‘For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many’ (Mark 10: 45).
Today’s Prayers (Sunday 20 October 2024, Trinity XXI):
The theme this week in ‘Pray With the World Church’, the Prayer Diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘Persistence in Prayer’. This theme is introduced today with a reflection by Ella Sibley, Regional Manager Europe & Oceania, USPG:
Read Luke 18: 1-8:
This passage from the Gospel of Luke emphasises the importance of persistence in prayer, urging believers not to lose heart or give up but to pray continually to God.
It’s an inverse-parable because the judge depicted in the story is nothing like God. God isn’t unjust, doesn’t respond to prayer because we berate him, and can’t be worn down or attacked. Rather, God delights in our prayers and seeks our good.
Persistence doesn’t convince God, but it is essential in our prayer life – prayer is conversation with God, and one-off prayers make us fairly poor conversation partners. Regular prayer is an ongoing conversation of mutual concern, where we talk, listen, discuss, and align our thoughts.
In this, we learn God’s concerns, desires, and hopes for the world and can get behind them – beginning to work and pray with God for the transformation of the world.
The USPG Prayer Diary today (Sunday 20 October 2024, Trinity XXI) invites us to pray:
Father, your word is trustworthy and worthy of all praise.
May we always remember your word is true and your promises are faithful.
Carry us through by your grace.
Amen.
The Collect:
Grant, we beseech you, merciful Lord,
to your faithful people pardon and peace,
that they may be cleansed from all their sins
and serve you with a quiet mind;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
The Post Communion Prayer:
Father of light,
in whom is no change or shadow of turning,
you give us every good and perfect gift
and have brought us to birth by your word of truth:
may we be a living sign of that kingdom
where your whole creation will be made perfect in Jesus Christ our Lord.
Additional Collect:
Almighty God,
in whose service lies perfect freedom:
teach us to obey you
with loving hearts and steadfast wills;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Yesterday’s reflection
Continued tomorrow
Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicised Edition copyright © 1989, 1995 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. http://nrsvbibles.org
