Patrick Comerford
The 50-day season of Easter, which began on Easter Day (5 April 2026), came to an end on Sunday with the Day of Pentecost or Whit Sunday (24 May 2026), and in the Church Calendar we are back in Ordinary Time since Mondday.
Later this evening I hope to be involved in the choir rehearsals in Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church, Stony Stratford, as we prepare for the arrival of a new rector. But, before today begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, to reflect, to pray and to read in these ways:
1, reading 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: 32-45 (NRSVA):
32 They were on the road, going up to Jerusalem, and Jesus was walking ahead of them; they were amazed, and those who followed were afraid. He took the twelve aside again and began to tell them what was to happen to him, 33 saying, ‘See, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be handed over to the chief priests and the scribes, and they will condemn him to death; then they will hand him over to the Gentiles; 34 they will mock him, and spit upon him, and flog him, and kill him; and after three days he will rise again.’
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.’
In Andrei Rublev’s icon of the Holy Trinity … the Christ-figure is wearing a simple deacon’s stole, and is seated with the Father and the Holy Spirit to his left and to his rightToday’s Reflections:
Whenever I read today’s Gospel reading at the Eucharist (Mark 10: 32-45), I think back to my childhood days. I remember all those preparations for football matches or beach cricket, as we lined up to pick sides. And how we all wanted to be among the first to be picked for a team.
Everyone wanted to be picked first, everyone wanted to line up there beside one of the two captains, no-one wanted to be picked last, even when there were enough places for everyone to get a game.
I can still see them: 9- or 10-year-old boys, jumping up and down on the grass, waving our hands or pointing at our chests, and pleading: ‘Me, me, please pick me, I’m your friend.’
‘Me, me, please pick me.’
And then when we were picked, oh how we wanted the glory. Slow at passing the ball, in case I might not score the goal. Better to lose that ball in a tackle than to pass it to someone else and risk someone else scoring the winning goal.
And that’s who James and John remind me of: wanting to be picked first, wanting to be the first to line up beside the team captain, being glory seekers rather than team players.
No wonder the other ten were upset when they heard about this. But they were upset, not because they wanted to take on the servant model of priesthood and ministry. They were upset not because James and John had not yet grasped the point of it all. They were upset because they might have been counted out, because they might have missed out being on the first team, on the first XI.
And their upset actually turns to anger. Not the sort of behaviour you would expect from team players.
Did James and John think that opting to follow Jesus, becoming disciples, was a good career move?
And what did James and John want in reality?
They wanted 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 are seated, comfy and cosy, as if waiting to watch their favourite television sit-com.
When we say that Christ ‘is seated at the right hand of the Father,’ we mean that Christ is the Word of God. In some way, In some way, this is what Andrei Rublev was conveying in his icon of the Visitation of Abraham, his icon of the Holy Trinity in the Old Testament. In that icon, the Father and the Spirit are seated to the right and left of the Son. Indeed, in that icon, Christ is wearing not the elaborate high-priestly stole of a bishop, but the simple stole of a deacon at the table.
For James and John to want to be seated at the right and left of Christ in his glory – not when they were sitting down to a snack, or travelling on the bus, or even at the Last Supper, but in his glory (see verse 37) – they were was expressing an ambition to take the place of, to replace God.
But to be like God means 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.
Wanting to be first, wanting to be noticed by those with power and privilege, is not a model for diaconal ministry. It is good that those who serve the Church as bishops and priests are reminded that they were first ordained as deacons and that they remain deacons … that the diaconal ministry, the ministry of service, is at the heart of the ministry of the Church.
In a sermon over 400 years ago, on Whit Sunday 1622, the Caroline Divine Lancelot Andrewes says all three orders of ministry depend on this one ministry of diakonia, through which they truly become a ‘ministry or service; and that on foot, and through the dust; for so is the nature of the word.’
In his epistles, a word that Saint Paul uses for ministry is διακονία, the ministry of the διάκονος, the one who serves like those who wait on tables, the ministry of those who help meet the needs of and remind us of those who are neglected and needy by either collecting or distributing charity and making sure they are fed.
The word liturgy (λειτουργία) is the work for and of the people. But in its truest sense this is not the work of nice people, good people, people like us, but in its crudest use in Greek the work of the many, the service of riff-raff, even the beggars.
I was reminded in Crete some years ago that The Beggars’ Opera translates into Greek as Η λαϊκή όπερα. It was a reminder that 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 broken.
The Greek word λαός (laós) means the people, and the laós might even mean the rowdy, the masses, the populace. Liturgy is not necessarily a sacred word. This word liturgy is well-understood by everyone in Greece. The term is neither technical nor purely theological. I am not good at supermarket shopping, but local shops in Crete have signs that regularly announce ‘Opening Hours’ as ώρες λειτουργίας (ores leitourgías) – the hours of service, or the hours for serving the public.
Deacons are to encourage us all, archbishops, bishops, priests, laity, to take stock again. We are challenged by diaconal ministry to move from merely acting out the liturgy to making the church a sacrament, a taste, a sign, a token of the promise of, a thirsting for the Kingdom of God.
And to do this great task, as the ambitious pair, James and John, are reminded in today’s Gospel reading, those in ministry must first be deacons, servants and slaves. We could translate the Greek original of verse 43 (ἀλλ' ὃς ἂν θέλῃ μέγας γενέσθαι ἐν ὑμῖν, ἔσται ὑμῶν διάκονος) as: ‘and whoever wishes to become great among you must be your deacon.’
To be a great Church we must be a Servant Church, a deacon 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).
Christ asks us this Gospel reading whether we are willing to drink the cup that he drinks, or to be baptised with his baptism (see verses 38 and 40).
Of course James and John were. See how 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.
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 to the Church: he was exiled on Patmos, and although he died in old age in Ephesus, there were numerous attempts to make him a martyr. Martyrdom comes in many forms. In essence the word means witness, and tut the first step in martyrdom is dying to self, to self-ambition, to self-seeking, to self-serving.
‘For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for [the] many’ (Mark 10: 45).
Today’s Prayers (Wednesday 27 May 2026):
This week in Pray with the World Church, the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), from 24 to 30 May 2026 (pp 58-59), the theme is ‘Carriers of the Flame’ and was introduced on Sunday with reflections by Carol Miller, Church Engagement Manager, USPG.
The USPG Prayer Diary today (Wednesday 27 May 2026) invites us to pray:
Breathe your fire into our hearts so we may pass the flame of faith to the next generation, and raise up new voices for mission and service.
The Collect:
O Lord, from whom all good things come:
grant to us your humble servants,
that by your holy inspiration
we may think those things that are good,
and by your merciful guiding may perform the same;
through our Lord Jesus Christ,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
The Post-Communion Prayer:
Gracious God, lover of all,
in this sacrament
we are one family in Christ your Son,
one in the sharing of his body and blood
and one in the communion of his Spirit:
help us to grow in love for one another
and come to the full maturity of the Body of Christ.
We make our prayer through your Son our Saviour.
Yesterday’s Reflections
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
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