This Sunday I am back in the Collingbournes, both Ducis and Kingston. We’re celebrating Harvest Festival at St Andrew’s, at 11am and you will be very welcome to bring your Harvest gifts and join us. I will also be celebrating Holy Communion with the following sermon at St Mary’s, at 9.30am.

I am having one of those ‘I don’t want to’ days.’ It’s beautiful outside and I really don’t want to do any of the chores on my list, which, I confess, includes writing this. I feel like having a toddler tantrum, sticking my thumb in mouth and refusing to do anything. It’s Saturday and this week has been full of all sorts of things, and to be honest with you, we have had a long summer with many changes and I really feel as though I need a rest. ‘Physician heal thyself’ I hear you say, and you are right I really do need to take myself away on retreat, and booking one is on that ‘to-do list’.

I don’t want to! It’s not fair! What about me?

But instead of going back to bed (I probably just need a nap!), I am sat at my desk, and finding myself in good company, well, company. The gospel passage set for today features the disciples behaving like toddlers.

James and John, sons of Zebedee and fishermen in the same family firm as Peter and Andrew, with the same calling on their lives to drop their nets and make fishers of men, have decided that they want more than simply being his disciples. They are already part of Jesus’ inner circle of not just disciples, but apostles, and part of the most intimate trio who, along with Peter, are often taken to one side to receive a deeper level of teaching. Perhaps this has gone to their heads? Or perhaps they want to distance themselves from their cousin Peter who often says the most stupid things and needs to be rebuked by Jesus? Today however, they are in for a telling off.

The two brothers, also known as the ‘Sons of Thunder’, approach Jesus and ask a favour of him,

Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever you ask of you.

Mark 10:36

Well that’s rather abrasive! There’s no ‘if you please’, no humility, this isn’t a request but a demand; and what does Jesus do? Does he tell them to know their place, to ‘stay in their lane’ as the current management jargon has it? Does he rebuke them and tell them, to sit on the naughty step until they are ready to behave? No, he answers them with a question:

What is it you want me to do for you?

Mark 10: 36

And here it is, the disciples want to be honoured by Jesus when he takes his throne, ‘Grant us to sit one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory.’ they ask. Wow! Can you imagine addressing the King of all Creation and demanding to be placed in seats of honour? Not to merely be in his presence, to have access to his courts, but to be enthroned alongside him! To be fair, in Matthew’s gospel, Jesus does promise the disciples that they will be seated in twelve thrones alongside him (Matthew 19:28), and in Luke’s they are promised that they will also eat and drink at his table in heaven (Luke 22:28-30). However, in Matthew’s gospel it is their mother who makes the request of Jesus on their behalf(Matthew 20: 20).

The answer Jesus gives to James and John, and to their mother also, isn’t a simple yes or no, but another question: Can you handle it?

You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or be baptised with the baptism I am baptised with?

mark 10: 38

The boys, and their mother, believe they can. After all, what have they experienced of drinking in Jesus’ company? They were present at the wedding when Jesus turned water into the finest wine; can they drink that cup, yes they can! And what about the baptism of Jesus, when God himself spoke from heaven conferring blessing upon him, and the Holy Spirit took the form of a dove and actually landed upon him. Yes, the disciples think, yes we are ready for it, give us our seat in glory now!

Of course this isn’t what Jesus is thinking of. His baptism took place not in a rural idyll but in the wilderness, away from the security and guards of an occupied city, it was a dangerous thing to do, and even to this day the burial site is surrounded by razor wire and patrolled by armed guards. As soon as Jesus received that loving affirmation from his Father he was ‘kicked out’ into the desert by the not so peaceful Holy Spirit, where he fasted and was tempted, and brought to the edge of human existence. Are the ‘Sons of Thunder’ prepared to endure that?

And the cup he is referring to is the one he begs his Father to remove from him in the Garden of Gethsemane shortly before he is arrested. The cup is not a blessing but a poisoned chalice, it is the cup of suffering. Jesus doesn’t tell them straight out that he doesn’t think they have the stamina, the courage, the faith to see discipleship through to the very end; he doesn’t tell them they are not worthy of the thrones in glory, he asks them if they think they are capable, if they think they are worthy.

The Bible doesn’t tell us what happens to James and John, whether they really were able to drink the cup of suffering or endure the same baptism as Jesus; tradition tells us that James was executed ‘by the sword’ thanks to Herod, and we know that John was banished to the Island of Patmos where he wrote the Book of Revelation. Neither sound very much like sitting on a throne in glory.

The Prosperity Gospel has become popular in recent decades. It focuses on blessings and ignores the hardships that often come with living a faith-filled life. The more you give financially (tythe) the more you own bank will be filled, it claims. James and John seem to be proponents of this rather dubious ‘theology’. Yes there are blessings in belonging to Christ, that peace which goes beyond all understanding being at the heart of it. However, Jesus never said that being a Christian would be easy. We all go through illnesses and bereavements, even vicars can lose their jobs. The difficulties are still there, no matter how much we give financially. When James and John ask to be blessed above the others, Jesus questions them, are they ready for the suffering that will come with being his disciples.

No matter how willing they claim to be to follow in his footsteps, Jesus does not grant their request. Instead he tells them that in following him they will indeed drink the cup of suffering. He gives them, and us, a foretaste of what it is to be truly great. Honour and glory do not bring greatness, but servanthood.

whoever wishes to be great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all. For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.

mark 10: 43-44

This morning we are invited to remember our baptism promises as we share in the words of the creed. This morning we are invited to drink from the cup Jesus drank from. It is indeed the cup of blessing, reminiscent of the wedding at Cana and a foretaste of the heavenly banquet, but it is also a remembrance of the cup of suffering Jesus drank from when he died upon the cross, and an invitation to follow him with our whole lives.

_{If you are also feeling in need of a retreat, why not book yourself onto my Advent Petite Retreat Poetry of the Stars? Available in person and online, and to pre-order as a Retreat in a Box. Click here for Poetry of the Stars Online or Poetry of the Stars at Fullerton Mill. Or send me a message to pre-order a Retreat in a Box.}