Mark 10:35-45 (NRSV)
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.” And he said to them, “What is it you want me to do for you?” And they said to him, “Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory.” 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?” 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; 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.”
When the ten heard this, they began to be angry with James and John. 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. But it is not so among you; but whoever wishes to become 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 a ransom for many.”
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"The significance of [Mark 10:38-40] in our present discussion is massive. For Mark, it is clear that the two brigands on Jesus’s right and left, as described in 15:27, are the ones to whom “it’s been assigned already.” But that means, as we might have concluded from other evidence too, that Jesus’s crucifixion is the moment when he becomes king, when, as James and John say, he is “there in all [his] glory” (10:37). That is the powerful - if deeply paradoxical! - “coming of the kingdom” as spoken of in Mark 9:1. But the arrival of the kingdom in that way will not mean that James and John, and many others too, can look forward to an easy utopia thereafter. On the contrary, they will still have to drink Jesus’s cup and be baptized with his baptism, in other words, to share his suffering and quite possibly his death. (This happened to James quite quickly, as we discover in Acts 12:2.)
"It is in this context, as we have already seen, that we find the kingdom and the cross in close juxtaposition. Jesus contrasts the normal practice of pagan rulers with his own vision of power and prestige: “Anyone who wants to be great among you must become your servant” (10:43). This is at the centre of his vision of the kingdom.
"And this is not only illustrated, but instantiated, by Jesus’s own vocation: “The son of man didn’t come to be waited on. He came to be the servant, to give his life ‘as a ransom for many’” (10:45). This saying, so far from being (as has often been suggested) a detached, floating nugget of “atonement theology” within early church tradition that Mark or his source has tacked on to a story about something else (the reversal of normal modes of power), is in fact the theologically and politically apposite climax to the whole train of thought. What we call “atonement” and what we call “kingdom redefinition” seem in fact to be part and parcel of the same thing."
- N.T. Wright, How God Became King: The Forgotten Story of the Gospels, pp. 227-228
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"Now people often refer [ransom - Gr. 'lutros'] to the Isaiah passage which is our first reading [Isaiah 53:10-11]. I personally think that there's a lot more use of this word 'lutros' in the book of Numbers [Chapter 3], where it describes the selection of Aaron and the family of Levi to be the priests and Levites. Being a priest or a Levite is described as giving yourself as a ransom. So [Jesus] is saying that giving yourself as a ransom is, as it were, stepping into and undoing the sacrificial order. In the case of Israel, initially, it was setting up the sacrificial order. Now that that has served its teaching purpose, now it's up to us to learn to step into it. That's what he's proposing to them.
"And so you have the servant: the waiter [Gr. diakonos]; the slave: the someone under everyone; and the priestly figure, the self-giving priestly figure: the ransom for many. This is a pattern of desire. It's following on from the child - the waiter; the slave - someone who's eyes are fixed on the hands of their master; and then the self-giving priestly figure, all of which Jesus is going to inaugurate so that we can take part. That's going to be our walking towards Jerusalem with him.
"Stick with that. Here we have the beginnings of learning. James and John don't get it so badly wrong as we might think. Jesus is not trying to rebuke them for having desire. He's saying: no, it's good to want these things. You may be asking something that can't be done because it's only discovered in the process what your place is going to be, it's only in the process that you will discover your seats, if you like, your place in the overall picture. And then it's being like a boy, a waiter, someone who hangs around, attentive to others. That's how you're going to be the greatest, and you should want those things, that's wonderful. It's how you get there that's going to be the really important thing."
- James Alison, from video "Homily for Sunday 29 in Ordinary Time 2021" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=InpLiKbS7ug)
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"First, so as to give the disciples a new model for desire, in the wake of their dispute as to which of them is greatest, Jesus places a small child in their midst, and takes him in his arms (Mark 9:34-37). Shortly afterwards Jesus has to rebuke the disciples for hindering the access of children to him: “whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it” (Mark 10:15).
"Finally, James and John request places of honour, and the jealous indignation of the other disciples boils over (Mark 10:35-45). However, Jesus does not rebuke James and John for their desire - merely indicating to them the sort of tribulations they will have to go through before inheriting it. It is the other ten who are given a lecture presupposing the rivalistic nature of their own desire. James and John seem to have learnt from the child. It is not of course that children are ‘innocent’ in any way at all: it is just that they are less complicated and calculating about knowing what they want, running for it, and insisting on getting it. It is just such a pattern of desire that is able to receive the kingdom of God.
"Did Jesus himself desire in this way? That is to say, was it the ability to imagine an urgent good for himself that enabled him to live as he did and give himself up to death? Apart from what we may deduce from the parables, there is at least one indication that the apostolic witness saw him as desiring in exactly this way, and in this being the model for our desire:
…let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who *for the joy that was set before him* endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of God. (Heb. 12:1b-2, my emphasis)
"We cannot, it seems, run away from the fact that the apostolic witness presents Jesus as having, in fact, taught in terms of heavenly rewards, a superabundance of heavenly rewards indeed, and expected these to be a motivating factor in the lives of those who were to follow him, and a motivating factor without any sense of shame that one is following him so as to get something, and something good for me.
"I hope I have shown that this does not depend on a crude ‘pie in the sky’ theology, but is an essential part of the eschatological imagination that Jesus was opening up for the disciples, and the beginnings of the possibility of a morality based on the calling into being and satisfaction of real desires, rather than the castration of, or weird fencing matches with, the desires that already drive us. This eschatological imagination is intrinsically related to the opening up of the vision of God."
- James Alison, The Joy of Being Wrong, pp. 228-229
[Source of quotes from N.T. Wright and James Alison's The Joy of Being Wrong, and for extensive analysis and discussion on all this week's lectionary texts: https://girardianlectionary.net/reflections/year-b/proper24b/]
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