Reading: Mark 10:35-45
The request of James and John
35 Then James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came to him. ‘Teacher,’ they said, ‘we want you to do for us whatever we ask.’36 ‘What do you want me to do for you?’ he asked.37 They replied, ‘Let one of us sit at your right and the other at your left in your glory.’ 38 ‘You don’t know what you are asking,’ Jesus said. ‘Can you drink the cup I drink or be baptised with the baptism I am baptised with?’ 39 ‘We can,’ they answered. Jesus said to them, ‘You will drink the cup I drink and be baptised with the baptism I am baptised with, 40 but to sit at my right or left is not for me to grant. These places belong to those for whom they have been prepared.’ 41 When the ten heard about this, they became indignant with James and John. 42 Jesus called them together and said, ‘You know that those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. 43 Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, 44 and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all. 45 For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.
Teaching:
I want us to think today about being ambitious. The modern day rise of industry and technology and innovation comes as a result of ambition; the ambition to progress, the ambition to succeed, the ambition to conquer and solve problems. Ambition can be a healthy thing, but it can also be something that can get us into trouble.
Ambition in each of us comes naturally. It is how we are wired. I have just recently started studying a post graduate certificate in Health Care Chaplaincy, and this arises from my desire to carry out my role as chaplain in Antrim Hospital to the best of my abilities.
Ambition motivates us. It motivates us to get up in the morning rather than just lie about all day. It’s an energy inside every one of us. And that energy came about from the very moment of creation, when in Genesis 2:7 God took humanity and blew into his nostrils the breath of life and he became a living being.
Ambition – that force within us – compels us to strive, and where God is concerned it is there, so we reach our God-given potential, the plans he has for us, the energy to serve him.
Unfortunately, there is also a dark side to ambition, and that is called greed. Greed, instead of people wanting to do something with their lives to the glory of God, choose to pursue what they can get for themselves. We see in industry lots of ambitious driven executives. But a lot of the time they aren’t doing it for others, they’re striving for their own security, wellbeing, and to get to the top.
Left unchecked, greed is like a cancer – it grows and spreads, it takes over. Ambitious greed is cyclical; the more you have, the more you want. I have watched in my previous job, people who have been so caught up with the strive and ambition to do better, that unfortunately they have lost the things that really matter, including their families. I remember working on a massive Government project where I had a key role in the programme and having a few encounters with the Project Director who was nothing other than self centred, driven, walking over everyone who got in his way. In the eyes of our industry, he was doing very well for himself, and yet I remember the day in which the Daily Mail published a centre page spread on the unseen aspects of his life and the family that he had destroyed along the way in his pursuit for success.
Greed took over James and John in our reading today. They said to Jesus, ‘Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you.’ Never mind the others, just take care of us, and give us what we want. Folks, that is the dark side of ambition when we want preferential treatment, and we are willing to step on or over others to get it.
Jesus handled this request with such a caring heart. He said,’You don’t know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, and to be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?” When Jesus used the word ‘ask’ the translation of this word is a self-seeking request. It’s not asking for help. It’s a demand asking only for the thing that matters to the person. And when Jesus responds to them, he talks about a cup, which is not a literal cup. It’s a reference to the suffering that is to come. He then goes on to tell them that they will also drink the cup and be baptised. Again, this is metaphorical language referring to the suffering that they will receive, being plunged (that’s the reference to baptism) being plunged into difficult waters. And that’s exactly what happens. Because if we look at the life of James and John, we know through scripture and history that James died by the sword of Herod Agrippa (Acts 12:2), and John was exiled to Patmos, where tradition says, he died as a result of slavery and hard labour.
Folks, we need to be careful about our ambitions – the ambitions we set for ourselves, and the ambitions we plan for our families. The Church, Christ’s Church, the Body, is who we all are. We are to be ambitious, yes, but ambitious for what God desires us to be within the Body.
To be ambitious in God’s eyes is to be ambitious not at the expense of a servant heart. We are called to be servants to all. We are to be servants to one another.
There’s a lovely story of school sports day, for children with various physical and mental needs. The climax of the event was the 400-metre race. The contestants lined up, the whistle was blown, and they were odd. Everything went well until they got to the final turn. But one of the contestants stumbled and fell. As soon as the other runners realized what had happened, they turned around and came back to the fallen runner and helped him to his feet. Then, arm in arm, they limped together toward the finish line. As the runners passed in front of the crowd, everyone stood to cheer. No one cared to notice who crossed the finish line first. What mattered was they finished every last one of them, completing the race and no one was left behind.
Folks, when your ambitions turn from satisfying your own wants to that of attending to the needs of others; To be a servant to all – that is the mark of Christian Maturity. May we all have an ambition focused on something far greater than ourselves, but instead an ambition focused on others and on the Kingdom of God. May we all desire that no-one is left behind.
We are all ambitious in one way or another. That is how God created us. But let that be focused on what God wants and not what we want. Let your prayer not be: …..”Lord, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you”, but instead in the words of the Lord’s prayer in Godly maturity, “Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”