Are you able to drink the cup that I am about to drink, and be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?

 Now Jesus, going up to Jerusalem, took the twelve disciples aside on the road and said to them, "Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be betrayed to the chief priests and to the scribes; and they will condemn Him to death, and deliver Him to the Gentiles to mock and to scourge and to crucify.  And the third day He will rise again."

Then the mother of Zebedee's sons came to Him with her sons, kneeling down and asking something from Him.  And He said to her, "What do you wish?"  She said to Him, "Grant that these two sons of mine may sit, one on your right hand and the other on the left, in Your kingdom."  But Jesus answered and said, "You do not know what you ask.  Are you able to drink the cup that I am about to drink, and be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?"  They said to Him, "We are able."  So He said to them, "You will indeed drink My cup, and be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with; but to sit on My right hand and on My left is not Mine to give, but it is for those for whom it is prepared by My Father."  And when the ten heard it, they were great displeased with the two brothers.  But Jesus called them to Himself and said, "You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and those who are great exercise authority over them.  Yet it shall not be so among you; but whoever desires to become great among you, let him be your servant.  And whoever desires to be first among you, let him be your slave -- just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many."

- Matthew 20:17-28

In yesterday's reading, Jesus told a parable about all those who work for the Kingdom, from all time, first to last and last to first: 
 "For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard.  Now when he had agreed with the laborers for a denarius a day, he sent them into his vineyard.  And he went out about the third hour and saw others standing idle in the marketplace, and said to them, 'You also go into the vineyard, and whatever is right I will give you.'  So they went.  Again he went out about the sixth hour, and did likewise.  And about the eleventh hour he went out and found others standing idle, and said to them, 'Why have you been standing here idle all day?'  They said to him, 'Because no one hired us.'  He said to them, 'You also go into the vineyard, and whatever is right you will receive.'  So when evening had come, the owner of the vineyard said to his steward, 'Call the laborers and give them their wages, beginning with the last to the first.'  And when those came who were hired about the eleventh hour, they each received a denarius.  But when the first came, they supposed that they would receive more; and they likewise received each a denarius.  And when they had received it, they complained against the landowner, saying, 'These last men have worked only one hour, and you made them equal to us who have borne the burden and the heat of the day.'  But he answered one of them and said, 'Friend, I am doing you no wrong.  Did you not agree with me for a denarius?  Take what is yours and go your way.  I wish to give to this last man the same as to you.  Is it not lawful for me to do what I wish with my own things?  Or is your eye evil because I am good?'  So the last will be first, and the first last.  For many are called, but few chosen."

 Now Jesus, going up to Jerusalem, took the twelve disciples aside on the road and said to them, "Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be betrayed to the chief priests and to the scribes; and they will condemn Him to death, and deliver Him to the Gentiles to mock and to scourge and to crucify.  And the third day He will rise again."   This is the third time Jesus has warned His disciples of what is to come in Jerusalem  After the second prophecy (which we read on Wednesday, last week) the questions the disciples have asked, and the teachings Jesus has given, reflect what life is to be in the period in which the Church is established, what His power is like, how they are to live as servants of the Church.  My study bible says here that Christ's repeated prediction of His Passion was meant to encourage and strengthen the disciples for the terrifying events they would face.  According to the commentator Theophylact, it's as if He's telling them that they must think on all of His ministry -- teachings and great signs -- so that when they see Him on the Cross they will understand His suffering is not because He's powerless to do otherwise.

Then the mother of Zebedee's sons came to Him with her sons, kneeling down and asking something from Him.  And He said to her, "What do you wish?"  She said to Him, "Grant that these two sons of mine may sit, one on your right hand and the other on the left, in Your kingdom."  But Jesus answered and said, "You do not know what you ask.  Are you able to drink the cup that I am about to drink, and be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?"  They said to Him, "We are able."  So He said to them, "You will indeed drink My cup, and be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with; but to sit on My right hand and on My left is not Mine to give, but it is for those for whom it is prepared by My Father."  Once again we see the disciples focused in a sense of worldly power, applying it to the Kingdom and what kind of power Jesus wants us to understand.  This time, it is the mother of John and James Zebedee who requests a particular place for her sons, who are close friends to Christ.  She herself forms part of the women who have supported Jesus' ministry and been with Him since Galilee.  James and and John's own involvement in this request is revealed in the Greek, when Jesus says, "You do not know what you ask . . . "  There, the "you" is plural.   Again, my study bible emphasizes the voluntary nature of Christ's death on the Cross.  He calls His Crucifixion a cup and His death a baptism.  It says, "The Cross is a cup because He drank it willingly (Hebrews 12:2).  His death is Baptism, for He was completely immersed in it, yet it cleansed the world (Romans 6:3-6)."  This is a prophecy here by Jesus when He tells John and James, "You will indeed drink My cup, and be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with. . ."  Both of them will lead lives of persecution and martyrdom after Pentecost.  The places they ask for are not given arbitrarily, but rather they will be given to those for whom God has prepared them.  As for those who hold places of honor in the Kingdom, it would be impossible that anyone holds a place of equality to Christ.  In the history of the Church, the human beings most honored as holy are the Virgin Mary ("most blessed among women" - Luke 1:28), and John the Baptist (the "greatest born of women" - Matthew 11:11).

And when the ten heard it, they were great displeased with the two brothers.  But Jesus called them to Himself and said, "You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and those who are great exercise authority over them.  Yet it shall not be so among you; but whoever desires to become great among you, let him be your servant.  And whoever desires to be first among you, let him be your slave -- just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many."  Once again, the disciples are given a teaching on power and authority, what His Church should be like -- a preparation for the time after His Resurrection, the time in which we now live.  In Luke's Gospel, this teaching is given within a context of all of the apostles disputing about their places.  What we remember is that He's just given them the third prophecy of what is to happen; repeatedly their minds are on expectations of an imminent Kingdom manifesting and their places in it.  This is the clearest and most distinct teaching about how His power and authority conferred on them is not to be that of worldly kings.  The emphasis is on service.  The kings of the Gentiles at Jesus' time were exceptionally ruthless, that was particularly so for the family of Herod.  These power-hungry "heathen" the Jews considered an abomination, and Jesus compares the disciples' will for power to them.  Jesus contrasts such kings to Himself, who serves, and will give His life as a ransom for many -- meaning for all.  Once again, Jesus' example isn't only about who Jesus is or even what grace and holy power does:  it is an example for each one who would be His disciple.

Once again we are given an important distinction about power, and it is pure preparation for the life of the Church to come, of which these men will be its first Bishops.  So how do we serve?  How do we understand Jesus' life -- and death, and even Resurrection -- as an example to us all?  How do we incorporate these teachings about service into our own lives?  Certainly humility comes first.  How could we know what it is to serve unless we first work at the spiritual reality within us, serving Him by emptying of all our worldly expectations and ambitions to Him, and seeking His way, His word, for service and discipleship.  To my way of thinking, this is how we live a prayerful life, and I believe we will be led to discard what we need to along the way as conflicts come up in the course of our path with Christ.  The apostles really do set the tone for us to understand what kinds of foibles and human weakness get in the way of good discipleship.  They are an example of who we all are, our typical ways of thinking, and just how hard it is to really "change our minds," to practice the kind of repentance (or metanoia in the Greek) to really be what Christ asks us to be.  At the Last Supper, Jesus will teach them that He has chosen or selected them out of the world, separated them, made them different, and for this the world will also hate or persecute them.  For us, too, the process of being chosen out of the world is always a continuing force in the spiritual nature of what it means to follow Christ.  That is, the reality of the transformation we take from His teachings, and in His Spirit, in the course of what it is to have and live a prayerful life.  To change our understanding of power and how it works is a most basic and deep form of transformation in human understanding.  I don't think it's a mere intellectual process.  It is the same as the necessity for God's help in undoing attachment to great possessions, such as Jesus taught in the encounter with the rich man who asked about eternal life (see the readings from Tuesday, and especially Wednesday).  The two issues, possessions and power, are linked.  But it is with God's help that we come to understand how we are to conduct ourselves; this includes our relationship to the most powerless, the ones with "no currency" in any given situation.  Let us consider both examples:  Jesus on the Cross, and the disciples who ask after their places even as Jesus has just taught of His death and suffering.  There are always things we need to learn, and this is a long -- lifelong -- learning curve.