But It Is Not to Be So Among Us

(Mark 10:43)

This Sunday Mark continues delivering the message of God’s great reversal operated through the work and proclamation of the Son. Give up your life to save it (8:35).  The greatest of us is to be a servant of all (9:35). Give up things to obtain life everlasting (10:29-30). The last will be the first (10:31). We have no choice by now but to acknowledge that in Christ God makes all things new and different from what they used to be. That is what Jesus does. 

This Sunday’s gospel text is no different. James and John, the sons of Zebedee (1:19-20), are seeking to get the inside track on Jesus coming Kingdom and securing positions of privilege at the Messiah’s table, one in his right, the other on his left. They want to be more important than the others, and that raises a conflict among them (10:41).

Somethings never change, do they? The ones among us who are into the performing arts maybe already thinking of a skit where the same scene happens in a business office, a town council, in a school, at church (?).

James and John are misinterpreting Jesus’ mission and what it entails. They remain kidnaped by the ways of the world. In the kingdom of the Son of Man, things are not what they used to be. Therefore, what has always been, no longer needs to be so among us. We have been set free.

Isaiah 53:4-12; Psalm 91:9-16; Hebrews 5:1-10; Mark 10:35-45