Jesus is going deliberately towards his Passion and death. It is easy to imagine that procession: Jesus striding ahead, the disciples following in a daze, and the crowd bewildered. Normal prudence would urge us to avoid suffering and death – to go in the other direction. But this scene is telling us something about the wisdom of the cross, which is foolishness in terms of human wisdom.
James and John picked a bad moment. “Their timing was precisely wrong,” said St John Chrysostom, “for this was not the right time for crowns or prizes. It was the time for struggles, contests, toils, sweat, wrestling rings and battles.” The silliness of their question stands out all the more clearly because of the gravity of the moment. They are looking for preferment.
Mark’s is the earliest of the gospels, and it has none of the polish that the others have; it is blunt in several revealing ways. Matthew’s gospel (20:20) edits the story and has their mother make the embarrassing request! But he forgot to adjust the rest of the story accordingly. He has Jesus replying in the plural, not the singular; and he forgot to delete the words about the others becoming angry with the brothers. If it had been their mother who made the request, the others would have been sorry for the brothers or embarrassed for them, but certainly not angry with them.
Why the cover-up? These two were to become great apostles; with Peter they were the inner group. Yet we see how crass they were in this passage. It gives us all some hope!
With irony Chrysostom noted that there were indeed great things in store for the two brothers. “Jesus foretold great things for them; that is, you shall be held worthy of martyrdom, you shall suffer the things I have suffered, you shall end your life with a death from violence, and in this also you shall be sharers with me.”
Look at the others, the ones who were angry with the “Sons of Thunder” for wanting preferment. If you are angry you are involved somehow; you too are in the running. If the others were not also thinking just like the Sons of Thunder, they would not be angry with them, they would simply pity them; they would take them aside and have a little brotherly chat with them.
But they were angry, they were in no way different from them – except that they were cleverer, less forthright. It is always instructive to look with clear sight at our anger. It always has something to tell us.
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