Sermon for St James, 25 July 2024

Sermon for St James the Apostle, 25 July 2024               

Matthew 20.20–28

20 Then the mother of the sons of Zebedee came to him with her sons, and kneeling before him, she asked a favour of him. ²¹And he said to her, ‘What do you want?’ She said to him, ‘Declare that these two sons of mine will sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your kingdom.’ ²²But Jesus answered, ‘You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I am about to drink?’ They said to him, ‘We are able.’ ²³He said to them, ‘You will indeed drink my cup, but to sit at my right hand and at my left, this is not mine to grant, but it is for those for whom it has been prepared by my Father.’

24 When the ten heard it, they were angry with the two brothers. ²⁵But Jesus called them to him and said, ‘You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them. ²⁶It will not be so among you; but whoever wishes to be great among you must be your servant, ²⁷and whoever wishes to be first among you must be your slave; ²⁸just as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.’     [NRSV]

 

My first parish as a vicar was at a St James’ Church at Whitley in Coventry, so I always know when his day is coming round, and it is often when people have just gone on holiday! However, we are getting ahead of ourselves. The first question to ask is which James are we talking about? 

In the New Testament, there are several people called James:

• James the son of Alphaeus, mentioned in the lists of the 12 disciples (Mark 2:14)
• James, the father of the disciple Judas (not Iscariot). Many people think this Judas was also known as Thaddaeus who appears in other lists of the Twelve. (Luke 6:16, John 14:22)
• James ‘the Lord’s brother’ (Gal. 1:19)
• And the James who wrote the letter might be another one altogether!

But today we remember James the son of Zebedee, brother of John, who was called to follow Jesus at the start of his ministry (Mark 1:19).

He was martyred around 44ad in Jerusalem (Acts 12:2). Some stories about him say he got to Spain and that his remains are there. Many people walk a pilgrimage route to Santiago de Compostela – Santiago being derived from the Latin for St James. There is also a church marking the place where he is supposed to have been beheaded in Jerusalem. A lot of that is contested, so today we will stick with what we know of him in the gospels and Acts.

James was one of the 3 disciples who seemed to be a kind of inner circle, along with Peter and James’ brother John. They are with Jesus when he heals Simon Peter’s mother-in-law (Mk 1:29-31); only they go in when Jairus’ daughter is healed (Mk 5:37); only they are with him at what we call the Transfiguration (Mk 9:2) when they get a glimpse of Jesus true nature and glory; they have a private word with Jesus about signs of the end (Mk 13:3-4), and they are the ones who accompany Jesus into the Garden of Gethsemane (Mk 14:33) as he wrestles in prayer, while they fall asleep.

And Jesus gives James and John a nickname – Boanerges – which is Aramaic, the language Jesus and his disciples spoke most of the time. We are told it means “sons of thunder” (Mk 3:17), which might be a reference to their temperament. For example, we know they wanted to call down fire from heaven on an inhospitable Samaritan village, which prompts Jesus to rebuke them for saying it (Luke 9:51-56).

Here in today’s gospel, we see them getting it wrong again. They have mum with them to back them up according to Matthew (although Mark doesn’t mention her). Notice that she isn't named here - in the patriarchal culture of the day, she is identified as the "mother of the sons of Zebedee". Some suggest that she was Salome, who is there at the crucifixion and the discovery of the empty tomb in Mark, but we can’t be certain.

The request their mother puts forward is that James and John have a seat at either side of Jesus in his kingdom. It’s interesting that in response Jesus addresses James and John directly, rather than their mother, presumably seeing that getting her to do the asking was either cowardice or an attempt to sway Jesus. What Jesus says is revealing for understanding this exchange.

"Can you drink the cup I am going to drink?" Jesus asks. The idea of a "cup" is significant in the Bible. In the Old Testament, drinking a cup is associated with judgment. For example:

Awake, awake!
    Rise up, Jerusalem,
you who have drunk from the hand of the Lord
    the cup of his wrath,
you who have drained to its dregs
    the goblet that makes people stagger.  (Isaiah 51:17)

Jesus seems to be alluding to the fact that he will drink the cup of judgment and condemnation through his death on the cross. It is one of the great reversals and inversions that we find in our faith, that this means that we may drink the cup of salvation of the new covenant, which we recall at the eucharist. Whether James and John understand the full implications of what he is saying or not, they say that they can also do this. Jesus then foretells that they will, as James will be martyred and John is believed to have been exiled.

Behind this conversation is a different understanding of power. Jesus is conveying to them that his kingdom, and the use of power within it, is fundamentally different to how it usually is with human beings. James and John are wanting preferential seats – close to Jesus, because they are still interpreting life as a competition. To get on, you need to get ahead, and that means making sure others are behind you and are lower in the pecking order. But, of course, that is a state of permanent anxiety, worrying that someone else might get Jesus’ ear first, or get ahead, and it means always looking over their shoulder at the competition.

Effectively Jesus says those are not the rules by which his kingdom works. Instead of a struggle for power, his kingdom is a way of service. It doesn’t see the value of someone else as a threat to one’s own value. It doesn’t see the success of another as somehow demeaning everyone else. It doesn’t see the need to put down others in order to achieve some security. Because if you place your trust in the trustworthy one, in whom there is genuine and ultimate security, then you cannot be threatened by anyone else.

Jesus models this himself. Here he talks about coming to serve. In John’s gospel (Jn 13:1-17) he famously washes his disciples’ feet, doing the work usually left to a servant or even a slave, despite being their rabbi, their leader, and their Lord. That is not the action of someone who believes in fighting their way to the top, elbowing others out of the way. But it is also not the action of someone who feels insecure or anxious about what others may think of them. Those who understand properly the true way of service of the kingdom don’t have the need to worry about those things.

More than that, Jesus is to give his life to set us free (Mt 20:28). A ransom was a payment to pay for a slave’s freedom. Apparently a few slaves would manage to get together the funds from tips, gifts, etc to meet the ransom price and buy themselves back. I have read that here are examples where a master would give a slave the money they needed, so they had the full amount to buy their freedom as a reward for years of loyal service. Their ransom was paid for them. However, for the vast majority of slaves this was unachievable.  

Jesus uses this image to convey what his death will mean for his followers. His life will "buy" freedom for all of us, enslaved to sin, guilt, shame and despair  – and to do so will be the ultimate act of service.

James must have learned his lesson well, as when the time came, he was not afraid to be identified with Jesus, the suffering servant. It seems that he didn’t seek self-preservation by fleeing. Herod was able to find him and execute him as he started persecuting the early Christians.

The death of James was a tragic loss - the first of the apostles to die - and many must have feared for what might follow. However, somehow Peter eluded capture by Herod, who later died. These events seem to have been the prompt for the mission of Paul and Barnabas to go out from Antioch across the Mediterranean, and the message spreading across the known world. James' faithfulness and willingness to follow his Lord in the way of service and self-sacrifice may well have given that early Christian community the spur and inspiration it needed to go out and change the world.