Mark 10:35-45 (NRSV)
Read Mark 10:35-45 on biblegateway.com
Verse 35James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came forward to him and said to him, "Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you." Verse 36And he said to them, "What is it you want me to do for you?" Verse 37And they said to him, "Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory." Verse 38But Jesus said to them, "You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?" Verse 39They replied, "We are able." Then Jesus said to them, "The cup that I drink you will drink; and with the baptism with which I am baptized, you will be baptized; Verse 40but to sit at my right hand or at my left is not mine to grant, but it is for those for whom it has been prepared."
Verse 41When the ten heard this, they began to be angry with James and John. Verse 42So Jesus called them and said to them, "You know that among the Gentiles those whom they recognize as their rulers lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them. Verse 43But it is not so among you; but whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, Verse 44and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all. Verse 45For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many."
Devotion
“We want…” the disciples plead. There seems to be nothing new about Desire! In Tennessee Wiliams mid-twentieth-century play, “A Streetcar named Desire,” a character is told to take the streetcar named Desire, transfer to a streetcar named Cemetery, and arrive at the Field of Alysion—in Greek mythology, the place of the dead. The scene recalls the story of Adam and Eve in Genesis 3.6, where the forbidden fruit in the Garden was “to be desired.”
Desire has no end. We want more—better, status, prestige, privilege, recognition. When someone asked John D. Rockefeller, who owned approximately 1% of the nation’s wealth, “How much is enough?” His answer, “Just a little bit more.” The disciples James and John, perhaps along with you and me, ask,. “What can we get?” Jesus responds, “Are you able to drink the cup that I drink?” And then he points them to the cross and to the call to become servants.
Prayer
Gracious God, our spirits yearn for you, our wills resist. If our wills will not convert, anesthetize them that we may be and do what we intend. Amen.
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