“Then James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came to Him saying, ‘Teacher, we want You to do for us whatever we ask.’ And He said to them, ‘What do you want Me to do for you?’
They said to Him, ‘Grant us that we may sit, one on Your right hand and the other on Your
left, in Your glory’” (Mark 10:35)
We can only imagine what was going through the mind of our Lord, Jesus Christ at the time. He was leading His disciples to Jerusalem. He had been preparing them for the ordeal that He would endure there at the hands of their own people and the Romans. Then two of His inner circle approached to ask for a special favor—that they be given positions of leadership when Christ would be victorious. He responded. It wasn’t for Him to pass out favors; that was the Father’s privilege. Indeed, they didn’t know what they were asking. Hadn’t they understood what He had been telling them all along? The glory they yearned for came about only through excruciating disappointment, agony, endurance and suffering.
But that they would ask for special treatment over and above the others must have disappointed Him. Didn’t He admonish them for struggling over honors? Wasn’t it clear when He took a child up and told them that they should have the innocence of children? The gospel of Matthew explains that it wasn’t James and John but rather their mother who appealed to Christ for the favor of leadership for her sons. It doesn’t change the fact that ambition may be normal for humans, but it’s not the way of the Lord.
Our Lord had a mission assigned by the Father and the Holy Spirit together with Himself to save mankind and restore humanity to unity with the Holy Trinity. It’s why He was born. It’s why He spoke as He did, performed the many miracles including raising Lazarus and others from the dead, and Himself was crucified, died and was raised from the grave. It required ultimate humility, suppression of human desires, and absolute obedience to the will of the Father in heaven. It left no place for human honors and glory. Sts. James and John would come to realize all that, but only by the grace of the Holy Spirit bestowed on them at Pentecost. Then they lost the longing for glory as they took up the goal of salvation for all human kind. That became the feature of the entire Church.
What a glorious feeling it is to share in that common objective, the salvation of all persons by bringing them to the knowledge of the fullness of truth found in the Orthodox Church. How stimulating to discover the purpose of life by surrendering all the personal ambitions, illusions and delusions that bubble up in our imaginations from childhood—to recognize them as vain and petty, unworthy of comparison with the plan of salvation that the good Lord has in place for the deliverance of humanity from sin, suffering and death.
On a parish level, that stimulation energizes the congregation especially in the earliest days of mission. When they are nothing and have little, the common cause overrides all personal ambitions. The challenge is to keep that selfless spirit alive throughout the life of the Church. The spirit of selfishness must be pointed out and attacked, lest it festers and spreads throughout the community of believers. James and John weren’t the last to ask: “What’s in it for me?” Exploiters, opportunists, self-promoters, egocentrics and status seekers emerge at every stage of a parish’s life—but they cannot be given opportunities to thwart or compromise the ultimate purpose of the Church. Nothing can be allowed to frustrate or defeat the will of God, which is the salvation of mankind through His chosen vehicle, the Holy Church of Jesus Christ.