Just listen:

James and John, two of the disciples closest to Jesus, went up to him and said, “We want for you to do for us whatever we ask of you.” Well, of course. Don’t we all want Jesus to do for us whatever we ask?

Jesus answers the question, in his typical way, with a question; “What is it you want me to do for you?” Jesus asked that particular question often. When people came up to him seeking healing, he often asked them what they wanted – even though the circumstances made it perfectly obvious. Jesus asked them to name what they wanted anyway. Jesus asked that question because articulating our needs is important for our growth and healing. Naming our needs out loud before God and the community gives us way to explore and discover our real needs, our deepest hopes, our dearest desires. Speaking our needs out loud helps us clarify those needs and sort out our real needs from our mere wants. So Jesus asked James and John to name their needs out loud.

And, like most of us most of the time, James and John didn’t succeed in distinguishing their real needs from their wants. “Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory.” What a great want that was! Jesus had spoken about the kingdom of God, the eternal realm of God. James and John pictured that realm, based on what they knew about kings and rulers. They pictured, it seems, power, position, prestige and, most of all, glory. And they wanted to be in the center of all they pictured. They wanted to be in the spotlight, on the right and left of the throne. Who wouldn’t want to be in that exalted place? Who wouldn’t want to be in that spotlight?

But Jesus said to them, “You don’t know what you are asking.” James and John had the wrong picture in their minds. They had the wrong idea, the wrong expectations. Immediately before James and John made their request, Jesus had said to them, “See, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be handed over to the chief priests and the scribes, and they will condemn him to death; then they will hand him over to the Gentiles; they will mock him, and spit upon him, and flog him, and kill him; and after three days he will rise again.” Jesus made clear that his glory had to do with new life – but new life that would only come through suffering and death. Jesus’ glory was not about power and prestige and position, but about self-giving and sacrifice. What Jesus had said to the disciples made no sense to them, so James and John clung to their own picture of God’s realm and the asked Jesus to fit into their picture, to fit into their plans.

Isn’t that just like us, too. How often do we ask Jesus to fit into our picture of the way the world should be? How often do we ask Jesus to do what we want so that our vision of the world can be fulfilled? We ask things of God in ways that are every bit as wrong-minded, immature and embarrassing as the way James and John asked. All too often we ask God to fit into our plans, rather than seeking to fit ourselves into God’s will.

The other disciples were became angry with James and John over their request. The story doesn’t tell us why. Where they angry because they were embarrassed? Because the recognized how immature the brothers were acting and wanted to distance themselves from it? Or were they angry because they each wanted to ask Jesus the same thing, but James and John got to it first? Jesus, though, didn’t become angry. He didn’t reject James and John because of they didn’t understand what he was up to. He continued to love them. And he continued to teach them, just as he continues to teach us. “When you pray,” he teaches, say, “thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” When you pray, ask as Jesus himself did when he prayed, “Not my will, O God, but yours be done.”

Jesus didn’t reject James and John for their lack of understanding, for their immaturity, for their self- centered focus. He loved and accepted them and continued to teach them so that they could grow beyond their desire to be the center of attention and become servants of others, as Jesus himself was a servant.

In that, there is great hope for us. For Jesus, who did not reject James and John, doesn’t reject us, no matter how dense or selfish or immature we might be. The living Christ continues to love us and to teach us and to help us grow into all that God created us to be. And the living Christ teaches us much about how God hears and responds to us.

This story reminds us that God hears our prayers, always. Always. And God answers our prayers – always – but, thank God, not always in the ways we expect. Jesus said to James and John that he could not grant their request. “No” was the answer to their prayer. God is not a genie who grants our every wish. God is not a divine filler of purchase orders who gives us everything on our list. God does not do what we want, but what God wills. God does not give what we want, but what we need. God doesn’t fit Godself into our plans, but shapes and molds us to fit God’s. God always answers prayer. When it seems that God hasn’t answered or that God hasn’t even heard us, its usually because we are so blinded by our own desires and expectations that we can’t see what God is doing.

James and John did not get what they asked for, because it wasn’t possible. But God shaped and molded them, through their prayer, into something new, into signs of the realm of God. After Jesus’ ascension, James was the first of the twelve to die rather than deny the living Christ. Tradition says that John died decades later in exile on island of Patmos, paying the price for being faithful. They asked for power, prestige and position; they received lives of self-giving. They asked to sit on thrones of honor; they were given lives of service to others. The asked for God to fit into their plans; they were given lives that fulfilled God’s will. Were their prayers answered? You be the judge.

Amen.

Susan

The Readings

Isaiah 53:4-12

Surely he has borne our infirmities

and carried our diseases;

yet we accounted him stricken,

struck down by God, and afflicted.

But he was wounded for our transgressions,

crushed for our iniquities;

upon him was the punishment that made us whole,

and by his bruises we are healed.

All we like sheep have gone astray;

we have all turned to our own way,

and the LORD has laid on him

the iniquity of us all.

He was oppressed, and he was afflicted,

yet he did not open his mouth;

like a lamb that is led to the slaughter,

and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent,

so he did not open his mouth.

By a perversion of justice he was taken away.

Who could have imagined his future?

For he was cut off from the land of the living,

stricken for the transgression of my people.

They made his grave with the wicked

and his tomb with the rich,

although he had done no violence,

and there was no deceit in his mouth.

Yet it was the will of the LORD to crush him with pain.

When you make his life an offering for sin,

he shall see his offspring, and shall prolong his days;

through him the will of the LORD shall prosper.

Out of his anguish he shall see light;

he shall find satisfaction through his knowledge.

The righteous one, my servant, shall make many righteous,

and he shall bear their iniquities.

Therefore I will allot him a portion with the great,

and he shall divide the spoil with the strong;

because he poured out himself to death,

and was numbered with the transgressors;

yet he bore the sin of many,

and made intercession for the transgressors.

Psalm 91 or 91:9-16 Page 719, 720, BCP

1

He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High, *
abides under the shadow of the Almighty.

2

He shall say to the LORD,
"You are my refuge and my stronghold, *
my God in whom I put my trust."

3

He shall deliver you from the snare of the hunter *
and from the deadly pestilence.

4

He shall cover you with his pinions,
and you shall find refuge under his wings; *
his faithfulness shall be a shield and buckler.

5

You shall not be afraid of any terror by night, *
nor of the arrow that flies by day;

6

Of the plague that stalks in the darkness, *
nor of the sickness that lays waste at mid-day.

7

A thousand shall fall at your side
and ten thousand at your right hand, *
but it shall not come near you.

8

Your eyes have only to behold *
to see the reward of the wicked.

9

Because you have made the LORD your refuge, *
and the Most High your habitation,

10

There shall no evil happen to you, *
neither shall any plague come near your dwelling.

11

For he shall give his angels charge over you, *
to keep you in all your ways.

12

They shall bear you in their hands, *
lest you dash your foot against a stone.

13

You shall tread upon the lion and adder; *
you shall trample the young lion and the serpent under your feet.

14

Because he is bound to me in love,
therefore will I deliver him; *
I will protect him, because he knows my Name.

15

He shall call upon me, and I will answer him; *
I am with him in trouble;
I will rescue him and bring him to honor.

16

With long life will I satisfy him, *
and show him my salvation.

Hebrews 4:12-16

The word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing until it divides soul from spirit, joints from marrow; it is able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart. And before him no creature is hidden, but all are naked and laid bare to the eyes of the one to whom we must render an account.

Since, then, we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast to our confession. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who in every respect has been tested as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore approach the throne of grace with boldness, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

Mark 10:35-45

James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came forward to Jesus and said to him, "Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you." And he said to them, "What is it you want me to do for you?" And they said to him, "Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory." But 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?" They 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; but 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."

When the ten heard this, they began to be angry with James and John. So 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. But it is not so among you; but whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all. For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many."