Mark 10:35–45
It is understandable to want to be on Jesus’s good side. James and John had been following Jesus from almost the beginning of his ministry, and they had one small request. As usual, instead of saying yes to them, Jesus confounds both the brothers and the rest of the disciples by saying ‘you do not know what you are asking.’
Throughout the Gospel of Mark, Jesus often lets these metaphors stay mysterious, but he lays it out for us here. There is no Messianic secret going on. “Whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all.” The Greek word used is doulos. Slave. There is no ambiguity going on. To drink the cup is to be slave to all because that is how Jesus lived and offered himself to us. So to sit at the right hand of Jesus is to be a servant to all.
The church today often lives like James and John. We want to be on the side of Jesus but we don’t want to drink the cup that he drinks. We talk about service and mission with our lips but then make a lot of exceptions about what that means. This is directly related to the possibility of abolition. The imagination that allows for the abolition of prison is not held captive by the motivations of this world, and yet the church, so often, cannot see the ‘all’ that Jesus came to serve as including all. We may have a prison ministry but not a prison ending ministry. That would be meddling, but that is the cup of Jesus. We as individuals, as churches, as Christians, can choose to drink it or not. God will be there with us. We are not alone, but it is not easy, and can’t be made with a simple request.
Rev. Wilson Pruitt is a Methodist pastor and translator in Spicewood, TX.