Don Friesen
Jimmy Carter, who was President of the United States some twenty-five years ago (1977-81) grew up in rural Georgia. Reflecting on his childhood, his relationship with his parents and his infamous brother Billy, Carter says, "Mama always said that Billy was the smartest of her children, and none of us argued with her." During Carter's 1976 presidential campaign the international news media moved into town and Jimmy's brother, Billy became the centre of attention. He drank more, talked more, and was delighted to see his outrageous statements quoted as serious comments. Billy was always good for a delightful quote, and the media loved him. When one of the reporters remarked that he was a little strange, Billy replied, "Look, my Mama was a seventy-year-old Peace Corps volunteer in India, one of my sisters goes all over the world as a holy-roller preacher, my oldest sister spends half her time on a Harley-Davidson motorcycle, and my brother thinks he's going to be President of the United States. Which one of our family do you think is normal?" (Jimmy Carter, An Hour Before Daylight)
Some Disciples Wanted to be Above Average
There were a few disciples in Jesus' group of twelve who didn't want to be normal disciples. Unlike Garrison Keillor's mythical Lake Wobegon, where all the children are above average, most of Jesus' disciples seemed below average, and James and John, the sons of Zebedee (Mark 10:35), wanted to outdo the others in the group. Zebedee's boys--or Sons of Thunder, as they were known (Mark 3:17)--went to Jesus and said to him, "Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you." (10:35)
"What is it you want me to do for you?" asked Jesus.
And they said to him, "Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory." (10:37)
Perhaps it was a natural request. Sensing something important lay just ahead, perhaps James took John aside and said to him, Hey, John, I want to talk to you for a minute.
What do you want, Bro? What's on your mind?
Well, I've been thinking. You know, you and I are closer to Jesus than the others, except maybe Peter, but you know how often he frustrates the Master. Jesus depends on us a lot; in fact, I think he likes us better than the rest. So I was wondering about how it's going to be when Jesus comes into power. You know, the kingdom is going to be his any day now, and he's going to need some folks he can trust in important positions. What do you say we let him know he can count on us to be his right hand men? What do you think, John?
Well, James, we are well-positioned; we're in his inner circle.... Yeah, he just might go for it. Let's ask him. So, James and John made their request.
Now, maybe they weren't as clumsy as they look, but to me the Thunder Boys seem about as subtle as thunder, and their first question appears childish: Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you! Beware the person who asks you to grant an unspecified favour! Jesus may have known where this was going, but he drew them out: "What is it you want me to do for you?" (Mark 10:36)
"Grant us to sit," they said, "one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory." (10:37)
When the Thunder Boys thought of Jesus coming into his glory, they were thinking coronation, victory parades, dancing in the streets to the sounds of "We Are the Champions". (Freddie Mercury, 1977) But "glory" meant something else altogether to Jesus and he said to them, You don't know what you're asking! (Mark 10:38) The T-Boys were thinking thrones and crowns, while Jesus was thinking thorny crowns, and it makes the T-Boys look like foolish clowns. Their question is a rather presumptuous one asked in a rather unmannerly way! It's no small thing they're asking! The Thunder boys want prestige and places of honour. The T-Boys want power! They imagined that once they reached Jerusalem Jesus would become a real king, and they sure wouldn't mind being his executive assistants.
The timing of their question couldn't have been poorer. It was just five days before Jesus' crucifixion; four days before his betrayal and trial; one day before the clearing of the temple; a few hours before he entered the city. Jesus' death was imminent and it wasn't as if the disciples hadn't been warned! (Mark 8:31; 9:30-32; 10:32-34) You might think that they should have worked this out for themselves; after all, it wasn't as if Jesus had been hobnobbing with the rich and famous. Quite the contrary, he had been eating with outcasts, preaching to prostitutes, and healing lepers!
Then, just hours before the most crucial events in their lives, the Twelve become a bickering, petty, bad-tempered quarrelsome lot, for when news of the T-Boys' misplaced ambition reached the ears of the other disciples it caused anger and resentment. Big surprise! So Jesus called them all together and tried to clarify his message--again--hoping against hope that they might catch on this time. He told them that he didn't come to "lord it over" (Mark 10:42) others--as is the custom of some powerful people--and he didn't come "to be served but to serve". (10:45) Jesus expected similar behaviour from them, and trying to get special recognition by outmanoeuvring the others doesn't fit with the program!
The Human Impulse To Outdo Others
Now, maybe the Sons of Thunder were a little clumsy in their attempts at a power grab, but their story is a very human story--the story of human ambition, of the naked display of weakness and strength in an effort to be somebody. Everybody wants to be somebody, without necessarily having to go to Speedy Auto to do it! (advertising slogan: "At Speedy You're a Somebody") Since the dawn of history human beings have been trying to move up the scale of importance, from Adam and Eve's ambition to be "like God" (Genesis 3:5), to the attempts of Cain and Abel to outdo each other (Genesis 4), to more modern manifestations of the will to power and dominance.
George Bernard Shaw was once asked in what generation he would have preferred to live, to which the witty Irishman replied: "The age of Napoleon, because then there was only one man who thought he was Napoleon." The human impulse to outdo others can make us do some pretty infantile things. For example, the month of July was named after Julius Caesar, but not to be outdone, the Emperor Augustus had the following month--August--named after him! The month of August had only thirty days at the time, so he borrowed a day from February and added it to August, making sure that his month would have just as many days as July!
The human will to power often lends itself to parody. Charlie Chaplin did a motion picture called The Great Dictator (1940), which features a delightful sequence in a barber shop. Chaplin as Hitler and another actor (Jack Oakie) as Mussolini are shown getting shaves in adjacent barber chairs. The scene centres around the attempts of each to put himself in a dominant position, but trapped within their barber chairs there is only one way to achieve superiority and that is by controlling the height of the chairs by jacking them up. The two tyrants wildly try to outdo each other, jacking their chairs higher and higher, until they both finally move off the top of the screen! It's a moment of comic genius, for Chaplin's movie was made just as World War II began and was one of the few films made in the West at the time that dared to take on Hitler and Mussolini.
Perhaps Mark intended his story as a parody of the will to power, for acting as schoolyard bullies and buffoons is not the prerogative of dictators and tyrants. Christians have often been tempted to replace love with power in an attempt to establish the authority of the Church. The Church has often favoured control over the cross, as Dostoevsky's Grand Inquisitor portrays so well.
The Church's quest for power may not be as brash as that of the Sons of Thunder, but it's the same game, just played more politely. A Methodist pastor, describing his denomination, says that Methodist preachers are under the care of a bishop, and bishops, in turn, are Methodist preachers who are elected by fellow Methodist preachers after an extensive campaign for the office in which the candidate tries not to be caught campaigning. (William G. Carter, No Box Seats In The Kingdom) The same could be said of Mennonite leaders, who, in addition, have to show a generous amount of self-deprecation, if not humility.
Joel Gregory, the former pastor of a large church in Texas, tells of his pride when he became the pastor of an impressive congregation with almost 30,000 members, as well as two schools, a college, and a radio station. The church also gave him a nice home, memberships in exclusive country clubs, and luxury box seats for Dallas Cowboys football games. When pastors are called to congregations, they may insist that they are called by God but the call invariably is to a church offering a higher salary! It was the crowning achievement of his career, says Gregory. He was honoured to be their pastor. Thirty thousand members wasn't enough for the leaders of that church, however. "The whole zoo of human ambition and power and ego" led to a power struggle, divided the church, and Gregory stunned many people by resigning from that prominent pulpit and accepting a much humbler station in life. (William G. Carter, No Box Seats In The Kingdom)
The disciples James and John may have expressed their will to power without finesse, but most of us want to be somebody, whether by virtue of an honoured position or even shared glory through our proximity to powerful people. Maybe some of the glory and honour will spill over onto us and make us shine. I've certainly found that as I get older and realize that nothing much is going to come of me that I'm starting to pay more attention to famous relatives. It's also amazed me how often our denominational paper gives prominent coverage to someone who has made it big in some field or other, but who is lauded because of some vague Mennonite connection, even though at present he or she has absolutely no connection with the Church. We have a deep need to be noticed.
Our Attraction to Honours
It's easy to parody naked, un-nuanced ambition, but none of us mind being honoured, especially if we've worked for it. Honour is important to us, and it's reflected in our language. We have honour rolls in school; we talk about the honour system, a system whereby persons are trusted to abide by the regulations without supervision; we talk of wearing something as a badge of honour. In fact, I once entered a competition and got "honourable mention," which means that my attachment to honour hangs by a very thin thread.
Honour can mean various things, depending on the culture. There are some cultures that practise "honour killings," and if we think that barbaric we have but to think back to the time when men used to duel each other as a matter of honour, the last fatal duel in Canada having taken place but a century or so ago (1833)! It seems that honour often has to do with violence, for we have many "halls of honour" for the fallen in battle. Honour is deemed sufficiently valuable that it's worth fighting for, because honour has to do with a person's worth, value, respect and reputation. It's not the prerogative of soldiers, however. My late mother-in-law left her children and grandchildren a book of memories and stories, and the anecdotes she recorded in this book are characteristically thoughtful, respectful and gentle, with the exception of one. When asked what honours or educational degrees she earned, she wrote, "Not one measley honour or degree." My mother-in-law was one of the nicest persons I have ever known, second only to her daughter--and Jesus--but she had one regret, her lack of academic honours.
Even Jesus was not oblivious to honours. I read a fascinating paper this week on the ancient practise of using questions as a way to challenge the honour of others. You may recall how in the Gospels people asking questions of Jesus are often answered with a counter-question. The paper I read was very detailed, but suffice it to say that honour was thought to be of limited supply in the ancient world and if one person gained honour it was thought to be at the expense of another person's honour. ("Questions, Chreiai, and Honour Challenges: The Interface of Rhetoric and Culture in Mark's Gospel," by Jerome H. Neyrey, S.J., University of Notre Dame)
The ancient sage must say something clever in these contests of wit or lose his honour. The stakes were high, even if done for entertainment. In one such incident of intellectual sparring recorded in ancient literature Plutarch describes a most deadly contest between Alexander and the Gymnosophists because the latter were "reputed to be clever and concise in answering questions. Alexander put difficult questions to them, with the proviso that "he would put to death him who first made an incorrect answer." And a pleasant evening was had by all!
The stakes were also high for Jesus. Many of the questions asked of Jesus were not attempts to gain information from Jesus but attempts to embarrass him, but Mark overwhelmingly presents Jesus as an honourable and skilled combatant in these intellectual contests. When Mark tells us that Jesus' "fame began to spread throughout the surrounding region of Galilee" (Mark 1:28) Mark is telling us that Jesus performed much better than the scribes and that the latter are judged by the public as having lost these games of wit. Whereas Mark cites the public ascription of honour in a subtle manner (2:12; 4:41; 12:17; 12:37), the Gospel of Luke reports the public verdict more straightforwardly, reporting that "all his opponents were put to shame...." (Luke 13:17) Small wonder, then, that those who were bested in the questions and counter-questions of honour began to plot their revenge.
Honour is a tricky thing. Lytton Strachey (1880-1932), a satirical biographer of a century or more ago, said of Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881), a nineteenth-century political philosopher that Carlyle's ambition was to be remembered as a prophet. "And no doubt," wrote Strachey, Carlyle "had many of the qualifications for that profession--a loud voice, a bold face, and a bad temper. But unfortunately there was one essential characteristic he lacked--he was not dishonoured in his own country." (Portraits in Miniature)
Honour is of a delicate nature. Mark Twain put it succinctly when he wrote, "It is better to deserve honours and not have them than to have them and not deserve them." The pursuit of honour is tricky. It's a little like trying to be humble; the moment one achieves it, it disappears! I think it could be argued that Jesus did not pursue honour as much as he refused to let his opponents make mischief with his honour.
The question James and John posed to Jesus was not one of the cleverest Jesus had to answer, and I imagined he must have sighed and said to himself, These boys need a reality check! His counter-question was, "Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?" (Mark 10:38) The cup was the symbol of suffering, and Jesus' referral to baptism has a similar colour. Jesus was challenging the two disciples to share in his destiny of suffering. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink? Not too swift, the two boys answered, Oh yeah, we're able. (Mark 10:39) A naive and exasperating reply, but Jesus simply said, "to sit at my right hand or at my left is not mine to grant, ...it is for those for whom it has been prepared." (10:40)
The irony in this story is palpable for those of us who know the whole gospel story. We can catch a glimpse of the crucifixion scene in the background of the disciples' visions of grandeur. The disciples want firm seat assignments on their imagined glory flight, but it turns out that those seats have been reserved for two common criminals! (Mark 15:27)
Outdo One Another in Showing Honour
It's a little too easy to draw a sharp contrast between the message of the world--bidding us to go for the gold--and the teaching of Jesus. We can easily exaggerate that contrast by painting the world as all about greed and unbridled competition, and Christianity as nothing but dreary humility and unselfishness. We need to step into the Gospel story and see our own will to power mirrored in the two disciples. Most of us struggle with a dual nature; we all aspire to some honours, but as believers we are drawn to a purpose in life beyond our own immediate interests and gratifications. The Sons of Thunder reflect the ambivalence of the human spirit. On the one hand we want to be somebody; on the other hand, we also feel the lure of love. We feel drawn by an inward music far more compelling than human power. We feel drawn by the love that will not let us go, the power of love found, paradoxically, in weakness. We do not serve God merely in our power--our health, success, or leadership qualities--we also serve him in our weakness, in our very human struggle to be faithful.
We do not gain honour in the kingdom of God by elbowing our way to the front. Honour, says Jesus, if it comes at all, comes through humble service; even then, it cannot be presumed upon. (Hebrews 5:4) The Scriptures recognize the human impulse to outdo others, but the New Testament says that if you can't pursue this impulse in moderation, then at least use it for a noble purpose! Outdo one another in showing honour. (Romans 12:10) Outdo each other, not in pursuing honours or in clumsy claims to honour, but in showing honour.
Jesus may have done exceedingly well in the honour contests of his day, but his chief aim was to honour God, and for that he was willing to "empty himself" (Philippians 2:7) of all honour and importance. He was willing to take "the form of a slave" and become "obedient to the point of death--even death on a cross." (2:8) It is for this reason that God honoured him with "the name ...above every name...." (2:9)
1 Timothy 1:17)