Sons of Zebedee (Mark 10)

In the Name, etc..

    Today’s Gospel reading begins, “James and John, the sons of Zebedee…” Why does the Evangelist find it necessary to mention whose sons they are? What does this detail add to the story? What message are we meant to hear, coming through this small phrase? Answers to these questions will help us to understand Jesus’s teaching a few verses on.

    Some scholars think that ‘Zebedee’ comes from a Hebrew word meaning ‘Gift of God’. If so, this is a splendid name, of which Z. is likely proud, and his sons too. Z. is a Galilean fisherman, the husband of Salome, and the father of the Apostles James and John.

     Zebedee appears in all four gospels as the father of two of Jesus’ most prominent disciples, James and John, who with Peter stood at the center of the Twelve. The three were privileged to witness the Transfiguration, the raising of Jairus’ daughter, and they were with Jesus in Gethsemane.

    Zebedee and his two sons operated a fishing business on the Sea of Galilee in partnership with another set of brothers, Andrew and Peter. There were hired men, as Mark says in chapter 1: “they left their father Z. in the boat with the hired men.” Zebedee, in other words, is a successful man, with sons and his own boat, or boats, and employees.

    The fishing business changes the day that Jesus’s call comes to the two brothers. The picture we have from the gospels portrays Zebedee in a boat with his two sons and hired men, mending their nets on the shore of the Sea of Galilee when Jesus came by. “And Jesus...saw...James the son of Zebedee and John his brother, in a boat with Zebedee their father, mending their nets, and called them. Immediately they left the boat and their father, and followed him”. Although it must have affected the business somewhat, there is no record that Z. protested their forsaking the profitable business. Z. and his business are, to use the modern word, resilient!  It is even possible that the business furnishes financial support for Jesus and His disciples during the years of our Lord’s ministry. There is no record of this, but it is a plausible supposition.

    Zebedee’s wife was Salome who is always designated as “the mother of the sons of Zebedee” as Matthew’s Gospel says. Salome accompanied Jesus during His ministry in Galilee to serve Him, as Mark says in chapter 15.. She was later present at the crucifixion, and was among the women who went to the tomb to anoint the Lord.

    This family history and profile is a way of saying that the family, Z., Salome, James and John, were central, very important in the earliest community around Jesus. They were present for important teachings, miracles, and events. They were closest to Jesus and they knew it. And, being closest, they could ask questions of Jesus, and make requests of him,  which would probably not occur to others. And one of those requests is the core of our Gospel today. It reveals what the family thought they knew about Jesus, how entitled they thought they were, and how, despite their proximity, they got some fundamental details wrong. Familiarity does not always equal understanding; proximity does not guarantee knowledge. There was more that they had to learn.

    In today’s Gospel, James and John themselves ask Jesus, “Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory.” They don’t say who should have which chair. They are probably thinking of thrones in an earthly kingdom, over which they will be judges. In God’s kingdom, the right hand of God is associated with mercy, and the left with justice. James and John apparently think that they are capable of discerning when to be just and when to be merciful,  but Jesus will reveal just what kind of preparation is necessary to learn that kind of discernment. C S Lewis is supposed to have remarked something like this: Justice tempered by mercy is the most beautiful thing on earth. James and John, and their mother Salome, don’t know the differences yet, or how to combine the two. In Matthew’s Gospel, Salome did all the talking and revealed her own ambition when she asked the Master for special favors for her two sons in the kingdom: “Command that these two sons of mine may sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your kingdom”. Salome evidently thinks she has the right to demand such a thing, based on her family’s importance, and in Mark’s Gospel, her sons think so too. But Jesus soon teaches them the real meaning of being enthroned with him in glory.

      “You do not know what you are asking,” Jesus says. Jesus doesn’t actually spell out the implications of their ambition; we, the hearers and readers of today’s Gospel, already know what Jesus means, and the Evangelist, good writer that he is, lets us fill in the implications for ourselves, by using our imaginations to import into today’s Gospel the future events of the Passion. It is not clear that the sons of Zebedee are aware of this, but we are; we know what Jesus knows.

     “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.” This remark comes as a surprise to the sons of Z. Is not Jesus the promised Davidic king? Does not a king appoint his judges and close advisors? What kind of ruler is this, who can’t choose his closest associates?

    This is a reminder that Jesus’s kingdom, his glory, is not like other kingdoms, earthly kingdoms. Jesus is announcing that he is not going to be the glorious ruler that the sons of Z are hoping for. He is not going to appoint them to their fantasy jobs. Instead, he tells them what the necessary preparation is, and what the outcome will be.

    The preparation is the cup that Jesus will drink, and the baptism that he will be baptized with. This preparation will reveal the real nature of worldly, earthly kingdoms, and what they will do to anyone who seriously challenges them. The world has not changed since Jesus’s time; Jesus still challenges earthly kingdoms, their rulers and lords, their tyrants.

    The outcome of this preparation is a complete turning upside down of what leadership, rulership, can be. The great among us are to be servants, the first among us are to be slaves. Those who achieve this transformation are signs of the real nature, the real destiny of human beings. Jesus says, “the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve.” In other words, a son of man, that is, a human being, any human being, finds his and her real nature in the service of others, and the purpose of this service is preparation for eternal life in the new heaven and the new earth. The cup that Jesus will drink is not just a grim reminder of his approaching Passion, but also a foreshadowing of his, and our, drinking of the fruit of the vine, sharing in the life of God in eternity. Jesus’s baptism and ours begins the preparation for it, and James and John and Salome and Z too were, are, on the same path.

    In the world that we know, of course, rulers are not like this. Today’s Gospel is a constant challenge to allow ourselves to begin, to continue, the preparation, the transformation that Jesus puts before us. We have been baptized; in our eucharist today let us drink the cup that Jesus drinks, and say with James and John, that “we are able” to drink of that cup, and to share in that baptism. Amen. (21.X.18. Adv.)