Today is the feast day of St James the Great, and we heard a little bit about him in our readings this morning. We heard about his death from St Paul, and in our gospel reading we had a little snapshot of one incident that may tell us a little of who he was, or at least who he was before Jesus’ death and resurrection.
So what do we know about him? Despite his and his brother’s aspirations to be at Jesus’ side in God’s kingdom, James the Great’s name probably came from his height, the other James probably being a bit shorter. He was the brother of Gospel writer John and with John, Simon Peter and Andrew, was one of the first to be called by Jesus. He was a fisherman but a man of means, his dad, Zebedee, employing several other men.
He's witness to key gospel events such as the Transfiguration and the healing of Jairus’ daughter. He also calls for hellfire to be called down upon a Samaritan town, only to be rebuked by Jesus and along with his brother gets the nickname the “sons of thunder”.
He is of course the patron saint of Spain and, according to legend, his remains are held in Santiago de Compostela in Galicia. When the 25th July falls on a Sunday like this year it’s considered to be a particularly holy year in the Spanish, Catholic tradition.
And this rather fiery sounding character actually inspires the most popular Christian pilgrimage of the modern age, the Camino de Santiago, having attracted over 300,000 travellers over the years. The popularity of this act of pilgrimage, discovery and faith is an interesting parallel to the character we see in todays gospel reading; maybe his own pilgrimage began here as he reflected upon Jesus’ response to his mother’s request, not fully understanding it until he had journeyed with Jesus through his death and resurrection and then met his own death as a follower of Christ.
“What do you want” Jesus asks as the family approach him. And this is our question too. What do we want from Jesus? From life? From our church? What motivates us? What matters most to us?
What do we think James and John really want from him? Greatness? Power? Security? Status? This story appears in the gospels of Matthew, Luke and Mark, but only in Matthew is their mum included. Matthew is big on detail, so I’m thinking the detail of her being there matters. Her sons have walked away from a profitable family business to join a religious sect. Even if she herself is a “believer” she’s also looking out for her boys. She wants to know they’re going to be ok, to have the status she believes is fitting.
But the message of God’s equality hasn’t quite sunk in yet and Jesus responds “you do not know what you are asking”.
He tries to explain what power looks like to God, that whoever wishes to be great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be your slave; he tells them that ultimately his own pathway will lead to his death and that to truly follow him they must understand that this may be, and for James will be, their fate too.
It doesn’t feel very hopeful does it? it actually feels really sad. Most of these young men do die for their beliefs, with only John that I can think of reaching old age, his fate to recall all that happened and perfect his beautiful and poetic gospel and other writings, but without these men and without his brother.
So what’s the message that we should take from this gospel? That if we truly believe, our fate is to suffer like Jesus? I don’t believe that at all. The message I want to share is about where our motivations come from? Are we “me” centred or “we centred”?
That’s a little bit trite I know but when the Zebedee family come to Jesus their only concern is for their own fate and status, they want to know they’re going to be looked after. Jesus tries to explain that in God’s kingdom no one is first or last because everyone is first and last. That’s true equality.
We have to think about where we fit in the bigger picture, that we’re each part of something bigger- our church, our town, our city, our country, our world.
There’s nothing that’s just about us. And following Jesus isn’t going to bring power and status and glory- I would question any form of Christianity that looks like that.
Because I think that to follow Christ means we have to expect nothing but hope for everything. Now what I mean by this is that we can’t expect our lives not to be touched by illness or tragedy, financial problems, stress or difficulty. If we’re truly equal with our fellow humans we have to expect that bad things happen to everyone, regardless of our faith or belief.
But we can “hope for everything”, by which I don’t mean to hope for greatness, wealth or status but to hope to see the world we believe is possible, to hope to see the world God knows can exist if we each take ourselves out of the centre of things and work towards a world where we put others at the centre, a “we” world not a “me” world.
Now to strive for equality doesn’t mean treating all people equally and it’s taken me a long time to figure this one out. If we think about the words of the Magnificat, Mary states that to achieve equality the rich must be brought down and the poor raised up, this way we meet in the middle.
Stepping out of the centre and looking in gives us a better viewpoint to see where our service is most needed. Who’re the people who need to be lifted up, and who needs to be brought back down- who has placed themselves so far above the ones they’re meant to serve that they’ve completely lost perspective and are only serving themselves? Part of our communal life is to hold them to account.
When we share our eucharist, even as oddly and at times metaphorically as we’ve shared it over the last 18 months, we’re saying to Jesus “I can drink your cup”, I can choose to try to live a communal life, a life of service, a life where I do my best to lift up those who need it and hold to account those who are only serving themselves.
But there’s a reason why we don’t just have communion once, unlike our baptism it’s not a once only deal, we need to ask ourselves time and time again: can I still do this? Do I still want this? Can I still drink from this cup? We need the cup to be refilled so we can keep drinking from it, we need to be sustained, reaffirmed and reminded. Even Jesus asked if the cup could be taken from him, and if it’s ok for Jesus to ask then it’s OK for us too.
And sometimes we’re the ones who need serving and to be lifted up, at other times we need to brought back down and remined that we’re all servants. Joining together in communion with each other, repeating this act, helps us to refocus and be ready to say “yes, I can still do this” as we continue on our own personal pilgrimages, but are very much a part of something much bigger than just ourselves.
