Today the Church throughout the world observes the Feast of Saint James, the Apostle. Along with John, James is the son of Zebedee, a Galilean fisherman. James and John both dropped their nets, left their father, and followed Jesus when he called them.
Their response to Jesus’ call is nothing short of radical. They literally dropped everything and followed him. One can only imagine what went through Zebedee’s mind when his sons did this.
In Mark’s Gospel and only in Mark’s Gospel, Jesus refers to James and John as Boanerges, which translates into “sons of thunder.” Remember, several weeks ago in our Sunday Gospel reading, it was James and John who wanted to call down fire upon the Samaritan village that refused to welcome Jesus and his band of Galilean Jews.1
Along with Peter, in the Synoptic Gospels (i.e., Matthew, Mark, and Luke), James and John seem to occupy a special place even among the twelve. It is Peter, James, and John who go up the Mount of Transfiguration with Jesus. These same three are with Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane.
Saint James, the Apostle is also known as James the Greater. He is called this to distinguish him from another member of the twelve- James, the son of Alphaeus- as well as James the Just, whom the scriptures call the “brother of Jesus,” leader of the primitive Church in Jerusalem and author of the Letter of James.2 There are so many Jameses in the New Testament that it’s difficult to keep them straight!
We wear red today because James, the brother of John and son of Zebedee was a martyr. Like the deacon Saint Stephen, who was the first Christian martyr, James’ martyrdom is recorded in the Acts of the Apostles. There we learn that Herod “had James, the brother of John, killed by the sword.”3
The Herod referred to in this verse from Acts is Herod Agrippa, grandson of Herod the Great. Known simply as “Agrippa,” he ruled Judea, which included the holy city of Jerusalem, from AD 41-44. James’ beheading is dated to the final year of his short rule. A time during which he persecuted the nascent Church of Christ. It was Agrippa who imprisoned Peter and before whom Paul was arraigned.4
In today’s Gospel James’ mother asks Jesus to permit her sons to rule on his left and his right when God’s Kingdom is fully established. Jesus first responds by asking if James and John can endure what he will endure, before indocating that they, too, will be put through the olive press, which is what Gethsemane means.
Above all, Jesus insists that authority in the Kingdom of God is gained in a way that utterly contradicts how one gains worldly power. It is not enough for the greatest in God’s Kingdom to be a servant, a diakonos. According to Jesus, one such must be a slave, a doulos.
Think of Christ not just undergoing an excruciatingly painful death on the cross, but being mercilessly taunted as he dies. According to Luke Timothy Johnson, “the one who dispossesses all- indeed coming to the point of being dispossessed himself – comes to possess, in the end, all things as Lord.”5 The impact of this theo-logic is clear: by his self-emptying, his dispossession and being dispossessed, Jesus not only provides a model for Christian discipleship and fellowship but demonstrates “the how” of Christian leadership.
A slave, a doulos, is a servant who is purchased instead of hired. When Paul, for example, refers to himself as “a slave of Christ Jesus,” which he follows by mentioning his apostolic vocation, he acknowledges that, through Christ, he is a slave because he was purchased at a price.6
While there is an office for servant in the Church, the diaconate, there is no specific office for slave. Being a slave to Christ is the Christian vocation no matter one’s state of life. But it remains for us to choose. Such a choice cannot be coerced. “For you have been purchased at a price,” Paul reminded the Church in ancient Corinth. “Therefore,” he continued, “glorify God in your body.”7
Considering Christ’s humiliating death, it is interesting to consider an often-overlooked verse. This verse immediately follows the last verse of our reading from Colossians yesterday. The point of that reading is that by his cross, Christ removed the judgment against us. By this, the inspired author of Colossians continues, Christ plundered “the principalities and the powers,” making “a public spectacle of them,” and “leading them away in triumph by it.”8
Christian martyrdom follows this dynamic. What looks like humiliation, a tragedy in worldly terms, is really a glorious triumph for the Kingdom of God. The message of martyrdom is that you rise by lowering yourself. You win by losing. You live by dying. Ultimately, James drank from the cup to which Jesus referred. More importantly, he no doubt came to understand that you save your life by giving it away for the sake of the Gospel.
What else can Saint Paul be referring to in our first reading, when he writes:
We are afflicted in every way, but not constrained; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying about in the body the dying of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our body9We do this, as Paul goes on to note: “Knowing that the one who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus and place us with you in his presence.”10
1 Luke 9:52-55.↩
2 Matthew 13:55.↩
3 Acts 12:2.↩
4 Acts 12:3; Acts 25:13-26:32.↩
5 Luke Timothy Johnson, The Writings of the New Testament: An Interpretation, 375.↩
6 See Romans 1:1 & Philippians 1:1.↩
7 1 Corinthians 6:20.↩
8 Colossians 2:15.↩
9 2 Corinthians 4:8-10.↩
10 2 Corinthians 4:14.↩
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