Drink The Cup ..So That Love May Have The Final Word!
Matthew 20:20-28 Matthew 4:22
1969 and we were spending a day of our summer holiday in Wrexham….of all places, but there was great excitement in the air for the new Prince of Wales was due to visit the Town Hall, and the streets were lined with people waiting to greet this very young Prince Charles. My Grandma was with us and she was determined that I, her only Grandson, should see our future king, so whilst my mum and dad went off somewhere else, Grandma and I stood by the roadside, waiting and waiting for this great royal moment. When the Prince’s car was on its way, there was I remember, quite a stirring in the crowd, and I remember teenage girls began to scream, and my Grandma, started trying to push everyone out of the way, so that I could be herded to the front.
“Let my Grandson through, she cried, so that he can see our future king”!
The Welsh were not amused and I suppose you could say a little scuffle broke out as she forced me to the front so that I could see a black car speed boringly by, and a man waving from within.
An embarrassing family moment, if ever there was one, and so I do not find it hard for my heart to go out to James and John, the sons of Zebedee, as their Mother tries to push them to prominence before this King, Jesus.
This was an extraordinary little incident. Right near the beginning of Matthew’s Gospel we’re told that James and John, simply left their Father in the boat beside the lake, upped sticks, and followed Jesus, and I’ve always thought of old Zebedee sitting there flabbergasted. “Boys! Boys! What about our business, I can’t make ends meet without you”!
But now, almost three years later and a hundred miles from home, we read that “Mother” is still on the scene. Was she maybe a disciple too? Was she part Jesus’ missionary team..if not what was the woman doing there? Was she perhaps an on going embarrassment to her boys, still fussing around them, making sure their noses were blown, their ties straightened and their shoes shining, that they might especially catch the eye of the Son of God.
In our reading, she pushes her sons before the future king so that they might secure a good place in the pecking order of the kingdom of God. At this, the other disciples seethe with jealousy whilst Jesus, I think, is faintly amused to begin with, but then I see him looking these boys and their fussing Mother straight in the eye… for he knows what lies ahead….so can you drink the cup I am to drink?. he asks them, and they, with visions of a fine wine served at a glorious banquet, nod enthusiastically, yes we can, we can do anything you say. Anything at all which gets us noticed! Anything which means we can be glorified with you!
The cup of which Jesus spoke was not that sort of cup however. Nor was it the the cup passed from lips to lips around the Last Supper table. It is the cup of anguish about which Jesus prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane. “Let this cup pass me by” he prayed, whilst the sons of Zebedee were curled up in the shadows fast asleep. It is the cup which signifies, I will give of myself, whatever it takes for love to have the last word.
Over in the north aisle, strangely situated near where we all stand with our coffee cups, is the giant mobile of the cross, and falling from that cross you will see three things. Love hearts. Lighted candles and cups in both gold and silver. Enticing, beautiful and shining, but this is the cup about which Jesus challenged the Zebedee boys, this is the cup which caused him to sweat great drops of blood in Gethsemane. The cup which signifies, I give of myself, what ever it takes, for love to have the last word.
There was a great issue once in the Diocese of Chichester, where at his first communion, a young candidate, took the chalice to his lips for the first time and in that most quiet most holy moment, exclaimed at the top of his voice “Yuk, Mum it tastes awful”. This must never happen again we were told and yet there are times, still will be times, when to take to your lips the cup of which Jesus speaks, will make you recoil, for the taste by which love will have the last word, can sometimes be literally hard to swallow.
Let us never think that we, who come forward to this altar rail to receive this cup, do so because it marks us out as a little bit better than everyone else, that it secures us that place for which old Mother Zebedee fought. We drink this cup rather with Gethsemane in mind, as our sign, that by drinking it , I give of myself, whatever it takes, for love to have the last word.
Can you drink that cup? We never know precisely where it will lead us, only to say this that
whenever we walk away from a situation in bitterness and anger, and leave people to stew in their own juices, we’re recoiling from the cup, we’re withholding love.
A month or so ago there was a murder on the Cromwell Estate. Love was dealt a crushing blow. It was followed up by a letter in the Surrey Mirror from a young resident describing how difficult life could be sometimes there. That unlikely mix of four church leaders who had worked on Street Pastors together, began to wonder about this and what response we could possibly make, and using the links made through that scheme we have held an initial meeting with Community workers. Police and Raven Housing to offer an after school club on Wednesday afternoon for children on the Estate, from Yr 7 and upwards, working out of the Salvation Army HQ. Run by the local churches, its activities will be quite secular, no bible study or prayers, but just an attempt that love might have the final word.
Now is not the time to go into details, but we need a few people for whom this sort of work might be right. Helping with cookery, Content to play games and cook BBQ meat. Not easily offended or upset by “different” behaviour. It won’t be for everyone, but can we drink the cup or should we steer clear, for this is not the sort of thing the Mother of the Zebedee boys had in mind.
And maybe there are different things going on for you where the cup is hard for you to receive into your hands, where you feel alone and unsupported. This is what we are for, to pray, to help and to love, to encourage everyone to take up the cup which shows love shall have the final word.
Pushing through the crowd so that you might catch the eye of the future king. Grandma and grandson. Mother and boys. We might mistakenly feel that all this religion is about getting ourselves closer, but what if in the end , it’s not about ourselves at all, its about leading others to the light, even at the expense of ourselves. That’s what James and John were to finally discover at the cross, and us too when we shape our lives after his.
RH 25.7.10