So James and John approach Jesus.

I imagine that they had discussed this for a while in advance. They must have said something like: “Let's corner Jesus and ask for all the important jobs in his coming kingdom before the others do. That way, when they come around looking for the positions, we'll already be in them!” So they go up to Jesus, and say “Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you.” Now, if I were Jesus, my eyebrows would have gone up a little at this point, but Jesus says, “What is it you want me to do for you?” And they say: “Grant us to sit at your right hand and your left hand in your glory,” which basically means, 'make us your second and third in command when you become powerful.'

They're playing politics with Jesus! Incredible!

Part of me almost wants to admire their gall, their daring.. .but of course, what is really happening here, like so often in Mark's gospel, is that Jesus' disciples are demonstrating that they just don't get it. They think that Jesus is going to become powerful in some earthly way, so it only seems natural to them to try to gain some influence with him through a typical, political sort of way. They are just doing business in the manner that humans always have, just trying to get a little ahead, hoping that they've got an 'in' on the bottom floor with a man with a great future.

Well, in fact, they do; but it doesn't mean what they think it does...

And that is exactly what Jesus proceeds to tell them, and rather gently, I think. “You do not know what you are asking” he says. Then he goes on, saying in effect 'Can you go through what I am going to go through?' and they answer 'yes,' not knowing at all what they are getting themselves into, and Jesus predicts that they will, in fact, go through something like what he will go through. Maybe he isn't being so gentle with them, after all; though I suppose you can say that he is predicting that they WILL understand, and that they WILL have a significant contribution to what Jesus is really trying to do. And that they will die in a way similar to how he will die.

But predictions are not what is significant about this passage. The other disciples, of course, are understandably outraged when they find out what James and John have been up to. But not, I think, because they think that the two of them are off track - they are just upset that these two might get all of the power ahead of the rest of them. So Jesus at last explains it to all of them. “You know that among the Gentiles those whom they recognize as their rulers lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them. But it is not so among you; whoever wishes to be great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be the slave of all. For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

Like everything else, Jesus is turning everyone's assumptions about how things are upside down. 'Leadership,' he seems to be saying, 'is not what you think it is. In many ways, it is in fact exactly the opposite of what you think it is.' Of course, leadership is something that we hardly understand at all anyway, but we think we know what it is about. We think it is about 'being in charge.' We think it means 'show people the way we are going, and everyone will follow.' We think it means 'do what I say' and people will do it. This is all oversimplification, you understand. But one way or another, we generally understand leadership as having the power to command. The motivation of the leader may be mixed; the leader may think that the best for the community may be important; but there is the reality that the leader is exalted above the follower, that the interests of the leader come into play and are the most important value.

Of course, history shows us where human ambition can lead us. Selfish ambition - the desire to puff ourselves up, to dominate, to have our own way, to try to find meaning in our lives by making our will the most important thing - this is probably the cause of most human conflict. And I do not just mean war or power-politics - though that is certainly a great part of it. I also mean conflict in our economic relations, in our personal lives, in our families, or on the streets. The desire for power, the need to dominate, the idol of personal ambition, of thinking that 'coming out on top' is the highest achievement and the thing to value most of all - this is the single greatest cause of human misery.

It is not hard to see or understand that Jesus is talking about a different kind of leadership: “the first shall be last.” The goals of this kind of leadership are different: not simply 'the good of all' but servanthood, subordinating ambition and self-centeredness to the well-being of others. This kind of leadership is not about finding the best possible way to the top of the heap (exactly what James and John are trying to do); it is about using one's gifts to the utmost in the service of others, motivated by love and compassion, rather than self-interest. This is leadership in the Kingdom of God.

This idea of leadership is a challenge to all of the followers of Christ to see leadership and community in a different way, a way that does not emphasize power, ambition, and wealth as the highest goals of our lives. This, despite the fact that the world's values, both in the disciples' time and in ours, scream at us that power, ambition, and wealth are what are exactly what is most important in life. Instead, Jesus is calling us to build up our communities through support, love, sacrifice, and example. Force, coercion, manipulation, and greed are not the proper tools of leadership in the world that Jesus is inviting us to enter.

All of this is challenge enough. If we truly took on this way of doing things, this way of leadership and community, we would be doing a great deal to change the world.

But there is more going on here than just this.

Jesus says at the end of this, “For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” As any good leader, Jesus is saying that he will do himself no less than what he is asking of his followers. He himself is a servant, not a master; he sacrifices himself before he asks any others to sacrifice. He is an example of the kind of leadership he is asking of the disciples. But it implies even more: it says that this is the way God leads; this is the way that God exercises power.

We have imagined divine power since the before the beginning of history as a version of our own, human assumptions about power. The old, pagan gods were often reflections of this. But even Jews and Christians have imagined God as a kind of human king, just with a great deal more power. We have attributed to God our own version of lordship as domination and control. But Jesus is showing us something different. He is telling the disciples, and us, about a different way, a different kind of power. A kind of leadership which he is exercising himself, an example of the use of power which reflects God’s use of power.

Why is it that sometimes God seems absent to us; why is it that we sometimes fail to see the power of God working in the world around us? Because we are looking for a power which is a mere magnification of our own ideas about power. But God does not rule over us the way a human tyrant would. God works through the power of love, of wisdom, of servanthood, and of compassion. It is a different kind of power, and we have difficulty seeing or understanding it; but its results are, in the long run, more real and more lasting than the kind of results we achieve through our means of power. It is difficult for us, but this gives an insight as to what it really means to accept Jesus as Lord, or to understand what he means when he talks about the Kingdom of God. It isn’t exactly lordship or kingship as we are accustomed to thinking about it. It is something much greater, something that moves slowly, with the full assurance that it will prevail in the long run. It is also the power and the wisdom which underlies the universe. We are invited to take part in it, to act in accordance with it, choosing this way of Jesus instead of the way of the tyrants of this world. Or we can choose not to. But this freedom is the way in which real love is made and tested.