St Margaret's Church Prestwich

Rev Sue preached this sermon on Wednesday 25 February. Here it is for you again:

What a pushy mother! Imagine going up to Jesus and asking for your sons to be given the best places in heaven. Yet Jesus directs his answer not only to her, but to James and John themselves: “Are you able to drink the cup that I am about to drink?”

Immediately before this conversation, Jesus had spoken very clearly about what would happen to him in Jerusalem. They must have known that he was speaking about suffering. And yet they replied, “Yes, we are able.” Jesus then confirms that, in some way, they will indeed drink that cup.

The “cup”, of course, is the suffering that Jesus later asks to be spared when he prays in Gethsemane: “Let this cup pass from me.” And yet, at the crucifixion, the disciples were conspicuously absent. They ran away. They did not drink that particular cup. Nor, I think, was Jesus speaking simply about martyrdom. James did become  the first Christian martyr. John, on the other hand, was the only one of the twelve who was not martyred. Tradition suggests that he lived to old age and died naturally.

The word suffer has two meanings. One is the familiar sense: to experience pain or distress. But it can also mean to tolerate or endure, as in the phrase, “He doesn’t suffer fools gladly.” That second meaning implies a kind of passivity — something we see in the Passion of Jesus, where he suffers violence to be done to him.

Most of us are not called to face persecution for Christ in the way that many Christians do in parts of the world today — in Iran, for instance, where converts from Islam to Christianity may be imprisoned. Our suffering is usually more ordinary: illness, pain, bereavement, broken relationships, disappointment, and loss.

To drink the cup of Jesus’ suffering is to allow him to share the pain we carry, so that we refuse to give in to bitterness or anger. It means doing our best to be patient, and not taking our hurt out on others. Conversely, we share in his suffering on the cross. That is why we walk the Stations of the Cross: to place ourselves in our imaginations alongside Jesus, and to be moved by what he endured for us.

There is also another kind of suffering — one that we sometimes try to avoid by pushing the cup away from our lips. When others are in pain or distress, do we  open our hearts to them and suffer with them, serving them as Jesus calls us to do? Or do we offer a few polite words and then steer the conversation towards something more cheerful?

Are we prepared to sit with the bereaved, to hold their hands and share their grief? Or do we cross the road to avoid them, telling ourselves that we have nothing to offer, that we do not want to intrude?

Caring comes at a cost. Hospice nurses, for example, often feel they need to change their jobs after a few years because the emotional burden is so heavy. And sometimes we ourselves are too drained to give very much. But it is the desire to serve that matters. It is the willingness to be present that counts.

And that brings us back to the disciples. Jesus could not promise anyone special status in heaven. But he did tell them — and us — that if we have ambitions to be great, we must set them aside. We must be willing to become of little account, like servants, even like slaves.

For our Master himself came not to be served, but to serve — and to give his life for many.