Matthew 20:23 - "You will indeed drink my cup, but to sit on my right and on my left are not mine to give, rather for those for whom it has been prepared by my father."
No more playing, no more sarcasm, no more challenge. "You will drink my cup." A prophecy. Did James and John panic? Did they try to take back their words? Were they afraid? DId they even realize that Jesus' cup to drink was not the things they had already seen? A prophecy that they, too, will be arrested, tortured, and killed, because in the Roman Empire, refusing to recognize Caesar as a God, was sedition. And, Jesus has been saying all along that there is a higher authority in heaven. Jesus has been challenging the Roman world view. He has gained many followers and is encouraging them to do the same. Of course, the Romans are going to kill him.
Jesus us telling us, as he told the disciples, that we must drink his cup when we follow. Going against the "wisdom" and mores of our culture is to risk, not dying necessarily, but at least castigation, loss of employments, threats against our persons or our families, jail. That is the contemporary cup. When we speak about injustice we are going against the mores of our culture and those in power (Republicans) will do anything to silence those who step out of line. Think Colin Kaepernick, Hillary Clinton, Elizabeth Warren. Even our president participates in this silencing. Yet, like James and John and the others, we are still called to speak out, to amplify the voices of the oppressed and marginalized, to work toward a "more perfect union."
It seems as though I'm getting political. I am. Politics is how we decide how to live together as a country. Voicing our opinions is our right, protected by our constitution. No one has to listen, of course. Jesus spoke against the rulers of his day, condemning them and the society they created. Following Jesus entails getting 'political' and speaking up for our common good. Everything is political.
Can we be of the world but not in it? The world tells us that immigrants are evil, that people on welfare are lazy, that African-American men are scary, that greed and ambition are good things, that being rich is desirable, that we are the best, that the sins of Sodom and Gomorrah were sexual rather than a failure to provide hospitality to strangers. None of this resembles anything that Jesus taught.
This story comes on the heels of Jesus blowing his disciples' minds by telling them that rich people would have a hard time getting into heaven, that those who are first here will be last in the kingdom and vice versa, that we are only "saved" by God's love, that God is so loving that everyone gets enough to live on. For God and for Jesus, it's not about who deserves help, it's about our social and spiritual duty to recognize our profound connection to our fellow human beings. We are ALL made in God's image.
Jesus is always pushing us to go further into love, to go downward following God's preferential option for the poor. It's hard; change always is. Yet, that is the cup that Jesus offers us - to let go of our ambitions, our dreams of glory, our pride, our consumerist desires, our comfort and instead embrace those whom our world rejects. Be in the world but not of it. Jesus wants us to do that loving thing that we've been contemplating doing and see how much of a blessing we will receive when we dare to love as he did.
Taste and see.
B
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