Proximity to power
The following sermon was preached on the Feast of Saint James, July 25, 2023, in St. Mary’s Chapel.
By the Rev. Robert Armidon
The late evangelist Billy Graham was called the “pastor to presidents,” offering spiritual counsel, in one way or another, to every president from Harry Truman to Donald Trump. This put him in a position of great influence to the most powerful men in the world. Yet, toward the end of his life, Graham expressed regret about taking on this role. By associating himself too closely with a president, he said, he had compromised his principles in the service of power. He said that if he could go back and do things differently, “I … would have steered clear of politics. I'm grateful for the opportunities God gave me to minister to people in high places … But looking back I know I sometimes crossed the line, and I wouldn't do that now.”
In today’s Gospel from Matthew, the sons of Zebedee, James and John, make a similar error to Billy Graham: that of trying to get close to the center of power. It is interesting that in Mark’s version of this passage, James and John themselves make the request, while in the version we heard from Matthew, their mother is the one who approaches Jesus. St. John Chrysostom was of the opinion that the request was doubtless from James and John, but they put forward Mom to make it.
In either case, this request is an example of spectacularly bad timing. Jesus had just told the 12 disciples about the ultimate sacrifice that he would make in Jerusalem. He spoke about his coming betrayal, condemnation, torture, and death. The next thing Matthew reports is the request of James and John trying to get in good with the Boss. Jesus is going to the cross, and they are asking about positions of great influence in the kingdom, to the right hand and left hand of the King.
In one sense, who can blame them? Like Billy Graham, and like James and John, we all want to be somebody. We all want to feel important. We all want to be near the center of power. And this is especially true for those of us called to ordained ministry, who, shall we say, tend not to be bereft of rather large egos. We say to ourselves, “If I can’t be somebody, let me be near someone who is somebody.” In that way, we can bask in the reflected glow of greatness. It is easy to feel that knowing God, and wearing the collar, and having episcopal hands laid on us, entitles us to special preferment.
But this quest for temporal power and glory ill suits a disciple of Jesus Christ. It shows a profound misunderstanding of the nature of the Kingdom of God. Jesus tells James and John that they do not know what they are asking. The phrase “one at your right hand and one at your left” is used only one other time in Matthew’s Gospel—in the 27th chapter, when the two robbers are crucified with Jesus, “one on the right and one on the left.”
In order to sit next to Jesus in his kingdom, James and John must be crucified with Jesus. There is no crown without suffering. Jesus calls his crucifixion a cup, and his death a baptism. The cross is a cup because he drank of it willingly. His death is a baptism because he was entirely immersed in it, yet it cleansed the entire world. Jesus’s prophecy of James and John drinking of his cup and—this version of the text omits this part—being baptized with the baptism that he is baptized with, is a forecast of the lives of persecution and martyrdom that they would lead. John would be exiled to the Greek island of Patmos, while James, as we just heard in the epistle, would become the first of the 12 apostles to be martyred, being killed by Herod with the sword.
In this post-modern, post-Christian world, we clergy people are not likely to suffer the persecution that James and John underwent, but we will, if we are fulfilling our calling, be mocked and derided for our faith. To be a priest is no longer to be a person of high social standing or proximity to the center of power. And this is how Jesus would have it. In the Kingdom of God, those who assume the lowest status, namely, the servant and slave to others, is the greatest. The last shall be first. This does not mean that the priest should be sweeping the church floors or cleaning the toilets, at least not on a regular basis, but it does mean that true leadership, and true glory, are found in serving others. As we heard in today’s collect, we pray that God “will pour out upon the leaders of (his) Church that spirit of self-denying service by which alone they may have true authority.” Or, as St. John Chrysostom put it,
“You need not be too picky if you suffer the loss of your honor. No matter how much it is lowered, you will not be descending as far as your Lord descended. … So fear not then, as though your honor were put down. Rather, be ready to abase yourself. For in this way your glory is exalted even more, and in this way it becomes greater. … For if we desire to appear great, we shall not be great but even the most dishonored of all.”
In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.
The Rev. Robert E. Armidon is a 2021 graduate of Nashotah House. Fr. Armidon has spent most of the past several years as a hospital and hospice chaplain and is priest-in-charge at St. James' Episcopal Church, Goshen, Indiana, and at St. David's Episcopal Church, Elkhart, Indiana. He is currently Secretary-General of the Confraternity of the Blessed Sacrament and a member of the Board of Directors of the Guild of the Living Rosary. Fr. Armidon has served as Assistant Secretary of the Episcopal Diocese of Springfield.
