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James was the brother of John, sons of Zebedee. For those of us of a certain age this cannot help but remind us of the Magic Roundabout, with Zebedee the Jack-in-a-box! We never get to meet the Zebedee of the Bible but the brothers’ mother is mentioned in today’s Gospel which we will explore a bit later on. James and John tend to appear as a ‘double act’ but James is always mentioned first, perhaps because he was the elder of the two. They seemed to be part of the ‘inner circle’ who were both with Jesus on the most sacred occasions, being present at the miracle of the raising of Jairus’ daughter, the Transfiguration, and at Christ’s agony in the Garden of Gethsemane. The reading from Acts that we heard is the only time when James is mentioned by himself when he had the dubious honour of being the second Christian martyr, Stephen having been the first. In the interim, Saul of Tarsus had unbelievably also become a Christian. But James was not to see Saul at work as he was killed, by Herod’s men, as an example to the rest of the believers. His brother John lived to a ripe old age but tradition has it that he spent much of his life marooned on the island of Patmos from which he wrote the Book of Revelation (hence the reference in Revelation 21 – and there ‘was no more sea’, that would have indeed been for John a new heaven and a new Earth!).
However back to James. He ran a fishing business with his brother John and they were probably in partnership with Peter and Andrew. It was obviously thriving as they also employed people, and yet all of them turned their back on it when Jesus called them to join him. A real leap of faith as they had no real idea who he was. He had started to preach in Galilee, but I don’t suppose that was so very unusual. How did they know that he was different? It is likely that John and James were Jesus’ cousins and their mother, Salome, Mary’s sister so perhaps they had some inkling of who he was. However on the basis of ‘by their works shall ye know them’ there was little at this stage to tell them that Jesus was unique. Perhaps the best known incident about James and John is the dialogue that we heard in today’s Gospel reading. Like many stories in the Bible it has a wonderful human element. Salome, the archetypal Jewish Momma we might surmise, (and not to be confused with the Salome who asked for the head of John the Baptist) goes up to Jesus to check that he is giving due authority to her ‘boys’. After she has ‘said her bit’ Jesus addresses the men:
“You do not know what you are asking. Are
you able to drink the cup that I am about to drink?”
They seemed to think that they could! “Well,” said Jesus, “Even if you are, it
is not up to me!”
Then the other disciples started grumbling about
these two trying to get the top jobs and Jesus took the time to point
out, yet again, that God’s Kingdom is not like the world, that he who
would be served is expected to become a servant, or as their aunt said
in the Magnificat: “He has brought down the powerful from
their thrones, and lifted up the lowly.”
For those of us who know the full story of Jesus
it is very easy to condemn Salome and her sons but in fact they were
men of extraordinary faith. William Barclay says this: When James and John came with their
request to Jesus for the first places in His Kingdom they are usually
taken to be examples of worldly ambition; but that very incident shows
them as examples of divine optimism and victorious faith. At that time
nothing seemed less likely than that Jesus would ever sit on a throne.
He was a homeless Galilean preacher, following a course which was bound
to end in collision with the power of the authorities and in inevitable
disaster; and yet even in that apparently hopeless situation James and
John never doubted that Jesus Christ was a King.
And while the other disciples looked on and
doubted that James and John would ever be able to ‘drink the cup that
Christ would drink’ the reading from Acts tells us that James was able,
when he needed to, to drink that cup to die a martyr’s death rather
than deny his Saviour. So what can we learn from St James? Well I am sure there is much he has to teach us but today I want to look at three points:
Following Jesus is challenging. I suspect James and his partners had no idea what they were agreeing to that day when they chose to leave their fishing nets to follow Jesus. I wonder what they thought as they left their nets to follow an unknown preacher. Matthew’s Gospel tells us that prior to their calling, James and John, Peter and Andrew may have heard John the Baptist’s proclamation that ‘the kingdom of heaven was near’ and that while he baptised with water, seen that when John baptised Jesus, a dove descended and a voice from heaven announced:
“This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I
am well pleased."
If so, perhaps they did have some idea about what
they were signing up to although I suspect all this makes much clearer
with the benefit of hindsight. After his baptism Jesus withdrew to the
desert where he was tempted, and then continued John the Baptist’s
proclamation that it was time to ‘Repent, for the Kingdom of heaven has
come near.’
Whatever they knew and understood when Jesus
called and they followed him they were treading into the unknown. As
Jesus started healing the sick, so the crowds started following him and
it would seem that the four fishermen had made the right choice. But
then they sat with the crowd and listened to Jesus as he listed the
‘blessings’, or beatitudes, that make us fit for the Kingdom of heaven.
These were clearly very different from the rules of life in First
Century Palestine and perhaps the first real inkling that James had of
the challenges that lay ahead. And the challenges continued: “Love your enemies, and pray for those who
persecute you.”
“Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the road is easy that leads to destruction.”
“The harvest is plentiful, but the labourers are few.”
“See I am sending you out like sheep in the midst of wolves; so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves.”
And perhaps particularly apt for James: “Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the road is easy that leads to destruction.”
“The harvest is plentiful, but the labourers are few.”
“See I am sending you out like sheep in the midst of wolves; so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves.”
“Do not think that I have come to bring
peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.”
Following Jesus
is challenging.
Following Jesus is risky. In this country we are relatively
sheltered from suffering
for our faith. People may think we are odd, or that we think we are
better than others, or that we are weak and need a prop, but that is
about as bad as it gets. But Christians are still tortured and killed
for their faith across the world in the twenty-first century. That is a
true test of faith. James may have misunderstood what he was buying
into when he first followed Jesus but he stayed with him, in the Garden
of Gethsemane (sleeping, but still there), at the Resurrection and at
the Commissioning of the Disciples at the end of Matthew’s Gospel. He
made a start in this task and must have been quite effective for Herod
to feel that he should be killed. Following Jesus is risky. My commercial for following Jesus so far may not seem very appealing but my third statement about this is that: following Jesus is fulfilling. It is about surrendering to the will of God, who made us and knows us. As it says in Psalm 139:
“O Lord, you have searched me and known me.
You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts
from far away. You search out my path and my lying down, and are
acquainted with all my ways.”
The psalmist goes on to remind us that there is
nowhere that we can go where we are not in God’s care. Following Jesus
is challenging and risky but it is the only way that we can be truly
fulfilled, the only way that we can become the person God created us to
be. He has not promised us an easy ride and God through Jesus has been
through so much to redeem us. In this week’s Newsletter I have included the short story entitled ‘The Long Silence’. Like anything to do with God it can only give us a glimpse of what He has done but it reminds us that God Himself has faced the challenges and the risks of being human. And through that He has enabled us to be fulfilled as His children.
Soon we shall be singing the Offertory hymn: ‘Take my life and let it be consecrated Lord to Thee’. Perhaps we could use that as an opportunity to rededicate ourselves to our Loving Father. Amen.