It was pretty bold of James and John. “Jesus, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you.” “Really?” would have been my response! Can you give me a clue as to what category the ‘ask’ is going to be made in? Nope. WE just hear their variation of: We want you to do whatever we have in mind, only we’re not going to tell you what it is until you say yes. I don’t think I know a single parent who would take their child up on that one. I am pretty sure I would not. But that is exactly what the disciples were asking for, wasn’t it? For Jesus to write them a blank check. It’s a pretty gutsy move on their part.
Yet to his credit, Jesus doesn’t roll his eyes. Patiently, Jesus “goes there”, doesn’t he? “Boys, what do you have in mind?” So they name their price. Here is the check that we want – places of honor in your kingdom. We’ve been with you from the beginning. You know us. You know how we have been there for you. So what is in it for us?”
Here is what I love in Jesus’ response, because it tells me something about how he responds to my prayers and my sometime off balance requests. He asks James and John to do exactly what they asked of him: Can you write me YOUR blank check first? “Can you drink the cup I drink and be baptized into my baptism?” Will you be willing to follow me, come what may, regardless of what comes back to you?”
And to their credit, James and John don’t flinch. Yep! We’re right with you, boss. It is then, that Jesus grants, not their ask of him – not their request for a blank check – but his ask of them. “The cup that I drink you will drink, and the baptism with which I am baptized, you will be baptized.” And my suspicion is that Jesus smiles inwardly, because he has just ‘beaten them at their own game.’ They came asking to receive a blank check, and they left having given one away. And then, to make sure that not just James and John ‘get it’ – but that the rest of the disciples do as well, Jesus reminds them of his mission: “For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.”
For what it is worth, I don’t like to think of myself as being like James and John. In my mind, I have never asked God to ‘grant me whatever I am going to ask him before I tell him what it is.’ I like to think that I have never asked God for a blank check. But I think the truth is not quite that convenient. I sometimes am disappointed ‘when I don’t get anything out of mass.’ Sometimes I get disgruntled when my prayer is dry. I complain and moan when the diocese comes out with another ‘demand on my time’, even though it might be a great thing. And in each of those little frustrations, I am guilty of wanting exactly what James and John were after – assurances that “I will have my reward in heaven.”
What Jesus would have me know is a much more immediate truth. There is a LIFE that wells up within you when you give yourself away. There is a goodness to living that comes from sacrificial love. “The Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.” THAT is where Jesus found his life. In his blank check to His Father, in his choice to not let it be about him, but to be about giving his life away in service.
So, if you come here this day, hoping that God will be loving you into life, hoping that he will reward your time with him with a blessing – that is okay. But don’t miss the Jesus-James-and-John moment we are offered – the chance to write our blank check before God. TODAY and every mass – when the gifts are brought up, put your heart and love into that basket. And when those gifts are raised above the altar in our song of thanksgiving, offer to the Lord YOUR BLANK check for the day. Hear the invitation from Jesus to you: Can you drink the cup? Can you be baptized as I am to be baptized? At that moment, write the Lord your blank check…