Introduction

St. Mark’s on the Campus Episcopal Church, Lincoln, Neb., celebrates the Holy Eucharist on Tuesdays at 12:30 p.m. The parish’s rector, Father Jerry Thompson, asked me to lead worship on Tuesday, July 24, 2012. The liturgy features the feast of St. James, Apostle (c. A.D. 42), transferred from July 25.

Readings

Jeremiah 45:1–5
Psalm 7:1–10
Acts 11:27–12:3
Matthew 20:20–28

Homily

Today we recall the life, ministry, and martyrdom of Saint James. He and his brother, John, were the sons of Zebedee from the town of Bethsaida. According to the gospel accounts, he witnessed most of the miracles Jesus Christ performed in his ministry. As Acts tells us, King Herod executed James. This was probably around A.D. 42.

Matthew’s gospel tells us one of the conversations that Jesus had with the mother of James and John. Perhaps acting a little too protectively, she asked Jesus for a special favor for her sons, to grant them special positions at his right and left in the kingdom. His response is one that haunts us: “You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I am about to drink?” (Matt. 20:22, NRSV).

Are we able to drink the Lord’s cup, the cup of suffering for the faith, the cup of giving our all to God the Father in obedience to Him? Jesus raises the cup in the hours before his own sacrifice of suffering through his arrest and torture, his condemnation and crucifixion. As St. Paul tells the Philippians, this cup points to Christ’s “obedien[ce] to the point of death, even death on a cross” (Phil. 2:8, NRSV).

Are you are able to drink the cup? Am I? No one can answer for another. Remember that the mother of James and John asked for honored placements for her sons, but they themselves answered Jesus’s question. She did not say for them, “Yes, of course they can.” And as we know from the account in Acts, James himself fulfilled his vow by dying a martyr’s death around a dozen years later.
Are we able to drink the cup? Are we able to profess Christ when faith in Him is uncomfortable, unpopular, countercultural, or even proscribed? Are we able to express our faith through witness, charity, and service, knowing we may suffer loss, setback, or ostracism for our sacrifices?

No one can answer for us. On the other hand, we are not left alone to make our answer. The Holy Spirit binds the Father into loving union with Jesus, the Son, so that He may drink the cup, carry the cross, and submit to sacrifice. The Father pours out that same Spirit upon us in baptism and rekindles it in us in the Holy Eucharist so that we, too, may say, along with James and John, “We are able” and then live by that vow. Amen.