Blood Brothers

Drinking from the chalice of suffering for Jesus

07/25/2020

Matthew 20:20-28 The mother of the sons of Zebedee approached Jesus with her sons and did him homage, wishing to ask him for something. He said to her, “What do you wish?” She answered him, “Command that these two sons of mine sit, one at your right and the other at your left, in your Kingdom.” Jesus said in reply, “You do not know what you are asking. Can you drink the chalice that I am going to drink?” They said to him, “We can.” He replied, “My chalice you will indeed drink, but to sit at my right and at my left, this is not mine to give but is for those for whom it has been prepared by my Father.” When the ten heard this, they became indignant at the two brothers. But Jesus summoned them and said, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and the great ones make their authority over them felt. But it shall not be so among you. Rather, whoever wishes to be great among you shall be your servant; whoever wishes to be first among you shall be your slave. Just so, the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

It’s common to hear the question: What are you living for? We all have a rough and ready answer for that. We are living for the weekend! We are living for our next vacation! We are living for a vaccine for the pandemic! But have you ever asked yourself the question: Is there anything worth dying for? For those of you who have children or grandchildren, you might have felt a surge of love for them so strong that you exclaimed: “I would die for my children (or grandchildren)!” Indeed, all the small and large sacrifices parents perpetually make for their children can feel like death in installments. But parent don’t complain, and consider these sacrifices signs of their love.

But did you ever feel like you could die for your faith in Jesus? That is not a small question and we shouldn’t treat it lightly or answer too quickly. One of the first major heresies of the Church was called Donatism. Have you ever heard of that? Good, then you’re probably not a Donatist. During the persecution of Christians under Emperor Diocletian, the Christians who would not die for their faith were called “traitors.” Some of the traitors were even priests and bishops. The Donatists believed that sacraments that these traitor priests and bishops later celebrated were invalid. Only priests and bishops who would die for their faith were worthy to be such. But the Church, led by St. Augustine, condemned donatism, and welcomed home even those who could not die for their faith. If I had been a priest during the donatist controversy, I am not so sure I would have sacrificed my life for our Lord. Heck, I find it hard to sacrifice cheesecake and a good martini for Jesus!

In the gospel today, this is precisely the question Jesus puts to James and John. These two blood brothers are worried about what they are living for, whereas Jesus wants them to consider is there anything worth dying for. It’s actually their mother who asks Jesus for a favor: “Command that these two sons of mine sit, one at your right and the other at your left, in your Kingdom.” Jesus, without saying “no,” however, puts the matter in an entirely different light, asking them instead: “Can you drink the chalice that I am going to drink?”

By the way, what was that chalice? It was the “cup of suffering” that Jesus himself reluctantly accepted in the Garden of Gethsemane. In Mt. 26: 39 we read: “Jesus advanced a little and fell prostrate in prayer saying: ‘Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me; yet not as I will, but as you will’.” I wonder if the Donatist would have been satisfied with Jesus’ hesitation before his own sacrifice on Calvary. One of the two sons of Zebedee, St. James, would drink from that cup of suffering in Acts 12, where he is beheaded by King Herod Agrippa in Jerusalem, the first apostle to give his life for our Lord. The other son of Zebedee, St. John, would not die as a martyr, but of old age, buried in Ephesus where he served as bishop.

On this glorious feast of St. James, let me ask you (and me) the same question that Jesus put to the blood brothers, James and John: “Can you drink from the chalice that I am going to drink?” Some of us who are given the extraordinary grace of martyrdom may answer like St. James, “Yes, Lord we can.” In fact, this weekend we will celebrate the feast of Blessed Stanley Rother, a priest of the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City, who was martyred for his faith in Guatemala in 1981. Blessed Stanley Rother drank from the Lord’s “cup of suffering.”

Others of us who are not called to the supreme sacrifice of laying down our life for our Lord, can answer like St. John, “Yes, Lord, we can.” But we will drink from the chalice of the Blood of Christ at Mass. May the Blood of Christ give us the grace to die for Jesus in a thousand small ways every day, loving our Lord and each other. And let us all repeat with St. Paul in Rom. 14:7-8, “None of us lives for oneself, and no one dies for oneself…whether we live or die, we are the Lord’s.” In this way, we imitate those sons of Zebedee, James and John, who were blood brothers in life and in death.

Praised be Jesus Christ!