In her reflections on today's Gospel, Patricia Sanchez tells the following story:

On one occasion during the American Revolutionary War, preparations were being made for an upcoming battle. A man dressed in civilian clothes passed a corporal who was screaming orders at his men. Seeing that the soldiers were obviously exhausted from their labor, the man asked the corporal, "Why don't you help them?" "Sir," the corporal bristled as his anger rose, "I am a corporal!"

With a quick apology, the stranger took off his coat, rolled up his sleeves and set to work with the solders. "Mr Corporal, sir," he said when the task was completed, "whenever you need someone to help with a job, feel free to call on your commander-in-chief. I will be happy to be of service." With that, George Washington put on his coat and left. Whether his motivation was gospel-driven or not, Washington understood that those who aspire to greatness or rank first among others must serve the needs of all.

Some people may like power because it gives them a chance to boss, control and push around other people. Others like power for its status and prestige quality. Because we hold a certain position, we feel important. Still others like the top spot because of the good salary that goes with it. All these reasons have one thing in common. Authority is seen as a way to promote oneself and one's own interests. We think, "what's in it for me?" It would seem that is the attitude John and James had in today's Gospel when they asked of Christ, "Allow us to sit one at your right hand and the other on your left in in your glory," Like typical careerists and opportunists, they were seeking to promote themselves.

Christ had a completely different understanding of authority and power. He saw it as an opportunity to serve and promote the good of others rather than as a way to promote one's own honor and glory. He asks, "Can you drink the cup that I drink or be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized?"

According to Scripture scholar, William Barclay, the cup was a metaphor for the life and experiences that God handed to people. When Jesus asked James and John if they could drink the cup he drank and undergo his baptism, he was asking, "Can you bear to go through the terrible experience which I have to go through? Can you face being submerged in hatred, pain and death, as I have to be?" Jesus was telling these two disciples that without a cross there can be no crown-at least in his Kingdom. A few years later, when the early Christians were persecuted and executed, James and John would remember these words of Christ.

Taking on the Pain of Others

Commenting on the first reading which speaks of a suffering servant, Patricia Sanchez tells the following moving story:

C.S. Lewis married quite late in life, and in his marriage he found a great and fulfilling love. In his essay in Light on C.S. Lewis, friend Nevill Coghill recalls a time when he was at their home and saw Lewis look across the quadrangle at his wife, Joy. "It's funny," Lewis said then, "having at 59 the sort of happiness that most men have in their twenties...'Thou has kept the good wine till now.'"

A severe case of cancer cut Joy's life and their marriage short less than four years after their wedding. After Joy died, Lewis told Coghill that he had had the privilege of sharing her pain. "You mean," asked Coghill, "that the pain left her and you felt it for her in your body?" "Yes," answered Lewis, "in my legs. It was crippling. But it relieved hers."

Some might say that Lewis' experience of taking on the burden of his beloved wife's pain is not unlike the experience of the Isaian suffering servant. However, Lewis accepted the burden of one woman's suffering. Jesus, in whose person and through whose mission the Isaian songs were realized, took the burden of all of humankind's sin and suffering and bore it up, in silence, in love, in forgiveness. Through his vicarious and sacrificial offering, all have been set in right relationship with God.