Apostolic Chutzpah
You may have heard the traditional example of someone described by the wonderful Yiddish word chutzpah: It is the person who murders his parents and then begs for the mercy of the court bcause he's an orphan.

We have lots of words for it in English. But chutzpah is such a wonderful word it is the only way I can describe the following scene from today's gospel:

Then James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came to him. "Teacher," they said, "we want you to do for us whatever we ask."

"What do you want me to do for you?" he asked.

They replied, "Let one of us sit at your right and the other at your left in your glory."
-- Mark 10: 35-37

First,who would ask their teacher/mentor/Lord to "do for us whatever we ask"? THAT'S chutzpah. Sadly, that is the way many of us do act and pray. It is the old human tendency to play "Gimmee, gimmee!" God becomes Santa Claus or our private servant bringing us what WE think we need. So maybe we Christians don't have much on those apostles when it comes to chutzpah.

A quick look at Jesus gives the opposite way. The way of the servant.

"[W]hoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many."
--Mark 10:43b-45

So much for chutzpah or pride or greed or power-mongering. Listening to an interview on radio the other evening, the person was commenting on a comment that Chuck Colson (of Watergate and Prison Fellowship fame) supposedly once made. It was that Christian leaders were often the easiest to convince to be part of some political movement by people in the Nixon administration. They were often the most intrigued by the possibility of power.

Wow. What a comment. We can still see it in the way some of the more visible Christian leaders of today respond to the siren call of political power. It hasn't changed since the sons of Zebedee started the whole drive for position in the Christian way.

I'm not judging. I can be as guilty as the next guy except mine isn't usually seen by millions. (Which doesn't make it any less appropriate, I can just hide better than Pat Robertson.) Because it takes a "powerful" person to be able to withstand the seductiveness of power. It takes a person who is willing to accept God's Will and God's Way in all things- and not just when it goes MY way. Humility, patience, servanthood, compassion. Oh, if it were only so easy.

So I end with this from Daniel B. Clendenin, Journey with Jesus Foundation from his site: The Journey with Jesus: Notes to Myself:

"Greatness and Glory: The Jesus Way,"

"In the upside down world of Jesus,
only the strongest sense of self,
a self that neither grovels nor grasps,
can resist chasing counterfeit notions of greatness.
In imitating Jesus, as far as that is humanly possible,
we serve others for their good rather than our own glory."

Amen- and Amen.