"Allow us to sit one at your right hand and the other at your left in your glory." (Mark 10:37)
What throne am I looking for?
We can easily be seduced by worldly glory, or even think there is no other kind. Others’ opinions can dominate our decisions and self-worth.
James and John should have known better than to seek a throne of glory. Jesus had given them a glimpse of his future glory in his Transfiguration but had also spoken of the horrific crucifixion that would precede it; they had only remembered the glory. Do I sometimes filter what I hear according to what I want, even in prayer?
Their attitude to Jesus is upside down: instead of promising to do whatever he tells them, they say, "we want you to do for us whatever we ask you" (10:35 – our current lectionary translates this weakly as "we want you to do us a favour"). Do I let entitlement creep in to my relationship with God? Do I want him to do my will rather than vice versa?
But Jesus is so gentle with them. He sees the goodness underneath their worldliness and seeks to untangle it. He does not flinch at their arrogant demand, but wants them to articulate it more: "What do you want me to do for you?" Jesus is gentle with us too, but we need sincerity to express to him what we really want. He can untangle our ambition much more easily than our silence.
The throne of glory can only be reached via the throne of the cross, but they cannot grasp this: "You do not know what you are asking." Even worse, they do not understand the symbols he uses: his cup is one of suffering, his baptism is in blood. Their emphatic "we can" is a blind, foolhardy commitment.
Yet Jesus patiently accepts this mixed, muddy motive, as he does for us. He loves us enough to wait for our intentions to be purified by our trials. Our sufferings make us more humble and so we stop seeking a throne of glory, and start "approaching the throne of grace, that we shall have mercy from him and find grace when we are in need of help" (Hebrews 4:16).
Gradually we realise that the highest seats in heaven belong not to any martyr, apostle, Pope, missionary or miracle-worker, but "to those to whom they have been allotted": a husband and wife, a mother and a father, a home-maker and a carpenter, Mary and Joseph.
The two greatest saints lived an ordinary life, since holiness is about how we correspond with love to the particular grace we each receive. To borrow an image of St Therese of Lisieux, a full thimble is fuller, more whole, than a half-filled bucket.
Slowly we realise that we cannot reign with God without suffering, and this acceptance is made easier by the striking truth that God had suffered with us and for us: "For it is not as if we had a high priest [Jesus] who was incapable of feeling our weaknesses with us; but we have one who has been tempted in every way that we are, though he is without sin" (Hebrews 4:15).
So let’s seek a different kind of throne, not one of worldly glory but the "throne of grace" and do so "with confidence": God has not left us to suffer and to battle temptations alone, he has entered into all of those human experiences with us! And then we can leave to God to decide whatever seat we receive in heaven.
<em>Photo: The cathedra (raised throne) by the altar at the Syriac Catholic Church of the Immaculate Conception (al-Tahira-l-Kubra), in the predominantly Christian town of Qaraqosh (Baghdeda), Nineveh, Iraq. (Photo by ZAID AL-OBEIDI/AFP via Getty Images.)</em>
