Preached at Christ Church, Bulkington; St Mary’s, Potterne; and St Peter’s, Poulshot
Hebrews 5. 1-10; Mark 10. 35-45
“Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory.”
What do you want to get out of the Bible? Some of us seem to want a collection of wise sayings and inspirational quotes, and the Bible certainly contains these. Some of us get more from the earthier and more frank stories of sometimes appalling human behaviour, that speak to the human condition in ways that we often prefer to avoid thinking about. There are plenty of those sort of tales.
Russell Brand in 2020, By Raph_PH on Wikimedia Commons, used under CC BY 2.0
This morning’s Gospel reading is one of my favourite stories from the Bible because it does both. It gives us one of Jesus’ most significant sayings, that those who wish to be great should be the servant of all; and then it addresses the reality that, even in the presence of God incarnate, most of us aren’t actually capable of being as good as that all of the time. We’re a bit more self-interested than that, or at least the vast majority of us are. While I hope I’m not as shameless in my desire for a comfortable, influential, life as James and John, when I’m honest with myself I know that I certainly don’t approach the Christlike ideal of pure self-sacrifice all that often. I may not be vain enough to demand to sit at Christ’s right hand, but I certainly enjoy being ‘the Rector’ and the social rôle that even in 2024 still goes with that in a place like rural Wiltshire.
The truth is that we all approach the throne of heavenly grace with mixed motives. There is, I hope, true faith and genuine devotion there for most of us. There are also other things. Sometimes it’s hope for an answer to a prayer that is really quite self-serving. ‘Go on, God’, I find myself saying as I see the Euromillions signs in the village shop, ‘I don’t want £112 million: but think of all the wonderful things I could do – for you, of course – with five numbers and a bonus ball.’
Our mixed motives aren’t always as avaricious as that. For some of us, church gives us a nice group of friends and there’s nothing wrong with that. Some of us are looking for an institution that will give a moral lead to a society that seems quite rootless, and there’s nothing wrong that that either. Still others want to be part of an institution that can campaign for justice for the poorest and most vulnerable, and there’s certainly nothing wrong with that. But if earthly goals are the only aim of our Faith, then we miss much that is important about what Jesus Christ actually taught.
I suspect most of us have heard of the celebrity Russell Brand. Brand has been at the end of a number of very serious allegations about his behaviour towards women, and back in the days when he was still the darling of the BBC, he often had a notably cruel broadcasting style. But everything is OK now because in May, Brand was baptised in the River Thames by no less a figure than Bear Grylls, the celebrity survivalist and England’s Chief Scout. By September, Brand was baptising people in rivers himself.
Is this a St Paul for our times? His conversion was notable enough that one of the online magazines I read listed him as one of a number of Right-leaning celebrities, mostly from the United States, turning to traditional Christianity in a world of rampant consumerism and cold, technocratic, governance.
This week, Brand, was back on TikTiok to promote a magical amulet that he said would protect people from “Wifi and all sorts of evil energies”. It was available from one of his commercial partners for the bargain price of £188. Perhaps Brand, still new in the faith, has not yet read the prophet Ezekiel—“Woe to the women who sew magic charms on all their wrists … in order to ensnare people.”
It’s easy to sneer at Brand, and probably he deserves it, but the more serious movement of right-wing figures embracing a “cultural Christianity” needs a more serious response. And it is this—they are making the same mistake as James and John in this morning’s Gospel reading.
We can’t reduce Christianity to being a means to political ends. That’s what the apostles tried to do. When James and John wanted to sit next to Christ in glory, they thought He was going to become a king in Jerusalem, and they would be his powerful lieutenants enjoying what was very much an earthly glory. That didn’t mean they wanted to be wicked and cruel rulers. They genuinely believed that they would fulfil the prophesies in the Hebrew Bible about the Jewish people building a kingdom so just and decent that people from all over the world would flock to see it. But in Holy Week, Jesus rejected earthly power and instead went to the Cross; and the glory that James and John did indeed ultimately obtain was a heavenly one gained through earthly persecution.
Nor does the Left escape criticism on this score. Much of the Church in the 20th Century, in the Protestant world first and later in Roman Catholicism, was consumed with the idea of getting rid of the hard-to-swallow supernatural bits of Jesus’ teaching to focus on the ethical core of Christianity. Those were the bits rational people could believe in a scientific age, and those ethical teachings of Christ would be what would help us build an earthly Jerusalem. But it didn’t work. It never does. Instead the churches emptied and the political pendulum swung to the Right again.
Human nature always undoes any attempt to reduce Christianity to a political framework or ethical system, because we’re all tempted to manipulate these systems to suit ourselves. We all want the comfy seats next to Christ with our prejudices about the world validated and our entirely secular beliefs vindicated through a divine seal of approval.
We need to remember that if we truly follow Christ, then we will follow Him to the Cross. Every journey with Christ involves confronting pain, loss, and death, including the death of many of our most cherished delusions; but it is only at the Cross that those delusions can be crucified so God can fill us with His truth. One of the greatest delusions is that the world would be a perfect place if only everyone agreed with us. But the world will always be a troubled and flawed place. That’s why Christ went to the Cross instead of establishing an empire.
Our epistle reading, from Hebrews, reminds us that Christ “became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him.” Eternal salvation! Our lives on this earth, priceless treasures that they are, are still only the seeds for what we will become. What we are as mortal human beings on this earth is good and glorious—but our flesh-and-blood existence is still only an immature stage of the still greater beings we were made to be, which will only be revealed to us when we enter the nearer presence of God in heaven. It was to open the way to this new heaven and new earth that Christ died on the Cross for us, having rejected political power in Holy Week in Jerusalem. That truth suits no political faction. It isn’t an easy sell in a materialist, consumerist world convinced of its own supposed cleverness.
But it is what Christ came to teach us, and it is good news whether you’re on the left or on the right, whether you’re a celebrity, a political power-player—or a dustman, or a frail elderly person now dependent entirely on others. It is so much greater than what any earthly ideology can offer and when we realise, my brothers and sisters in Christ, that it is already ours through His sacrifice on the Cross, then everything in this world is transformed.
Now glory and honour be to the Holy and Undivided Trinity, the Father who made us, the Son who redeemed us, the Spirit who sustains us, this day and forevermore. Amen.
Top image: Calling of the Sons of Zebedee (1510), by Marco Basaiti. Now hangs in the Gallerie dell’Accademia, Venice.
