A
Sermon for
the Feast of
St. James, Apostle &
Martyr
by the Rev. Dr. Robert Crouse
"But whoever would be great among you must be your servant." (Mark
10).
Today we keep the festival of
St. James, Apostle and Martyr. This St. James is sometimes referred
to as St. James the Greater, as distinguished from the other Apostle
named St. James, the author of the Epistle, whom we celebrate along
with St. Philip on May 1st.
Of St. James the Greater, we know really
very little from Holy Scripture, except that, called with his
brother St. John, and with St. Andrew and St. Peter, he became one
of the specially chosen three, who were particularly close to Jesus,
the three who were present with Jesus on many crucial occasions, for
instance, at the raising of Jairus' daughter, on the mount of the
Transfiguration, and in the Garden of Gethsemane on the night of
Jesus' agony.
St. James and his brother St. John were
nicknamed Boanerges - Sons of Thunder - implying an ardent
and impulsive zeal, such as they showed by their indignation against
the inhospitable Samaritan village. The people would not receive
Jesus: "and when James and John saw it, they said, ‘Lord do you want
us to bid fire come down from heaven and consume them?'". But he
turned and rebuked them (St. Luke 12.51-56). Perhaps because of his
evident zeal, St. James was singled out by Herod Agrippa to be the
first martyr among the twelve apostles, thus obtaining one of those
places of honour in the kingdom of God which he and his brother had
desired and hoped for; drinking the cup of Christ's suffering and
being baptized with the baptism of Christ's death.
The Apostles are princes of the Church,
princes in the kingdom of God - enthroned as judges in the
reconstituted Israel of God:
For they the Church's princes are,
Triumphant leaders in the war,
In heavenly courts a warrior band,
True lights to lighten every land.
(from the hymn Aeterna Christi munera)
And it is about the
character of their Princedom, their warfare and their triumph, that
I particularly want to speak today, especially in terms of the
incident recorded in the Gospel for today, from the 10th chapter of
St. Mark (verses 32-40). In that lesson, Jesus announces to the
twelve the final journey to Jerusalem and foretells his passion and
resurrection.
And James and
John, the sons of Zebedee, came unto him saying, "Master we
would that thou shouldest do for us whatsoever we shall
desire....Grant unto us that we may sit, one on thy right hand,
and the other on thy left hand, in the glory.".
"You do not know what
you are asking" says Jesus. "Can you drink of the cup of my
suffering, and be baptized with the baptism of my blood?" Their
answer is confident - "We can." They are ready and even zealous to
pay the price of glory.
"Ye know not what ye ask." They are
zealous to pay the price of glory, and indeed they are destined to
pay it: but they do not understand what that glory is. The
assumptions behind their request are wrong, as Jesus explains in the
passage which follows immediately upon this lesson in the 10th
chapter of St. Mark. The disciples had begun to argue about
precedence in the kingdom of God. And Jesus called them unto him,
and said to them:
You know that
the Princes of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great
men exercise authority over them. But it shall not be so among
you; but whoever would be great among you must be your servant,
and whoever would be first among you must be the slave of all.
For the Son of Man also came not to be served, but to serve, and
to give his life a ransom for many. (Mark 10.42-45).
"The princes of the
Gentiles lord it over them....But it shall not be so among you." The
ways of God's kingdom are very different - its princedom and
authority are of a very different kind. Its kingship is the kingship
of a servant: its liberty is found in willing obedience. Its warfare
is not with clash of arms and noise of battle. Its struggles and its
conflicts are much deeper and more crucial than that, for its
battles are the battles of the human spirit; and its enemies are the
subtle and deadly demons of greed and vain ambition, and pride and
envy, and hypocrisy and all such perversities of spirit. "Let this
mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who took upon himself
the form of a servant, and became obedient even unto death." Its
triumphs are e the souls of its saints. Its triumph is a renewal of
spirit - a renewal of mind: "Be ye renewed in the spirit of your
mind", "for you have not received the spirit of servitude."
In his words, and in his passion, Jesus
proclaims that liberty is not to be found in worldly power, worldly
pride and ambition and the satiety of worldly desires - but rather,
in the denial of all these. "My kingdom", he says, "is not from
hence". The signs of his glory are the signs of his humility, of his
suffering, of his passion. The signs of his glory are the signs of
body broken and blood poured out. "He reigns and triumphs from the
tree." And that is the glory which we set forth day by day in the
liturgy of the Church, as we break the bread and drink the cup,
showing forth his death until he come. "Imitate what you celebrate"
says the ancient wisdom of the Church. We break the bread and drink
the cup, imitate what you celebrate. "The cup of blessing which we
bless, is it not the communion of the blood Christ? The bread which
we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ?"
What a hard lesson that is! - and how
hardly do we learn it! At the font of our baptism we are pledged to
renounce the world, the flesh, and the devil: we are pledged to
renounce the vain pomps and glories of this wicked world. And surely
it is evident enough that those pomps and glories are vain, and that
our trust in them is ruinous. Yet over and over again, every day -
in a thousand little ways, in our relations with one another; in the
things that we wish for; and the things we rebel against - we are
tempted, and deluded, and taken in by them. Over and over again we
must be recalled by the passion of our Saviour and the witness of
the saints: "it shall not be so among you....Let this mind be in you
which was also in Christ Jesus."
Our being born again - not from this
world, but from above - is an ongoing travail; and our place for the
coming of God's kingdom in us must be new every morning. Thy kingdom
come, in me, here and now, in this particular situation , in this
particular moment. And thus is our salvation worked out in fear and
trembling.... The natural man, by a strange perversity, finds it so
easy to trust the powers that ruin - so hard to trust the powers
that bless.
Today we keep the festival of an Apostle
and Martyr. An Apostle is one who is sent; and a Martyr is one who
witnessed: "As the Father hath sent me, even so send I you", and "Ye
shall be my witnesses". To celebrate such a festival is to recall
that we too have our apostleship and our martyrdom - for we too are
sent - sent to witness to that new life which is God's kingdom
within us. Sent to contradict this world in which the Princes of the
Gentiles lord is over them.
It shall not be
so among you; but whoever would be great among you must be your
servant; and whoever would be first among you must be the slave
of all. For the Son of Man also came not to be served, but to
serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.
Amen.+
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