Mtr Mary Trainor
Are you able to drink the cup that I am about to drink?
Dear friend,
The cup.
Jesus is not talking about what we know as a communion cup, whether a beautiful gold chalice, part of an extensive cathedral collection; or a solitary clay cup offering the blood of Christ to humble worshipers.
The cup of which he speaks in today’s Gospel is a metaphoric cup, representing his suffering and death.
On this day--July 25--the Church celebrates Saint James the Apostle, son of Zebedee, brother of John. Their mother hauls the brothers before Jesus to ask if they can sit at the left and right hand of God in the hereafter. Jesus deflects with the cup question: Can you drink it? Then he drives home the final answer: God alone will decide who sits at the right and at the left.
The mother’s ambition, the sons’ acquiescence, the other ten disciples’ anger that the two got to Jesus first, all of that bound up together reflects a fundamental human condition:quid pro quo. We want something in exchange for our good work.
Jesus says no. If you want to be great in the kingdom, it starts with servant work, bottom of the heap work, jobs no one else wants, all in the service of God and neighbor.
Are you able to drink the cup that I am about to drink?
A number of you know about the Camino de Santiago, the Way of St. James. Perhaps you have even made your “camino.” The route I took with a friend in 2014 was the traditional route, starting just inside the French border, moving west over the Pyrenees, ending in Santiago de Compostela on the North Atlantic.
The remains of St. James are believed interred at the Cathedral there. We know from theBook of Acts, James was beheaded in Antioch, and it is claimed his head is buried beneath an altar in Jerusalem. But somehow, it is believed, the rest of him was carried to Spain and eventually laid to rest at the Cathedral, some 3,500 miles from where it all started on the shores of the Sea of Galilee.
There are many ways to make your “camino.” Some do a part of it; some come up from the south; some from the north. But the goal is the same--to arrive at the Cathedral and see the saint’s final resting place. It is everyone’s end point. It’s how I think of the afterlife. It’s the destination. Journeys differ, some paths are straight, some rugged and winding.
Are you able to drink the cup that I am about to drink?
The cup, for us, is the cost of the journey to follow Jesus. It is the forsaking of glory for the sake of service, pride for the sake of humility.
You meet a lot of people along the camino. Some are out to achieve a personal best. Fastest, most miles, most hours in a day, no blisters, fewest days to get there.
Just like wanting the best seats in heaven, some can make a contest of everything.
Others do not hurry. They are slow and steady, enjoy the people, the culture, the food, the wine, the churches. They stop to ask a slower walker if they are okay and--if not--these servants help them. They enjoy the path and whatever it presents.
They know the camino is not a contest. It’s a commitment to the cup.
Mtr Mary