I occasionally wonder if my walk with God is not a form of compromise, a shadow of what the New Testament portrays as an ordinary life with God. When the mother of James and John, and the brothers themselves, reveal their undying interest in self-promotion and exaltation (Mt 20:20ff), Jesus asks “are you able to drink the cup that I am to drink?” Answering in what must be taken as profound ignorance, they respond, “we are able.” We would be foolish to think we do not share some of their ignorance. How many times has Christ set his cup before me, and I have simply turned in another direction because you and I, having embraced a social contract of comfort, have redefined “normal” to exclude pain and cost?
The other disciples are, of course, indignant at the brothers’ request, but we sense their outrage has more to do with pride and jealousy than devotion to Jesus’ ethic of New Covenant life. This becomes clear when Jesus says those exalted in the Kingdom must become servants and slaves, even implying that death itself is reasonable: “…for the son of man came not to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many”(v.28).
I believe we often feel exhausted and near capacity. But I’ve always wondered how much of this is our tendency to attempt two lives: one that serves all our own purposes, fears, and desires; another that attempts to blend in some sufficient amount of the honor of God. Many of us cannot discern the difference. Isaiah said, “you were wearied by all your ways, but you did not say, ‘it is hopeless'” (Isa 57:10). Perhaps it’s time to declare the hopelessness of the divided life.
You and I: what if we devoted ourselves to drinking the cup he has given us to drink, rather than “all our ways,” including (as James and John) our endless self-service and self-exaltation? As a pastor I’m always meeting people who are dissatisfied with their walks with God, even some who have the bizarre hubris to think he has let them down, as though the real standard for the conduct of God was defined relative to the self (what a frightening concept). What if we have never really followed him on his terms, and so our dissatisfaction is not with life in Christ, of which we are ignorant, but with the odd jumble –religious, selfish, cultural –we have embraced in its stead?
• “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest”(Mt. 11:28). We naturally and rightly love these words. And we love the Lord who keeps this promise to us. But do we understand that coming to him and resting is the same as, “if any man would come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it. But whoever loses his life for my sake, will find it” (Mt. 16:24-25)?