As we saw in Luke 9, Jesus has set his sights on Jerusalem, and on the way there he teaches a number of different lessons, all leading to this passage. In Matthew 19, we see Jesus confront the Pharisees about divorce, which shows that Jesus cares for the rights of WOMEN!!!! Then Jesus confronts his disciples telling them to allow the children to come to Jesus. Children were not admired then as they are today. They were financial burdens. Then the Rich young man, the one person that should be honored, Jesus shames and sends away sad. He ends this story by saying the last shall be first and the first last, which he illustrates with a parable. At the end of this parable, he repeats the same line, "The last shall be first and the first last." During this whole time, Jesus has been taking care of the outcasts of society, the down and outers. He shames the one elite person that he comes into contact with, and he teaches over and over again that the last shall be first.
Jesus, during these two chapters, is revealing to his disciples what kind of King he is. And in this passage, they still don't get it. So Jesus becomes very blunt. Let's read the passage:
20 Then the mother of Zebedee’s sons came to Jesus with her sons and, kneeling down, asked a favor of him.
21 “What is it you want?” he asked.
She said, “Grant that one of these two sons of mine may sit at your right and the other at your left in your kingdom.”
22 “You don’t know what you are asking,” Jesus said to them. “Can you drink the cup I am going to drink?”
“We can,” they answered.
23 Jesus said to them, “You will indeed drink from my cup, but to sit at my right or left is not for me to grant. These places belong to those for whom they have been prepared by my Father.”
24 When the ten heard about this, they were indignant with the two brothers. 25 Jesus called them together and said,“You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. 26 Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, 27 and whoever wants to be first must be your slave— 28 just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”
Jesus' disciples were not understanding who Jesus was, and especially, who they were supposed to be. That is why James and John send their mom to request for the chief seats. It probably comes from his conversation with them in Matthew 19.28, which says:
28 Jesus said to them, “I tell you the truth, at the renewal of all things, when the Son of Man sits on his glorious throne, you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.
After hearing this, James and John wanted to sit in the thrones that were on the right and left hand of Jesus. They wanted power, authority, prestige. Yet...This is not the kind of King Jesus is, and this is not the kind of leaders Jesus wants to leave his kingdom in the hands of. That is why he reveals to them, very boldly, what leadership in the kingdom of God looks like. This is what he says:
“You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. 26 Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, 27 and whoever wants to be first must be your slave— 28 just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”
Jesus is a SERVANT King. He came to serve the down and outers, the shameful, the oppressed. And that is the kind of people he expects to be a part of his kingdom.
We are called to be like our King, to drink the same cup that he drank, which was the cup of a servant. This interaction sheds light to his disciples on what kind of King he is before he goes to Jerusalem and dies. He does this so they know what kind of kingdom citizens they are supposed to be.
And that is our mission as well. We are to be like our king, which is the life of a servant.
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