Year B Proper 24
October 17, 2021

Over the past couple of weeks I have had several conversations with people I mentor who have been worried about patterns they see in their lives. One of them has found themself in several jobs where things go bad; another fears that they will never have a healthy romantic relationship; a third worries that self-described ADD tendencies keep them from communicating their thoughtfulness. In other conversations in my role at the Belfry, I have heard from students about parents or grandparents who are unable to appreciate and affirm who their children are becoming as adults.

Every one of the conversations expressed worry about seemingly insurmountable faults and flaws in themselves or in others.

What I heard, however, was not about patterns of weaknesses. Instead, I heard about the shadow sides of strengths.

Each one of us has strengths and gifts. We have things hard-wired into us that are able to make the world a better place when we live into them. But there is no strength that comes without its shadow side, no gift that comes without some disadvantages. We always fear that our weaknesses will undermine us and cause us to fail. But it is very seldom a weakness that gets us into trouble. Instead, it is almost always the shadow side of a strength that leads us into trouble.

In our gospel reading for this week, James and John are clearly operating out of the shadow sides of their strengths. These two men, along with all of the other disciples, were clearly gifted with strength of character and conviction, a desire for righteousness, and tremendous leadership skills, even if their occupations and positions in society were humble. Jesus had seen their strengths, had singled them out for attention, had called them to himself. And he had sent them out into the world to share the good news of the kingdom of God. Their work had already made a difference—many people were drawn to explore the way of Jesus by their efforts. They were self-confident, intelligent, hardworking, and responsible.

Yet each of those gifts comes with a shadow. Conviction carries with it self-righteousness. Leadership brings arrogance. Responsibility and hard work link to being judgmental.

And the greater the gift, the greater the shadow. Gifts that are large and public and have the possibility to change the world have shadows that can do tremendous damage.

James and John assume that Jesus’s strengths and gifts mean that he will soon be in a position of power and prominence—a position of “glory,” as they say. And this is even though Jesus has recently told them that he will be put to death. So when they come to Jesus to ask to be placed next to him, with reflected glory and prestige and power, they are clearly operating from the shadows of their strengths, instead of from the strengths themselves. They are also, once again, completely misunderstanding what Jesus’s entire message was. Of course, he is quick to call them on this.

“You do not know what you are asking,” Jesus tells them. They assume that they will be able to go from strength to strength, from glory to glory. Instead, Jesus lets them know that an entirely different strength is going to be called for. The gifts that will be needed in the coming of the kingdom are gifts of servanthood, of self-sacrifice, of deep love. Now, of course, we know that those gifts also carry shadow sides—sometimes a person with those gifts will act from self-abnegation, or develop a martyr complex, or will lose their sense of self entirely. At the moment, however, none of the disciples are at risk of living into the shadows of THOSE strengths!

Jesus further notes that, left unchecked, the shadow sides of the strengths are likely to take over, until the original gift is swamped in the tide of the shadow. Great ones become tyrants, and any good they might have done is washed away.

I imagine we can all name people in history or public life or in our own experience who have had tremendous gifts, but who have done far more harm than good by acting out of the shadow side of those gifts. And a quick glance at the news these days makes it clear that the populace as a whole is operating out of shadow instead of strength in public displays of incivility. If we are honest with ourselves, we can probably tell the stories of times in our own lives when we have operated out of our shadows, and have done harm that outweighed the good. I know I can.

Fortunately, Jesus has some deep word-made-flesh wisdom for all of us. He asks James and John if they are ready to drink his cup, to be baptized with his baptism. They are still somehow hearing that this cup and this baptism are in the power-and-glory realm, not in the suffering-and-sacrifice realm, so of course they say “yes.” Finally Jesus is driven to be explicit: he tells the disciples that the only way to truly become great is to be a servant, and that for Jesus himself, the fulfillment of servanthood is giving up his life.

Of course, Jesus did fulfill the ultimate servanthood in giving up his life. But as we know that is not the end of the story. Death is necessary, but it also leads to resurrection, a new and unending life for Jesus, and our opportunity to share in new and unending life with him. James and John don’t need physical death and resurrection because they allowed the shadows of their gifts to take the lead. But they DO need to do something about those shadows. Perhaps what they need to do is to put the shadows to death so that the strengths that are within them can be resurrected into a new, more powerful life.

And if that would work for them, chances are it would work for us, also. I am very unlikely to get into real trouble when I operate from my weaknesses. I am not particularly good with numbers or money, but no one is ever going to hire me as an accountant, so it will not become a major problem. On the other hand, I have some of the same strengths that James and John do. It is essential that I remain aware of the shadows of those strengths, so that every time I begin to act from the shadows, I can consciously put the shadow to death and renew my commitment to bringing new life to the strength. I can take a tiny sip from the cup that Jesus drinks, and take a tiny sprinkle from the baptism with which he is baptized. In doing so, I can live into the risen life of Christ my savior in new and meaningful ways.

I don’t know you all well, so I can only guess at the tremendous strengths and gifts that are gathered in this room. What a blessing to God’s kingdom that is. And I pray that we all will remain conscious of the shadow side of those strengths, so that we can sip, and sprinkle, and live into the resurrected life of the gifts that are in each one of us.

Amen.