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Find Glory in Suffering“For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”“What is good? All that increases the feeling of power, will to power, power itself, in man.” These words were written by the nineteenth century philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. Nietzsche’s view seems to have been that the great majority of human action is motivated by a desire for greater power, for the ability to self-actualise or to enact one’s own desires.He may have been to something.In our Gospel story, we see James and John very much wanting to get their own way.For a start, they say to Jesus, “Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you.”Put yourself in Jesus’ shoes at this point. It reminds me of what I was told about pastoral ministry: if anyone ever says to you, “I am about to tell you something, can you keep it secret?” Don’t, whatever you do, say “yes”…for obvious reasons.It’s the same thing here: Jesus can’t say yes because they haven’t revealed what it is they are going to ask. All they’ve revealed is their desire to have their own way. This is not the way to come before Christ and to learn humbly at his feet.And then the request, “Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory.”What’s interesting here is that James and John are already part of Jesus’ tightest inner circle. That circle consisted of the two of them plus Peter. These are the three that Jesus’ took with him on the Mount of Transfiguration, for example. But that wasn’t enough for them. They wanted an even more exclusive circle that consisted only of the two of them. They believed that Jesus was going to become an earthly king, and they wanted to get their request for position in early.Bad PowerMany commentaries at this point dismiss the request of James and John as selfish and ambitious. But this is to miss the subtlety of Jesus’ teaching and example.To begin with, in the modern world we have been conditioned by various post-modern philosophies to think that any desire to have power or influence over people or things is necessarily wrong. That it is oppressive or colonialist or patriarchal.Of course, certain types of power can be awfully destructive and evil, murderous, genocidal. And Christ indeed speaks about this type of power: “You know that those who are considered rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them.” Some translations say that these Gentile rulers “dominate” those over whom they have authority. Christ is here appealing to his disciples to consider what it is like to labour under the oppression of Roman rule. “Do you really want to be like that?” He asks them. “To become the thing that causes you misery? To become the thing you hate?”Have you ever laboured under an evil overseer of some sort? Have you experienced the misery and the domination that they can exercise over your life? Why would you want to become like that?Position, Power and InfluenceBut there are ways of exercising power that are better than this. This is summed up well by the modern leadership guru John Maxwell who says, “Position is a poor substitute for influence.”What he means by that is that anybody can be given a position but whether they actually have power will mostly depend upon their ability to influence people.So, here, James and John, young men both, are asking Jesus for a position, for a title, for a badge that will delineate their roles. They don’t understand that this is not the way to have true power.True PowerAnd here I must disagree with the commentaries that rebuke James and John sharply for wanting glory and power from Christ. If Jesus had wanted to, he could have said, “Why are you worrying about having glory and power and position in my government? You shouldn’t even desire these things.” But he doesn’t say that at all.Before we look at what he does say, pause for a moment and consider why he doesn’t say that. He doesn’t say that becaus