Feast of St. James the Elder, Year C | Matthew 20:20-28
St. James’ Episcopal Church
July 27, 2025
the Rev. Jonathan Hanneman
To watch the full service, including the sermon, please visit this page.
“You know that the rulers of the gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them. It will not be so among you, but whoever wishes to be great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be your slave.” – Matthew 20:25-27
We in the modern Church have remarkably little solid information about a disciple as prominent as this congregation’s patron saint, James the Elder—not to be confused with the James the Younger, another apostle who shared the same name, or with James the Just, brother of Jesus and author of the book of James. Matthew, Mark, and Luke tell us that, along with John, his brother, and fellow fisherman Peter, James was called among the first of apostles and went on to form part of Jesus’ inner circle, present for the raising of Jairus’ daughter, the Transfiguration, and Jesus’ struggle in the Garden of Gethsemane. Jesus nicknamed James and John “the Thundersons,”[1] a reference to what many believe was their fiery tempers, as evidenced when they asked Jesus to let them rain celestial fire on an unidentified Samaritan village. Apart from being the first martyr among the apostles—the first to die, if we don’t count Judas Iscariot—today’s Gospel reading marks the only other event in which the brothers explicitly take narrative prominence.
Like James and John, the Church has had a spotty history when it comes to the idea of greatness and self-advancement. Most of us—maybe even all of us—do, if we’re being honest. Who doesn’t want at least some level or praise or recognition? Who doesn’t want to be treated with respect, dignity, and even deference? And how many of us at times still cling to the childhood dream of being able to boss everybody else around and enjoy seeing them obey?
Due to the sporadic and sometimes intense periods of persecution during the first few centuries of Church history, Christians had little option but to function as servants and slaves. However, once Christianity started gaining a taste of political power in the 4th Century, morphing into Christendom—the monster that is Church as State, one that dominated the Western world for 1600 years and still seeks to reassert itself today—we quickly abandoned what Jesus had to say regarding power and authority after James and John asked for prominent positions in God’s Reign:
“You know that the rulers of the gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them. It will not be so among you, but whoever wishes to be great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be your slave.”[2]
If you’re like me, you probably hear that as a series of injunctions: “No one can act that way! Be a servant! Be a slave!” Our translation certainly reads along those lines. But that leads us into a bit of a problem—it makes Jesus sound like he’s undercutting his own message, being demanding and authoritative just as he’s telling everyone that’s not the way forward. But the fact is, none of what he says here is imperative. He phrases his words as simple observations, more along the lines of,
“It won’t be that way among you. On the contrary, whoever becomes great among you will be your servant, and whoever among you wishes to be prominent will exist as your slave.”[3]
For centuries, the Church has both approached and sought to emulate God as the Great Individual—the mightiest and most authoritative Cosmic Power. We celebrate and demand others recognize in us virtues to which we have no right, lusting after omniscience, omnipotence, and omnipresence, each of which we misinterpret, seeing them as the ability to know absolutely everything with unquestionable certainty, to impose or command whatever whim may cross our minds without concern for consequences, and to always be watching, able to intervene when it suits our interests.
While those concepts may match up with stories of Zeus or Odin and our idealized images of human leadership, Jesus doesn’t seem to understand God that way. Instead of God as the Ultimate Self, Jesus appears to understand God as the Ultimate Source, a generosity that underlies all of Reality: present and available to everyone, constantly sharing and supplying knowledge, creativity, life and energy, and selflessly sustaining and providing for the needs of all Creation. And that inversion of our delusions regarding deity is how Jesus encourages the apostles—and us—to behave as we approach life.
As Children of God and Images of God, Jesus wants us to reflect the reality of who God truly is, not some imaginary Power and Supremacy. Often we order our lives and behavior under the illusion of God as the Great Self, leading us to behave in ways that cast blame, look down upon our neighbors, bitterly oppose those who don’t see things the way we do, and—knowingly or not—oppress those around us. But what might change if we abandon the egocentric fallacy of who we expect God to be and start to emulate the actual God, one who functions as the Great Giver? What kinds of change might we then see? What kinds of change might we then be?
What if we could look past our own self-interest, beyond the drudgery we so often expect the Christian life to be? By emulating God’s generosity, kindness, and ever-flowing love, perhaps we could more easily and readily enact Jesus’ expectations for James, John, and the rest of the disciples. Maybe we would begin to see God’s Kingdom taking root. In service to those around us, we might even find a source of lasting satisfaction, peace, and joy!
“You all have known that the magistrates of the nations subjugate them, and the mighty dominate over them. It won’t be that way among you. On the contrary, whoever becomes great among you will be your servant, and whoever among you wishes to be prominent will exist as your slave.”[4]
[1] Generally presented as “Sons of Thunder,” “Thundersons” fits better with Western naming traditions.
[2] Matthew 20:25-27 | All Bible quotations are from the NRSVue unless otherwise noted.
[3] Matthew 20:26-27 | My translation
[4] Matthew 20:25-27 | My translation