James & John here make a request that directly cuts across warnings that Jesus has given elsewhere, like in Luke 14 where he specifically tells his disciples not to take the places of honor at banquets – with very practical advice that actually is about how to get to those places of honor.
So Jesus goes deeper here. In the economy of the world, greatness is climbing, but in the Gospel economy, greatness is descending.
All of us have areas where we want to get the glory, whether work, sports, volunteering, hobbies. We want everything to be going “up and to the right” whether money, career, capabilities, popularity. But the upside down kingdom of God has something else to say – blessed are the poor, the weak, the mourning. We must lose our lives to live and love those that we hate. Greatness only comes from being the least. Service is the only true power.
Sometimes we see this more like a savings account or policy – we just defer our power and glory until heaven, when we’ll finally get what we deserve. But looking at it this way does not actually put us into the posture of submission and service and humility that Jesus calls us to. Jesus says that the Kingdom of Heaven is about sacrificial love, not about deferred gratification.
And so when Jesus hears this question, His first thoughts are for the ultimate sacrifice that He is headed for. His trajectory is the opposite of what these Sons of Thunder are looking for.
Here in the Pacific Northwest, we have a clear metaphor in the salmon, which swims hard against the current in order to sacrifice itself to bring about new life.
The salmon does not get to see that new life, and sometimes that’s what it feels like for us. We look around us and we see the bad guys win, we see the powerful abuse that power, we see the oppression of the weak.
The temptation is to fight and to respond to the World in kind. But Jesus calls us to slow down and find compassion, find places to serve, to give of ourselves to those around us.
— Sermon Notes, Dave Sim, Renew Church, Lynnwood WA, September 6, 2026