10-15-18 - Best Seats In the House

(You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.)

I often worry about where I will sit. If I’m going to a wedding or gala, I hope I’ll be seated with people I know and not in “outer darkness” at the edges of the room. If I’m headed to the movies, I don't want to end up behind a tall person. At concerts, I want a seat with an unobstructed view, close enough to catch the band’s energy. But it has never occurred to me to worry about where I’ll be sitting in the afterlife.

Not so James and John, disciples of Jesus of Nazareth: 
James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came forward to him and said, ‘Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you.’ And he said to them, ‘What is it you want me to do for you?’ And they said to him, ‘Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory.’

Now, their request may not have been about seating so much as jockeying for leadership positions, and they might not have been talking about heaven. They regarded Jesus as the Messiah who would liberate the people from oppression. Perhaps "in your glory” meant after Jesus had accomplished his mission, as they understood it – which was not very well. Whatever they meant, it is clear they had their sights set on the future.

Jesus had more than a little to say about people who try to get the best seats, whether at dinner parties or in “glory.” He often cited the “those who want to be first will be last” principle of God’s kingdom, and recommended that people select the least desirable seats, with the least desirable company. That’s where we will find him, he suggests.

We all want to know we’re going to be okay, secure, set. It’s human nature to want that. And Jesus invites us beyond our human nature to live into the divine life we have already received as his brothers and sisters. So what if, instead of seeking the better seats, we searched out the least desirable ones? What if I were to embrace meeting strangers on the edges of the room, or let others have the closer seats in the concert hall? Once upon a time, the marginalized were forced to sit in the back of the bus – how about joining them?

Wherever we sit, whether humble or exalted, we can be sure that we are sitting next to Jesus, on one side or another of the One who promised he would always be with us. There ain’t a bad seat in his house.

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