This version from the King James (“Authorized Version”) is the response of James and John to Jesus’ question, “Can you drink…? Can you be baptized…?” And on these few words St John Henry (Cardinal) Newman, while still an Anglican and Vicar of St Mary the Virgin, the University church of Oxford, preached one of his greatest sermons— “The Ventures of Faith.” Its text easily found on the internet—I strongly encourage you to find it and savor it!
Jesus tells the “sons of thunder” that they do not understand what they are asking. And Jesus is right--in Gethsemane they (with Peter) fall asleep multiple times, and then they finally run away. So they were not “able,” after all. At least, not immediately.
After the Resurrection, things change. James is the first of the Twelve to be martyred for his faith—beheaded by order of King Herod (Acts 12:2). And in the first parts of Acts, it is John along with Peter who cure the paralytic man at Temple by the Name and power of Jesus (3:1ff) and who journeyed to Samaria (again, with Peter) to confirm those converts in the faith (8:14-17). St Paul acknowledges John as a “pillar” of the Church in Jerusalem (12:7-9). So perhaps they were “able,” after all.
But the roles they finally played in ministry and martyrdom were not those they were seeking in today’s Gospel—they were longing for glory, not service and witness. Even if enigmatically, Jesus tells them this, and He promises that they will indeed become witnesses and servants.
But I have a fantasy about this scene (as I have in so many Gospel scenes—blame the Spiritual Exercises of St Ignatius Loyola on this!). I imagine that when Jesus said the places at His right and left were for those already appointed, He might have been referring to the two men crucified with Him. This would certainly not have been what the sons of Zebedee would have had in mind! Yet in their own ways they both got what they asked and what Jesus promised.
Newman’s sermon suggests that the brothers, ignorant as they were, had the courage (the audacity?) to “make a venture.” No one knows the future. Do married couples understand what is implied in their “I do”? Do ordinands grasp what is in store for them once ordained? Are consecrated religious looking beyond the expectation of a secure and peaceful life in convent or monastery? God is a God of surprises, after all! Perhaps our best plan is simply to take it one day at a time, every day offering ourselves to the Lord, as the famous prayer of one-time United Nations General Secretary Dag Hammarskjöld expressed it: “For all that has been, thanks; for all that will be, yes.”