THURSDAY, August 13 (Jeremy Taylor)

Jesus often asks this sort of question: What do you want me to do for you? Do you want to be healed? What are you seeking? He allows us to supply our answers and then he speaks what we need to hear. In this case, Jesus has just predicted his Passion and resurrection, and some of the disciples are abuzz with speculation. James and John are particularly taken up with the prospects of Jesus' coming glory. They come to Jesus and ask for an unspecified favor. "What do you want me to do for you?" Jesus asks. "We want," they reply, "a piece of the glory and the power that will come when you fulfill the prophecies of the Messiah."

"You want power?" says Jesus. "Then become servants. You want glory? Then love to the point of suffering."

The life of discipleship is a life of discovering what Jesus wants and then making it what we want, too. "What do you want me to do for you?" The question runs both ways.

A Christian is a perfectly free lord of all, subject to none. A Christian is a perfectly dutiful servant of all, subject to all.

-Martin Luther

PRAY for the Diocese of Salisbury (Canterbury, England)