By Reverend Laurie DeMott

Their eyes lit up at the thought and one girl answered sweetly, "I'd use it to buy food for all of the hungry children in Africa. It would make me feel so good to know that I was doing something so important."

Another girl nodded in sympathy and said, "I like that idea but you know, I'm really concerned about animals and I think I'd probably use it to save the whales -- create a marine sanctuary or something."

Before any of the other girls could share her plans for world peace and harmony, one of the boys blurted out, "Well, you know what I'd do -- I'd buy an M-32 semi-automatic grenade launcher, and a couple of boxes of stinger grenades, and then I'd get a Super Hornet Fighter Jet!" The other boys broke into protest: "Oh no way," they said, but before I could feel good about their non-violent position, they clarified, "Come on -- a Super Hornet would run you way more than a million dollars. Now, you could probably get a FA-18 for only ..." upon which ensued a lengthy argument about the relative costs of fighter jets, military armaments, and how you could get the most bang for your bucks if you were limited to spending a mere million dollars.

Some of you long-timers may be trying to figure out which kids in our church's life were involved in this conversation, but the reality is that this same discussion with only slight variation has been repeated over and over again throughout my years as youth leader, and I'm happy to say that as far as I know, all of the boys who once waxed eloquent about the detonation wattage of various explosives have grown up to be fine young men leading successful and productive lives and as far as I know, have never actually blown up anything larger than a bottle rocket. The fascination with explosive power among male adolescents is, I believe, an expression of their desire to be able to control and alter their environment, the lure of the possibility of moving mountains with their bare hands -- and a few sticks of TNT.

I have a Calvin and Hobbes cartoon hanging on my refrigerator in which six year old Calvin holds up a hammer and yells out to anyone who might be listening, "I have a hammer! I can put things together! I can knock things apart! I can alter my enviroment at will and make an incredible din all the while!" He then walks off saying, "Ah, it's great to be male."

I thought of all of those conversations I'd had with teenage boys in the youth group when I read the stories of James and John. The gospels don't tell us how old these two disciples are but from their reactions to events, I'd guess they were still in the throes of adolesence. When Jesus' calls them to follow him, he gives the brothers the nickname, "Sons of thunder", foreseeing their boisterous self-confidence in his ministry. As an aside, this has proven to be a popular nickname for any noisy Christian group, including such organizations as the "Sons of Thunder Motorcycle Ministries" or the "Sons of Thunder Christian 4x4 Club."

James and John were loud and they were confident. They were ready to move mountains with their bare hands and they followed Jesus because they believed that Jesus could give them the power to do just that. In Luke 9, there is a wonderful little story about the two brothers that captures the strength of their longing : Jesus begins to journey south toward Jerusalem and, since he must pass through Samaria, he sends some messengers ahead to find a place to stay in one of the Samaritan villages. The messengers return with the report that the villagers have rejected Jesus' request for lodging, probably not wanting to risk association with him, and when the disciples hear this, James and John say to Jesus, "Lord, do you want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them?" Can you hear the unspoken, "Please"?

"Please, Jesus -- please let us command fire to come down from heaven. Maybe just a few small bolts, just a little scorched earth, and maybe a really good boom to accompany it?!" Their eyes light up at the thought.

Now, you don't have to be male to love pyrotechnic shows -- I know a few women who would be standing on the outskirts of Samaria with James and John thrilling at the chance to watch a few fireworks. Nor do you have to be a teenage boy to sympathize with that underlying desire to have the power to alter one's environment at will. In fact, though James and John are more blatent and boisterous in their expressions of that longing, the desire for the power to move mountains was really what even the girls in that long ago youth group expressed, albeit in a quieter way. They wanted to have the resources to feed starving children, to save endangered species, to do something that made them feel that they could make a difference and they were not just passive dead wood being carried inexoribly on the unrelenting river of life. We all want to have the ability to move mountains and change the world, and as we get older that passion doesn't diminish; it may simply become more circumscribed. At 15 we want to change the entire world; at 50 we would be happy to change a small piece of it, but if we are believing faithful people, the desire to move mountains does not leave us. We never give up wishing that we had the resources to eliminate hunger and poverty. We never give up yearning for a way to resolve the nations' problems without resorting to war. And you only need to look at the heated debate over health care to know that people's passion over issues of welfare, justice, and security are alive and well.

The problem with passion though is that it can easily turn into a justification for intolerance, judgment of others, and even violence. In Oscar Wilde's "A Picture of Dorian Gray," the character Lord Henry is asked to have a word with his Aunt Agatha because Aunt Agatha has become quite obnoxious in her pursuit of donations for her favorite charity. Lord Henry says, "[I'll talk to her] but it won't have any effect. Philanthropic people lose all sense of humanity. It is their distinguishing characteristic."

You can probably all think of people who claim to be committed to causes of peace or social justice who are at the same time judgmental, brutish, insensitive, and cynical. You wonder how they can claim to care so much about the needs of the world yet be so willing to walk all over the feelings of a person sitting right next to them on a committee. Passion for a cause can easily evoke a desire to cast bolts of lightening upon the heads of anyone who gets in the way of that cause. Jesus knew that the boisterous commitment of James and John could be a dangerous thing, and yet it is important to see what Jesus did not do in dealing with the brothers. Jesus did not try to take away their passion. He didn't try to shush their loud voices and make them sit quietly and demurely in the corner. He didn't tell them to settle down, talk less, and feel less. He didn't ask them to dream small or try to be more realistic. Instead, he challenged them to go even further: "You say that you are ready to sit on my right hand in heaven? Then I challenge you to go the distance and drink the cup that I drink. Be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized." Jesus challenged the brothers to take all of that passion and push it one more step, to transform it into compassion, the passion that stands with all others. Passion can stand apart from others; passion can lord it over others; but com-passion is the passion that embraces all others. It is wider than passion alone and deeper than passion alone, but never mistake it -- compassion at its heart is still passionate, yes, even boisterous and loud and bold in its task.

It took James and John a while to understand that they weren't going to be blowing up Temples, but that they would be moving mountains. They would become important leaders in the young church, and James was one of the first of the disciples to give his life for his faith. Thye never had to give up their passion, but they had to learn to deepen it and to widen it, so that it would embrace not just causes but also all people, both friend and enemy, both neighbor and stranger, those who were with them and those who obstinately were against them. They had to grow from simply being passionate to being compassionate, willing to give up even their very selves for the sake of all others. And when they finally came to that deepened place of the heart and soul, they were not only able to move mountains, they discovered the power to change the world on behalf of Christ.