Matthew 20:22 · World English Bible
But Jesus answered, “You don’t know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I am about to drink, and be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?” They said to him, “We are able.”
The request is for position, for a place of honor measured against others, and this is why the answer is that they do not know what they ask. To seek greatness by comparison is still to believe in separation, in a kingdom where one mind can be raised above another.
From the Christian Psychology reading below.
The same verse, read by 2 traditions.
CHRISTIAN PSYCHOLOGY
The request is for position, for a place of honor measured against others, and this is why the answer is that they do not know what they ask. To seek greatness by comparison is still to believe in separation, in a kingdom where one mind can be raised above another. The cup and the baptism are not rewards for the special but the undoing of specialness itself, the willing release of every claim to be more than a brother.
A mind can say it is able while still misunderstanding entirely, imagining the path leads up when it leads through. What is asked of it is not to rise above others but to let the whole idea of ranking fall away.
Cup: what the mind must be willing to accept, not a prize but the emptying of every wish to be set apart. Baptism: the immersion that dissolves specialness, washing away the belief that one mind stands higher than the rest.
EGO & BEING
They ask for places of honor, and are told they do not know what they ask. The mind is always reaching for elevation, imagining awakening as a prize added to the self. But the cup that must be drunk is not a reward. It is the letting go of all the ego clings to, and it tastes like suffering because what dissolves in it is the false self.
They say, we are able, not yet seeing what they agree to. To drink the cup is to meet your pain without running from it, and to let it burn away the illusion of who you thought you were. What they truly longed for can only come after that false self has fallen.
Christian Psychology lens
Where am I asking for a place above people instead of a place beside them?
Act for the sake of the act and release your grip on what it earns you. The claim on the fruit is what binds.
A cup already full can hold nothing. The student has to be emptied before anything can be poured in.
Do not wish to be thought to know anything. Be content to be seen as nobody, since wanting to be counted above others is the appetite that keeps you restless.
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Christian Psychology
Ego v. Being