The apostles still had a poor idea of what the Kingdom that their Teacher brought into the world was, if they asked Him questions about who would occupy the places of honor beside Him in that Kingdom. For them, it was apparently a reality of our world, though an unusual one. Perhaps they thought the matter concerned an earthly state that, however, would be full of God's signs and wonders performed by their Teacher, who at last, with God's help, would take the place that belonged to Him. And the question about the cup and the washing, or "baptism," they most likely understood to mean that before the triumph all of them would face a long struggle, and each would receive no small share of suffering, which in general fit the messianic ideas accepted at the time.

Jesus, however, accepts their readiness, telling them that they will have to drink one cup with Him and be washed with one washing with Him, without going into details and without trying to explain anything to them. As can be seen, He understood that at that moment any explanations were useless: the disciples would not have understood Him anyway, just as they had not understood Him up to that point.

But Jesus tells His disciples right away that in His Kingdom everything is not as it is in earthly kingdoms, evidently so that they would have no illusions about this from the very beginning. As can be seen, He regards the inner readiness not to rule but to serve as the spiritual foundation without which there can be no question of life in the Kingdom. The details of the Kingdom's structure, however, He evidently considers less important: if the disciples do not understand them now, they will understand later, having acquired the corresponding spiritual experience. Thus the Savior Himself sets the priorities where spiritual life is concerned: first comes what is necessary in order to enter the Kingdom, and only afterward, as spiritual experience is accumulated, everything else.

How much Christ's disciples understood His words about the Cross will forever remain a mystery for us. It is quite possible that some hope still glimmered in them that the Teacher was speaking in parables and that His prediction would not be fulfilled literally. Perhaps this explains the striking contrast between Christ's words about death and resurrection and the request of the sons of Zebedee. After all, only if one expected Christ to reign in glory could one ask Him for high places beside Him. "You do not know what you are asking" - these words of Christ emphasize the depth of human misunderstanding of God's plan. All the more inappropriate and presumptuous are the words of the sons of Zebedee that they can drink Christ's cup and be baptized with His baptism.

Two most important things stand out in Christ's answer. First, He says: "You will drink the cup that I drink." For a human being it would be natural to rebuke the brothers for exalting themselves: who among people can do this? But the Lord says: you will. His following words, that whoever wants to be first among His disciples must be slave of all, put everything in its place. The chief gift of Christ to His disciples is not nearness to the throne, but precisely His cup, the possibility of following Him along His way of the Cross. Therefore He tells the sons of Zebedee that "high position" must not be their goal. He opens to them the possibility of gaining nearness to God without acquiring any outward greatness. This is an exceptionally important revelation, one that applies to any of His disciples.

The question of possessions has periodically become central in Christian history, if not for all, then for many Christians. People appeared who asserted that a Christian not only can, but absolutely must, be poor, completely and absolutely poor; otherwise he will have to forget about salvation and the Kingdom.

Some of the stories told by the evangelists can indeed lead to such thoughts, especially at first glance. Meanwhile, Jesus Himself was not completely destitute: in the community of disciples that He headed there was a common purse, which is mentioned in one way or another in all four Gospels. That purse, admittedly, was managed by Judas Iscariot, which has undoubtedly served at all times as an additional argument for supporters of complete and absolute poverty. Yet the apostles themselves reacted to the Savior's words about the difficulty of salvation for the rich, and in such a way as if all of them were rich men. If the matter were material wealth, money, or possessions in general, they would have had nothing to worry about; but, as is clear, the disciples understood that the Teacher meant something more.

The young man who was speaking with Jesus was indeed materially rich, but the matter was not material wealth as such. Jesus simply answers the question asked: what do I lack for the Kingdom? This is precisely the question the young man asks Jesus, expecting an answer like the one learned rabbis and teachers of the Torah often gave then. He thought that, like them, Jesus would offer him some special means: a prayer, for example, or a special ascetic exercise, or some secret connected with observing the norms and rules of ritual purity - in short, something that would allow him to enter the Kingdom. He did not expect the simple answer about the commandments: "All these I have kept from my youth." There was nothing special in that; most observant Jews could say the same about themselves. The young man, however, is seeking something precisely special; he wants to receive the key to the Kingdom, and he is looking for it as he goes from one spiritual teacher to another.

Jesus can offer him only one thing: complete poverty. Not poverty in the literal sense, but poverty as readiness to give up what one considers one's own. In the Kingdom no one has anything of their own. Each person uses everything he needs, but does not appropriate what he uses. He does not cling to it with his heart, which remains free. This task is harder than completely renouncing possessions, and this time the disciples understood their Teacher very well. Such poverty is not so much a human matter as God's, as Jesus tells them.