James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came forward to him and said to him, ‘Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you.’ And he said to them, ‘What is it you want me to do for you?’ And they said to him, ‘Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory.’ (Mark 10:35-37)

How have James and John chosen this priority? Of all they might have asked Jesus, much less asked for, why do they seek this privilege?

Especially in the context Mark places the request, it seems the height of preening self-importance. It is, at least, another example of Mark's consistently subversive treatment of the Twelve.

But it is also an insightful allegory regarding how most of us are preoccupied with ourselves, our position, and our preferences.

We are so fully engaged in an internal dialogue with ourselves we cannot hear others. We seek to see, hear, and engage the world so as to reconfirm our self-image, rather than to explore what is actually there.

A more recent allegorist, C.S. Lewis, wrote in Mere Christianity, "there must be a real giving up of the self. You must throw it away "blindly" so to speak. Christ will indeed give you a real personality: but you must not go to Him for the sake of that. As long as your own personality is what you are bothering about you are not going to Him at all. The very first step is to try to forget about the self altogether. Your real, new self (which is Christ's and also yours, and yours just because it is His) will not come as long as you are looking for it. It will come when you are looking for Him."

Above is Self Analysis by Charles Alexander Moffat.