Tag: Disciples

“Prone to Wander”: Into the Tomb

Psalm 114:7-8 Tremble, O earth, at the presence of Abba God, at the presence of the God of Jacob, who turns the rock into a pool of water, the flint into a spring of water.

Introduction

A day of silence. A day of eyes dampened with doubt, confusion, fear, anger, and even despair. It’s not just the women who cry; the men cry, too; no one is exempt from the overwhelming barrage of emotions that comes when hopes are dashed, expectations go up in flames, and faith feels shattered. The one whom they loved, the one whom they followed, the one whom they would die for—so they claimed—had been killed, and his body lay in a sealed tomb, guards flanking the massive stone. They didn’t even have time to prepare his body properly before the Sabbath moon rose gently in the sky reminding them that what was was no longer …

In the silence of that Sabbath, thoughts of what happened, how could this be, what was it all for, is this really it paraded about the minds of the disciples as they forced themselves to rest, no recourse to business of banal tasks to keep their minds occupied. They were stuck in this moment of death, like Jesus in that tomb. The extra layer for some (all?) is that they didn’t stick around, defend, follow Jesus all the way… They ran, denied, hid, betrayed. Their consciences were plagued with loss and confusion and burdened with the uncomforting, weighted-blanket of failure and guilt—heavier for some, lighter for others. These precious souls (no matter their guilt and failure, their denial and betrayal) had to endure the sun-down to sun-down plus a few more hours to receive the actual ending of the story. On this night, all those years ago, the disciples of Christ sighed, wiped away tears, and wondered what it was all about… Death, and all its children, held them hostage like Christ sealed in the tomb.

On this night, all those years ago, the disciples died with Christ. What they didn’t know was that the story wasn’t as over …

Romans 6:3-11[1]

In Romans 6, Paul anchors the silence of Saturday into the death of Good Friday and the life of Easter Sunday. For Paul, those who follow Christ follow him in the ways they speak and act and through deep identification with Christ even if it means going into the tomb with Christ on Good Friday. For Paul, this identification with Christ in Christ’s death is the key to the identification with Christ in his resurrected life. For Paul, this is how believers participate in the entirety of the Easter event, from beginning to end, from death into new life. In other words, our Romans passage is a clear distillation of what is happening as we transition from death to life through the silence of Saturday.

Paul begins with a question (v. 1) that he then (passionately) answers in v. 2: What therefore will we say? Should we persist in sin so that grace might superabound? Hell no! How can we who died to sin still live in it? In this portion, Paul addresses the new life believers have in Christ: this is absolutely not a continuation of what has gone before and is something completely new! There is a clean break between what was sealed up in the tomb with Christ on Good Friday, and the new life the believers step into on Easter Sunday Morning.

Because there is no continuation between what was by deeds of the flesh and what is now by faith in Christ, Paul feels compelled to ask the Romans, Or, do you not know that all who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? (v.3)Meaning, there’s a lie floating about that those who believe in Christ don’t suffer Christ’s fate, that we are exempted from that death. For Paul, while we weren’t nailed to the cross in literal terms, we do suffer a death like Christ’s, and this is actualized in our participation in the waters of baptism. (Being submerged under the water is to buried with Christ, to come up out of the water is to be raised with Christ.) For Paul, it is imperative that we take seriously the reality that we die like Christ; for Paul (and thus for us), THIS IS GOOD NEWS! Paul writes, Therefore, we were buried with him through baptism into death, so that just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of Abba God, in this way we, we might also walk in the newness of life (v.4). Through what God did in Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit, death that leads to life is the only path for believers. What is ruled out? Death that leads to death. Why? Because those who journey through a death like Christ’s receive resurrection into new life that cannot die like Christ cannot die (and this new life is both internal and external, spiritual and temporal!).[2] Thus why Paul can then write, For if we have become united together with him in a death like his death, we will also [be united with him in his] resurrection (v. 5). We live unafraid of another death because we live eternally in and with Christ.

Paul continues to elaborate about this identification between the believer and Christ, Knowing that our old person was crucified together [with Christ] with the result that the body of sin is abolished, so that we are no longer a slave to sin, for the one who has died [with Christ] has been declared righteous from sin (vv. 6-7). Paul anchors the believer in the death of Christ so that their body of sin—not their existence as fleshy creatures, but their defective orientation resulting in sin thus death[3]—is put to death and this is liberation because it cannot weigh the believer down anymore. Another way to say this is that by virtue of identification with Christ in Christ’s death, sin and its consequence, death, are put to death.[4] What was ushered in by Adam and Eve in Genesis 3, has been put asunder by the death of death that is brought in and through Christ’s death and resurrection. And if this is the case, then with Paul we can say, And if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live together with him (v.8). Captivity itself is now held captive and the captives—the ones formerly held in captivity to sin and death—are liberated.[5]

Paul then writes, Knowing that Christ being raised from the dead no longer dies, death no longer rules over him. For the death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God [always]. Thus you, you also consider yourselves to be dead to sin and only living to God in Christ Jesus. For those who follow Christ, to live is to live unbound by death, released from captivity, no longer controlled and threatened by sin. According to Paul, it’s not that believers now no longer sin; they do. Believers will miss the mark, they will shoot and not score, they will mean one thing and do another, they will harm, they will mar, they will wound. What Paul is getting at is that the believer—while still a sinner—is liberated from the effects of sin which is death. The believer—now declared righteous although a sinner still (simul iustus et peccator)—has died once and for all (like Christ) and never needs to die again to sin (though sin is going to happen).[6] In other words, the believer does not need to intentionally sin so that they can die again to sin and again be declared righteous. Doing so is unnecessary and declares the grace of God unnecessary (Hell no!), as if being made righteous can come by any other means apart from grace and faith in Christ.

Because Jesus died once for all, believers in union with Christ by faith will never really die (they will “fall asleep in Christ”) because death has met its own death, captivity its own captivity. [7],[8] Rather, like Christ, they will live by the grace of God and for the grace of God.[9] This is an eternal living because the believer—by faith and God’s grace—lives in Christ and Christ who is now the Lord of life is no longer subject to death and its lordship—thus, those who live in Christ have life eternal because Christ is now eternal even in his raised and ascended body.[10] Even when sin shows up in the believer’s life—and it will—this eternal living is not hindered or hampered. Rather—through easy access to forgiveness and absolution—the believer can get up, wipe the dust off, and try again to live the life that reflects their eternal life in Christ.[11] Here the spiritual can manifest in the temporal, the outer aligns with the inner, God’s will can be done on earth as it is in heaven.

Conclusion

For the disciples, the deathly silence of Saturday was palpable. For (about) 36 hours, waiting for the Sabbath to pass, waiting for the dawn of second full day after Christ’s death, they died, each one of them died with Christ—in grief, loss, shock, doubt, hopelessness, helplessness. They despaired of themselves, they released all that they thought was, and they came to the absolute ends of themselves. And here, in their ignorance to the divine movements, amid their darkest doubt, their deepest despair, surrounded by a void of sound or word, God was about to usher them into a brand-new conception of what it means to live in Christ, to live in love, to live liberated from all that was. As the host of heaven held its breath and as the disciples cried, God was on the move raising the greatest gift for the cosmos: the fulfilment of God’s glorious promise, Jesus the Christ raised holding death itself captive to death.

Tonight, we move from death to life. This service dives in deep to the silence of Saturday, the despair of a missing messiah, the stripping away of hope. At the beginning, we are all stuck in our sin, set on a path toward death eternal, forever held captive by its threat and presence, stealing from us any sense of peace—for how can anyone really have peace if they are always scrambling away from and fighting against death and its fruits? But in the blink of an eye, God moved, the heavenly host exhaled, and we find ourselves shrouded in the mystery of Christ being raised from the dead to be for us the source, sustenance, and sustainment of divine life, love, and liberation for all people, the entire cosmos, forever and always. As those who are prone to wander, God has come in Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit to be our new life marked by remembering and not forgetting, walking and not tromping, gathered and not estranged, accepting and not judging, peaceful and lifegiving and not violent and death-dealing. Today we are new creatures with a new life and a new way to walk in the world for the wellbeing of our neighbors and to the glory of God.

Hallelujah! Christ is Risen!

[1] All translations from Romans are mine unless otherwise noted

[2] LW 25:309. “For having put on our mortal flesh and dying only in it and rising only in it, now only in it He joins these things together for us, for in this flesh He became a sacrament for the inner man and an example for the outward man.”

[3] LW 25:313. “The term ‘old man’ describes what kind of person is born of Adam, not according to his nature but according to the defect of his nature. For his nature is good, but the defect is evil.”

[4] LW 25:310. “Eternal death is also twofold. The one kind is good, very good. It is the death of sin and the death of death, by which the soul is released and separated form sin and the body is separated rom corruption and through grace and glory is joined to the living God. This is death in the most proper sense of the word, for in all other forms of death something remains that is mixed with life but not in this kind of death, where there is the purest life alone, because it is eternal life. For to this kind of death alone belong in an absolute and perfect way the conditions of death, and in this death alone whatever dies perishes totally and into eternal nothingness, and nothing will ever return from this death because it truly dies an eternal death. This is the way sin dies; and likewise the sinner, when he is justified, because sin will not return again for all eternity…”

[5] LW 25:310. “This is the principle theme in scripture. For God has arranged to remove through Christ whatever the devil brought in through Adam. And it as the devil who brought in sin and death. Therefore God brought about the death of death and the sin of sin, the poison of poison, the captivity of captivity.”

[6] LW 25:314. “The meaning is that we must undergo this spiritual death only once. For whoever dies thus lives for all eternity. Therefore we must not return to our sin in order to die to sin again.”

[7] LW 25:311. “Because for death to be killed means that death will not return, and ‘to take captivity captive’ means that captivity will never return, a concept which cannot be expressed through an affirmative assertion.”

[8] LW 25:311. “For the entering into life can, and necessarily must, become a departure from life, but the ‘escape form death’ means to enter into a life which is without death.”

[9] LW 25:313. “Nor can he be freed of his perversity except by the grace of God…This is said not only because of the stubbornness of perverse people but particularly because of the extremely deep infection of this inherited weakness and original poison, by which a man seeks his own advantage even in God himself because of his love of concupiscence.”

[10] LW 25:315. “For just as the ray of the sun is eternal because the sun is eternal, so the spiritual life is eternal because Christ is eternal; for He is our life, and through faith He flows into us and remains in us by the rays of His grace. Therefore, just as Christ is eternal, so also the grace which flows out of Him is from His eternal nature. Furthermore, just because a man sins again his spiritual life does not die, but he turns his back on this life and dies, while this life remains eternal in Christ.”

[11] LW 25:315. “He has Christ, who dies no more; therefore he himself dies no more, but rather he lives with Christ forever. Hence also we are baptized only once, by which we gain the life of Christ, even though we often fall and rise again. For the life of Christ can be recovered again and again, but a person can enter upon it only once, just as a man who has never been rich can begin to get rich only once, although he can again and again lose and regain his wealth.”

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Imagine Another Way

Psalm 127:1-2 Unless Abba God builds the house, their labor is in vain who build it. Unless Abba God  watches over the city, in vain the watcher keeps their vigil.

Introduction

We’re marching forward here in the gospel of Mark and learning, in every which way, what it looks like to be a disciple of Christ. And while I’ve stressed (because Mark has stressed) that it’s hard and can be (very) uncomfortable, the actual point is that following Christ, being a disciple of Jesus, is really and simply about being human…fully, and totally, materially and spiritually, from the inniest parts of our souls to the outiest surfaces of our body. For Mark’s Jesus, being fully and totally human requires a few things, full dependence on God through faith in Christ by the power of the indwelling divine Spirit. It’s this triune foundation that nourishes us in the amniotic fluid of divine love, bears us into the world swaddled in divine love, and continues to grow us toward divine love that is faith making itself known in the world through acts of love for God’s beloved. As the psalm tells us this morning: “Unless Abba God builds the house, their labor is in vain who build it. Unless Abba God  watches over the city, in vain the watcher keeps their vigil.”

In other words, when left to our own devices and to our own cleverness we create kingdoms and orders that remove us from not only God but from our own humanity. It is not some evil force that makes even well-intentioned systems and structures inhuman, it’s our own doing. We create hierarchies, in groups and out groups, uses and thems; we determine who is worth saving and who isn’t; we fabricate narratives elevating some above others because of wealth, skin, gender and sex, religion, age, abledness… We do this. And Jesus came, according to Mark, to expose these tendencies of the inhabitants of the kingdom of humanity and to usher them into the reign of God as citizens who make a difference in the world just by being willing to be utterly and completely human by loving (in word and deed) those whom God loves. By faith in Christ and by the power of the Holy Spirit, disciples of Christ become those human beings—fully dependent on God—who see through elaborate presentations of power and prestige and dare to imagine another way, a better way, a more human way defined by the reign of God and to the wellbeing of the neighbor.

Mark 12:38-44

And then [Jesus] was saying in his teaching, “You perceive from the scribes, those who desire to walk around in the apparel of the elite and [be] greeted deferentially in the places of assembly and [desire] the most honorable seat in the synagogue and the chief place at the table at dinner, the ones who take material advantage of the households of widows and for pretexts pray for a long time; they, they will receive a greater judgment…” (Mk. 12:38-40)

Apart from what we experienced last week between Jesus and the scribe who “got it,” we are back with Jesus’s continual denunciation of self-aggrandized power run amok.[1] Literally. Jesus has zero tolerance for these scribes[2] and exposes their “general character” manifesting as “ostentatious, exploitative, and hypocritical”.[3] Jesus proposes to his disciples, in this passage, another way of being (and leading) in the world, a way he, Jesus, the Son of God and of Humanity, will take which is the way he expects his disciples[4] to take, too.[5]

If you thought that the politics of Jesus emphasized being nice and tolerant, this passage blows that notion to smithereens; Jesus is thoroughly polemical[6] right now, and that’s why he broad brushed an entire group of Jewish authority[7] when he says: You perceive from the scribes those who desire…. The “you perceive” is a command, meaning YOU look….LOOK! And the “those who desire” modifies the scribes as those who have the ambition to abuse their power and to exploit the people. In other words, Jesus is saying, Look, LOOK!, look at how the scribes not only exploit the people but that they desire to do it… They desire[8] the glory their fancy/celebratory robes[9] bring them, the deferential greetings[10] their rank demands from those who are inferior, the best seats, and to siphon the livelihood from widows through being paid for their long prayers.[11] And when it comes to leaders who opt for arrogant self-involvement at the expense of God’s people—especially the weak and least of these in society like widows[12]—God takes massive issue and divine judgment comes…not for the people so deceived and duped, but for those in authority who capitalized on and benefited from such deception. This is quite literally what the major and minor prophets are all about, and this is why Jesus then says, they, they will receive a greater (divine[13]) judgment!

Then, according to the text, Mark tells us, And then after sitting down opposite the treasury he was looking at how the crowd is throwing money into the treasury. And many wealthy people were throwing in much. And then a poor widow came and threw in two of the smallest amounts of money[14] (which is a quadrans). This scene is jarring, it doesn’t seem to fit with what has just come before. Or is it? Seems there’s some ostentatious public[15] demonstrations of the rich throwing large sums of money[16] into the various thirteen “trumpet chests” [17]. It’s here where there’s an overlap: Jesus, again, has zero tolerance for ostentation and zero tolerance for exploitation. Thus, it’s not so much an attack on the rich per se but on the desire to show off how much one can and is giving thus drawing attention to oneself (like the Scribes in the marketplaces in their robes).[18] In this way, it can also be (potentially) an attack on institutions that allow the exploitation and extortion of widows their business for their own benefit—donations for the poor were done elsewhere apart from these trumpet chests.[19]

Jesus, in response to witnessing the widow’s offering, according to Mark, says, Truly I say to you—so take notice—that the poor widow threw much more into the treasury than all others; for all others threw in out of that which abounds, but she threw in out of her poverty all she was having, her entire livelihood. We’ve often made this offering a type of virtue even to the extent that some churches have suggested that you must give all you have to prove your faithfulness. It is possible that Jesus is glorifying her self-sacrifice and even honoring her heartfelt gift. It could be, too, that Jesus is placing a certain amount of emphasis on the reality that this widow just gave to the temple the means of her next meal when it may have been better for her to eat and live another day.[20] It is possible that Jesus is calling out the narrative justifying stealing from such people their very livelihood.[21] Thus, like the scribes, the human religious authority, consumed by the ideologies of the kingdom of humanity, have turned the temple into a money making institution, granting more and more power and privilege to the themselves (thus the cycle repeats from the beginning).

Conclusion

What do we take away from this? It is not to give all you have, though, during pledge month…give what you can! But more importantly, the point of this passage for us, today, is that humility carries way more currency in the economy of the reign of God than self-aggrandizement. This isn’t about not tooting your horn once in a while because you did something great or something great happened—you need not resort to just saying, “It’s all Jesus!”, Jesus wants you to receive the credit, too! This is about how we participate in systems and institutions that are prone to extorting and taking advantage of the least of these (and some of these least of these includes you). It’s about our faith in Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit, that we, as disciples of Christ, become human beings—fully dependent on God—who see through elaborate presentations of power and prestige and dare to imagine another way, a better way, a more human way defined by the reign of God and to the wellbeing of the neighbor. We are to be truly and fully human in a world demanding to grow ever more inhuman.

[1] R. T. France, The Gospel of Mark: A Commentary on the Greek Text, NIGTC, eds. I. Howard Marshall and Donald A. Hagner (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002), 489. “Apart from vv. 28-34, it is true, all the scribes we have met in this gospel have been critics, if not openly enemies, of Jesus, and here in Jerusalem their hostility has come to a head as Jesus had predicted…But there is no comparable denunciation of the priests or elders.”

[2] France, Mark, 491. “In that case the subjects of these participles are not a new group, or even a subgroup of the scribes, but must still be the scribes in general.”

[3] France, Mark, 489.

[4] France, Mark, 490. “These remarks, too, are addressed specifically to the disciples….and do not form part of the public denunciation of the scribes. Jesus again calls those who follow him to abandon the world’s conventions of importance: the first are to be last and the last first.”

[5] France, Mark, 489. “But the warning here is not related to what they. May have in mind to do to Jesus, but to their general character as ostentatious, exploitative, and hypocritical…In this context the effect is to offer the crowd a choice as to the sort of leader they will follow, and Jesus pulls no punches in exposing the shortcomings of scribes in general.”

[6] France, Mark, 490. “What is now recorded, however, is not so much teaching as polemic.”

[7] France, Mark, 489. “…this is polemics in the context of a highly charged and potentially fatal confrontation, and a suitably broad brush is applied.”

[8] William C. Placher, Mark, Belief: A Theological Commentary on the Bible, eds Amy Plantinga Pauw and William C. Placher. (Louisville: WJK, 2010), 181. “Beware of those who hold the chief seats, Augustine writes, ‘Not because they hold them, but because they love them.’ Those who are condemned put on a good appearance of piety praying long prayers, but what they seek is honor and wealth.”

[9] France, Mark, 490. “a στολή is not an everyday garment, but a festive or celebratory robe…and suggests ‘dressing up’.”

[10] France, Mark, 490. “Deferential ἀσπασμοί are a mark of social standing…”

[11] France, Mark, 492. “…προφάσει would naturally describe the fraudulent means by which it is achieved. In that case the reference cold be to the sort of payment for the prayers of a religious professional which became common in mediaeval Christianity.”

[12] France, Mark, 491. “The vulnerability of widows is a recurrent theme in biblical literature, so that to defraud them is particularly despicable.”

[13] France, Mark, 492. Κρίμα a reference to “….God’s eschatological judgment, of which Jesus has spoken so vividly…”

[14] France, Mark, 493. “The λεπτόν was the smallest denomination of currency in use, a copper coin less than a centimetre in diameter and worth less than one hundredth of a denarius (which was itself half the value of the half-shekel temple tax).”

[15] France, Mark, 489. “The scene is in the Court of the Women, so-called not because it was a specifically for women but because it was the nearest point to the temple building proper which was open to women. Here stood a range of thirteen ‘trumpet chests’…designed to receive monetary offerings, including not only the half-shekel temple tax but also ‘freewill offerings’. The half-shekel was obligatory for men, but any contribution to the other chests was voluntary, and would be noticed by anyone who, like Jesus and his disciples, was watching…perhaps it was a recognised tourist attraction.”

[16] France, Mark, 492. “χαλκός is strictly ‘copper’ or ‘bronze’, and the widow’s two coins would be of copper.” And, “But the large sums donated by the rich would presumably be in silver or gold coins… so that χαλκός is here used in its more general sense of ‘money’.”

[17] France, Mark, 492. “γαζοφυλάκον…its reference here to the collecting chests in the Court of the Women is demanded by the context…”

[18] France, Mark, 489-490. “Jesus’ comment on the widow’s offering is not an attack on wealth or the wealthy as such, but rather on the scale of values which takes more account of the amount of a gift than of the dedication of the giver. It develops further the new perspective of the kingdom of God which Jesus has been so assiduously teaching his disciples on the way to Jerusalem specially his comments responding to their astonishment at his treatment of the rich man in 10:23-27.”

[19] France, Mark, 493. “All contributions were therefore for the work of the temple; charitable donations for the poor were made separately.”

[20] France, Mark, 493. “While Jesus was not averse to exaggeration to make a point, it is quite possible that in first-century Palestine the donation of two [copper coins] would have left a poor widow without the means for her next meal.”

[21] Placher, Mark, 182. Alt reading: the widow mistakenly gives into a system that is bleeding her dry “Jesus lamented the widow’s contribution”

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With This Baptism and This Cup

Psalm 104:1, 25: Bless Abba God, O my soul; O my God, how excellent is your greatness! You are clothed with majesty and splendor. O Abba God, how manifold are your works! In wisdom you have made them all; the earth is full of your creatures.

Introduction

The clear and overarching question for Mark and Mark’s audience: “What does it mean to be a disciple of this man who is God, Jesus the Christ?” As we make our way through the Gospel of Mark, we see Mark’s proposed answer to this question encompasses more and more of the disciple’s lives. If the disciples thought it was about following this teacher and being taught some cool things about God, they needed to think again. Jesus has been redefining their lives from the heart outward; to drop their nets and follow Jesus means to take on a deep and abiding similarity (inside and out) to this man who is the Son of God and the Son of Humanity. Moment by moment, Mark’s Jesus is molding and shaping, preparing and forming his disciples (in mind and body) to be as him—Jesus the Christ—in the world when he leaves them so that God’s revolutionary mission of love, life, and liberation continues from one generation to the next, from one nation to the next, from one person to the next.

The most stressed aspect of discipleship in Mark’s gospel is that the disciples cannot keep/allow themselves to think according to the common sense of the kingdom of humanity. If we slow down and pay attention to what Jesus has been doing all these many weeks—since chapter 7—this focus of Jesus reveals itself as the controlling narrative for the disciples and discipleship. Time and again, Jesus takes the time and space to educate (reeducate?) these disciples who are “following the way”—Jesus’s disciples, in Mark, are always “on the way”. He goes to great lengths to teach them that (truly) they will walk, talk, act, and be different in the world. For Jesus, the reign of God cannot and will not tolerate the enmity and hostility, the division and separation, the boundaries and borders, the oppression and marginalization that thrives in the kingdom of humanity. To be Jesus’s followers, according to Mark, means to be those who are as Christ in the world, who drink from the cup that he drinks and are baptized with his baptism.

Mark 10:35-45

And then Jesus called to himself the Twelve and says to them, “You have known that the ones who seem to rule the Gentiles over power them and their great-ones exercise authority over them. But it is not like this among you. Rather, they who wish to become great among you will be your servant; and they who wish to be first, will be slave of all people. For the Son of Humanity came not to be served but to serve and to give his self [as a] ransom on behalf of many people.” (Mk. 10:42-45)[1]

Chapter 10 of Mark’s gospel brings us closer to Jesus’s death; time is running out, and the disciples still need to learn what it means to be of the of the earth and in God.[2] Remember that Mark’s gospel is written with speed, it sounds fast. Mark peppers his text with the introductory “καί”, “And then…” It gives the reader/listener the impression of time sensitivity. And our passage for this Sunday opens with another introductory “καί” that follows (another) segment of Jesus (pulling aside the Twelve and) telling them what will happen once they get to Jerusalem[3]: he, the Son of Humanity, will be handed over, tortured, killed, and (then) after three days he will rise again. And, like, immediately, the disciples reveal that they really👏just 👏don’t👏get👏it👏 None of what Jesus just said registered; they’re stuck in the thinking of the kingdom of humanity, convinced that Jesus will be entering into material glory and triumph,[4] and that they, too, will reap from those rewards.[5] They’re not entirely wrong; they will reap something but not what they are imagining.[6]

Enter James and John and another discussion about status.[7] These two, immediately, corner Jesus—pulling him away from the others—and they ask him for a very self-centered request (and they know it because of their round about approach to asking: Teacher, we wish that you might do for us whatever [if] we might ask you…). Jesus (kindly) responds, What do you wish I might do for you? And they reply, Please give to us that one might sit down of your right hand and one of [your] left hand [when you enter] into your [royal[8],[9]] glory. As bold as they were, Jesus was just as bold. You have not perceived what you ask; are you able to drink the wine cup which I, I drink or to be baptized with the baptism which I, I am baptized?

Here, Mark infuses Jesus words with two important images for the community to whom he writes. Mark’s community is under threat of persecution (thus the rapid flow of the text: this community may not have a lot of time), and the role that baptism (Greek: submersion partly unto death[10]) and the cup of wine (of the new covenant made through Christ’s shed blood and judgment[11]) play as sacramental images reminding these disciples that, yes, they participate and live in God, and that also, yes, they are under threat for who they are (followers of Christ).[12] In and through Jesus, Mark is, essentially, pastorally comforting this community who—in their own baptisms and cup participation—have echoed James and John’s courageous and loyal,[13] We are able. But unlike James and John, Mark’s community did know what they were signing up for when they entered, by faith, the community of the followers of the way.[14]

Jesus’s reply to James and John affirms the community’s experience and reassures them that he is present with them, The wine cup which I, I drink you will drink and with the baptism which I, I am being baptized you will be baptized. But to sit down of my right and or of my left hand is not mine to give but [is] for the one for whom it is prepared. While our minds go to the two thieves on their own crosses, one on the left and one on the right of Jesus, or, according to Mark, “two rebels” (15:27), we must see the pastoral implications for Mark’s community: Jesus goes into heavenly glory through death on the cross and into the new life of resurrection identifying with those who suffer and are grieved for their well-being and safety, those who are afraid to be out in public as they are[15]—this is about identification and solidarity and not about favors and gifts bestowed by an earthly king to his loyal followers.[16] Without making suffering a virtue (because you can’t earn this place by suffering[17]) or sacrament (by which people are forced to suffer to be holy and pleasing to God), Mark is telling his community, As those who are baptized in the baptism of Jesus and those who drink of the cup of Christ, Jesus is with you and you are (yesterday, today, and tomorrow[18]) already in the warm light of his heavenly glory for it is he who has the last word of life and not your suffering even unto death.[19]

Mark isn’t finished. Apparently, the other disciples take notice of what is going on: And then after hearing, [the other disciples] began to be incensed about James and John. Why are they “incensed”[20]? Not because James and John asked for such a bold request, but that James and John beat them to the punch. [21] All the disciples are sharing the same kingdom of humanity views about status and glory. [22] We know this because Jesus immediately called them [all] to himself and determines to teach them, yet again, about the divine equity that qualifies those who live by the (very revolutionary[23]) expectations of the reign of God.[24] According to Jesus, those who follow him (those who are to be baptized with his same baptism and drink from the same cup) will not be like the tyrants and oppressors[25] of the kingdom of humanity: You have perceived, Jesus says to the disciples, that the ones who appear to rule the Gentiles overpower them and their great-ones exercise authority over them. But it is not like this among you. Rather, they who wish to become great among you will be your servant; and they who wish to be first, will be slave of all people. For the Son of Humanity came not to be served but to serve and to give his self [as a] ransom on behalf of many people.

Conclusion

The truly revolutionary aspect of the mission of God in the world just dropped on the disciples like a bomb; their minds explode.[26] What Jesus is asking them to do isn’t just to be nice to other people including those of low status, but to literally take on a radical posture of service and obligation toward others especially those low in status.[27] In other words, just as Jesus[28] identifies with the least of these and will do so until he dies, so, too, will the disciples[29] identify with those who are least. Their road is not a road of material glory but of heavenly glory defined by God’s revolutionary action in the world in Christ and by the power of the Holy Spirit. Where the kingdom of humanity says it is great to be served, to be feared, to be respected, to be rich, to be great, those of the reign of God say[30]: blessed are the poor, blessed are those who grieve, blessed are those who are reviled, blessed are the oppressed, marginalized, ostracized, outcast…because in their midst where God and God’s love is manifest in substance and action of the community bearing Christ’s name. In other words, where those who represent God in Christ are, there God is, there is divine love, life, and liberation. When the kingdom of humanity argues about greatness, the disciples of Christ—those baptized into and who drink from the wine-cup of the new covenant of the reign of God—go in the opposite direction: they love where there is indifference, liberate where there is captivity, bring life where there is death, serve those denied service, and see the power of peace of divine equity that triumphs over the security manufactured by the kingdom of humanity. In other words, the followers of Christ participate in the mission of God in the world to keep human life human[31], all the way down.

[1] Translation mine unless otherwise noted

[2] William C. Placher, Mark, Belief: A Theological Commentary on the Bible, eds Amy Plantinga Pauw and William C. Placher. (Louisville: WJK, 2010), 150. In this portion of text, “Jesus is going to his fate.”

[3] R. T. France, The Gospel of Mark: A Commentary on the Greek Text, NIGTC, eds. I. Howard Marshall and Donald A. Hagner (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002), 414. “The previous passion predications have each been followed by an example of the disciples’ failure to grasp Jesus’ new scale of values and by consequent remedial teaching.”

[4] France, Mark, 416. “As Jesus has used the title ὁ θἱος τοῦ ἀνθρώπουfor himself, his disciples have grasped its royal connotations and can envisage a time when it will be fulfilled for Jesus….and therefore also for his faithful followers.”

[5] Placher, Mark, 150. “Now, shortly before they reach Jerusalem itself, two of the disciples manifest the last and perhaps most dramatic of Mark’s many cases of disciple misunderstandings. They still think that Jesus is headed for glory and triumph, and they want the positions of greatest prominence, at his right and left hand. They have understood neither the egalitarian character of the new community nor the suffering that aways Jesus. He challenges them on both counts.”

[6] Placher, Mark, 150. “Are they ready to suffer what he will suffer?”

[7] France, Mark, 414. “The issue of status is thus yet again brought to tour attention, with James and John as the negative examples. The setting of their request, with its presumption that Jesus is on the way to ‘glory’, is remarkable, following immediately after the most ominous and detailed of Jesus’ a passion predictions.”

[8] France, Mark, 414. “To speak of sitting…on the right (or left) of someone implies royal throne with the places of highest honour on either side; there are of course only two such places, leaving no room for Peter.”

[9] France, Mark, 415. “The request, precipitated perhaps by the excitement of coming near Jerusalem, the ‘royal’ city, assumes that Jesus, as ‘king’, has positions of honour and influence in his gift.”

[10] France, Mark, 417. “…in the narrative context we must suppose that Jesus has coined a remarkable new metaphor, drawing on his disciples’ familiarity with the dramatic physical act of John’s baptism, but using it…to depict the suffering and death into which he was soon to be ‘plunged.’”

[11] France, Mark, 416. FT image of Cup can be of blessing but more often of judgment.

[12] Placher, Mark, 150. “He uses two images—to be baptized, and to drink the cup. ‘Baptized’ in Greek can also mean ‘flooded with calamities,’ and the image is of an immersion that is partway toward drowning. The cup, as Jesus will soon explain to them, is the cup of his blood. Thus the images are both symbols of sacraments and symbols of threats, and this was appropriate to the church of Mark’s time, where joining the Christian community or participating in Christian worship did risk torture and death.”

[13] France, Mark, 417. “[James and John] may lack understanding, but not loyalty or courage.”

[14] Placher, Mark, 150-151. “Do they know what they are promising? Probably not. It is a common human experience to discover we have assigned on for more than we realized or intended. Sometimes that discovery comes with panic and the need to escape, but sometimes we are grateful in retrospect for the veil that hid from us a destination we would not have had the courage for at the time.”

[15] France, Mark, 418. The “for whom” it is being prepared will not include those who are expected but the unexpected, like those of low status.

[16] France, Mark, 414. “But in the end v. 40 undermines the whole premise on which their request was based, that status in the kingdom of God can be bestowed as a favour, or even earned by loyalty and self-sacrifice.”

[17] France, Mark, 417. “…even if they fulfill the ‘conditions’ he has set down, their request still cannot be granted. The cup and the baptism thus prove not to be qualifying conditions at all, but rather a way of indicating that their whole conception of δόξα and of the way it is to be achieved is misguided.”

[18] France, Mark, 416. “For Jesus the route to glory is clear; it is by way of the ποτήριον and the βάπτισμα which await him…and anyone who wishes to share the glory must first also share those experiences.”

[19] France, Mark, 416.

[20] Placher, Mark, 151. “The others among the Twelve hear that James and John have been lobbying for privileged positions, and they are angry. Again, Jesus explains the nature of the new community he is creating.”

[21] France, Mark, 418. “…their annoyance is not over the ambition of the two brothers as such, but over the fact that they have got in first and tried to gain an unfair advantage over their colleagues in the competition for the highest places. On this issue they are all equally at fault.”

[22] France, Mark, 414. “…moreover, the other disciples seem to share [James and John’s] perspective, and Jesus responds with the most thoroughgoing statement yet of the revolutionary values of the Kingdom of God.”

[23] France, Mark, 415. “…v. 43a now offers a further ‘slogan’ which encapsulates the revolutionary effect of his teaching about the kingdom of God…”

[24] France, Mark, 414. “The second section (vv. 41-45) picks up the theme of 9:35 and again subverts the whole notion of leadership and importance which human society takes for granted.”

[25] France, Mark, 419. v. 42 kata terms, “…convey the oppressive and uncontrolled exploitation of power, the flaunting of authority rather than its benevolent exercise.”

[26] France, Mark, 415. “The ‘natural’ assumptions and valuations by which people operate no longer apply in the kingdom of God. it is a genuinely alternative society.”

[27] France, Mark, 419. v. 43a “…sums up the revolutionary ethics of the kingdom of God. the natural expectations of society are reversed, and leadership is characterized by service, by being under the authority of others, like a διάκονος or δοῦλος. Nor is this just a matter of recognising a higher rank within a recognizes hierarchy: it is to everyone…that precedence must be given.”

[28] France, Mark, 419. Son of humanity in v. 45 “…provides the supreme model of status reversal in that he whose destiny it was διακονηθῆναι…was instead to become πάντων διἀκονος.”

[29] France, Mark, 419. “[διακονέω] does not denote a particular role, but rather the paradoxically subordinate status of the one who should have enjoyed the service of others. The following καὶ δοῦναι does not so much specify the form of service, but rather adds a further and yet more shocking example of this self-sacrificing attitude which he in turn enjoins on his followers.”

[30] France, Mark, 421. “It is not the λύτρον ἀντὶ πολλῶν that they are expected to reproduce: that was Jesus’ unique mission. But the spirit of service and self-sacrifice, the priority given to the needs of the πολλοί, are for all disciples. They, too, must serve rather than be served, and it may be that some of them will be called upon, like James and John, to give up their lives. There is no room for quarrels about τίς μείζων.”

[31] Paul Lehman, Ethics in a Christian Context

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The [extra] Ordinary Time of Pentecost

Psalm 139:16-17 How deep I find your thoughts, O God! how great is the sum of them! If I were to count them, they would be more in number than the sand; to count them all, my life span would need to be like yours.

Introduction

The beauty of “ordinary time” is that, quite frankly, it is anything but ordinary. If we are following the story line and taking seriously the extensive breadth of the reach of the Triune God extending through space and time, then we are left—after Pentecost/Trinity Sunday—in the exact same spot the disciples were left when Jesus ascended to God and the Paraclete descended to be with, in, and among the disciples, bringing God intimately close. Being left behind by Christ and yet indwelled by the Spirit, the disciples had to figure out how to move forward, one step at a time. Be not mistaken, even if this (visible) church has been around for decades and the larger (invisible) church for millennia, we are, as of this Sunday, (re)located—through story and narrative—back at the beginning, with the recently left and spiritually emboldened disciples.

While it may seem odd that this is the case, it’s only odd because the story seems chopped off at Pentecost/Trinity Sunday, truncated to the time between Advent 1 and Pentecost/Trinity Sunday as if the church is only about the feasts of Christ and not of the continual feast of the Spirit. We dismiss this liturgical season as a non-event. It’s banal, nothing really changes, we have nothing to celebrate or events to plan; no one makes a point to come to church because it’s Pentecost 16. It’s a “down-time” for the church. Vacations happen now. It’s time that isn’t time, it seems to exist at the end of and before time as if the story stops with Pentecost and picks up again with Advent. But it’s the start and end of time; it is during the long season of Pentecost, of ordinary time, where we see time begin for the church—begin and end in God.

So, if we are taking the story—the entire story—very seriously then we can see (and hear!) that during every season of Pentecost we are re-called, re-substantiated, re-created, re-minded that our story, our being, our presence in the world, is dependent and nurtured and sustained by God in God for God’s glory. And every year we must figure out, once again, what it means to be such as us in this world, at this time, in this shape and form. And in this way, the church’s liturgical “ordinary time” becomes the most EXTRAordinary because here it becomes personal and public, here we wrestle with God, here we watch as God continues unfolding the stories—from Christmas, Easter, and Pentecost—in our living (together as this church here in this building and together as the church outside of this building). Here we are called to find ways to participate in God’s mission and proclamation in the world, and here we are forced to ask the same question the disciples asked when they found themselves needing to become a new community in the world of God for God’s glory: what now?

2 Corinthians 4:5-12

For we do not preach ourselves but Lord Christ Jesus, and ourselves as your slaves through Jesus. Because God—the one who says “Let light be radiant out of darkness”—radiated [and continues to radiate] in our hearts toward the illumination of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ. (2 Cor 4:5-6)

So, as we dive into [extra]Ordinary Time, we are presented with Paul, in a letter to the Corinthians, reminding them that this isn’t about them but about God. It was started by God, it is being sustained by God, and it will continue to go forward by God’s power. This isn’t about us in the sense that we are to proclaim our ideas of what the church is or should be or our own authority. Rather, we proclaim what God has done (from Christmas to Pentecost) for the beloved which includes us,[1] thus continuing the story forward through our proclamation, making Christmas, Easter, and Pentecost real for others.

What does Paul say we proclaim? Jesus Christ is Lord. This, for Paul, is the foundation of our confession—then and now.[2] It is the public and private confession—inspired by the Holy Spirit—that Jesus of Nazareth is also Jesus the Christ, that Jesus is God’s child, the author of the cosmos and the church, that death and evil don’t have the final word but hope and life do, that Jesus is the righteous judge of all, and that all of this demands a rejection of former allegiances in the kingdom of humanity.[3] Thus, for this reason, Paul says that he does not proclaim himself but Christ Jesus, Lord; and, for this reason, Paul insists on the importance of the neighbor (the beloved of God) and the demand that insistence makes on the believer to forsake “personal rights,” because that is exactly what Christ did while he was here.[4]

Behind all of this is Paul’s personal confession that everything that he is doing and saying, and the basic establishment of the church is all God’s doing. There’s no way that Paul would see himself as a slave to his neighbor apart from the illumination of God’s word in his heart; everything Paul does and says is informed by God who beckons cosmic light to be born in cosmic darkness and who is the same one who beckons the light of the Gospel to be born in darkened hearts by the power of the divine Spirit.[5],[6],[7]

And how does God make God’s illumination known? Through fragile and expendable vessels, cheap and unattractive. It is human beings, in frail bodies, who are charged with the “privileged guardianship” of the message of God’s word.[8] (Priceless contents enveloped by meager, breakable material.[9]) And by virtue of everything being dependent on God, these fragile, breakable, relatively worthless vessels become the most powerful of God[10] through their call to take up and participate in the mission and proclamation of God’s divine revolution of love, life, and liberation in the world, on behalf of God’s beloved.[11] Thus, Paul lists the ways human weakness is made strong through God’s divine power.[12] The disciples of God by God’s power and word sustaining them are distressed but not restricted, perplexed but not thwarted, persecuted but not abandoned, struck down but not destroyed (vv. 8-9). Paul, as a meager, breakable vessel, is utterly dependent on God’s power.[13] And it is through this human weakness and fragility that God’s strength and durability are made known through Paul; it is in the daily dying of the disciples as they move forward step by step as this new community called into God’s mission and proclamation in the world where God’s life is made manifest; in the disciples’ suffering, Jesus’s risen life is articulated and made real.[14]

Conclusion

So this simple season of Pentecost is [extra]Ordinary Time because we are reminded that everything about our entire enterprise as the church (both as church visible and participant in the church invisible) is totally and completely dependent on God: Creator, Reconciler, and Redeemer. Everything we are, have been, and will be is defined and dependent on the work of the triune God in three persons: We are each called together corporately and individually to God by God through the incarnate Word of God, Jesus Christ proclaimed and made known to us by the power of the Holy Spirit. God calls us, God determines us, God sustains us. We are each here together as this body of Christ called by name, determined as this church in this time at this moment in history, and sustained to participate in God’s mission and proclamation in the world. It’s this utter and total dependence—this being called, determined, and sustained—that makes every day in this “Ordinary” season positively extraordinary.

And by saying this it means that we have a vital role to play in this mission of God in the world, the divine revolution of love, life, and liberation aimed toward upending broken human systems and ideologies determined to bring indifference, death, and captivity. Sometimes, when stressing utter dependence it’s tempting to “let go and let God” as if you are nothing more than a puppet on divine hand in God’s drama. But this would be the opposite of being in the world but not of the world, the opposite of being filled with the presence of the divine spirit (the Paraclete) who comes to expose and judge the world in the way it has failed to support and defend all of God’s beloved. So, going into this season of Pentecost, our longest liturgical season, we are to press into the Spirit to find our strength and resolve and be guided by that same Spirit to actively participate in the mission of God in the world made known to us in Christ. We are to face the question, what now?, head on and dare to answer it for us and for the world, today and then again next week. We are to be in the world as breakable and fragile vessels, members of God’s royal army, not wielding weapons esteemed and sanctioned by the military. Rather, we wield the divine instruments of God: the declaration of love, the bringing of liberation, and the affirmation of life.

[1] Murray J. Harris, The Second Epistle to the Corinthians: A Commentary on the Greek Text, NIGTC, eds. I Howard Marshall and Donald A Hagner (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005), 331. “…[Paul] may be observing that though he sought to commend himself to everyone person’s conscience….he never advertised or heralded himself, never pressed personal claims.”

[2] Harris, Corinthians, 332. “…κύριον is predicative, ‘Jesus Christ as Lord.’ The two earliest Christological confessions were ὀ Χριστὸς, ‘Jesus is the Messiah’… and κύριος Ἰησοῦς ‘Jesus is Lord’…”

[3] Harris, Corinthians, 332.

[4] Harris, Corinthians, 333. “[Paul] envisaged his relationship to Christ and his relationship to fellow Christians as one of slavery, that is, as unquestioning service for the benefit of the other, as the result of the unconditional but voluntary surrender of all personal rights. In this lowly service to others, Paul was following in the footsteps of his Lord, who himself had adopted the status and role of a δοῦλος…”

[5] Harris, Corinthians, 333-334. “It was because God had dispelled his darkness by illuminating his heart and had given him a knowledge of Christ he wished to share. The spiritual principle is this; the person who has light (v. 5) is responsible to share that light (v. 4).

[6] Harris, Corinthians, 335. “Paul is not only depicting the heart as by nature dark through sin but also implying that conversion is the replacement of that darkness by light, a theme frequently expressed in the NT.”

[7] Harris, Corinthians, 335. “…the knowledge that produces illumination is nothing other than knowledge of the gospel.”

[8] Harris, Corinthians, 339.

[9] Harris, Corinthians, 340. “Such vessels were regarded as fragile and as expendable because the were cheap and often unattractive. So the paradox Paul is expressing is that although the container is relatively worthless…the content are priceless. Although the gospel treasure is indescribably valuable, the gospel’s ministers are of little value in comparison.”

[10] Harris, Corinthians, 340. “σκεύη refers to whole persons, who, although insignificant and weak in themselves, become God’s powerful instruments in communicating the treasure of the gospel.”

[11] Harris, Corinthians, 341. “Because the gospel treasure has been entrusted to fail mortals who lack inherent power, the δύναμις displayed through preaching and in suffering is demonstrably divine and not human.”

[12] Harris, Corinthians, 342. “…the first element in each antithesis illustrates human weakness, the second illustrates divine power.”

[13] Harris, Corinthians, 345. “…it is clear that in Paul’s estimation this ‘hardship catalogue’ demonstrates, not his virtuous character or his buoyant self-sufficiency or his steadfast courage amid adversity…but his utter dependence as a frail human being on the superlative excellent…of God’s power.”

[14] Harris, Corinthians, 347. “First, the resurrection life of Jesus is evident at precisely the same time as there is a ‘carrying around’ of his dying. Indeed, the very purpose of the believer’s identification with Jesus in his sufferings is to provide an opportunity of the display of Jesus’ risen life. Second, one and the same physical body is the place where the sufferings of Jesus are repeated and where his risen power if manifested.”

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The Paraclete Cometh

Psalm 104:34-37a 34 I will sing to Abba God as long as I live; I will praise my God while I have my being. May these words of mine please God; I will rejoice in Abba God. Bless God, O my soul!

Introduction

Last week, Jesus prayed for his disciples to have the fortitude to remain in the Word of God. Being not of the world but remaining in the world means that this fledgling community belonging to Christ needed to remember that their creation as this fledgling community was solely based and sustained on God’s Word proclaimed in and through Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ, this one who is God. As Jesus prepares to leave his disciples, he knew that the hatred of the world toward this new community of God would try to eclipse the joy and confidence of these faithful. So, he prayed. He prayed that they would remain one as Jesus and God are one, because they are stronger together as a group, and the world loves to divide and conquer. He prayed for the sustaining of their identity, that they remember whose they are, because the world will do whatever it can to make the forget. He prayed for them to be protected in their new creation (new eyes, new ears, new words), because the world will try to steal from their new creation, forcing them to relinquish new eyes and ears, holding their proclamation hostage, demanding they forsake their divinely gifted life, love, and liberation.

Jesus knew they needed help. This little community—barely a smoldering wick—was about to be launched into the world to fend for themselves. They would be assaulted on every side because of who they were and what they said: they, like their Christ, were to become the locus of God’s revolutionary activity in the world; their message would echo Jesus’s, calling into question the kingdom of humanity, exposing the upside-down world, and proclaiming the words of the divine revolution in the world for the oppressed. Jesus knew they were sitting ducks and without God, they would not make it far because this community was not a community created by human strength so it could not be sustained by human strength. So, this community needed something bigger and stronger, something that is of the same substance as the word that not only called this community into being but also the entire cosmos.

Jesus prayed on behalf of the community, asking for God to show up. And God did.

Enter the Paraclete!

John 15:26-27; 16:4b-15

“But I, I say to you the truth, it is profitable to you that I, I go away. For if I do not go away, the paraclete cannot come to you. But, if I go, I will send them to you. And coming, that one will convict the cosmos concerning sin and concerning justice and concerning judgment…I still have many things to say to you, but you are not able to bear them just now. But, whenever this one comes, the Spirit of Truth, they will guide you in every kind of truth, for they will not speak from themself, but as much as you listen they will bring back word to you. (Jn 16:7-8, 12-13)

The lectionary loops us back into John 15 after bringing us to John 17 last week. Thus, according to the logic of the lectionary, Jesus’s promise of the Spirit is the fulfillment of the prayer to God to protect, guide, and strengthen the disciples who will be left in the world. But the advent of the Spirit, the Paraclete, is more than just a helper for those who will be left by Jesus; they are the very foundation of the church, as we say in our creed every Sunday: the Spirit is the “life-giving breath of the church.” For it is through, with, and by the Spirit that the work and word of Christ started in the body of Jesus will transition to the work and word of the fledgling community, who is now transfigured into the body of Christ in the world in Christ’s absence.[1] It is by the Spirit of God, the Paraclete, that God’s will and mission in the world will continue to be made known to the beloved in and through the new community of God.

Jesus—the Reconciler—must leave the disciples and return to God the Creator so that the Spirit of God—the Redeemer—can be sent into the world, specifically into the hearts of the disciples, to continue the work of God in the world. The work of the Spirit is to continue to reveal God in the world by means of the light of truth that is the Word of God revealed in Jesus Christ.[2] In this way, God’s self-revelation and mission in the world is not cut short by Jesus’s bodily absence; through the Spirit rather than the incarnate Word, Jesus the Christ, does the Word and mission of God begin to transcend not only geographical boundaries (Acts 10 fulfilling Acts 1:8) but will also transcend chronological boundaries. By the sending of the Spirit, the Word of God will continue in the world, the light of truth will continue to illuminate hearts and minds from one era to another, in one context to a completely different one, through decades, centuries, and millennia.[3] It is through the witness of the Spirit in the lives of the disciples that witnesses back to Christ and thus forward to God[4] that is the continual fuel for the fire of divine revolution setting human hearts ablaze like match sticks—one by one.[5]

It is for this reason that Jesus both addresses the disciples’ impending grief (being left alone in the world in distress)[6] and exhorts them toward joy: even though they will grieve Jesus’s absence, feel fear and anxiety, they will be comforted by God’s Spirit, the Paraclete, who will usher them further into God’s truth and into God’s reality thus farther and deeper into God.[7] This is why Jesus turns the conversation toward what the Paraclete will do when they show up, because it is through the disciples (and through the church that will be born through their bodies and the Word of God) that the Paraclete will expose the world’s misconceptions of sin, justice, and judgment.[8] In this way and to quote Rudolf Bultmann, “The world is accused, and the Paraclete is the prosecutor.”[9] With the Paraclete set loose in the world through the disciples, human sin is exposed by divine righteousness,[10] human justice is brought to trial by divine justice, [11] and human judgment is found guilty by divine judgment.[12] Thus, God’s truth continues to be the light of the world from one era to another, within one context and then in another, living in one heart and at the same time in a completely different heart. The one word of God is always new in every moment as a word of revelation; it is not static doctrine, archaic dogma, suffocating fundamentalism, and deadly legalism. Rather, it is always a new living-word summoning the dead in their tombs into life in the world.[13]

Thus, Jesus can assure the disciples that even though he has much more to teach them, he will leave that to the Paraclete who will guide them (teach/lead) into every kind of truth further revealing Christ into the world, further instigating God’s divine revolution of life, love, and liberation in the world in pursuit of the God’s beloved. The Paraclete will not lead the disciples (those then and those now) to a static conception of God or into a conception of God so different there must be a break with this history set out through Christ, but into God’s self-disclosure made known in the revelation of God incarnate, Jesus.[14] In other words, divine truth will be revealed in every moment as the present moment—whatever/wherever—is revealed by the divine word and ushered into divine comfort by the Paraclete, who is the Spirit of Truth.[15] Starting first with the community—whatever/wherever—and billowing outward into the world.

Conclusion

Those first disciples lost their main, they lost Jesus whom they loved dearly—they staked their lives on this love of Christ, and then he left them. The distress they felt was real; it’s a distress that we feel today, feeling left/abandoned by God without Jesus to be here with us bodily. But the Paraclete remains in the world and always with the disciples of Christ, those who are thrust by faith into God and are dependent on God’s word. Our God is Triune, three persons one God; personal and close, at all times, in all eras. God is not dead, dear ones; God is alive, God is here, God is with us, and God is within us. Martin Luther writes about this portion of the Gospel of John, “Therefore God has been gracious to us and has given us a Comforter to counteract this spirit of terror—a Comforter, who, as God Himself, is much stronger with His comfort than the devil is with his terror.”[16] The one who lives in us and through us is the one who can bend space and time to become one spot and moment so that all time and all space is in this God of presence, revelation, and comfort.

Yet comfort only comes when God’s truth exposes and reveals us, the way we miss the mark, our decrepit ideas, broken systems, and violent ideologies. By the presence of the spirit—it’s conviction—we cannot pretend not to see what we see, hear what we hear, feel what we feel. We do not have the luxury of undoing God’s summoning of us out from our tombs back at Easter. By the Spirit, the Paraclete, this humble community, bends its knees, confesses, and finds absolution by faith in Christ and union with God. Through the conviction and exposure of the Paraclete, divine comfort becomes true comfort—not the comfort of the world that is fleeting, comfort that lasts through thick and thin because it’s built out of the stuff of the infinite and not finite, of the eternal and not terminal, out of the substance of God and not the substance of humanity.

God’s Spirit of Truth, the Paraclete, the Prosecutor comes to bring God close to us through the light of truth to live with us and among us and in us, to work in and through us the divine revolution of God’s love, life, and liberation in the world. Today we rejoice because Christ’s joy is made complete in us through the sending of the Paraclete who binds us to God through Christ. We can let go of the rope and fall into God because God will show up because God never left us.

[1] Rudolf Bultmann, The Gospel of John: A Commentary, trans. GR Beasley-Murray, Gen Ed, RWN Hoare and JK Riches (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1971), 552. Originally published as, Das Evangelium des Johannes (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1964, 1966). “After Jesus’ departure, the situation on earth will remain unchanged in as much as the offence which Jesus’ work offered the world will not disappear. The witness, which till now he had borne to himself, will be taken over by the Paraclete, the Helper, whom he will send from the Father.”

[2] Bultmann, John, 553. “The ἀλθείας is for him the self-revelatory divine reality, and the function of the Spirit consists in bestowing revelation by continuing Jesus’ revelatory work, as is stated by the words μαρτυρήσει περὶ ἐμοῦ…”

[3] Bultmann, John, 553. “Jesus will send this Spirit from the Father, and from the Father he will come forth. This two-fold designation makes the reference to the idea of revelation certain’ even after Jesus’ departure, God’s revelation will be mediated through him: he it is, who sends the Spirit…who bears witness to him; but he does so in his unity with the Gather, who has made him Revealer; he sends the Spirit from the Father; the Spirit proceeds from the Father, just as it is said in 14.16 that the Father sends the Spirit at the son’s request, or in 14.26 that he sends him ‘in the name’ of the Son. All these expressions say the same thing.”

[4] Bultmann, John, 554. “Thus their being with him ἀπ᾽ ἀρχῆς has not come to an end with his farewell, but continues further; and this is the only basis on which their witness is possible. Their witness is not , therefore, a historical account of that which was, but—however much it is based on that which was—it is ‘repetition,’ ‘a calling to mind,’ in the light of their present relationship with. Him. In that case it is perfectly clear that their witness and that of the Spirit are identical.”

[5] Bultmann, John, 553-554. “The word μαρτυρήσει indicates that the Spirit is the power of the proclamation in the community, and this is made fully clear by the juxtaposition of the disciples’ witness and that of the Spirit: καὶ ὑμεῖς δὲ μαρτυρεῖτε (v. 27). For the witness borne by the disciples is not something secondary, running alongside the witness of the spirit.” And “Their preaching is to be a ‘repetition’ of his preaching, or a ‘calling to mind,’…” (554)

[6] Bultmann, John, 558. “They are not asking where he is going to—the answer would be: to the father, and that would solve their difficulty—but they are in λύπη because they are about to be left in their distress.”

[7] Bultmann, John, 558.

[8] Bultmann, John, 560-561. “Only in the word was Jesus the Revealer, and only in the word will he continue to be it; for the Paraclete, who is take his place, is the word. The word is very far from being a closed doctrine, or complex of statements, not on the other hand is it the historical account of Jesus’s life. It is the living word; that is, paradoxically, the word which is spoken by the community itself, for the Paraclete is the Spirt that is at work in the community.”

[9] Bultmann, John, 562.

[10] Bultmann, John, 563. “The world understands sin as revolt against its own standards an ideals, the things which give it security. But to shut oneself off from the revelation that calls all worldly security in question and opens up another security—that is real sin, in contrast to which all that used to be sinful was only temporary and passing.”

[11] Bultmann, John, 565. ‘For the world , this victory is just as much a κρυπτόν (7.4) as is the real nature of ἁμαρτία; as the world sees things, to suffer the wreckage of death means condemnation by God; the world can only see victory in what is visible. But the significance of the victory lies precisely in the overcoming of the visible by the invisible; this is why the world does not know that it is condemned, or that it is conquered. But this is what the Paraclete will show.”

[12] Bultmann, John, 565. “In each case the world thinks it possesses the criteria for this judgment in its concepts of ἁμαρτία and δικαιοσύνη. But as it deceived itself over the meaning of A and D, so too it fails to see that the χρίσις is already ensuing, that the prince of this world is already judged; i.e. it fails to see that it is itself already judged—condemned for holding on to itself, to it s own standards and ideals, to what can be seen.”

[13] Bultmann, John, 561. “For the word is at the same time spoken into a situation; i.e. it is spoken as the word of revelation against it. If therefore the community has any understanding of the word of revelation that brings it into being, it can and must know that it has always to interpret the word afresh and to speak it into its own present as the word that is always the same—that word that is the same because it is always new.”

[14] Bultmann, John, 575. “This means that the Spirits’ word is not something new, to be contrasted with what Jesus said, but that the Spirit only states the latter afresh. The Spirit will not bring new illumination, or disclose new mysteries; on the contrary, in the proclamation effected by him, the word that Jesus spoke continues to be efficacious.”

[15] Bultmann, John, 574. “If the Spirit is at work in the word that is proclaimed in the community, then this word gives faith the power to step out into the darkness of the future, because the future is always illumined afresh by the word. Faith will see the ‘truth’ in each case, i.e., it will always be certain of the God who is manifest in the word, precisely because it understands the present in the light of this word.”

[16] Martin Luther, “Sermons on the Gospel of St. John Chapters 14-16,” Luther’s Works, vol. 24, ed., Jaroslav Pelikan (Saint Louis: Concordia, 1961), 291.

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Hands in Solidarity

Sermon on Mark 9:38-50

Psalm 124:6-7 6 Blessed be the Lord! [The Lord] has not given us over to be a prey for their teeth. We have escaped like a bird from the snare of the fowler; the snare is broken, and we have escaped. Our help is in the Name of the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth.

Introduction

In an episode of Grey’s Anatomy, a 20-year-old man comes to the ER because he’s attempted to cut off his right hand due to “sin”. Per the directives of Jesus, he explains to the doctor, this besetting sin (revolving around self-pleasure) involved his hand, and since it was a stumbling block, he tried to cut it off. A literalist, this young man took Jesus’s words as they were: the word of God as command to be obeyed. The doctor assisting him, April, tries to convince him not to take the text that literally. The young man replies in such a way to indicate that the word of God is true or it isn’t and then if it isn’t true, then he’s wasted his entire life following Jesus and believing in him and God. Then I scream into my pillow: context is king!

Just like doctors who cannot watch doctor shows, I cannot handle watching media portray religion in general and Christianity in specific.  While I think the episode did a decent job presenting space to the viewers to ask more profound questions about faith and belief, sacred text and sacred dogma, it still rendered the image of Christianity and Christians with it in simplistic and literal terms, leaving behind the profoundly rich potential for nuance and creativity.

The binary that something is true (read: factual) or it isn’t (read: hard lie), isn’t a binary that exists. Something can be true and not factual or real; something can be factual and built of lies. There’s variation between two polarized things; there is a shade of gray that is so dark that it looks like it’s the shade black, but it’s not. It’s very very very very very very very dark gray. And so, we must be willing, especially as those encountered with God in the event of faith, to investigate doctrines and dogmas and ask many, many questions and bend toward creativity. We are humans, given rich inquisitive and creative minds; not robots prewired and coded to obey without thought and question.

So, in that spirit, we must ask: what does Jesus mean when he commands the disciples to cut off the appendage that is causing spiritual stumbling? Let’s look.

Mark 9:38-50

And whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to stumble, it is better for them if a donkey’s millstone lies around upon their neck and be thrown into the sea. And if your hand causes you to stumble, cut it off; it is good for you to enter life without a hand than arrive in the unquenchable fire of Gehenna having two hands. And if your foot causes you to stumble, cut it off; it is good for you to enter life maimed than to be thrown into Gehenna having two feet. And if your eye causes you to stumble, pluck it out; it is good for you to enter the kingdom of God one-eyed than be cast into Gehenna having two eyes.[1]

Mark 9:42-48

Mark continues the conversation between Jesus and his disciples picking up with John ratting out a stranger for doing an exorcism in the name of Christ and telling Jesus they tried to stop him but failed.[2] The cliquishness[3] and exclusivity[4] of the disciples are exposed in this moment of “impulsive hostility” toward an outsider who was unknown to them.[5] Jesus responds quickly to disarm and defang such cliquishness and excluding behavior by correlating the powerful deed done in Jesus’s name with a future inability to speak ill of Jesus. According to Mark’s Jesus, this outsider is an insider and on the right side by virtue of their activity done in the name of Christ.[6] So, why get in their way? Why intentionally try to cause them to stumble in their activity?

Jesus then mentions that if anyone were to give you even the most simple and basic thing (a cup of water, which, in that context, was a common and expected thing to do[7]), specifically because you bear the name of Christ, then there is reward that won’t be lost. With the anyone,Jesus does what the disciples can’t do: extend the boundaries of the group from a circle of twelve to a potentially ever-expanding quantity of people. Where the disciples want to limit the group to exclusive membership that looks a particular way (this person wasn’t following US), Jesus, like Jesus does, tears down the wall. Even that small act of a fellow journeyer[8] to one of those of Christ is seen and acknowledged; to see Christ in another person and act on it for their livelihood (even if basic) is to be on the right side.[9] The disciples see themselves as part of a sect, but Jesus has called them to be a church.[10]

He then moves straight into the declaration that it would be better to have a millstone put around one’s neck and thrown into the sea than to cause “one of these little ones” to stumble. As if in juxtaposition to the simple and common act of giving water to even one such as these, Jesus makes another very similar statement, but this time in the negative. To give water to one of these who bear the name of Christ is worthy of reward; but to make one stumble is worse than being thrown into the sea with a millstone around one’s neck. A quick death is better than the actual punishment deserved for causing one of those who believe in Jesus to stumble; the actual punishment, Jesus mentions, is eternal torment (vv. 43, 45, 47).[11] Jesus continues to speak of hands, feet, and eyes that cause you to stumble. It’s better, he says (rhetorically, according to the structure of the Greek text), to cut them off or pluck them out than to keep all of your appendages and organs and be thrown into the eternal torment of the unquenchable fire of Gehenna.

Conclusion

There’s nothing in this passage about sex or personalized sin habits; it’s about solidarity.

All of this is part of a larger context–beginning last week—and makes sense in conjunction with the wider context of the discussion between Jesus and his disciples. An indicator is the “little ones” (μικροί), which correlates these statements back to the conversation about “who is the greatest…” Jesus is building from that discussion by calling all followers “little ones”. And Jesus care a lot about the μικροί who are the children of God. Whoever receives one such as this child/little one in my name… Anyone who does anything life-giving to another child of God for the name of Christ, is one with God. In this way, the first is last, and servant of all. In this way, to be greatest is to be smallest, humbly following Christ and walking with other fellow journeyers on the way; not tripping up others or tripping up yourselves—no matter how long we’ve been walking, we are all able to be tripped up and to trip up.

In order to walk this way, Jesus is exhorting the disciples not only to think bigger about what parameters form the group, they must also re-evaluate what it means to follow Jesus as a disciple.[12] It necessitates continual self-examination and openness;[13] taking seriously life-giving and not death-dealing. Thus, those who follow Christ must not be stumbling blocks to other people or stumbling blocks to ourselves. It’s such a serious thing that Jesus attaches hellfire and quick death to it. Intentionally getting in the way and being a stumbling block to oneself[14] and others is a capital offense for Jesus.[15] We are to be in solidarity with other children of God, which and in light of God so loving the entire cosmos, puts us in solidarity with all other people, especially those who are suffering from oppression and marginalization and with whom Jesus stood in solidarity with.

The Rev. Ada Maria Isasi-Diaz brilliantly defines Christian solidarity,

The preferential option at the heart of solidarity is based on the fact that the point of view of the oppressed, ‘pierced by suffering and attracted by hope, allows them, in their struggles, to conceive another reality…’…The preferential option for the poor and the oppressed makes it possible for the oppressors to overcome alienation, because to be oppressive limits love, and love cannot exist in the midst of alienation. Oppression and poverty must be overcome because they are a ‘slap in the face of God’s sovereignty’ The alienation they cause is a denial of God. Guitierrez refers to the profoundly biblical insight of a Bolivian campensino: ‘an atheist is someone who fails to practice justice toward the poor.’[16]

Isasi-Diaz Mujerista Theology 91

Jan made brilliant reference last week to us being the hands and feet of Christ in the world, loving others actively in deed and word. And I can’t help but see her imagery here in this text. If we are to be the hands and feet and eyes of Christ in the world, shouldn’t we take all pains to ruthlessly examine ourselves and our bodily presence in the world and how we are or are not in solidarity with others? For it is better to suffer the pain of awareness and confession, then to go about life oblivious to how I’m hurting others and delighting in my own comfort.

To be the church in Christ’s name, we must extend our definition of beloved children of God to embrace all those who bear the mark of divine love. For we are called to love as we have been loved.

[1] Translation mine unless otherwise noted

[2] See fn4

[3] RT France The Gospel of Mark: A Commentary on the Greek Text NIGTC Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2002. 378, “The cliquishness which too easily affects a defined group of people with a sense of mission is among the ‘worldly’ values which must be challenged in the name of the kingdom of God.”

[4] France Mark 377 “What John is looking for is not so much personal allegiance and obedience to Jesus, but membership in the ‘authorised’ circle of his followers. We should perhaps understand ἠμεῖς here as specifically the Twelve, regarded as having an exclusive link with and commission from Jesus, so that other people’s association with him must be through their mediation. Even if such a possessive doctrine is not explicit, it fits John’s restrictive action and explains the terms of Jesus response.”

[5] RT France Mark 376 “The impulsive hostility to an outsider revealed in this incident (cf. Lk. 9:54) perhaps gives some basis for the otherwise puzzling epithet Βοανηργές (see on 3:17). If the imperfect tense of ἐκωλύομεν is correct…it probably indicates an unsuccessful attempt rather than the repeated prohibition of a persistent offender’.”

[6] France Mark 377 “First, the fact that the man is able to work a miracle in Jesus’ name shows that he cannot be an enemy…There is no suggestion that the man is personally known to Jesus; rather, he has associated himself with him by using his name, and his choice of that authority, together with the fact of his success, marks him as being on the right side. Such a person cannot in consistency go on to speak as his enemy, and so there is no justification for Jesus’ disciples to oppose him.”

[7] France Mark 378 “This phrase thus brings the series of ‘name’ formulae to a climax where the actual name is spelled out: ὃτι Χριστοῦ ἐστε. It is that name which gives this kind act its specific significance and justifies the reward. This is not mere benevolence, but the demonstration that a person is ὑπὲρ ἡμῶν by means of practical help given specifically to those who belong to Jesus.”

[8] France Mark 378-9 “The three sayings collected in vv. 39-41 thus illustrate in different ways the open boundaries of the kingdom of God, where both committed disciple and sympathetic fellow traveler find their place. The unknown exorcist represents this outer circle, and is to be welcomed as such. There are indeed opponents and ‘outsiders’, as we see repeatedly in the rest of the gospel, but disciples are called on to be cautious in drawing lines of demarcation. They are to be a church, not a sect.”

[9] France Mark 378 “The language of reward, which is so prominent in Matthew, appears explicitly only here in Mark (though see 10:28-30 for the idea). It is a paradoxical term to use in connection with a gift of water, which is so basic a feature of Eastern hospitality as to require no reward. But even so small an act betokens a person’s response to Jesus in the person of his disciples (cf. Mt. 25:31-46), and as such will not be unnoticed.”

[10] France Mark 379

[11] France Mark 380 “To be the cause of another’s spiritual shipwreck is so serious an offence that a quick drowning would be preferable to the fate it deserves; the μύλος ὀνικός the stone from a mill ground by donkey power, far heavier than that of a mill, ensures an immediate death. The stone is rather grotesquely pictured as ‘placed round’ (περίκειται) the neck like a collar, rather than hung from it (Mt. 18:6, κρεμασθῇ). καλόν ἐστιν μᾶλλον indicates a comparison: the drowning is not itself the appropriate fate of such a person…but rather serves as a foil to set off the greater severity of the actual punishment merited…What that punishment is will be indicated in the language of γέεννα and πῦρ ἄσβεστιν which dominates the following verses.”

[12] France Mark 380 “The whole little complex of sayings, like the preceding pericopes, focuses on the demands of discipleship, both negatively and positively.”

[13] France Mark 383, “Christians who disparage ‘hell-fire preaching’ must face the awkward fact that Mark’s Jesus (and still more Matthew’s and Luke’s) envisaged an ultimate separation between life and γέεννα which demanded the most drastic renunciation in order to avoid the unquenchable fire, and that he did not regard even his disciples as immune from the need to examine themselves and take appropriate action.”

[14] France Mark 382-3 “The extended warning of w. 43-48 picks up the theme of ‘tripping’ from v. 42, but the victim is not now someone else (a ‘little one’) but oneself, ‘tripped’ by one’s own hand, foot, or eye. Danger comes to the disciple not only from outside but from within. The metaphor is not explained; it is for the reader individually (the savings are expressed in the singular throughout, except for the αὐτῶν derived from the LXX in v. 48) to determine what aspect of one’s own behaviour, tastes, or interests is a potential cause of spiritual downfall, and to take action accordingly.”

[15] France Mark 381, “Disciples of any age are potentially vulnerable to such ‘tripping’. After the disciples’ abortive discussion of τίς μείζων (v. 34) it is very appropriate that μικροί be used to denote disciples in general. And it is the μικροί who matter so much to Jesus that to trip even one of them up is more than a capital offence.”

[16] Ada Maria Isasi-Diaz Mujerista Theology: A Theology for the Twenty-First Century Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1996. 91

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With Dirty Hands

Sermon on Mark 7:5-8

Psalm 45:7-8  Your throne, O God, endures for ever and ever, a scepter of righteousness is the scepter of your kingdom; you love righteousness and hate iniquity. Therefore God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness…

Introduction

One of the most difficult things for me to navigate as a teacher is the tendency for students to parrot. When I was a teacher at the high school levels, I would walk around my circle of students and say, “I want to know what *you* think; I don’t need 20 more Rev. Larkins…God knows there’s one too many.” To protect the space for students toward intellectual liberty, I implemented a contract grading system. Making grades dependent on the completion of specific tasks (with flexibility to student need) rather than on memorization and recitation. While I had great success with this grading approach, one thing congested the air preventing authentic and personal wrestling with thought: the deeply ingrained training of conformity for fear of punishment. For the life of me, there were students who just froze when given the liberty to speak their mind, so they would tell me what they thought I wanted to hear.

While I could wax not-so-eloquently about the state of school systems and how they contribute to the conformity of human beings to the status-quo rather than bolstering and building curiosity and creativity, the thing that I want to stress here is that this conformity for fear of punishment moved from chair and desk into pew and table. When I lead chapel as a chaplain at the high school, I’d listen to student voices recite in unison creeds, prayers, and responses. But there was very little life in it. They said the words because they had to, because they were told they must, because they were afraid of some form of punishment if they didn’t. For one reason or another, their hearts were far from those words.

At some point during each semester, I’d exhort them: “Don’t say the words if you really don’t want to; there’s nothing magic in them, you aren’t saved through them but through faith. You have my permission to opt out.” I desired for them to have robust and vigorous relationships with God, the very God who moved heaven and earth to be as close to them as they are to themselves and maybe even closer. I wanted them to embody the liberation that comes with the groundwork of justification with God by faith in Christ alone by the power of the Holy Spirit. I wanted them to want to say those words, those prayers, those responses and not because they were so tied to fear and traditionalism. I wanted them to be ὸ λαός of God bursting forth from the heart, not an illusion built upon words slipping from lips.

Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23

And then the Pharisees and the scribes questioned him, “Why are your disciples not walking according to the tradition of the elders, but are eating food with unclean hands?” And [Jesus] said to them, “Isaiah prophesied well concerning you pretenders, as it is written, ‘This people honors me with lips, but their heart are held far back from me; and they worship me to no purpose while teaching the teaching of religious precepts of humanity.’ While releasing the command of God you hold fast to the tradition of humanity handed down.”[1]

Mark 7:5-8

So, Jesus’s disciples are caught eating with dirty hands by a group of pharisee-scribes coming from Jerusalem (vv. 1-2).[2] As the disciples sit and eat, this group of religious authorities from Jerusalem confronts Jesus about this brash and flagrant infraction. Why care so much? Well, the issue at stake here for this group of religious authorities is that Jewish people are supposed to wash their hands (and other items (vv. 3-4)[3]) diligently prior to using them to make sure they are ritually clean (the issue of hygiene is less in view here).[4] What’s interesting is there’s only a reference in the First Testament (Ex. 30:18-21; 40:30-32) to diligently washing hands for the sake of purity: priests are supposed to wash their hands prior to the sacrifice.[5]

The command to wash hands—given to the priests—morphed into a human tradition passed down from the religious authorities to the people, and it became normative.[6] This is what Jesus takes issue with, and rightly so. The emphasis on obedience to the traditions handed down by humanity interferes with heart-felt devotion to God. The people, who are merely trying to survive day in and day out, are burdened with superfluous tasks and deeds baptized in the name of God. The work of serving the Lord and offering authentic devotion birthed from the heart gives way to the toil of upholding human made demands for fear of being punished or ostracized. So, in defense of the beleaguered people, Jesus creatively quotes Isaiah[7] to respond to the pharisee-scribes from Jerusalem:

“‘This people honors me with lips, but their heart is held far back from me; and they worship me to no purpose while teaching the teaching of religious precepts of humanity.’”

And concludes with the accusation that they have allowed the traditions of humanity to usurp the command of God (v.8).

Two things I want to highlight here in the profundity of Jesus’s reply. There’s a clear accusation against the religious authorities: they’ve taught and handed down these traditions of humanity and demonstrate they are not holding to the commands of God.[8] The religious authorities are taking the purity of the people into their own hands thus they are commandeering the worship of the people to reflect human traditions handed down (the externals).[9] The more they do this, the further they get from being of the things of God.[10] Their worship of God is of no purpose and in vain. This is their own doing.

The other thing I want to highlight is this: while Jesus is casting divine accusation at the religious authorities for their preference for human tradition over and against divine command, he’s also exposing the people. As the religious authorities peddle these traditions of humanity handed down and baptize them as God’s decree, the people (ὁ λαός) are also far from being of the things of God and are consumed by the things of humanity. They, too, worship in vain and to no purpose. But this is not of their own doing.

Conclusion

My colleague and dear friend The Rev. Dr. Kate Hanch reflects on the call of the black woman preacher, Zilpha Elaw:

“…she described people who were bothered by her ministry as ‘ignorant and prejudiced…men whose whims are law, who walk after the imagination of their own hearts, and to whom the cause of God is a toy…’ She could not and would not give in to [sic.] their objections and neglect God’s calling on her. Her calling was so clear, so distinct, that she remarks ‘it is an easy matter to adopt a string of notions on religion, and make a great ado about them; but the weight of religious obligation, and the principle of conscientious obedience to God are quite another matter.’ To translate that into today’s terms, Elaw implies that it is easier to become legalistic over doctrine than to obey God’s calling on our lives.”[11]

Elaw qtd in The Rev. Dr. Kate Hanch’s forthcoming book.

I was never upset with my beloved students for their fear of performing rightly if vacantly; they were taught to fear things created by human minds and hands. I was upset with their teachers, the ones who instilled the fear. Their teachers had become legalistic and had rejected God’s calling on their life to love people and not idols, and that rejection was reflected in their teaching. And, as Jesus says, what comes out of our mouths is very important.

When we become so consumed with this thing and that thing, with how things should be done and should not be done, with wood and stone, with our own purity and obedience in external things, we lose the marvel and wonder of the divine presence in the encounter with God in the event of faith. All these material and external things surrounding us are here to serve us and our worship; we are not to serve it. When we elevate the material and external things to the realm of the divine, we will—along with the pharisee-scribes—release the word of God and hold fast to the traditions handed down by humanity. When the emphasis falls on us serving the material and external things; we become burdened with toil and our worship is in vain and to no purpose because we are worshipping ourselves.

Even worse than losing ourselves in wrong priorities, we will guide others into this dis-order. As a priest and future doctor of the church, the weight is rightly on me to speak well. Not in terms of doctrine and dogma (human made), not in creeds and prayers (again, human made), but in the Word made flesh, the incarnate word of God, the Christ crucified and raised. Those of us called out to lead from within must remain humbled at the foot of the cross and consumed in the glory of divine activity of life out of death in the resurrection of Jesus. It is not about me bringing you into what makes sense to me, but into what makes sense to God: divine love, divine peace, divine justice for you and for others. In other words, what comes out of my mouth is very important and reveals where my roots are, where my focus is, and to whom my heart belongs (vv.14-15).

Beloved, we have been liberated to love the world not in the purity of our religiosity which actually drives people away, but in the imperfection of our humanity which will call people in. It’s not about getting the external and material right in these walls at this table in these linens; rather, it’s about living through the imperfection of our belovedness into the world making the material and external better for those fighting to survive for truly this is divine love, divine peace, and divine justice in action.

Let us love as we’ve been loved.

[1] Translation mine unless otherwise noted

[2] RT France The Gospel of Mark: A Commentary on the Greek Text TNIGTC Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2002. 280. “Matthew’s phrase ἀπὸ Ἱεροσολύμων Φαρισαῖοι καὶ γραμματεῖς suggests a single group coming from Jerusalem to Galilee. Mark’s wording, however, divides the group into the (presumably local) Φαρισαῖοι and τινες τῶν γραμματέων ἐλθόντες ἀπὸ Ἱεροσολύμων. Judging from the area of their concern these scribes from Jerusalem were themselves also Pharisees, and no distinction between the two groups is discernible in the pericope…The fact that in both instances they are described as having arrived…from Jerusalem probably indicates that they have come specially to investigate and/or to dispute with Jesus.”

[3] France Mark 281. “Mark’s explanatory account of Jewish rituals of purity is apparently directed to Gentile readers of the gospel. It is a broad-brush, unsophisticated account, which conveys a general sense of meticulous concern to avoid defilement rather than a nuanced presentation of the purity laws- of the OT and of tradition.”

[4] France Mark 280. “As in 2:18,23-24, it is the behaviour of Jesus’ disciples rather than his actions which provides the point of dispute…The issue this time (as in 2:18) is not one of obedience to the OT laws, but of rules subsequently developed in Pharisaic circles. While no doubt it could normally be expected that hands would be washed before a meal for hygienic reasons (since food was often taken from a common dish), the only hand washing required in the OT for purposes of ritual purity is that of priests before offering sacrifice (Ex. 30:18-21; 40:30-32). The extension of this principle to the eating of ordinary food, and to Jewish people other than priests, was a matter of scribal development, and it is uncertain how far it had progressed by the time of Jesus.”

[5] Ibid.

[6] France Mark 283. τὴν παράδοσιν τῶν περσβυτέρων “The term is not specific, and refers merely to ‘received wisdom’, and that wisdom may not have been of very long standing, nor have been shared by all groups within Judaism at that time. But for the scribes, as for religious groups generally, there is an assumption that what has once been established by usage normative; for them this practice is now self-evidently right. Jesus’ response will therefore focus on this more fundamental issue of the relative authority of tradition as such as a guide to the will of God, rather than on the provenance of the particular tradition in question.”

[7] France Mark 284. “‘The Introductory formula (containing the only use in Mark of the ‘Matthean’ term ὑποκριτής) assumes that Isaiah’s words, which originally described the superficial religious devotion of his eighth-century contemporaries than predicting a future situation, can be directly applied to, indeed were written about, ὑμεῖς. This ‘contemporising’ use of OT texts is typical of much NT interpretation, and presupposes a typological understanding of continuity in the relationship between God and his people such that earlier events and situations appropriately serve as models for a later era of fulfilment, even though in themselves they had no predictive force.”

[8] France Mark 284. “The specific statement that the worship described is ‘vain’ undoubtedly sharpens the application, and the inclusion of διδάσκοντες fits well with the specific application of the charge to scribes rather than to the people in general, but the text even in its Hebrew form describes a worship which is based on externals and is of purely human origin, which is just the point which Jesus goes on to make about the scribal traditions, whereas the specifically LXX point that their worship is ‘in vain’ is nowhere drawn into Jesus’ comments.”

[9] France Mark 284-5. “The contrast in Isaiah between lips (words) and heart is not taken up as a regular form of expression in the gospels, but reflects an important prophetic theme…and corresponds to the charge elsewhere in the gospels that scribal religion is more concerned with external correctness than with fundamental attitudes and relationship to God…”

[10] France Mark 285. “The fundamental contrast is the last—true religion is focused on God, not a merely human activity. What comes from God has the authoritative character of ἐντολή, which requires obedience; what comes from human authority is merely παράδοσις, which may or may not be of value in itself, but cannot have the same mandatory character. Yet they have held fast to the latter, while allowing the former to go by default. ἀφίμι perhaps does not yet denote deliberate rejection, but rather a wrong sense of priorities, resuming in de facto neglect of God’s law…”

[11] Zilpha Elaw qtd in The Rev. Dr. Kate Hanch’s forthcoming book. The reflection by Elaw is from recorded in Sisters of the Spirit: Three Black Women’s Autobiographies of the Nineteenth Century ed. William L. Andrews.

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Divine Paracletic Revolution

Sermon on John 15:26-27, 16:4b-15

Psalm 104:34-37 I will sing to the Lord as long as I live; I will praise my God while I have my being. May these words of mine please him; I will rejoice in the Lord. Bless the Lord, O my soul. Hallelujah! (43)

Introduction

Today’s the celebration of Pentecost. According to the book of Acts, this is the day the Holy Spirit of God arrives, fueling tongues of flames hovering above the heads of the disciples who have been left by the one they followed and loved. Amid spontaneous tongues of fire, the disciples begin speaking and all there were able to hear them—like, listen and hear them. Whether the disciples were spontaneously speaking in different languages or those present were able to hear the message in their own language isn’t the point. The point is that there was proclamation and there was proclamation being heard. The Gospel gospelled the Gospel.[1] All of it due to the presence of the Holy Spirit, very God sent into the world to move in hearts and minds of people, to usher people and the world into life out of death from the kingdom of humanity into the reign of God.

The arrival of the Spirit among the humble followers of the way confirmed these had the divine power to preach and proclaim the gospel, the witness of Jesus the Christ died and raised and ascended. Never again would the presence of God be isolated to material structures protected by very specific people. In Pentecost, everything is blown wide open: all are the worthy vessels of the Spirit of God (no in group, no privileged few, no elite clique). From hovering over the face of the deep in Gen 1, the Spirit of God moves through time and space perpetuating God’s love at every twist and turn of the manifold pathways of the cosmos and bringing that love straight to you in a personal and intimate way through encounter with God in the event of faith. The long promised new spirit and new hearts for all of God’s people is fulfilled in the arrival of God’s Spirit among the disciples.

This is a remarkable claim. A most profound and revolutionary claim rivaling the claim of life out of death in resurrection. The presence of the Spirit in the life of the believer eliminates any possibility of exile from God; there’s no where you can run and hide where God isn’t because by faith you are yoked into God because God by the presence of the Spirit lives in you. God transcended God’s self to be born of a woman and to take the regular name, Yeshua/Jesus. Even more profound is God continues to transcend God’s self by taking up residence in our hearts and minds. We are, to quote St. Paul, the vessels of the holy spirit. We are clay, and we crack and fracture, and we are very much good but not perfect, yet we’re the beloved and worthy by our simple existence to be in and with God and God to be in and with us.

John 15:26-27; 16:4b-15

Whenever the Paraclete comes, whom I, I will send to you from beside the Father, the spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, that one will witness concerning me. And now you, you are witnesses, that from the beginning you are with me. [2]

John 15:26-27

The above is certainly good news, yet John the elder has more to say about the Spirit of God, the Paraclete: The Paraclete continues the revolution of God started by Christ. The work Jesus started on earth isn’t over. The Paraclete will come and will continue the divine witness[3] of love embodied and manifested by Christ.[4] Thus, John affirms Jesus’s ministry was not a singular and isolated historical event relegated perpetually to what was. What Jesus did in the world materially by his presence and activity remains in the present even when he leaves (“you, you are witnesses”) and surges into the future when the Paraclete arrives (“that one will witness concerning me”). God’s revelation of God’s revolutionary and liberating love set everything in motion and continues world without end.

In other words, with the arrival of the Paraclete God clearly isn’t done with the cosmos; nothing and no one is too far gone, without hope and possibility, or too sick, dirty, anxious, and other to be beyond God’s revolutionary and liberating love. In Christ the disciples witnessed God go to the fringes of their society, liberating and rescuing those who were isolated and shut out by the local rulers and religious authorities. The divine pursuit of the beloved was an intentional confrontation with human made systems of the day. It’s these systems causing death and captivity for the children of God from which Jesus called forth life and liberty in material and spiritual forms. Jesus’s work and activity while alive is as much a part of the divine witness as is his death and resurrection and ascension. So, it is this entire witness the disciples are witnessing to and which the Paraclete will continue to witness into the ages. The Paraclete comes so there will always be witness to the divine revolution of love and liberty in the world in the hearts and minds of disciples who’ll participate in witnessing in their time, culture, and context.[5]

But I spoke these things to you because the grief in your hearts is made full. But I, I say the truth to you, it is profitable to you that I, I go away. For if I do not depart then the Paraclete will not come to you. Now, if I go, I will send [the Paraclete] to you.

John 16:5-7

According to what Jesus says here, without the arrival of the Paraclete there will be no assuaging of the disciples’ grief—his presence may cease their grief but only temporarily. If Jesus doesn’t ascend, then the witness and revolution of divine love will last only while Jesus lives on earth. Due to Jesus’s resurrection being bodily, this is a finite time conditioned on human health and protection from danger—both being rather tenuous for Jesus. By ascending and sending the noncorporeal Paraclete who can live in and among the believers and followers, the divine witness of love begun by Jesus never ends.[6] No matter the threat of death, the passing of time, or variance of cultural context, the Paraclete goes and exposes systems and liberates captives in ways Jesus wouldn’t be able to do[7]—he would’ve been restricted by his body to his time and context. With the presence of the Paraclete all who grieve are consoled, all who are stripped of the power to speak have an advocate, all who are anxious and burdened are comforted, all who need help have a helper, all who find themselves without words have an intercessor, and the Paraclete comes to all who callout and need aid—in any culture, from any context, in every age. This is certainly the divine revolution of love.

Conclusion

Still I have many things to say to you, but you are not able to bear them just now. But when that one comes, the Spirit of truth, [they] will guide you into all truth. For [the Paraclete] will not speak from [themselves]but will speak as much as [they] hear and will report back to you the things that come.

John 16:12-13

The Paraclete isn’t stuck in the context and culture of Acts 2; the Paraclete isn’t bound by time or era. The Paraclete informs us as we are to be informed and then will inform the next generation of Christians as they need to be informed, which won’t be as we’ve been informed. The way we are being informed today is not the way our foremothers and forefathers in the faith were informed. Jesus withheld information from his disciples because they couldn’t hear it; the Paraclete was given the privilege of revealing and witnessing to God into different cultures and contexts, among different peoples. Today can never be yesterday and tomorrow will never be today; God cannot be captured and caught by time or people. Why do we confuse the consistency of God’s love with God being stuck in some romanticized version of history?

The questions we have today need answers that haven’t been given before. No matter how great the bible is, how brilliant philosophers of yesterday were, or how insightful theologians have been, they can’t directly address our questions in 2021. Thus, we’re reliant on the presence of the Paraclete to guide us into truth through exposure and comfort that leads to the revolution of the witness of God. First, we ourselves are guided by love into exposure because we must always be in the truth of who we are and where we are and find ourselves therein received and accepted. Second, we’re guided by love and truth to participate in exposing archaic, static, and septic traditions and rituals, systems and ideologies. Last, we’re guided by love to work in the world as beloved radical midwives of comfort, love, and liberty participating in the revolution of bringing forth the reality of God manifested in Christ by the power Spirit of truth, the Paraclete.[8]

Let us live and liberate, let us laugh and love like those profoundly impacted in heart and mind by the life, liberation, laughter, and love of God made known in the witness of Christ in the world by the presence and power of the Paraclete.

[1] Rudolf Bultmann The Gospel of John: A Commentary Trans. GR Beasley-Murray, RWN Hoare, JK Riches. Philadelphia, PA: Westminster 1971. Original: Das Evangelium des Johannes Göttigen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1964). 554 “Their witness is not, therefore, a historical account of that which was, but—however much it is based on that which was—it is ‘repetition,’ ‘a calling to mind,’ in the light of their present relationship with him. In that case it is perfectly clear that their witness and that of the Spirit are identical. The Gospel is itself evidence of the kind of witness this is, and of how that which was is taken up again…”

[2] Translation mine unless otherwise noted.

[3] Bultmann John 553 “This two-fold designation makes the reference to the idea of revelation certain; even after Jesus’ departure, God’s revelation will be mediated through him: he it is, who sends the Spirit (sic, without additional description), who bears witness to him; but he does so in his unity with the Father, who has made him Revealer; he sends the Spirit from the Father; the Spirit proceeds from the Father, just as it is said in 14:16 that the Father sends the Spirit at the Son’s request, or in 14.26 that he sends him ‘in the name’ of the Son.”

[4] Bultmann John 552 “After Jesus’ departure, the situation on earth will remain unchanged inasmuch as the offence which Jesus’ work offered the world will not disappear. The witness, which till now he had borne to himself, will be taken over by the Paraclete, the Helper, whom he will send from the Father.”

[5] Bultmann John 554 “But when…the Spirit’s witness and the witness of the community are spoken of as two factors distinct from one another, this shows first that the working of the spirit is not unhistorical or magical, but rather requires the disciples’’ independent action, and secondly that the disciples cannot accomplish on their own what they are in fact able to do. They may not rely on the Spirit, as if they had no responsibility or need for decision; but they may and should trust the Spirit. Thus the peculiar duality, which exists in the work of Jesus himself, repeats itself in the Church’s preaching: he bears witness, and the Father bears witness. But the community’s preaching is to be none other than witness to Jesus…”

[6] Bultmann John 558 “…the historical Jesus must depart, so that his significance, the significance of being the Revealer, can be grasped purely by itself. He is only the Revealer, if he remains such. But he remains it only by sending the Spirit; and he can only send the Spirit when he has himself gone. In context the statement means the same as the others, that Jesus must be exalted or glorified in order to be the one who he really is.”

[7] Bultmann John 562-3 “The judgment consists in the world’s sinful nature being exposed by the revelation that continues to take place in the community. This is brought out by relating the ελεγχειν of the Paraclete to the three dimensions αμαρτια, δικαιοσυνη, and χρισις. The absence of the article proves that it is the three ideas that are called in question, and not three cases of sin, righteousness, and judgment. It would therefore be wrong to supplement the three substantives with three subjective genitives…The judgment that takes place in the revelation consists in disclosing the true meaning of the standards and values current in the word. But this means at the same time disclosing who is the sinner, who the victor, and who it is that is judged.”

[8] Thought influenced by Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s “Christ, Reality, and the Good” of his Ethics

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Prayer as Unity

Seventh Sunday of Easter Meditation: John 17:11

(Video at the end of the post)

“And now I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one.” Jn 17:11

I’m always humbled when I read about Jesus praying. It highlights that I don’t pray enough and rely on my own reason and will to do things. I find myself seemingly autonomously going from moment to moment without feeling the need to pause to pray. I convince myself it’s because of a “robust” doctrine of the Holy Spirit and a deep awareness of the perpetual presence of the Spirit residing in me…but it’s comical really. I’m fooling myself.

The reality for me is prayer feels like work, work that I often don’t have the energy to do. On top of sheer exhaustion from all the demands and the instability of chaos and confusion, prayer feels like work with nonexistent results. A work that goes ignored, is met with silence, and with more suffering, sorrow, and sickness. Even though I’m very familiar with the doctrines and dogmas surrounding prayer and why I should do it, more often than not prayer exposes just how alone I am, how desperate I am, how hurt, scared, confused, and stuck I am. I don’t like that.

But, that’s the point. Life reduces us to the powerless ashes from which God’s divine creative activity and flair calls forth a powerful phoenix. This is the encounter with God in the event of faith, the being wholly dependent on a wholly other God, the death giving way to new life robust in, deeply aware of, and bringing glory to God. Life out of death is the divine means by which God is glorified.

“And now I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you.” As Jesus prepares to leave the disciples, they are faced with their own “hour” whereby they are left alone in the world as Jesus suffers, dies, is raised, and goes to the Father.[1] The intersection of Christ’s hour with the disciples’ hour is both the completion and the consummation of the love of God for the whole cosmos made manifest in the event of the cross. [2] This is the trajectory of Jesus’s ministry on earth unto death: as Christ is the embodied love of God which the disciples experience bodily, so too are the disciples in world as they move forth from their hour of encounter with God in faith, in prayer.[3]  The metanarrative of scripture is aimed to this fact: it’s about God’s love for the world, for Israel, for each of us.[4]

“Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one.” The small band of disciples extends, by the Holy Spirit, to the ends of the earth, making disciples and adding to the union for which Jesus prays. Thus, while we are alone and wholly dependent on a wholly other God, we aren’t alone. Prayer unites each of us individually to Christ, the Revealer, and in being united individually to the Revealer we are united to each other into the eternal body of Christ.[5] As we pray in Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit, we are in communion with God and thus brought into the beautiful and timeless community of saints: past, present, and future.

 

[1] Bultmann John 487 “In 12.23 this ωρα had been described as the hour of his δοξασθηναι. The difference is purely one of form—it is described as the hour of his μεταβηναι εκ του κοσμου τουτου. For it is introduced here to show its significance for the disciples. For them, it is primarily The Hour, because he is going; they have still to learn that this μεταβηναι is at the same time a δοξασθηναι.”

[2] Bultmann John 487-8 “But the reader is immediately made aware his μεταβηναι is not only the end, but at the same time the consummation of his work: αγαπησας εις τελος; he showed them his love right to the end, which means at the same time, right to its completion This is not of course a biographical comment designed to show the extent of Jesus’ heroism—that he remained true to his own, ‘right up to his last breath’; the intention is to show that even the end itself is nothing other than an act of love, nay more, that it is the necessary end, in which the work of love he had begun finds its consummation.”

[3] Bultmann John 488-9 “It is not necessary after ch. 10 to enlarge on the question who the ιδιοι are. Τhey are his own (10.14) whom the Father has given him f 10.29). And although they are the object of his love, whereas in 3.16 it was the κοσμος that was the object of the Father’s love, this distinction between the two involves no contradiction, but is quite appropriate. Of course the love of the Son, like that of the Father, is directed towards the whole world, to win everyone to itself; but this love becomes a reality only where men open themselves to it. And the subject of this section is the circle of those who have so opened themselves.”

[4] Bultmann John 488 “But it is only looking back at the end of his ministry that we can see the whole of it clearly: it was never really anything other than an αγαπαν τους ιδιους.”

[5] Bultmann John 489 “In the actual situation as it was, this circle was represented by the twelve (eleven); but the use of the term ιδιοι here, and μαθηται, is significant; it shows that they are the representatives of all those who believe, and it also shows that they are being viewed in terms of their essential relation to the Revealer, which is grounded not in the temporal but in the eternal.”

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