Tag: Discipleship

Being Divine Salt and Light

“‘Dear Lord God, I wish to preach in your honor. I wish to speak about you, glorify you, praise your name. Although I can’t do this well of myself, I pray that you may make it good.’”[i]

Matthew 5:13-20

After promising his disciples that they will be persecuted, Jesus immediately adds,

You, you are the salt of the earth; but if the salt loses savor, by what will it be made salty? It is yet worth nothing if not to be tread down under people after being thrown out. You, you are the light of the cosmos. A city situated on a hill is not able to be hidden. No one kindles a lamp and places it under a basket but upon the lampstand, and it shines for all who are in the house. In this way, let your light your light shine before humanity… (vv13-16a).

Keeping in mind that Jesus hasn’t had a week off between his last statement and this one like we have, these verses are a corresponding instructional[ii] product of his promise to the disciples that they will be persecuted and the other blessed statements. The disciples are expected to participate and continue the work of Christ, which is both salt and light in the world. Thus, the disciples will also be light and salt in the world because they will—by faith and the presence of the (coming) Holy Spirit—continue God’s work revealed/made tangible in Christ.[iii] Because of their identity with Christ, because of their faith in him, because of their union with God through the Holy Spirit, the disciples won’t be able to be anything else but salt and light in the world…just like the prophets before them—caught up in the divine pathos. So it happens with those God calls to be disciples (prophets).[iv] Jesus exhorts the disciples: go and be lights, go and be salt; btdubs, you haven’t a choice in the matter (you are salt and you are a light hanging form a lampstand for all to see, not by your own doing but by God’s). And this will bring both wanted and unwanted attention, thus the previous statement about being persecuted.

Thus, the negative statements in these verses are not so much a curse (e.g. be salt or else!), but a practical statement of an either/or situation: salt salts or it doesn’t, when it doesn’t it’s thrown out and trampled; a light lights or it doesn’t, when it doesn’t it doesn’t help anyone. Jesus is setting up a practical if/then: those who are salt and light are those who are called by God to participate in the divine mission of God’s revolution of love, life, and liberation;[v] they are to help the birthing of the reign of God amid the kingdom of humanity (which, by the way, will bring attention and persecution). A world that is void of divine justice, is a world that is awful to live in; the disciples are to bring the salt to make this world a better place to live in; they are to be the light that exposes human injustice and draws people unto the truth of God’s reign and justice.[vi]

But here is an important point: all of this is done by God’s power and presence in and with them. The disciples are not mustering up their saltiness and lightyness of their own free will and choice; they’re being used to salt and to light (they are these things). Without the divine calling (“come and follow me”), without this divine power (baptism of water and Spirit), without the incarnate Word (the gospel[vii]), one can’t be the salt or light of which Jesus speaks—not unlike when the words of a false prophet fall to the ground (there to be trampled upon, words that do not expose and bring to God).

Jesus continues, that your good works might be perceived and might esteem your Father who is in the heavens (v16b). It’s as if the light that they have by faith in Christ and the presence of the Holy Spirit will illuminate (for all to see) their being the salt of the earth.[viii] To be salt of the earth is to cause the earth to be savory (tasty;[ix] thus good and well-pleasing) and also to preserve it so it doesn’t rot[x] and become corrupt(ed) (two uses common to the historical context[xi]). To be salt is to be active in the world to the benefit of others[xii] (being unsalty in the world is like being nothing).[xiii] And it’s the light that shines through them that will expose them as salt to the benefit to the neighbor and the entire cosmos; Jesus’s scope of the disciples saltiness and lightyness, according to Matthew, is all encompassing; it’s massive.[xiv] The salt and light born of faith is loving deeds;[xv] those who love, those who participate in bringing life, those who hunger and thirst for liberation from captivity (for others and not only for themselves), are the salt and light making the world better, more enjoyable, a place that not only sustains but causes life to thrive (for both salt and light are necessary for such conditions of grown and thrive[xvi]). And the depth and breadth of their loving (faithful) activity is a (divine intended) result of being members of the blessed ones just mentioned; like Abraham and Sarah and their family, the disciples are a blessing to be a (public[xvii]) blessing to others and the world.[xviii] In this way, God’s name will be esteemed because of the disciples[xix] (a fulfillment of the petition in the Lord’s prayer to come, let your name be hallowed!).

Thus, Jesus continues to speak of the law and of righteousness (justice),

Do not consider that I came to destroy the law or the prophets; I came not to destroy but to complete. For, truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth might pass away, one iota or one distinguishing point will not at all pass away from the law until all might come into being. …  For I say unto you, if your justice is not over and above, much greater than the scribes and pharisees, you might not at all enter into the kingdom of the heavens (vv17-20).

Jesus completes or fulfills the law and the prophets by being the substance of the promise, in doing what is expected therein, and embodying the heart of the law and not just the words; [xx],[xxi] rather than discard or destroy, he takes up into his being even the smallest strokes of the law (the iotas and distinguishing points).[xxii] Jesus is bringing into being that which the law and the prophets have been pointing to; “carry[ing] them into a new era of completion.”[xxiii] He does so through his orientation in the world that is the product of God’s love for humanity (for God so loved the cosmos…); the law was to be a tool used to structure fractured human love. However, the scribes and Pharisees often missed this component paying attention (instead) to the rubric of the law, the acting out of the words of the law rather than the intent, the “weightier matters” of the law.[xxiv] Thus the law has gone “undone” or not completed; Jesus is here to do such doing and completing. Jesus expects his disciples to participate in this doing and completing, too. How? By being one of the blessed ones, by being the salt and light of the world, by being his followers in the world now (while he is here) and (especially!) after he leaves; by being those who publicly live out what he taught and lived out.[xxv] It is in this way (Jesus’s way[xxvi]) that their righteousness (their Christ defined divine justice) will exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees (human defined justice). It’s not about doing the law better and harder than the scribes and Pharisees;[xxvii] it’s about doing it the way Jesus did it:[xxviii] by faith working itself out in loving deeds for the wellbeing of the neighbor and the world to God’s glory.[xxix]

Conclusion

The good and not so nice expectations offered in the first part of Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount, give way to the why…why do the disciples need to be concerned with identifying with the poor and those who mourn, being gentle, seeking and desiring justice in the world, being merciful and clear of heart, having an eye to making peace that surpasses understanding, and preparing for being persecuted? Because this is how they add life-sustaining flavor to the world and preserve it from decay; because this is how they become the light shining the light of Christ into the world, ushering everything it touches into the divine presence.

The beatitudes are not a personal pursuit of individual and autonomous righteousness, a means to a self-centered end. In post-modern America, we—each of us—want to know—before endeavoring to participate in a plan, offering a solution to a problem, fulfilling a request, or doing a task—what’s in it for me? We want to know how we will benefit from our investment (whatever form it takes). But what Jesus laid out in the beatitudes and solidifies here in this portion of chapter five is that our reward lies in being found in and participating with the reign of God that is meant not only to bring glory to God but to also bring well-being to the neighbor. Not our own happy state and satisfaction is in mind here; being so oriented is antithetical, according to Matthew, to the goal of the proclamation of the gospel. As disciples of Christ, those who follow Jesus out of the Jordan, we are to put ourselves aside (not deny ourselves as if we didn’t exist) and to intentionally put the needs of the neighbor first (which is exactly what God does in Christ). It is through this other-orientation that disciples are recognized as the salty salt of the earth and the lighty light of the whole world; and this goal—becoming the salt and light of the world—is precisely the goal of the law and the prophets, it is the goal of our encounter with God in Christ, it is the goal of our faith eager to work itself out in loving deeds.

In other words, Beloved, we are blessed to be a blessing; we are loved to be love, to be salt, to be light in the world bringing everything and everyone whom we touch and encounter into the life giving, loving, and liberating encounter with Godself in Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit.

[i] LW 54:157-158; Table Talk 1590.

[ii] Anna Case-Winters Matthew Belief: A Theological Commentary on the Bible Eds Amy Plantinga Pauw and William C. Placher (Louisville: WJK, 2015), 78. Moving into the instructional portion of the sermon on the mount

[iii] Case-Winters, Matthew, 78-79. “It is prefaced with ‘salt and light’ sayings addressed to the disciples in a way that points them toward their mission in the world. Neither salt nor light exists for its own sake. The salt needs to stay salty to fulfill its function and the light needs to be lifted up to give light.”

[iv] . T. France The Gospel of Matthew The New International Commentary on the New Testament. Gen. Ed Joel B. Green (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2007), 175. “Here the light which Jesus brings is also provided by his disciples, who will soon be commissioned to share in his ministry of proclamation and deliverance.”

[v] Ernesto Cardenal, The Gospel in Solentiname, translated by Donald D. Walsh (Eugene: Wipf & Stock, 2010), 94. “Julio: ‘By liberating it. Because a world filled with injustice is tasteless. Mainly for the poor, life like that has no taste.’”

[vi] Cardenal, Solentiname, 94. “Elvis: ‘…Christians don’t have that Christian taste. They’re simpleminded, insipid. Only the ones who are struggling for a just society are the ones who have that taste of salt.’”

[vii] Cardenal, Solentiname, 95. “Marcelino: ‘I think that “salt” is the Gospel word given to us so that we’ll practice it and pass it on to others, practicing love, so that everybody will have it. Because salt is thing that you never deny to anybody.’”

[viii] France, Matthew, 177. “The metaphor of v. 15 is now explained more prosaically, with the ‘light’ shed by disciples interpreted as the good that they do.”

[ix] Cardenal, Solentiname, 94. “Adan: ‘It seems to me its because every meal should have salt. A meal without salt has no taste. We must give taste to the world.’”

[x] Cardenal, Solentiname, 94. “And Doña Adela, a little old woman with a weak voice: ‘We are the salt of the world because we have been placed in it so the world won’t rot.’”

[xi] France, Matthew, 174. “The two most significant uses of salt in the ancient world were for flavoring and for the preservation of food, and either or both of those uses would provide an appropriate sense here: the disciples are to provide flavor to the world the live in …and/or they are to help to prevent its corruption.”

[xii] Case-Winters, Matthew, 79. “These metaphors imply a turning outward toward mission in the world. The impact of the followers of Jesus upon others is part of the message here. Something good and desirable is given that will cause them to give glory to God.”

[xiii] Case-Winters, Matthew, 79. “These metaphors imply a turning outward toward mission in the world. The impact of the followers of Jesus upon others is part of the message here. Something good and desirable is given that will cause them to give glory to God.”

[xiv] Case-Winters, Matthew, 79. “The scope of this blessing is the widest possible…”

[xv] Cardenal, Solentiname, 95-96. “Felix Mayorga: ‘Maybe the light is the good people, who practice love. Everyone that has a good spirit and loves others, he is the light of the world.’”

[xvi] France, Matthew, 173. “Sir 39:26 lists salt as one of the essentials for human life…’The world cannot endure without salt.’ Disciples are no less essential to the well-being of ‘the earth,’ which here refers to human life in general.’”

[xvii] Case-Winters, Matthew, 79. “The community of disciples cannot be a closed community, an ‘introverted secrete society shielding itself from the world.’ Its witness is public.”

[xviii] Case-Winters, Matthew, 79. “The universal scope of divine blessing through the people of God is consistent with the theme in Hebrew Scriptures of ‘blessed in order to be a blessing’ (Gen. 12:2; 22:80) and called to be a ‘light to the nations’ (Isa. 2:2-5, 42:6; 49:6).”

[xix] Case-Winters, Matthew, 79. “The gifts/functions of salt and light are not self-contained; they are meant to be shaken out and shining forth. Followers of Jesus need to be salty and we have to shine. Are we ‘salt of the earth’ kind of people? Are we ‘shining examples’ of God’s light in the world? Do people have cause to praise God (v. 16) because of us?”

[xx] Case-Winters, Matthew, 79-80. “Jesus’ fulfilling the law and the prophets can have several dimensions of meaning:

  1. That Jesus brings into being what the law and prophets promised. Reference to the fulfilling of the law is often made just before Matthew quotes something from the Hebrew Bible.
  2. That Jesus himself does what the law and prophets in fact require of us. His life is molded by the law, and it defines his vocation and the conduct of his life.
  3. The Jesus teaches and lives the deeper meaning of the law, which is best understood in terms of the love command on which ‘hang all the law and the prophets’ (22:450). All the laws concerning tithing, ritual purity, and Sabbath observance remain in place, but they are subordinate to the love command. Love exceeds these. It requires more and not less than the law.”

[xxi] Case-Winters, Matthew, 80. “All three of these dimensions seem to be involved in Jesus’ relations to the law and the prophets as variously presented in the Sermon on the Mount.”

[xxii] France, Matthew, 186. “The jots and tittles are there to be fulfilled, not discarded, and that is what Jesus has come to do. They are not lost, but taken up into the eschatological events to which they pointed forward.”

[xxiii] France, Matthew, 183. “In the light of that concept, and of the general sense of ’fulfill’ in Matthew, we might then paraphrase Jesus’ words here as follows: ‘Far from wanting to set aside the law and the prophets, it is my role to bring into being that to which they have pointed forward, to carry them into a new era of fulfillment.’”

[xxiv] Case-Winters, Matthew, 80. “The commandments of Torah are not all of the same weight. Jesus argues later that love and compassion for the neighbor outweighs matters such as cultic observance…He chides the scribes and Pharisees because they ‘tithe the mint, dill and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice, mercy and faith.’ Jesus’ own life is an exemplar of attending to the weightier matters.”

[xxv] France, Matthew, 183. “From now on it will be the authoritative teaching of Jesus which must govern his disciples;’ understanding and practical application of the law.”

[xxvi] France, Matthew, 187. A different type of doing the law that is different from scribes and pharisees “That will mean in effect the keeping of the law as it is now interpreted by Jesus himself…”

[xxvii] France, Matthew, 189. “The paradox of Jesus’ demand here makes sense only if their basic premise as to what ‘righteousness’ consist of is put in question. Jesus is not talking about beating the scribes and Pharisees at their own game, but about a different level or concept of righteousness altogether.”

[xxviii] France, Matthew, 182-183. Jesus “the way in which he  ‘fulfills’ the pattern laid down in the law and the prophets.”

[xxix] France, Matthew, 190. “Those who are to belong to God’s new realm must move beyond literal observance of rules, however good and scriptural, to a new consciousness of what it means to please God, one which penetrates beneath the surface level of rules to be obeyed to a more radical openness to knowing and doing the underlying will of ‘your Father in heaven.’”

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A Disciple or One of the Crowd?

“‘Dear Lord God, I wish to preach in your honor. I wish to speak about you, glorify you, praise your name. Although I can’t do this well of myself, I pray that you may make it good.’”[i]

Matthew 5:1-12

Matthew begins by telling us that Jesus after seeing crowd went up/ascended up the mountain; after he sat down his disciples came to him. And after opening his mouth he was teaching them saying… (v1-2). Jesus pulls back a bit. Matthew doesn’t tell us why he creates distance between himself and the crowd, but only that he does. Most likely, Jesus aims to teach something (pointed and specific) to his disciples about what is expected of them. So, Jesus ascends a mountain to give himself (and thus his disciples) some distance from the crowd. What follows is primarily for the disciples of Christ (his own who came to him) and only then, secondarily, for the overhearing crowd who followed the disciples and overheard the teaching.[ii] Thus, what Jesus teaches his disciples must be understood as an expected characteristic of their life in the world; Matthew is intentionally drawing Jesus and the disciples up and out to focus the narrative spotlight on them. This teaching isn’t for the average passerby or casually interested; it’s for those who are called to be disciples, the ones empowered by faith and the Holy Spirit to be Christ’s representatives in the world to the glory of God and well-being of the neighbor.

So, what does Jesus teach his disciples that the crowd overhears?

  1. Blessed [are] the beggarly poor in spirit, because theirs is the kingdom of heaven (v3).

Who are the “beggarly poor in spirit”? Matthew is not setting up a dichotomy between those who have materially naught and those who have spiritually naught. Matthew has in mind the very same people Luke does, the poor. These are the “‘anawim’”; translated from the Hebrew, these are “‘the poor of Yahweh,’” those who find themselves captive to sin (in themselves) and the sin of the kingdom of humanity holding them hostage (in other words these are the “oppressed”; there is no Greek word that neatly translates the Hebrew).[iii] The blessed here are the ones who cry out to God for liberation and long for the kingdom of heaven, exhausted and fatigued by dehumanizing rules and demands of the kingdom of humanity. The “beggarly poor in spirit” are the ones who Jesus then mentions in the following “blessed” statements: the mourners, the gentle, the hungry and thirsty for righteousness, the merciful, the clear of heart, the peacemakers, the persecuted, and his representatives who will live in the world as he did and who will suffer like he did.[iv] To these “beggarly poor in spirit” will be given the kingdom of heaven, the reign of God that will liberate them from death, indifference, and captivity. Jesus exhorts his disciples to see that around them are those who do not fit into the status quo, those who are rejected and pushed out, those who are scapegoated by the powerful and mighty, those who are exiled and deported; it is these, Jesus tells his disciples, who will be heard and answered by God through Christ’s representatives inspired by the power of the Holy Spirit.

  • Blessed [are] the ones who mourn, because they, they will be comforted (v4).

This one is straight forward: those who mourn for loss and in grief and sorrow will be comforted. The mourners are the widows who find themselves afraid and scared, thrust into a situation of precarious dependency on agencies and institutions for their well-being. They are the children who do not know what has happened to their parents. They are the ones who carry the burden of remembering a life cut short too soon and too early, life lost in the wake of impulsive and deadly actions of the kingdom of humanity. Those who lose in the game of health and wealth; their deaths are mourned for. Jesus promises that these who mourn will be comforted; for theirs is the kingdom of heaven, that which is to come, that which is being born through Christ’s disciples and representatives, those who are eager to see life, love, and liberation reign.[v]

  • Blessed [are] the gentle/humble, because they, they will inherit the earth (v5).

In our understanding of the world (the ideologies that are resonant with the kingdom of humanity) it is the powerful and mighty who take ownership of the land, those who initiate and win wars dedicated to taking lands and nations unto themselves, causing their empire to grow in presence and stature. But Jesus says something different: it is not the powerful and mighty who inherit the earth, but the gentle, the humble, or we could say “the beggarly poor in spirit.”[vi] Why? Why does Jesus flip the expectation? Because it is not the powerful and mighty who are the trustworthy, but those who put themselves aside to take up the cause of the earth—flora, fauna, humanity, and creation.

  • Blessed [are] the ones who hunger and thirst for justice; [vii] because they, they will be filled (v6).

Jesus then promises that the ones who hunger and thirst for justice will be filled. God is on the side of the hungry and thirsty, for those who are hungry and thirsty desire and call out for justice which is God’s justice.[viii] It is also those who advocate (in word and deed) on behalf of the hungry and thirsty and strive for justice to be done in the world who find God on their side. The disciples of Christ are to be driven by a hermeneutic of hunger for God and God’s justice to be done on earth as it is in heaven for the well-being of the neighbor.

  • Blessed [are] the merciful/compassionate, because they, they will be shown mercy/will have mercy by God’s grace (v7).

A trademark characteristic of the disciples of Christ is connected to the pursuit of justice: mercy, compassion. It is not a blind reverence and obedience to the law, executing harsh judgment and deadly punishment for noncompliance. Those who dare to wear the name of Christ, those who have faith, those who are participants in the grace of God are those so called to be patient, discerning, calm, and (most of all) merciful. Just like justice, mercy does not set out to harm but to cause to flourish. For in showing mercy they receive mercy from God.

  • Blessed [are] the clear of heart, because they, they will see God (v8).

One may expect this to come first. But it doesn’t. For only the clear of heart are those who do not carry internal burdens of dissonance, shame, and guilt; these ones are aligned—inner to the outer and with God and God’s will. Thus, why they will (and do) see God. Only those who attempt to find a compromise or live according to the tenets of the kingdom of humanity while claiming Christ are considered the “unclear of heart” who, then, cannot see God.

  • Blessed [are] the peacemakers/peaceable, because they, they will be called [children] of God (v9).

To be a maker of peace is to be one who causes peace to happen amid conflict and tension. It is not done by threat or condemnation, it is not obtaining security by means of might and power, it is not done by being the biggest and the strongest. It is done through humility seeking justice; it is done through mercy and patience; it is done through vulnerability and risk. No military of the kingdom of humanity will ever be able to bring peace; security maybe—but only temporarily—but not peace and real safety. It is the ones who strive for peace and unity by means of love, mercy, humility, and justice that can expect to be the children of God.[ix] Like children do, they carry with them (inside and out) the genetic traits of their parents. And in this instance that parent is Abba God and to make peace is to bring divine justice into the world.

  • Blessed [are] the ones who have been persecuted on account of justice, because theirs is the kingdom of heaven (v10).

To pursue the justice of the reign of God as children of God will pit the disciples of Christ against the forces of the kingdom of humanity. [x] This is not persecution because one sides with traditional ideologies or the status-quo of the kingdom of humanity; this is persecution because you dare to be a midwife for the divine reign of God being born into the world. These ones who are so persecuted are already in the kingdom of heaven.[xi]

  • Blessed are you when they might insult you and they might persecute [you] and they might say all evil against you, lying on account of me. Be glad and exult, because much is your reward in the heavens; for in this way they persecuted the prophets those before you (v11-12).

This statement targets the disciples directly (moving it to a direct address with “you”). If they weren’t paying attention before, they are now. Jesus prophesies that they will be persecuted as they pursue God’s justice in the world in the name of Christ and just as Christ will be persecuted for the very same thing.[xii] Those who are persecuted for pursuing justice, for thirsting and hungering after God’s justice are those who follow Christ and will be persecuted because of his name and this pursuit. They are, by default, guilty of bearing into the world the collision of the reign of God with the kingdom of humanity in the name of Jesus and will be treated like he was treated and as the prophets before were treated. Jesus is linking—through himself—those who follow Christ in Christ’s name are the same as the prophets who came before. It is these prophets (past, present, and future) who declare the reign of God comes and who denounce the present controlled by the kingdom of humanity.[xiii] They will be persecuted. But they are to take heart, their reward is the kingdom of heaven because the kingdom of heaven is for the “beggarly poor of spirit.”

Conclusion

We are faced with a question in this moment: are we the disciples of Christ or just the crowd? Are we being addressed by Jesus’s sermon here, or are we overhearing? Discern your answer because how you answer will determine how you walk away from this sermon and what you do with the commands therein and the grace so promised by God and received by faith.[xiv],[xv]

To be a follower of Christ, a disciple and representative, offers not ease and comfort but blessedness. [xvi] The life of faith is not a solitary endeavor, one relegated to isolated mountaintops and singular experiences of worship one hour each Sunday. The life of faith is not meant to take the believer up and out but to push that believer down and in, it is an incarnated faith that is active in love, that is eager to show itself in loving deeds to benefit the neighbor and bring glory to God, it is to be the body broken bearing into the world the reign of God. To be a follower of Christ, a disciple and representative, is to be left without recourse to compromise with this world and it’s fractured and misdirected human rule; to follow Christ out of the Jordan—to be baptized into his baptism (both of water and Spirit)—is to be positioned—forever—at odds with the way things are because they know, by the Word, what should and could be. The disciples and representatives of Christ—not the crowd in general—are called to a higher level of righteousness of the reign of God that is in opposition to the errant righteousness celebrated by the kingdom of humanity.[xvii]

This is both very good news and very hard news.

While our faith does bring us assurance—all who believe are saved and all are the beloved of God—those daring to live out that faith—those “foolish” enough to follow Christ out of the Jordan—will find themselves in the paradox of blessedness and persecution.[xviii] For, “[t]he gospel of the love of God is…good news for sinners, but it is not nice news without any confrontation with human sinfulness for what it really is, a nothing.”[xx] There is absolutely no way for the disciple and representative of Christ to see the pain of the world, to feel the pain of the world and not speak up and not act even if it means being brought to our own end. The life of faith brings discontent and confrontation with the kingdom of humanity; the life of faith—eyes and ears, and hands and heart set on the bringing forth of the reign of God—will cause us to “quarrel” with and “chaff against” the current reality under the rule of the kingdom of humanity.[xix]

But the good, good word, Beloved, is that in all this heaviness of being called to be a disciple of Christ means that God is with us; we labor not alone but with Christ and by the power of the Holy Spirit. And if God is for us, then who, I ask, can be against us?

[i] LW 54:157-158; Table Talk 1590.

[ii] Anna Case-Winters, Matthew Belief: A Theological Commentary on the Bible Eds Amy Plantinga Pauw and William C. Placher (Louisville: WJK, 2015), 76.

[iii] Ernesto Cardenal, The Gospel in Solentiname, translated by Donald D. Walsh (Eugene: Wipf&Stock, 2010), 82. “I said that in the Bible the poor are often called anawim, which in Hebrew means ‘the poor of Yahweh.’ They are so called because they are the poor of the liberation of Yahweh, those that God is going to liberate by means of the Messiah. It’s like what we now understand as the ’oppressed,’ but in the Bible those poor people are also considered to be good people, honorable, kindly and holy, while their opposites are the oppressors, the rich, the proud, the impious. This word anawim was probably the one that Jesus used. In Greek there was no word like that, and when the Gospel of Matthew was translated into Greek that word was translated as ‘poor in spirit,’ whereas Luke in his Beatitudes as simply ‘the poor.’ This phrase of Matthew, ‘poor in spirit,’ has created confusion, and many have believed that it deals with spiritual poverty. And I said that I met a priest who said that the ‘poor in spirit’ were the good rich people.”

[iv] Cardenal, Solentiname, 85. “I said: ‘The other Beatitudes seem to be only other ways of saying the same thing. In all of them the same poor people are spoken of by other names, and what they promise is the same thing.’”

[v] Cardenal, Solentiname, 86. “…Felipe…: ‘We can be happy about the news that the Kingdom is coming, but we can’t be satisfied until it comes.’”

[vi] Cardenal, Solentiname, 86. “Rebecca: ‘And he blesses those of humble heart. It seems to me that these are the poor in heart or the humbled. Maybe they were even humbler before (that’s my idea anyway) and yet for God they were the most worthy. People shouldn’t feel sad, then, even though they are poor, poor in spirit or humbled, because God will bring them into the Promised Land, which is the kingdom. But those of proud heart will not enter.’”

[vii] Case-Winters, Matthew, 76. “The righteousness to which the Sermon on the mount calls people is not a sinless perfection but a calling to do justice and love mercy (tsedaqah). Matthew is the only synoptic Gospel that uses the word dikaiosynē, or justice. Five of his seven uses are here in the Sermon on the mount. Clearly it is an important theme for him tin understanding Jesus’ central message. To ‘know God’ is to do Justice (Jer. 22:15-16).”

[viii] Cardenal, Solentiname, 86. “Marcelino: ‘He blesses those who hunger and thirst for justice. Hunger and injustice amount to the same thing. Anyone who hungers for good also hungers for justice. They are the ones who are going to make social change, not the satisfied ones. And then they’ll be filled with bread and social justice.’”

[ix] Cardenal, Solentiname, 88. “Oscar: ‘If I’m trying to have one person not exploit the other, I am one who is looking for peace. He says that people who look for peace will be the children of God, because they look for unity, that we should all be brothers and sisters. It’s clear that the kingdom of God belongs only to the children of God.’”

[x] Cardenal, Solentiname, 88. “Alejandro: ‘And he says that they are going to be persecuted because they seek justice, and for that also he blesses them.’”

[xi] Case-Winters, Matthew, 77. “The blessings are directed toward those who have certain disposition and inclination to act in ways consistent with God’s will rather than toward those who have a particular circumstance or status. Matthew is taking an ethical perspective.”

[xii] Cardenal, Solentiname, 89. “Olivia: ‘Before he talked of people persecuted for looking for justice and now he says ‘because of me.’ He wants to point out that it’s the same thing. Everyone who is persecuted in the cause of justice is persecuted in his cause.’”

[xiii] Cardenal, Solentiname, 89. William: ‘And Jesus compares us with the prophets. The prophets in the Bible were not so much people who predicted the future as people who denounced the present.’”

[xiv] Case-Winters, Matthew, 74. “Perhaps the Sermon on the mount strikes a better balance between God’s grace and human action than this question suggests. It is true that it is full of commands to do God’s will and ‘bear fruit,’ but right alongside these are promise of divine mercy and blessing along the way. These are intertwined throughout.”

[xv] Case-Winters, Matthew, 75-76. “In the Sermon on the Mount, this twofold grace is exemplified. Grace and calling to obedience intertwine. They are not a before and after. The law is not primarily a judge that convicts us of sin; it is primarily a guide for life in relation to God and neighbor. It is already an expression of God’s grace to us. … The law is a good gift of God in its role as a guide for living. To live in this way is to already experience the hoped for reign of God. The new relationship with God that Jesus exemplifies is open now for all who would follow him.”

[xvi] Case-Winters, Matthew, 77-78. “Those who have ‘crossed over’ to radical commitment do not find a life of ease and luxury; they find a life of blessedness instead.”

[xvii] Case-Winters, Matthew, 78. “The phrases of the beatitudes may well have reference not only to discipleship attitudes but to minority social position (those who are meek, poor in spirit, hungering and thirsting for righteousness/justice). That would be consistent with the warnings elsewhere in Matthew (6:19-21) concerning the danger that wealth and power present to the higher righteousness which the disciples are called.”

[xviii] Case-Winters, Matthew, 76-77. “The first four beatitudes declare blessing for those who were traditionally understood as being defended by God: the poor, those who mourn, the meek, and those who hunger and thirst for righteousness/justice. The second set blesses those who do what is right by being merciful and pure in heart, making peace and enduring the persecution that attends following in the way of Jesus Christ. When one’s life is characterized by the attributes highlighted in the beatitudes, two things are assured: blessedness on the one hand and persecution on the other.”

[xix] Case-Winters, Matthew, 78. “If we would—even now—live under the reign of God, there are implications. The alternative reality will chaff against the present reality. To love as God loves is to be discontented with the present reality…In our discontent, we may pray with William Sloane Coffin, ‘Because we love the world…we pray now…for grace to quarrel with it, O Thou Whose lover’s quarrel with the world is the history of the world…’”

[xx] Paul Hinlicky, “A Synopsis of Theodor Dieter, Der june Luther und Aristotle: Eine historisch-systematische Untersuchung zum Verhältnis von Theologie und Philosophie (Berlin & NY: Walter de Gruyter, 2001), 19. online article; page number based on printout.

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Consider the Cost

“‘Dear Lord God, I wish to preach in your honor. I wish to speak about you, glorify you, praise your name. Although I can’t do this well of myself, I pray that you may make it good.’”[1]

Introduction

American Evangelicalism and Western Christianity writ large, have done a huge disservice to Christianity broadly speaking. This morning I’m speaking not only as an observer of our socio-religio-political landscape, but as one who came to faith in it. It has been both my experience and observation that much of American Evangelicalism and Western Christianity conceives of the life of the disciple of Christ that is both comfortable, easy, and aligned to traditionalist conceptions promoted within society. The Jesus peddled therein reflects American Evangelicalism and its ideologies rather than the Jesus the gospel and epistle authors took pains to paint for us.

I remember—specifically—that my faith in and obedience to Jesus was going to make my life easier; that I would find myself in states of existential comfort and bliss. I’d be ushered into the spiritual realm, no longer afraid of where I’d end up in death while (intentionally) remaining indifferent (ignorant?) toward the issues of the world because why worry when Jesus is gonna come back and fix it all? Faith was to make me perpetually happy, nice, and too blessed to be stressed. My only two obligations were evangelism and obedience: I was to be a good Christian which meant telling people about Jesus and how great he’d made my life and obeying my authorities in all things which was God’s will. You might be burning in hell (temporally) or heading towards it (spiritually), and that was none of my business really because that was all your choice. My sins were forgiven and that’s all that really mattered, that was the goal of the gospel and of Jesus’s mission in the world. I was just lucky—blessed!!—enough to have decided to find Christ when I did!

But none of this was true. Like a sports car sold to someone suffering the malaise and banality of midlife, I was sold a saccharine Jesus, having little power and agency in the world because he was so conformed to it, embedded (buried?) in the ideas of yesteryear. Becoming Christian was going to solve all my problems; turns out, becoming Christian created more problems than it solved. Here’s why…

Luke 14:25-33

Luke tells us that Jesus addressed the many crowds that were coming together around him (these many crowds were composed of “neutral” people who may become disciples[2]), and he turned and said to them, “If someone comes to me and hates not their father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yet even their own soul, they are not able to be my disciple (v26). Luke’s emphasis here is implied: those following Jesus must know the cost of following.[3] The “cost of discipleship” is not only the burden of the disciples; it’s the burden of any/all someone/s coming to Jesus.[4] There is no way around the reality: to follow Jesus is to also participate in the mission of God in the world as Jesus does; obedience to God by faith and following Jesus necessarily means that they will be confronted with performing intentional acts of disobedience within their private.[5] In other words, it aint easy being Christian.[6] Not even family ties—a vital component of ancient Palestinian life—can get in the way; the follower of Christ must not even let family loyalty hinder them from pursuing God and God’s mission in the world.[7] (This is what the “hate” means in this verse; it is not about having a feeling of ill will or malevolence.) Not even loyalty to one’s own life/livelihood can get in the way of following Christ.[8]

Luke then tells us that Jesus said, Whoever does not carry the cross and comes after me that one is not able to be my disciple (v27). While we may think of this statement through the lens of Good Friday, it isn’t actually about “suffering”; it’s an equivalent thought to hating the family and oneself and broadens the scope of disobedience: it won’t be just private, it will be public and against the established authorities (ecclesiastical and political) who have power to punish you and take your life because of your disobedience.[9] In other words, the whole life of the follower of Christ will be exposed to the potential ramifications of following this man who is God. Everything is up for grabs.

Luke then tells us that Jesus provides a moment of reflection for those listening,[10] For who of you, willing to build a tower, does not (at all) after sitting down estimate the cost whether he has [enough] to complete [it]? So that, lest while he has laid his foundation and is not having power to finish, all those who gaze at it will begin to mock him, saying, `This person began to build and had not the power to finish.’ Or what king, going to come together in war against another king, will not (at all) after sitting down deliberate whether he is able with ten thousand troops to encounter the one who comes against him with twenty thousand? Now if he cannot, while the other is still far off, he sends a delegation asking for the terms of peace (vv28-32). The follower of Christ is not headed toward some sort of comfortable and pleasant and easy life; they must think about the cost, likely conflict and confrontation, and what the end will look like.[11] it’s not going to be easy, in fact, it will be hard; and “hard” may be the lightest way to say it. For those who follow Jesus—according to Luke—they will feel the anguish of the decision deep in their bones as their choice begins—at times—to feel unbearable, lonely, and profoundly demanding in terms of forgoing material glory and honor and forsaking the creature comforts of fitting in and following along, including family and friends.[12] According to Luke and Luke’s Jesus, the Christian will be the one who stands out and not because they are so righteous but because they are so hated by the kingdom of humanity. “Authentic discipleship”[13] will force the follower of Christ into a spotlight and will paint a target on their back not because of their obedience to traditionalist conceptions of society and religion but specifically because of their disobedience born from their new life in Christ[14] marked by new ways of being in the world[15] that grate against the status-quo.[16] Participating in God’s mission of the divine revolution of love, life, and liberation will do that; never forget that Good Friday was more than a spiritual event.[17]

Therefore, Luke tells us, that Jesus concluded this discourse with,Therefore, in this way, all of you who do not take leave of all the things that are at hand are not able to be my disciple (v33). This last bit isn’t a new command to sell things but, rather, to loosen one’s grip on all that they have. The disciple of Christ, the follower of the Way, the participant in God’s mission and divine revolution of love, life, and liberation in the world cannot have loyalties placed anywhere else; their only allegiance is to the reign of God, forfeiting their status and position in the kingdom of humanity.[18] For the disciple of Christ, this is not about being intentionally poor, friendless, and rejecting one’s family. Rather, it’s about holding on loose enough that when conformity to the status quo of the kingdom of humanity is demanded—publicly or privately—the disciple of Christ can let go and proceed on the way of the reign of God, to glory of God and the well-being of the neighbor.

Conclusion

The Christian life is hard; this has been the consistent theme of Luke’s presentation of Jesus these many weeks. It’s not easy. It’s not comfortable. It’s not the sure-fire way to be “successful,” popular, or famous. It will not allow you always to be nice to others, always fun to be around, or always good-vibes-only. It will not be the fool proof way toward material blessings in this world or to acquiring favor of the rich and powerful. To follow Christ means to be intractable when it comes to the kingdom of humanity’s tendency toward not only rejecting but violently attacking God’s reign in the world. Christians, according to Luke’s Jesus, cannot side with nation over Christ, cannot side with the status-quo over the laboring of God to bear something new into the world (stress on new, not a retreat to something old), cannot participate in the captivity of our neighbors over fighting for their liberation, cannot become familiar with indifference over feeling the risk and demand of love, and cannot advocate for death over life.

The Christian—the one who follows and is to be as Christ` in the world—is the one who finds themselves at the intersection and epicenter of the temporal and spiritual realms, with a will conformed to God’s will, hands and feet ready to bring God glory by bringing wellbeing to their neighbor, and an eye keen on spotting and a voice ready to call out the violence and destruction of the kingdom of humanity. It’s not about self-righteous, holier-than-thou, clean and pure, self-imposed glory and boasting; it’s about the radical love of God that is the revolutionary love of neighbor. And while I want to comfort you by reminding you that God is with you—for surely God is with you, Beloved—I can’t solely tell you that in good faith and with a good conscience because the Christian walk is hard and I must tell you that. The world would have me sooth you to sleep (back to sleep?), telling you sweet nothings that let you off the hook. But it’s my job to participate in the prophetic calling of God to wake you up. Luke’s Jesus doesn’t want sleepers, but those who can stay awake, call out the discrepancies between what is and could be, and who dare to step disobediently into the void to protect the love, life, and liberation of the neighbor from the aggressive overreach of authority (ecclesial and political). Beloved, this is what it looks like to follow God; consider wisely the cost of such discipleship.

[1] LW 54:157-158; Table Talk 1590.

[2] Green, Luke, 564. “Often in the Lukan account, crowds are presented as pools of neutral person from whom Jesus might draw disciples, and this is clearly the case here.”

[3] Justo L. Gonzalez, Luke, Belief: A Theological Commentary on the Bible, eds. Amy Plantinga Pauw and William C. Placher (Louisville: WJK, 2010), 183. “…[Jesus] warns those who would follow him of the cost of discipleship.”

[4] Green, Luke, 565. “‘Disciples’ does not refer narrowly in this instance to a select group of Jesus’ followers but…to all who, following him, identify with his missions. Such persons are characterized, first, by their distancing themselves form the high cultural value placed on the family network, otherwise paramount in the world of Luke.”

[5] Gonzalez, Luke, 183. “Discipleship requires radical obedience. Love of family must not stand in the way.”

[6] Gonzalez, Luke, 183. “Now he turns to the crowds around him. It is not only Jerusalem and all it represents that should take heed of the danger of disobedience; it is also this entire crowd that travels with him. If Jerusalem must be disabused of the notion that it will be easy to be the people of God, now this crowd of followers is also disabused of the notion that it will be easy to be a disciple of Jesus.”

[7] Gonzalez, Luke, 183. “…to ‘hate’ the family does not mean to have evil sentiments for them, but rather to forsake them for the sake of the kingdom. A disciple of Jesus will not use supposed family responsibility to avoid obedience.”

[8] Green, Luke, 565. “…in this context, ‘hate’ is not primarily an affective quality but a disavowal of primary allegiance to one’s kind…Jesus underscores how discipleship relativizes one’s normal and highly valued loyalties to normal family and other social ties.”

[9] Gonzalez, Luke, 183. “And this is then paralleled by the saying about carrying the cross. Taken in context, this not just a call to sacrifice, as we often think. The cross is an instrument of legal punishment and torture. So to take up the cross is parallel to ‘hating’ the family. A disciple of Jesus must be ready to carry the burden not only of tensions in the family, but even of civil disobedience to the point of legal punishment.”

[10] Gonzalez, Luke, 183. “Pointing to this idea, Jesus uses two brief parables about counting the cost.”

[11] Gonzalez, Luke, 184. “Likewise, one should not become a follower of Jesus without considering the cost, the opposition, and the final outcome.”

[12] Green, Luke, 566. “What outcomes are proposed if resources prove to be deficient? In both cases, the repercussions are tragic—the one resulting in mockery, the other in surrender; hence, a premium is placed on the inadequacy of one’s resources. By extrapolation, then, Jesus insists that such assets as one’s network of kin, so important in Greco-Roman antiquity, are an insufficient foundation for assuring one’s status before God. Dependence on the resources available to a person apart from ‘hating’ family and ‘carrying the cross’ cannot but lead to a tragic outcome. What is required is thoroughgoing fidelity to God’s salvific aim, manifest in one’s identity as a disciple of Jesus.”

[13] Joel B. Green, The Gospel of Luke, The New International Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997), 564. “As Jesus turns to address the crowds traveling with him, he lists allegiance to one’s family network and the shackles that constitute one’s possessions as impediments to authentic discipleship.”

[14] Green, Luke, 565. “As in 9:23, so here Jesus is calling for the reconstruction of one’s identity, not along ancestral lines or on the basis of sone’s social status, but within the new community oriented toward God’s purpose and characterized by faithfulness to the message of Jesus.”

[15] Green, Luke, 567. “This ‘leaving behind’ is cast in the present tense, demarcating this condition not simply as a potential for which disciples must be constantly ready, but as a characteristic feature of the disciples.”

[16] Green, Luke, 564. Luke “…reminds us that the new practices counseled by Jesus in vv 7-14 are not isolated behaviors but, from Luke’s perspective, must flow out of a transformed disposition, reflecting new commitments, attitudes, and allegiances. That is, the conversion that characterizes genuine disciples is itself generative, giving rise to new forms of behavior.”

[17] Green, Luke, 565-566. “…bearing the cross is used as a metaphor of discipleship—indeed, as a requirement for one’s identity as a disciple. Such persons would live as though they were condemned to death by crucifixion, oblivious to the pursuit of noble status, finding no interest in securing one’s future via securing obligations form others or by stockpiling possessions, free to identify with Jesus in his dishonorable suffering.”

[18] Green, Luke, 567. “As is generally the case in Luke, one’s basic commitments are manifest or symbolized in the disposition of ‘all one has.’ Accordingly, the distinctive property of disciples is the abandonment with which they put aside all competing securities in order that they might refashion their lives and identity according to eh norms of the kingdom of God.”

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Not Peace, but Fire

“‘Dear Lord God, I wish to preach in your honor. I wish to speak about you, glorify you, praise your name. Although I can’t do this well of myself, I pray that you may make it good.’”

Introduction

The Christian life and walk are hard. We are brought into a new life by faith in Christ and through the power of the Holy Spirit to be representatives of God in the world to God’s glory and for the well-being of the neighbor. And while we are to strive for peace and concord, often we’re brought into direct conflict with the statutes and ideologies of the kingdom of humanity. We (more than we like) find ourselves in that not-so-blessed spot: between a rock and a hard place. How is this possible when we know that shalom (with God and with our neighbors) and agape (from/to God and for our neighbors) features significantly in Jesus’s mission? Doesn’t Jesus promise to leave us with peace that surpasses all understanding? Isn’t Jesus’s mission about mercy and forgiveness, grace and kindness? How could this Christian life and walk be so hard? The characteristics of mercy, grace, forgiveness, and kindness sound so nice; who wouldn’t want to be met with such active nouns? So, why am I telling you that it’s hard?

I say it because I know that by and through faith in Christ and by the resident power of the Holy Spirit in your heart anchoring you into God and God’s mission in the world each of us has been, is being, and will be asked to take steps into unknown territory that will cause divisions and divides not so that we can feel righteous in ourselves and in our actions, but that others might feel righteous through our—and God’s—solidarity and camaraderie with them.

Luke 12:49-56

Luke invites us into a teaching moment between Jesus and his disciples. What Jesus is teaching his disciples isn’t an easy pill to swallow. Jesus says, I came to throw fire on the earth, and I wish it was otherwise already kindled? Now I have a baptism [with which] to be baptized, and how I am distressed until it might be completed. Do you think that I came here to give peace on the earth? Not at all, I tell you, but rather disunion (vv49-51). In an instant, the disciples are shook.[1] How is it that the long-awaited prince of peace is here to throw fire on the earth? This doesn’t seem to resonate with who Jesus has been and what he’s been saying all this time. (In fact, this doesn’t even to seem to resonate with who Luke thinks Jesus is!) But Jesus’s concern (and thus Luke’s) isn’t about making sure his disciples and the crowd are comfortable; rather, he’s eager to make sure his disciples are aware that following him (while he’s here and, more importantly, after he leaves) will come with trials most of which affecting their present lives.[2] In fact, this is the “even more” that Jesus mentions about the slaves who are informed about what the master wants at the end of v. 48.[3]

What’s interesting is the comment on baptism wedged in between v49 and v51. Taking our cue from context, Jesus’s baptism with which he is to be baptized is going to be a baptism of suffering. In this way, and keeping in mind the fact that Jesus promises that he was meant to bring disunion and division, the disciples, just like their master, Jesus, will also experience a baptism of suffering.[4] (In fact, it’s not only a promised by product of their new life and walk in the world, but evidence of God’s presence in Christ with them and in them by faith. [5]) If by any chance the disciples were thinking that somehow they were not included in the comments about the slaves and master mentioned just before this, they have been rudely awakened; to follow Jesus—now and in the future—is going to be hard even for them and (very likely) even harder because of who they are and what/whom they represent in word and deed.

What types of divisions and disunion are to come? Personal ones. Jesus explains, For from now on there will be five in one household having been divided up, three against two and two against three, they will be divided father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law (vv.52-53). Given that these particular relationships were crucial for the livelihoods of the disciples,[6] that Jesus says there will be division and disunion among and within them means that the disciples need to prepare themselves for how hard this Christian life and walk will be. The demand that Jesus is placing on their shoulders going forward[7] is one in which their very lives and walks are going to be different from those of others (including those closest to them), even to the point of causing distress and fracturing within the relationships.[8] Their new lives and walks may even be considered “deviant,”[9] according to those closest to them who disagree with their life and walk. There’s no way for the disciples to follow Jesus and his way of suffering and the way of the kingdom of humanity; relationships will end, opposition will be experienced.[10]

Then Jesus turns to the others around him and the disciples (thus blurring the lines between who is a “disciple” and not[11]), Now Jesus says to the crowd…(v54a); and here we are included in and are directly addressed. Luke tells us that Jesus said, Whenever you might see a cloud rising in the west, immediately you say, ‘a violent rain comes,’ and it happens in this way. And whenever the south-wind blows, you say, ‘There will be a burning heat,’ and it happens.[12] Hypocrites! You have considered to discern the face of the earth and the heavens, but how have you not considered to discern the current time? (vv54b-56). The crowd is not hypocritical because they say one thing and do another;[13] rather, they are hypocritical because they have the eyes to see what weather is coming but refuse to use those same eyes to perceive[14] what’s currently happening around them at the intersection of the reign of God in Christ and kingdom of humanity. In other words, the crowd (including the disciples and us) are preferring to stay the course of the status-quo—convincing ourselves that it will remain until the end of time because it’s always been this way and, thus, it’s the only right way[15]—rather than embrace and be embraced by the coming new order of God.[16]

Conclusion

There are two things I want to say by way of conclusion:

First, the Christian life and walk are hard. Jesus makes it clear that we’ll experience tumult in our intimate lives as some of our closest relationships fracture in response to the friction created as we live and walk in opposition to the status quo of the kingdom of humanity. We will rub up against anyone who is dead set on privileging greed over giving, violence over acceptance, retribution over mercy, capital over life, land over people, genocide and war over life and peace, indifference over love, captivity for many over liberation for all. The reign of God and the kingdom of humanity have very little in common save the one who has a foot in both, the one who follows Christ in word and deed and by faith working itself out in love.

Second, some of us may take pride in our staunch positions of opposition against what we see to be the downfall of humanity. But we must be careful here to discern whether it’s our pride causing divisions or God’s mission of the divine revolution of love, life, and liberation. You see, we can take Jesus’s words in this passage to affirm where we have cut off family members because of their identity and presentation in the world; where we have walked away from people because of their socio-political ideologies; where we have drawn lines in the sand because of our preferred religious doctrines and dogmas that make us most comfortable; where we refuse to face the demand placed on us to grow and change. In other words, not all disunions and divisions are because of our expressed righteousness that comes with our faith and praxis in following Jesus. Rather, our divisions and disunions may be because of our own sense of self-righteousness and fear.

How do we know the difference? Well, when Jesus acts through us towards others, love is felt, life is given, and liberation happens for our neighbor (and not only for us). It’s these fruits that happen for the well-being of the neighbor that bring God glory and may cause others to cut us out, to walk away from us, to draw their lines in the sand against us, and refuse to grow with us. Beloved, the Christian life and walk is hard. But take courage, the one you follow, Jesus the Christ, this man who is God, walks not only ahead of you, but with you through that pain. Following Christ won’t be easy, but for us Christians, it’s the only way to true love, life, and liberation for us and for our neighbor to the glory of God.

[1] Green, Luke, 510. “Jesus’ question, ‘Do you think I have come to bring peace?’ underscores Jesus’ awareness that the presence of division and judgment will, for many, stand in stark contrast to what might have been expected of the divine intervention.”

[2] Justo L. Gonzalez, Luke, Belief: A Theological Commentary on the Bible, eds. Amy Plantinga Pauw and William C. Placher (Louisville: WJK, 2010), 168. “…theme of eschatological expectation, and how it must impact the life of believers in the present. Eschatological hope is not just a matter for the future. If we really expect the future we claim to await, this should have an impact on the way we live in the present.”

[3] Gonzalez, Luke, 168. “The previous section ends with the announcement that ‘even more will be demanded’ from those slaves who know what the maters wants. Now we are told that things will not be easy.”

[4] Gonzalez, Luke, 168. “Jesus himself will suffer a ‘baptism’ of suffering. And his disciples will suffer also, for opposition will be such that there will be bitter division even within households.”

[5] Green, Luke, 510. Commissioning to judgment “Judgment, from this perspective, is not a uprising consequence of his ministry and is not a contradiction of his mission; rather it is integral to it. He had come as God’s representative to bring divisions, so the dissolution of family bonds (which, in the Lukan narrative, has as its consequence the formation of a new kinship group around Jesus) should be taken as confirmation that he is God’s agent and that he is bringing to fruition the purpose of God.”

[6] Green, Luke, 509. “Within culture wherein kinship ties played so crucial a socio-religious role, a message such as this one might well be suspect…Jesus posits just such divisions not only as a legitimate consequence of his mission but as confirmation that he is carrying out a divine charge.”

[7] Green, Luke, 510. “Jesus’ phrase ‘from now on’ further locates the significance of the division Jesus describes within the interpretive framework of his mission; it is from this statement of his divine charge that division within families will take its meaning.”

[8] Gonzalez, Luke, 168. “Those servants who know what their master wishes will act differently than the rest. This will cause stress and division. It is as if in a parade some begin marching to a different tune. The rest—those who march to the common tune—will accuse them of upsetting the parade, and will seek to suppress or oust them.”

[9] Green, Luke, 509. “At his present discourse, begun in 12:1, has already made clear, a decision to adopt his canons of faithfulness to God would require a deeply rooted and pervasive transformation of how one understand God and how one understand the transformation of the world purposed by this God. This would involve Jesus’ disciples in disposition and forms of behavior that could only be regarded as deviant within their kin groups.”

[10] Green, Luke, 511. “As Luke has continually shown, and as Jesus has endeavored to teach his followers, the realization of God’s purpose will engender opposition from those who serve a contrary aim.”

[11] Green, Luke, 508. “Thus, v 54 does not so much introduce a new audience as (1) provide an explicit reminder of the presence of the large cast of listeners and (2) pinpoint the crowds as persons for whom the material of vv. 54-59 is particularly apt. As we shall see, however, even with regard to this material the distinction between crowds and disciples cannot be drawn precisely.”

[12] Green, Luke, 511. “The climatological phenomena he describes are indigenous to Palestine, where the west wind would bring moisture inland form the Mediterranean… and the south wind would bring the heat from the Negev desert…”

[13] Green, Luke, 511. “Jesus plainly regards the crowds not as deceivers or phonies but as people who ‘do not know.’ His question, then, is not why they say one things and do another, but why they have joined the Pharisees in living lives that are not determined by God. Misdirected in their fundamental understanding of God’s purpose, they are incapable of discerning the authentic meaning of the sins staring them in the face.” (here it’s family division)

[14] Joel B. Green, The Gospel of Luke, The New International Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997), 508. “Just as he did with the crowds in that earlier encounter, so here he argues that the necessary signs are already present, if only people would open their eyes to them.”

[15] Gonzalez, Luke, 168-169. “Hypocritically, although we know what the master wants, we find all sorts of reasons to continue living as if the present order were permanent. We all stand accused and are on our way to trial. We can continue insisting on our innocence, and face the judge and the ensuing penalty, or settle matters with our accuse before the time of trial.”

[16] Gonzalez, Luke, 168. “We know that the future belongs to the reign of God. But, given the potential cost, it is not surprising that we are strongly tempted not to see the signs of the new time that is emerging. To forecast the weather, one look at the clouds and the wind. The same should be possible by looking at the signs of ‘the present time.’ Here is a new order coming! But people refuse to see it, and seek to continue life as if nothing were happening.”

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God is with You, Little Flock

“‘Dear Lord God, I wish to preach in your honor. I wish to speak about you, glorify you, praise your name. Although I can’t do this well of myself, I pray that you may make it good.’”[1]

Introduction

There’s an innate and good human desire to want to fit in. “Fitting in” and participating in established group rubrics, can create group unity. In acting and thinking similar (not identical) we find attachment and belonging; this helps to reassure each of us in the group that someone will come to our help in times of need, that loneliness will be put on notice, that when calamity strikes there’s a place and a people to crawl back to and rebuild with, and that there’s both comfort and security while being nestled in with these others. Our groups—families, friends, colleagues, and comrades—are a good thing and so is our desire to belong.

But sometimes these groups become Petri dishes for toxic loyalty and obedience. In such septic conditions the individual is erased, and the only identity is the rubric of the group and those powerful enough to enforce it. Believe this, do that, act in this manner, live by these specific means, and all goes well. Break one of these expectations—or any part of these expectations—and all hell breaks loose…or, in other words, you are broken loose from the group, shuffled off, locked out, pushed into the badlands to survive on your own.

Over the past few weeks, we’ve looked at the letter of Paul to the Colossians. In this letter Paul repeatedly emphasizes that the Colossian Christians are to be different in the world. That their citizenship is not only of Colossus but of the reign of God by the power of the Holy Spirit and faith in Christ. This means, for Paul, that ethically—how the Colossian Christians are to act in the world to the glory of God and the well-being of the neighbor—will look differently than their non-Christian, Colossian neighbors (actions previously acceptable now being forever refused). This means that the Colossian Christians will suffer ostracization from their Colossian fellow citizens because they will no longer fit in, and that they will have to remember that their reward is in heaven and not of the earth. In other words, to refer to Luke’s Jesus, For where [their] treasure is, there [their] heart will be also. The Colossian Christians were faced with a choice: value their inclusion in their local socio-political climate of the kingdom of humanity thus investing their hearts in the things below (the things that decay and are devoured) or risk exclusion from Colossus in favor of storing up for themselves treasure in heaven where decay and devouring does not happen and where their hearts are entrusted to the things above, most especially to Jesus who is at the right hand of God.

Luke 12:32-40

In our Gospel passage, Luke brings into Jesus teaching his disciples. Immediately after exhorting the disciples not to worry (vv.22-31), Jesus tenderly encourages not to fear, Do not be afraid, little flock, because your Father is well pleased to give you the realm (v.32). For the disciples, according to Luke’s Jesus, they do not need to worry because God cares, deeply, for their needs. Thus, the exhortation not to worry, which we didn’t read this morning, affirms that one’s bodily needs are divine concerns. [2] But not just their own needs, but the needs of their neighbors, too; in being exhorted not to worry for themselves, the disciples are also being exhorted to strive for the reign of God where God’s will is done (on earth as it is in heaven).[3] In other words, the disciples—those grafted into the vine of Christ—are the means by which God’s material provision is procured for those who are lacking.

Why mustn’t the disciples worry? Because God is with them and they are with each other necessitating an alertness to need. And as Jesus said, the realm is now given to them not so that they will do whatever they want, but that they’ll see it as the space through which the mission of God will overhaul the temporal realm to the glory of God and the well-being of the neighbor. And this is why they shouldn’t fear, either—they are stronger and more secure together with God, following the way of Christ, and empowered by God’s own Spirit.

Then Jesus commands, Sell your things that are at hand and give alms; make for yourselves enduring purses, unfailing treasure in the heavens where a thief cannot approach and a moth cannot utterly ruin (v.33). For the disciples to sell their possessions is how they begin to participate in the reign of God that is marked by a new order and a new orientation and focus. The selling and alms giving builds up a means to meet the needs of the neighbor. It should be mentioned that this isn’t an expectation to render oneself extremely poor, but to let the overflow and surplus to spill over and out rather than be hoarded and gathered in. A mark of a disciple of the reign of God following Christ will be incredible generosity both in spirit and material; when a disciple gives to anyone in need, they are (quite literally) giving to God, [4] and this causes God’s name to be hallowed in the world.

How and why should the disciples entertain such actions? Because, as Jesus said, For where your treasure is, there your heart is also (v.34). First, they can do this because their hearts are oriented toward and focused on heaven where the things above are, especially Christ. Their treasure is Christ and if it is Christ then it is also the neighbor because to serve one is to serve the other; and if their treasure is Christ then their hearts are in heaven and not stuck on earth coveting earthly rewards that put the neighbor and the self at risk for violence and even death. Second, they should do this because to give alms is to demonstrate that the disciple of Christ isn’t investing in the treasures of the earth (the storing up of grain and the collecting of gold) where such things can be stolen and devoured. Rather, the disciple of Christ is investing in the treasures of heaven that have enduring and eternal presence, untouchable by thief and moth.[5] Thus, the disciples will navigate the time marked by Jesus’s departure and his coming again,[6] while participating in the mission of God in the divine revolution of love, life, and liberation.

Jesus then says, Let your loins be girded and lamps burning, and you [be] like people confidently waiting for their lord returning from the wedding feast, so that when he comes and strikes [the door] at once they may open [the door] to him (v.35-36). With this exhortation toward alertness and preparedness, the disciples are to be expectant and in being expectant are to be prepared: oil in their lamps to keep them burning and their loins girded. As good representatives of Christ, the disciples are to be those representatives now while they still have him and especially when he’s gone. Jesus is preparing his little flock for when he is gone; they must be consistent in their persistence and that means being prepared and keeping alert.[7] And not just prepared, but actively participating in the work of the reign of God (mentioned above).[8] Thus, why Jesus then says, blessed [are] those slaves when their lord comes and finds them watching, and if in the second and if in the third watch he might come and find [them] in this way, blessed are those ones (v.37-38). To be found watching is to be found both prepared to watch while keeping an eye on and a giving hand toward one’s neighbor because we expect to be found by Christ ready and acting.[9] For, as Jesus says, you, you become prepared because you, you do not know the hour the son of humanity comes (v.40). The disciples are to be caught dressed and acting like the one whom they represent.

Conclusion

Just as Paul told the Colossians last week, so does Jesus tell his disciples this week: you no longer get to live like everyone else. This is not the news we—social creatures and creatures desperate to fit in—want to hear. Neither Jesus nor Paul advocate for the Christian blending in or flowing and vibing with the kingdom of humanity. “Fitting in” is no longer applicable; standing out is expected, being reviled is expected, being persecuted, shunned, and ostracized by the citizens of the kingdom of humanity become the new normal for those who dare to follow Jesus out of the Jordan and head to the cross.

Those who are new creatures by faith in Christ, baptized in the waters and the Spirit of God, and joined to God are now, according to both Jesus and Paul, to live differently in the world. Where others build silos to store grain, we take whatever we have left over and share it; where others burry gold, we scrounge a few cents together to see how far it can go; where others sleep, we are to remain alert and prepared; where others are controlled by fear and worry, we are to be confident while trusting in the provision of God through our siblings in Christ; where others side with indifference, death, and captivity, we are to side with love life and liberation to the glory of God and the well-being of our neighbor.

[1] LW 54:157-158; Table Talk 1590.

[2] Justo L. Gonzalez, Luke, Belief: A Theological Commentary on the Bible, eds. Amy Plantinga Pauw and William C. Placher (Louisville: WJK, 2010), 161-162. “Since it is God’s will that even the ravens be fed, and the lilies clothed, to strive for the kingdom is among other things to make certain that all are fed and all are clothed. We are not to worry about securing such things, for they are important to God; but precisely because they are important to God we must oppose everything that precludes all from having them. This is why in the very passage about not worrying over food or clothing Jesus invites his followers to give alms (12:33), that is, to provide for those who are hungry or naked.”

[3] Gonzalez, Luke, 161. “The alternative to worrying is not a happy-go-lucky, careless attitude. On the contrary, it is a serious struggle, striving for the kingdom. This does not mean, as some might surmise, simply being more religious. And pious. The kingdom of God is a new order, the new order that has come nigh in Jesus. It is an order in which God’s will is done…”

[4] Gonzalez, Luke, 162. “Verses 33-34 give clear guidelines as to how this is to be done: ‘sell your possessions’—your earthly treasure—and ‘give alms’—thus building up a treasure in heaven. In early patristic literature, one constantly finds the assertion that ‘when you give to the poor you lend to God,’…”

[5] Gonzalez, Luke, 162. “…it’s a matter of where one’s treasure is. If on earth, as in the case of the rich man who decided to build bigger barns, it will have no lasting value. If in heaven, it will have lasting value, for in heaven neither do thieves steal one’s treasure, nor do moths eat at it.”

[6] Gonzalez, Luke, 163. “Significantly, the theme of stewardship will appear repeatedly as Jesus prepares for his departure, his ‘exodus’ in 9:31. This is because stewardship, properly understood, is the life of believers in the time ‘in between.’”

[7] Gonzalez, Luke, 163-164. “In this passage, that eschatological sense of expectancy or in-betweenness comes forth in the image of lamps that must remain lit…Thus keeping the lamp lit, as this passage instructs, is a matter that requires constant attention and watchfulness.”

[8] Gonzalez, Luke, 164. “In this last section, speaking to his disciples, Jesus intimates that, since they know what the master wishes, and since they have been given responsibility over the rest of the household, when the master returns they will be judged on the basis of their faithfulness to the absent master’s wishes. Those who knew those wishes will be judged more severely than those who did not. Thus, while we might think that because we are Christians, we have the advantage of knowing what God’s intentions for the world are, the truth is also that any such advantage in knowledge also leads to a greater weight of responsibility.”

[9] Gonzalez, Luke, 163. “Stewardship must not be divorced form eschatology; too often the typical stewardship sermons says simply that all we have God has given us to manage. This leaves out two fundamental issues. The first is that we must not simply affirm that all we have has been given to us by God. We live in an unjust world, and to attribute the present order to God is attribute injustice to God. it may well be that we have some things unjustly, and not as a gift of God. … The second issues that should not be left out of our discussions on stewardship is the crucial dimension of hope and expectation. We are to manage things, not just out of general sense of morality or even of justice, and certainly not just to support the church and its institutions—which we certainly must do. We are to manage things in view of the future we expect.” Striving to build up treasure in the kingdom of heaven.

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For the Love and Glory of God

Psalm 148:1-2 1 Hallelujah! Praise Abba God from the heavens; praise God in the heights. Praise Abba God, all you angels; praise God, all his host. [May these words praise God!]

Introduction

In 1984, Tina Turner asked, “What’s love got to do with it?” And looking around our local and national environment, I think that’s probably the question we should be asking. But just hollering into that caustic and vitriolic sinkhole, “Just love one another!”, is adding more fuel to the fire because we often don’t know what we mean when we say it. The reason for that? Most people, on either side of the divide, truly think they are acting in loving ways. So, hollering, “We just need to love one another!” is met with blank stares in response because, well “I AM!”

We truly believe that love will solve our problems, sooth our tensions, eliminate our divisions; and I agree with this. But the thing is, we must get real about what it means to love…We must start at the beginning and notice how God loves the cosmos and how God in Jesus Christ loved the neighbor. We must embrace that to love doesn’t always make one comfortable and cozy—either the beloved or the lover. We must be willing to take our love beyond good feeling and allow Love (capital “L”) be the force that guides our actions in the world causing us to prioritize the well-being of the neighbor o according to what they need and not what I think they need. So, I’m glad John is here to walk us (back) through what it means to love…

John 13:31-35

Our passage falls near the end of Jesus teaching his disciples about love in the upper room before his crucifixion. Essentially, we are—for all intents and purposes—back at Maundy Thursday. The chapter opens with Jesus washing the disciples’ feet. At the conclusion of this event, Jesus gives a teaching on what it means to be a disciple of Christ: to serve each other and not to be served. Then Jesus tells of his betrayal. Here Judas is just flat called out and dismissed from the table to do what he is going to do. Then we come to our passage for today where Jesus explains what is happening and then gives his disciples a new commandment (to love). Chapter 13 closes with Jesus promising Peter that he will not be able to go where Jesus is going, but that Peter will deny Jesus three times. In this chapter, love has a lot of work to do.

John writes, Therefore when [Judas] went out, Jesus said, “Now the son of humanity was glorified, and God was glorified in him. If God was glorified in him, then God will glorify him in God, and God will glorify him immediately” (vv. 31-32). Jesus isn’t speaking abstractly here; he’s speaking very literally. His death comes as Judas goes out; the present moment is binding together what was with what will be.[1] The “now” there is doing a lot of work and emphasis should be placed on it. In this moment, among the disciples, there is a collision of time: what was is becoming what will be right then (now!). Jesus has glorified God in his active love in the world and this glorifying of God will become Jesus’s future glorification in the resurrection from the death that is coming now (because Judas left and all that is coming by his betrayal is as good as done). In other words, the Cross and the Resurrection are going to be the full culmination of what was colliding with what will be and creates an entirely new now for the disciples of Christ.[2] It is this new now that the disciples are ushered into by faith (and which is only accessible through faith).[3]

Jesus then addresses the disciples personally, Dear little children, I am still with you a little bit [longer]. You will search for me, and just as I said to the Children of Israel, “Where I, I go my way you, you are not able to come,” and to you I say [this] just now. After a pronouncement of God being glorified (both past and future) in and through himself, Jesus informs the disciples that the way he is going is his way alone and they are not able to come. Jesus’ presence with them is coming to an end; the disciples will no longer be able to walk (literally) with him and they will learn that it is necessary for them to be abandoned by Jesus (in his death and also in his future ascension). What he did with them will have to be enough…for now; the disciples will be stripped of their teacher, left to their own devising.[4] Or so they think…

Then Jesus speaks into their burgeoning doubt and threatening despair and promises that even as he leaves, he is with them. How so? Through a new commandment that has to do with the disciples loving each other as Christ loved them. Jesus exhorts, A new command I give to you: you love one another. Just as I loved you, you, you also love one another. In this way, all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love among you. As Jesus’s time with the disciples wanes, he gives them a commandment that will transcend any epoch and era and any country and continent. In a swift motion, Jesus redirects their attention away from themselves and toward something in the future; to this command they can cling because it is not clinging to a stone tablet but a real person by faith; in it resides the entirety of Jesus with them, and if Jesus then God, too.[5] In loving one another like Christ loved them, they are never abandoned and are always with Christ and also with God. This is not a cold command to love as if it was of one’s own power; this is a command that is founded on and in and by the love of Christ for them, which is the love of God for them. [6] If the disciples love in the way of and like Christ loved them, then their discipleship status will be noticed by all people because in this love Christ will be proclaimed.[7]

The new command doesn’t replace Jesus, this would then make Jesus and faith in Jesus superfluous. Rather, the new command becomes the “essential nature” [8] of the burgeoning new community that follows this new way of Christ in a world that will find this all very strange.[9] (And, according to John, this love does start first among the new community. [10]) This new command of love is not feeling loving emotions toward someone; that is not how Jesus loved the disciples. Jesus loved the disciples (and others!) through acts and deeds of service that brought love, life, and liberation to them in both material and spiritual ways.[11] Thus, the disciples’ activity in accordance with this new command reinforces that the disciples are never far from Christ because this liberative love is the very love of Christ. And it is distinct and new because it is not the love of the kingdom of humanity but of the reign of God bringing life where there is death, Easter where Good Friday refuses to leave.[12]And if the disciples are never far from Christ in this liberative love, then it will be easy for all people to know they are HIS disciples.

In this way God’s mission of the divine revolution of love, life, and liberation continues in the world as Jesus goes his way and the disciples remain behind. The mission doesn’t end with Jesus; it is just the beginning of the advent and incarnation of the reign of God overhauling the kingdom of humanity, bit by bit, moment by moment, in this era and that era. [13] And, as this new community of disciples loving each other as Christ loved them goes into and through the history of the world, God is glorified in them because Christ is the glory of God and where this community is and loves as Jesus loved them, Christ is there and brings God glory.[14]

Conclusion

So, “What’s love got to do with it?” Well, according to John, everything. This command was not just for the disciples there with Jesus at the table but is timeless and knows not a static captivity to the past. The new commandment transcends time and space, it goes and is wherever there are those who gather in the name of Christ and love as Christ loved. This new command is for us today: it guides us, teaches us, corrects us, forms and reforms us, and it is still the way all people will know we are the disciples of Christ. They will know us by our love because our love will be liberative and life giving, it will be more than “thoughts and prayers,” more than some sort of comfortable message, even more than abstract Christian colloquialism that never hit the rock bottom we hit. This love will not bring death, indifference, and captivity; it will not hold up legalism, traditionalism, and dogmatism over the well-being of anyone (those here and out there) [15]. It will cause us to relinquish our excess to meet the needs of others and to abandon our self-imposed isolation to find deep community with others. It will be the source of our unrestrainable hope that will radiate out from here infecting others as it streams through the world to its farthest recesses. It will bind us to God, thus bind us to that and to those whom God loves: creation and our neighbor. Dorothee Sölle writes in her book, To Work and To Love, “The God who created the universe, including our planet, and who delivered us from slavery is the same God who raises the dead to new life, so that we who were dead and without hope might become resisters and lovers of life. ‘Lover of the living’ is an old name for God (Wis. of Sol. 11:26). So shall it be our name for evermore.”[16]

[1] Rudolf Bultmann, The Gospel of John: A Commentary, trans. GR Beasley-Murray, Gen Ed, RWN Hoare and JK Riches (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1971), 523. Originally published as, Das Evangelium des Johannes (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1964, 1966). “It is that νῦν, in which past and future are bound together, stressed particularly at this point by the paradoxical juxtaposition of ἐδοξάσθη (v. 31) and δοξάσει (v. 32).”

[2] Bultmann, John, 523-524. “The subject is that δόξα which is at the same time the Son’s and the Father’s: καὶ ὁ θεὸς ἐδοξάσθη ἐν αὐτῷ. What has already happened sub specie aeterni unfolds itself in the temporal future; and because this is so, the word δοξάσει (as if this future were at a distance from the νῦν) can be picked up again in καὶ εὐθὺς δοξάσει αὐτόν, which is a reference to the immediately imminent passion. It draws our attention again to that paradox inherent in the concept of δόξα, viz. that the δόξα becomes apparent precisely in the cross; and it also indicates a rejection of the naive primitive Christian eschatology, for there the revelation of Jesus’ δόξα was expected only at his coming Parousia (mk. 8.38).”

[3] Bultmann, John, 524. “The period of his personal presence has come to an end…His own will miss him; they will not realise the full significance of that νῦν immediately. Their faith has to stand the test.”

[4] Bultmann, John, 524. “…to some extent the believers are in the same position as the men of the κόσμος. Of course the situation does not contain for them, as it does for the latter, that element of the ‘too late’; but both look back in the same way on a ‘no longer’, and the beginnings of despair are there for the disciples too. They have to learn that the Revealer has not come to be at their disposal through their faith. What now lies in the past does not guarantee the future, but is called into question by it. Jesus, in whom they believed, disappears from them, and they are left with no security.”

[5] Bultmann, John, 525. “Then how can their relationship with him be retained in the face of this isolation?…The future is subjected to an imperative! Their anxiety was centred on their own actual existence, but now they are directed towards an existence that has the character of an ‘ought.’ The illusion that they possess him in such a way that he is at their disposal is confronted by another kind of possession: one which consists in fulfilling a command. Their despairing gaze into the past that is no more is redirected to the future, which comes and lay sits obligation upon them. An unreal future, which would only be a persistence in the past, is made into the real future which demands faith. And in so far as the content of the ἐντολή is ἵνα ἀγαπᾶτε ἀλλήλους, the care for oneself is changed into a care for one’s neighbour.”

[6] Bultmann, John, 525. “But since it is precisely this becoming free from the past and from oneself that is subjected to the imperative, the future that is grasped as command coincides with the future that is promised for loyalty of faith; for it was freedom from the past and form oneself that was promised to the believer. Thus the imperative is itself a gift, and this it can be because it receives its significance and its possibility of realization from the past, experienced as the love of the Revealer.”

[7] Bultmann, John, 528. “…all loving becomes the proclamation of Jesus—which means that it can always become an offence too, not just in the individual case, but especially because the association formed by this kind of love cuts across the associations of the world in a special way.”

[8] Bultmann, John, 527. “But Jesus’ command of love is ‘new,’ even when it has been long-known, because it is the law of the eschatological community, for which the attribute ‘new’ denotes not an historical characteristic but its essential nature. The command of love, which is grounded in the love of the Revealer received by the disciples, is ‘new’ in so far as it is a phenomenon of the new world which Jesus has brought into being; and indeed 1 John 2.8 describes this newness as that of the eschatological event.”

[9] Bultmann, John, 527. “V. 35 states that the new world becomes reality in the community: reciprocal love within the community is the criterion of the discipleship of Jesus for those outside. The fact that the command of love is fulfilled there demonstrates the strangeness of the community within the world, and results in the world calling those who love the disciples of Jesus. Not just because there is a community in which love is both an injunction and an actual practice. Much rather because love itself there takes on a form that is strange to the world.”

[10] Bultmann, John, 528. “It is no general love of mankind, or love of one’s neighbour or enemy that is demanded, but love within the circle of disciples. Naturally this does not mean that the all-embracing love of one’s neighbour is to be invalidated; but here it is a question of the very existence of the circle of disciples. How does the departing Revealer remain present for his own? By the vitality of the gift of his love in their love of each other, and by their representation within the world of the new world, which became reality through him.”

[11] Bultmann, John, 526. “Jesus’ love is not a personal emotion, but is the service that liberates; and the response to it is not a mystical or pietistic intimacy with Christ, but the ἀλλήλους ἀγαπᾶν.”

[12] Bultmann, John, 526. “The significance of the past lies in the fact that the encounter with Jesus was experienced as his service which made the believer free; thus the significance of the future can only be that in it this freedom is brought to fruition. And this take s place int eh fulfillment of the command of love. Because this command and its fulfillment are grounded in the Revealer’s love which has actually been experienced, the believer always remains bound to the Revealer’s service and is never centered on himself.  And to put it the other way round, the faith which has accepted that service can only continue to come to fruition in the attitude of service, i.e. of love.”

[13] Bultmann, John, 529. “But the community itself fulfills its commission to the world…only if the ἀγαπᾶν remains the response to the love of Jesus, and so long as it does note exchange it for an ἔργον of the world, or for efficacy within world-history. It is not the effect it has on world history that legitimates the Christian faith, but its strangeness within the world; and the strangeness is the bearing of those whose love for each other is grounded in the divine love.”

[14] Bultmann, John, 526. “Only if they are themselves loving do they who belong to him remain in the experience of his love; in the same way they can, and do love, only on the basis of this experience. Thus the believers’ past and future are bound to each other like the former and the future δόξα of the Revealer himself: the future receives its meaning form the past, and the past becomes significant in the future. But that means that in the future, despite their separation from him, they remain united to him. In their action, his act is present.”

[15] Bultmann, John, 528. v. 35 disciples “…a definition of their essential nature. The association with Jesus, therefore, is not realized by possessing articles of knowledge or dogmas, nor in institutions or experiences of individual piety, but in pupil-hood,’ in obedience to the command of love.”

[16] Sölle, To Work and Love, 165.

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“Rescued from Danger…Sealed for Thy Courts”: The Path of Easter!

Psalm 118: 14-16a Abba God is my strength and my song and has become my salvation. There is a sound of exultation and victory in the tents of the righteous: “The right hand of Abba God has triumphed!

Introduction

Happy Easter! Christ is Risen!!

This morning, our calcified hearts prone to wander from God find rest in divine sealing made known in the unsealed, empty tomb. We who are enticed and attracted to the shiny bobbles and fluffy lures of the kingdom of humanity are now ushered into something truly new, truly beaming, truly spectacular, truly built of the divine, eternal, never tarnishing substance that is the love of God for you, the Beloved. This morning, despite our wandering, we come face to face with God in Christ, the one who lives and doesn’t die.

Even when we decided to wander from God, to turn our backs, to forget the ancient and good story, to tread and tromp on everyone and everything, to estrange ourselves, to misjudge and prejudge others unto their condemnation, and even when we preferred acts of violence and death, God sought us and found us as we were wandering “from the fold of God”[1] and set us right. This morning, the exposure we felt on Friday becomes the warm light of the risen Son, bringing us into himself, into the lap of Abba God, and wrapping us up like newborn babes in the warm blanket of the Holy Spirit. Nothing, I repeat, NOTHING stands between God and God’s beloved, not even death.

Today we’re a people set back on course, eyes lifted, faces turned, fleshy hearts thumping with divine love, hands and feet eager to spread the liberation we have received, and voices ready to call forth life even when all that surrounds us in the world is death. Today we become a people who dares to believe this crazy, far-out story because today become a people brought to life by this good and ancient word of God.

Luke 24:1-12

Now after the women were made full of fear they bowed their faces to the earth; [the two men in clothing shining like lightening] said to the women, “Why are you seeking the one who lives among the dead?” (Luke 24:5)

At the end of chapter 23, Luke mentions that the women—Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary mother of James, and some other women (24:10a)—saw, from a distance, where Joseph of Arimathea placed Jesus’s body (v.55).[2] It’s these women who now take center stage in the reception of the good news that Jesus is raised. As the men fled, the women held their ground initially in the distance and now the first ones on the scene in Luke’s resurrection story.[3]

Having seen where Joseph placed Jesus’s body (23:55), and it being the first day of the week and still in the depths of early morning, these women went to the tomb bearing the spices they prepared on Friday night (v.1 and 23:56). Keeping in mind that they prepared spices on Friday night, these women are not examples of blind faith despite the facts; for them, as well as for the men, Jesus was dead—very dead. They planned to anoint his body,[4] which wasn’t done in the rush getting his body down from the cross and into a tomb before the sunset and curses arrived (cf. Dt 21:23).

Now, when they arrived at the tomb, they found the stone having been [mysteriously[5]] rolled away from the tomb (v.2). Curious to see what happened, the women entered the tomb. And after entering the tomb they did not find the body of Jesus (v. 3). Luke then writes, while the women were perplexed/in doubt about what had happened, behold! two men approached the women [dressed] in clothing shining like lightening (v.4). The women were confused, and now they became full of fear; upon being approached by two men in dazzling clothing, Luke tells us, they bowed their faces to the earth (5a). In other words, they suddenly dropped to the ground because they were full of terror. While this is a natural and biblical response to angelic visitors, it’s also a human reaction. These women came to anoint Jesus’s body, and not only is it missing (stolen, maybe?) but now two men show up and approach them (Are we in trouble? Are they going to harm us?). Luke does a marvelous job wedding together the spiritual and temporal realities of this story growing in dramatic tension.

Luke then writes that the two gleaming men said to the women, “why are you seeking the one who lives with the dead? He is not here but was raised” (v.5b-6a).For one moment, suspend your judgment and how well you know this story. Stay here with the women hearing, for the first time, that Jesus—whom they saw crucified on Friday and sealed up in a tomb—is not dead but alive because he is risen! Instantaneously, your world is turned upside down…again! As they looked at each other (now more in astonishment and less in fear) they begin the journey of faith as it dawns on them (in their hearts and minds) that death itself has a mortal weakness: God…Is it possible? Is  Jesus alive? Imagine the grief they carried giving birth to hope…hope daring to rise to life in the depths of a tomb meant for the hopelessness of death…

Then Luke tells us that the two men exhort them, remember what he spoke to you while he was still in galilee, saying it is necessary that the son of humanity be betrayed into the hands of sinful humanity and to be crucified and on the third day to be raised up.” And as the men remind them, these women remembered [Jesus’s] words and after returning from the tomb they announced[6] all these things to the twelve and to the all the remaining people (vv. 8-9). That which they hadn’t fully grasped they did as the celestial men spoke to them;[7] they heard,[8] they believed, and they went.[9] If there were ever three phrases that sum up good discipleship, these are they.[10] The women didn’t linger, tarry, hesitate, debate, and didn’t dismiss because this message didn’t align with their social, political, or religious status-quo. They ran home and immediately told the disciples what they heard. Good news arrives!

And then it’s dismissed. Luke informs us, [the women and their words] appeared before [the men] as if silly, idle nonsense; they were disbelieving the women (v.11). The good news the women brought falls flat at the feet of the men they told; [11] save one. Peter is the only who listened and is intrigued enough to run to the tomb, and after stooping to look he saw only the piece of fine linen and then he departed toward home marveling at what had happened (v.12). According to Luke, Peter not only denied Jesus but then didn’t tell the others that the women were correct; he just remained silent and amazed. [12]  Here, Luke draws purposeful attention to the faithfulness of the women who proclaimed the good news even when it sounded ludicrous.[13] They didn’t linger among the dead; inspired by faith,[14] they ran straight into (new) life, spreading the good news of the one who is living, the risen Jesus the Christ. In this moment filled with swelling divine life, the women were resistant to wandering. They ran toward the risen Christ boldly entering a new reality and order where death succumbs to life.[15]

Conclusion

For us who are prone to wander because we forsake and forget the way of the reign of God, this morning we are given Christ himself—all of him—so that we never forget or forsake the way. For us who are addicted to treading on and tromping about the land and on others, we have received a new way to walk in the world demonstrated by the running feet of the women: swift and sensitive, eager to bring good news rather than pain! For us who find ourselves estranged by our own doing and having become strangers to God, to our neighbor, to creation, and to ourselves we are beckoned out of the oppressive col of self-imposed tombs of isolation and are given a community with God, with others, with creation, and with ourselves built on and by the love of Christ. For us who know the pain of being caught in the captivity of misjudging and prejudging others according to our own human standards, we are refused that plumbline and, instead, we are given divine love, life, and liberation as our new metrics of good and right. For us who are drunk with violence and death, we receive what we do not deserve this morning: peace and life eternal.

This morning we’re given something completely new, completely different, completely strange to the kingdom of humanity. We are given life, love, and liberation. And while we benefit from this, we are given these things specifically so we can participate in God’s divine mission of the revolution of love, life and liberation in the world for the God’s beloved. We are refused the option of living as if we’ve not heard, seen, felt, tasted, smelled the good news. We are charged to take up the way of Christ and live as if the Cross isn’t the end of the story but the beginning. The women who were encountered in the empty tomb were charged to stop looking for the living among the dead; their lives were never ever the same.[16] So it is with us: our call to be disciples taking up their cross and follow Jesus isn’t gone, it’s the only way we have because the path we learned from the kingdom of humanity is forever blocked off.[17] This morning, we’re not the same as we were yesterday morning; this morning, we’ve encountered an empty tomb and heard the announcement from the celestial realm: he is not here he is risen! How could we ever live in the old way? Everything is now new.

Today, our willful and chaotic wandering collides with the steady path of Christ that is dangerous and not careful, that is risky and not safe, that is radical and not status quo, that will afflict and not always comfort.[18] Today we live under the weight of the question, Why are you seeking the one who lives among the dead? (v. 5). Go, Beloved, and live radically and wildly in the name of God and for the well-being of your neighbor and do so in a way that brings God glory and might get you in a little bit of good trouble. You’ve been summoned into life not death, into love and not indifference, into liberation and not captivity.

[1] Fom the hymn “Come Thou Fount”

[2] Justo L. Gonzalez, Luke, Belief: A Theological Commentary on the Bible, eds. Amy Plantinga Pauw and William C. Placher (Louisville: WJK, 2010), 272. “In 23:55 Luke directed our attention to the women who were present at the burial, and now he continues telling us about the activities of these women once the Sabbath rest had passed.”

[3] Gonzalez, Luke, 272. “It is interesting to note that here again Luke will tell parallel but different stories about the women disciples and the men…These women have been present, but have remained mostly in the background of the story, even since Luke introduced them in 8:2-3. In the narrative of the passion and burial, even while others deny Jesus or flee, these women stand firm, although at a distance. Now they come to the foreground as the first witnesses to the resurrection.”

[4] Gonzalez, Luke, 272-273. “They, no less than the rest, believe that in the cross all has come to an end. It is time to return home to their more traditional lives. But before they do that, they must perform one least act of love for their dead Master: they must anoint his body.”

[5] Joel B. Green, The Gospel of Luke, The New International Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997), 837. “How was the stone removed? Luke’s account neglects such detail, for he wants to move quickly to the pivotal discovery of an empty tomb.”

[6] Gren, Luke, 838-839. “‘Luke underscores the faithfulness of their testimony by noting that they announced ‘all these things’—that is, what they had observed, what they had been told, and the new significance they attributed to Jesus’ passion and the absence of his corpse.”

[7] Green, Luke, 837-838. “These women come looking for Jesus, but they want to minister to him, and as they quickly discover, because they lack understanding, they are looking in the wrong place. The angels first admonish them, employing language that is reminiscent of Jesus’ rejoinder to the Sadducees in 20:38: God is not the God of the dead but of the living! That is, in spite of their devout intentions in coming to anoint Jesus’ body, these women have failed to grasp Jesus’ message about the resurrection and, thus, have not taken with appropriate gravity the power of God.”

[8] Gren, Luke, 838. “The antidote for this miscalculation is remembrance. The women are addressed as person who had themselves received Jesus’ teaching in Galilee, and the angel’s message fuses Jesus’ predictions during the Galilean phase of his ministry…Thus they are reminded that the career of the Son of Man blends the two motifs of suffering and vindication, and that in doing so he fulfills the divine will.”

[9] Gonzalez, Luke, 273. “The women do not see the resurrected Jesus. The two figures at the tomb (presumably angels) simply tell them that he has risen just as he had foretold, and they believe. Luke does not even say, as do Matthew and Mark (Matt. 28:7; Mrk 16:7), that they are instructed to tell the rest of the disciples (an injunction they follow in Matthew, but not in Mark). They simply hear the witness of the two men at the tomb, and apparently on their own initiative go and tell the others.”

[10] Gren, Luke, 838. Seim qtd in. “Their reception of the resurrection message ‘confirms their discipleship and the instruction they have received as disciples.’”

[11] Green, Luke, 839-840. “The gap between male and female disciples widens, as the faithful account of the women falls on the cynical and unbelieving ears of the men. Nothing more than useless chatter—this is how their announcement is evaluated and discarded. This can be explained in at least to aways. First, the earlier situation of the women disciples is being repeated int eh case of their male counterpart; failing to grasp Jesus’ teaching regarding his suffering and resurrection, they cannot make sense of the news share d with them. At the same time, however, Luke’s ‘all this’ (v 8) cannot but include the message they had received form the angels, so that the men were given access to the significance of recent events. The dismissive response of the men is therefore better explained with reference to the fact that those doing the reporting are women in a world biased against the admissibility of women as witnesses.” Peter’s response is all the more positive.

[12] Green, Luke, 840. Amazement is not faith nor does it hint at the eventual genuine faith. “Unlike the women, [Peter] returns home with no new message to share.”

[13] Gonzalez, Luke, 273. “The contrast is such that one cannot avoid the conclusion that it is purposeful, and that Luke is stressing the faith of these women who have traveled with Jesus from Galilee, and who were the only ones who remained true throughout the entire story of the betrayal. Even though the later course of church history, with its expectation of entirely male leadership, would lead us to think otherwise, it is they who bring the message of the resurrection to the eleven, and not vice versa.”

[14] Green, Luke, 836. “The Evangelist has repeatedly noted the incapacity of the disciples to grasp this truth…but now he signals a breakthrough on the part of the women. If the male disciples continue in their obtuseness, and thus lack of faith, at least Peter response to the witness of the women by going to the tomb. His behavior portends at last the possibility of a more full understanding of Jesus’ message on their part.”

[15] Gonzalez, Luke, 274. “The resurrection is not the continuation of the story. Nor is it just its happy ending. It is the beginning of a new story, of a new age in history.”

[16] Gonzalez, Luke, 276. “But the truth is that the resurrection of Jesus, and the dawning of the new with him, poses a threat to any who would rather continue living as if the cross were the end of the story. The women on their way to the tomb were planning to perform one last act of love for Jesus, and then would probably just return home to their former lives. Peter and the rest would eventually return to their boats, their nets, and the various occupations. But now the empty tomb opens new possibilities. Now there is no way back to the former life in Galilee. Even though Luke tells us that Peter simply went home after seeing the empty tomb, we will soon learn that this was not the end of it: Peter himself would eventually die on his own cross.”

[17] Gonzalez, Luke, 276. “The resurrection is a joyous event; but it also means that Jesus’ call for his disciples to take up their cross and follow him is still valid. The road to the old ways in Galilee is now barred. The resurrection of Jesus impels them forward to their own crosses, and indeed, we know that several of the disciples suffered violent death as the result of their following and proclaiming the Risen One.”

[18] Gonzalez, Luke, 276. “The full message of Easter is both of joy and of challenge. It is. The announcement of unequaled and final victory, and the call to radical, dangerous, and even painful discipleship.”

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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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Love God = Love Neighbor

Psalm 146:4, 6 Happy are they who have the God of Jacob for their help! whose hope is in Abba God…Who gives justice to those who are oppressed, and food to those who hunger.

Introduction

If we’ve learned anything from the gospel of Mark it’s that being a disciple of Christ isn’t easy and comfortable, it demands reconsideration of things familiar and comfortable, it conflicts with the way the world works and the kingdom of humanity operates, it can rupture relationships, it will force you into an inner crisis of identity. What we’ve gleaned from Mark’s Jesus about what it means to follow him clashes with common notions that being a Christian means worldly prosperity, power, popularity, and privilege (often defined by the kingdom of humanity); it clashes with the idea that being a Christian means being nice and happy; it clashes with the idea that being a Christians means allegiance to a flag or nation; it clashes with the idea that being a Christian means doing one set of things on Sunday and spending Monday through Saturday doing whatever you want.

To follow Christ as one of the disciples—those baptized and partaking of the cup—is to render one’s whole life in service to the mission of God’s revolution of love, life, and liberation in the world for the wellbeing of God’s beloved (you, me, us, and especially all who suffer and are heavy laden outside of these walls). There isn’t one part of us that isn’t claimed by the Spirit of God that descended on Pentecost and now lives in us, yoking us to God by and through our faith in Christ. Mark’s Jesus takes very seriously that you are the fragile, breakable vessel of God, working through you as the epicenter of divine judgment and justice—condemning that which promotes death, indifference, and captivity and exalting that which nourishes, life, love, and liberation. This is the demand on the faithful disciple of Christ (then and now); it is the pursuit of divine love that lets them know we are Christians of the reign of God. Nothing else qualifies but to love God and love those whom God loves.

Mark 12:28-34

And then the scribe said to him, “Well said, teacher! You spoke on the basis of the truth that God is one and there is not another except this one. And to love God out of the whole heart and out of the whole intellect and out of the whole strength and to love the neighbor as oneself is greater than all of the whole burnt offerings and sacrifices.”[1]

This entire discussion is rather banal.[2] Since there are (about) 613 mitzvot (separate commands) within Genesis to Deuteronomy, discussions about  which commandments were seen “as more essential” and even debates about which ones were “light” and “heavy” happened regularly among the local scholarly network (Pharisees, Scribes, and Sadducees, etc.).[3] Even a “summary” of the law—some idea that ties up the Torah—was expected.[4] Thus, Jesus’s summary fits in with other Jewish summaries of the law (causing absolutely no surprise) and is extended to include the prophets.[5] The only thing that is interesting (and considered unprecedented) is that Jesus links two well-known first testament texts: Deuteronomy 6:4-5 and Leviticus 19:18.[6]

So, why include this story in the gospel and in our lectionary? Because the most central feature of a Christian’s life of faithful discipleship is love. Fullstop. Love God and love your neighbor. Jesus answered, “The first is, ‘Hear O Israel, the Lord your God the Lord is one, and you will love the Lord God from your whole heart, and from your whole soul and from your whole intellect and from your whole strength.’ The second [is] this, ‘You will love your neighbor as yourself.’” The entirety of the Christian life is defined by love that is born by the reign of God and made known in the kingdom of humanity (vertical and horizontal, divine and human, spiritual and material). Not only is the disciple exhorted to love God with their whole self, but they are also to love the neighbor (whoever and wherever they are[7]) in the same way; this is the way for the disciple of Christ. To prove this point and to drive it home, Jesus adds, There is no other command greater than these. Here things get a bit more interesting. Jesus has, first, not given one command but two when the scribe asked for what command is first of all? And, second, Jesus created a hierarchy between the love of God and the love of neighbor and the other commandments. According to Mark’s Jesus, there is a preferred way,[8] subjecting all other commands to these two.

The scribe’s response—“Well said, teacher! You spoke on the basis of the truth that God is one and there is not another except this one. And to love God out of the whole heart and out of the whole intellect and out of the whole strength and to love the neighbor as oneself is greater than all of the whole burnt offerings and sacrifices”—reveals two things. The first is implicit, the scribe gets something that the disciples are still trying to ascertain and understand[9] and the other scribes (and Pharisees and Sadducees) refuse to get.[10] The scribe affirms the fact that Jesus’s words are founded on truth thus revealing his own inherent disposition toward Jesus and also Jesus’s mission in the world (thus why Jesus can say to him later, “You are not far from the reign of God.”; #notallscribes[11]).[12]

The second is explicit, there is nothing within religiosity and religious traditionalism that rival these two commands. Nothing—no ritual, no tradition, no pilgrimage, no vigil, no quiet time, no eucharistic celebration, etc.—absolutely nothing is more important to the Christian life in the world before God and among the neighbor than love, love, love. Everything else is not only subverted[13] to these two commands to love God fully and completely and to love the neighbor as one loves themselves but should be viewed in support of this demand for love in two directions, vertically and horizontally. Thus, for Mark’s Jesus and this humble scribe, to love God is to love the neighbor and to love the neighbor is to love God. [14] What is essentially and primarily ruled out here is any conception of a privatized relationship between one person and God as if that’s all that matters. A disciple of Christ cannot love God and ignore their neighbor because to ignore their neighbor is to ignore God. You don’t get the option to do half of the chief commandment; it’s either both or its nothing.

Conclusion

If you’ve ever wondered what God’s will is for your life as a disciple of Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit, wonder no more. The entirety of your life is summoned into a robust and vigorous relationship fueled, inspired, and sustained by God’s love for the cosmos. We love because we have first been loved; we love our neighbor because God loves us, and we love God and thus love what God loves. To love God with our whole selves is a definitive mark of a disciple of Christ because it manifests as loving our neighbor as if we are loving ourselves the way God loves us (and loves our neighbor). Thus they truly will know we are Christians by our love…

To go further, and to put darker lines around what it means to love God and love the neighbor, it must be stressed that to love God is best expressed not only in devotion through prayer, worship, and glorifying, but specifically expressed in loving that which and those whom God loves. This means loving God’s justice—God’s mission of life, love, and liberation[15]—that seeks to right the wrongs created and promoted by the kingdom of humanity. Thus, to quote Felipe from Ernesto Cardenal’s The Gospel in Solentiname, “‘To love your neighbor then is to love God. You can’t love God without practicing justice. And you can’t love your neighbor without practicing that justice that God commands.’” [16] In other words, the systems of the kingdom of humanity oriented toward injustice–those systems and ideologies oriented toward death, indifference, and captivity—are to be categorically rejected by those who claim to follow Christ by faith as his disciples by the power of the Holy Spirit.[17]

I can’t stress it enough that we are so very, very loved by a good, good God—a God who is love. This is worth celebrating. But if it never goes further and farther than that, then we will find ourselves distant from the reign of God. God’s love can’t be purchased and owned privately as if it can be just for ourselves. God’s love is always on the move, always seeking the object of God’s desire: God’s beloved, you, me, and more importantly, those who have been cast off and pushed to the margins by the ideologically inspired actions of the residents of the kingdom of humanity. We love because we have first been loved; we strive for justice on behalf of the neighbor, because God’s love strives for justice.

[1] Translation mine unless otherwise noted

[2] Placher, Mark, 174. “Just as it is important to note that Mark portrays this scribe in a sympathetic light, so it is worth remembering that Jesus was not saying anything radically new or at odds with the Jewish tradition.”

[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), 477. “Given that there are, according to scribal reckoning 613 separate commandments in the five Books of Moses…the question of priority could not be avoided. The rabbis discussed which commandments were ‘heavy’ and which ‘light’, and sometimes ranked certain categories of law as more essential than others.”

[4] France, Mark, 477. “There was a natural desire for a convenient summary of the law’s requirements, a single principle form which all the rest of the Torah was derived…”

[5] France, Mark, 477.

[6] France, Mark, 477-478. “But for his explicit linking together of these two very familiar OT texts [Lv. 19:18 and Dt. 6:4-5] we have no Jewish precedent.”

[7] Placher, Mark, 174. “Further, we should love our neighbors, and there should be no limits on who counts as a neighbor.”

[8] France, Mark, 478. The “evaluative language is not typical of the rabbis, who spoke of ‘light’ and ‘heavy’ commandments, but on the understanding that all are equally valid, and who, while they might look for summarizing principles, do not seem to have ranked individual commandments as ‘first’ or ‘more important.’”

[9] France, Mark, 482. “In Mark’s previous mentions of the kingdom of God we have repeatedly noted a contrast between the divine and human perspective, and a sense of surprise, even of shock, as the unfamiliar values of God’s kingship are recognised. It is a secret given only to those who follow Jesus and hear his teaching (4.11). But here is a man who Is already a good part of the way through the readjustment of values which the kingdom of God demands and which the disciples have been so painfully confronting on the way to Jerusalem.”

[10] France, Mark, 478.

[11] William C. Placher, Mark, Belief: A Theological Commentary on the Bible, eds Amy Plantinga Pauw and William C. Placher. (Louisville: WJK, 2010), 173. “The question is sincere, the scribe’s response to Jesus is wise, and Jesus tells him, ‘You are not far from the kingdom of God.’ Mark….goes out of his way to indicate that not all Jewish scholars where corrupt or were Jesus’ opponents.”

[12] France, Mark, 482. “…the scribe’s reply has assured Jesus that his mind is well attuned to the divine perspective. This place him οὐ μακρὰν ἀπὸ τῆς βασιλείας τοῦ θεοῦ, not yet a part of it apparently, but unlike the rich who will find it so hard to enter the kingdom of God…this man is a promising potential recruit.”

[13] Cardenal, Solentiname, 530. “I: ‘But here he’s not talking only about false rites but true rites. He says that love is worth more than all religious rites.’”

[14] Cardenal, Solentiname, 529. “You can say, then, that those that obey the second, it’s as if they’re obeying the first. Those who don’t love God, for example, because they don’t believe in God, but love their neighbor, according to Christ it’s as if they’re obeying the first commandment.”

[15] Ernesto Cardenal, The Gospel in Solentiname, translated by Donald D. Walsh (Eugene: Wipf & Stock, 2010), 528. “So to love [God] is to love liberation and justice and that’ s the same things as to love your neighbor. To love God, then, is to love love. And therefore it’s logical that the second commandment should be very similar to the first one.”

[16] Cardenal, Solentiname, 528.

[17] Placher, Mark, 175. Verses leading up to the Leviticus quotation should be considered in defining ethical action of love toward the neighbor, “Maximizing profit at all costs and cutting corners are contrary to love of neighbor.”

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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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