Identity - Who We Are in Christ, Part 4: Citizens of Heaven

 

Mark12:28-34  

To what can I compare this scene in Mark 12?

I am remembering the experience I had about 20 years ago of being examined for ordination on the floor of presbytery. It is an experience one goes into with fear and trembling. Picture this.

As you, the examinee, stands in front of the gathering, they proceed to ask their questions:

Where do you stand on eschatology? Would you say you’re a premillennialist? Postmillennialist? Amillenialist?

Are you more a Zwinglian or a Calvinist on the matter of the eucharist? Or, heaven forbid, a Lutheran???

Do your views on God’s sovereignty and human free will conform more to a Reformed or an Arminian theology?

And then one person stands up and says, “Tell us something about God’s love.” This scribe who approaches Jesus in Mark 12 is that person.

This scribe knew the answer to his question before he asked Jesus, and he was appreciative of the answer Jesus gave. Love God and love your neighbor. This, he knew, is what it’s all about. And the truth of the matter is, they all knew that love is the most important thing. It’s just that it’s all too easy to forget the most important things.

As we finished Chapter 10 last week, I said we were right at the critical point in Jesus’ journey, where everything was about to change. They were about to enter Jerusalem, and now they are there.

And he has been assaulted with test questions, trip-you-up-and-haul-you-in-for-further-questioning questions. The authorities want to do their job and they think this is doing their job. But it seems like in their overwhelming concern for getting the details just right, they have lost sight of the “why” and even the “who.”

In the middle of all this, a certain scribe draws near to Jesus, and asks him a question that gets at the essence of everything. Among all God’s commandments, what is really the important thing? They actually have a conversation that really matters, just the two of them, while, presumably, argument continues all around them. Then Jesus leans in close to this scribe and says to him, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.”

And for each of us, in our heart of hearts, this is what we want to hear. “You are not far from the kingdom of God.” Because as followers of Jesus, this is what we call home. And we deeply long for it.

The apostle Paul wrote to the church at Philippi, “We are citizens of heaven, where the Lord Jesus Christ lives. He will transform the body of our humiliation, that it may be conformed to the body of his glory.”

For four weeks now we have been talking about our identity - the who of it all, who we are in Christ. Over this time, we have looked at a few qualities of the identity we take on as Christians: we are first of all, forgiven. And as those who are forgiven, we practice forgiveness toward others – the two are inseparable. Secondly, we are friends. Jesus said there is no greater love that to lay down your life for your friends. And when we open ourselves completely to one another, in solidarity and compassion, we are laying down our lives for our friends.

A third quality is this: Jesus calls us to be salt and light for the world; to have a transformational impact on all around us.

In all these things we have the opportunity to radically change the world for good. Simply by living into our identity. And today we come to the why. Because we are citizens of heaven.

If we have been given a glimpse of the realm of God, then we know some of the ways it is different from this world we live in. Rather than vengeance there would be forgiveness. Rather than hatred there would be friendship. Rather than each of us retreating to our caves and turning our backs on the needs of the world, each of us would be salt and light in the world. We know that this is God’s desire for all of us – wholeness, shalom.

And we know that our souls long to be there.

We are all seeking, longing, aching to be not far from the kingdom of God. And so we practice this great commandment of love – to love the Lord with all of our being, and to love our neighbors as ourselves. And so in doing this we draw near to the kingdom of God.

Today we observe All Saints’ Day. We remember those servants of the Lord who have gone before us, particularly those who have died in this past year. It is, at the same time, a day of sadness and a day of thankfulness. Because when we remember these saints, we recognize all the ways they brought more love to the world. We remember how they walked in Christ’s way and practiced living out the greatest commandments.

We are thankful that they served as models of faith for us. These are the ones who taught us how to be faithful disciples, how to practice compassion and mercy and forgiveness. How to be a true friend. Because they lived, the world is not the same as it was before.

But we know, as well, that these saints also had models of faith who came before them, ones who taught them to walk this way in their time. Because this is not something one does alone. We are all a part of the great communion of the saints, the whole family of God, living and dead.

Let us give thanks for the identity that was bestowed on us in our baptism.

Let us give thanks for all the saints who have walked before us, showing us the way.

Let us live our lives always remembering the most important thing. Love. Let your decisions be made according to love of neighbor.

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Identity - Who We Are in Christ, Part 3: Shaped by Grace

 

Colossians 4:2-6

Mark 10:46-52  

Sometimes in the movies, and sometimes even in real life, there are critical moments where time slows down. Moments when you notice every second of what you are experiencing, when it feels as though a message is being conveyed to you. The message is: in this moment, everything changes.

I have had that feeling about our journey these last few weeks in Chapter 10 of Mark’s gospel. Time slowed down. We have not rushed through it. We have not used the Cliff Notes version of this. We have absorbed every word.

Because there is an important message. And everything is about to change.

He is drawing near the end of his journey. He is taking his disciples from Galilee, which was home for most of them. It was the sticks, out at the margins of civilization. But now they were leaving Galilee and moving toward Jerusalem.

Jerusalem was the center of Judaism, but these Galileans were not strangers to it. Like all Jews, they had traveled up to Jerusalem to offer their sacrifices at the temple. But this journey to the city was unlike any they had taken before, because this sacrifice will be unlike any that has been made before. When they enter the gates of Jerusalem they are walking toward his crucifixion.

They are on the last leg of their journey today, passing Jericho and heading into Jerusalem, when the entourage passes by Bartimaeus, a blind beggar. Bartimaeus listens to the movement around him and hears that this is Jesus passing him by. He begins to shout out for all he is worth, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” People try to shut him up because, I guess, people who are in need shouldn’t draw attention to themselves and their needs. Because, I guess, making other people see their need is rude. Offensive.

But this is a very large crowd on the move, and large crowds make a lot of noise. Bartimaeus crying for mercy should not have been a problem because who would hear him anyway? Jesus hears him, as it turns out.

Jesus stops in the middle of the road when he hears Bartimaeus’ voice calling to him. He stops and causes everyone else to stop too. There is silence as they all look to see what has caused this interruption in their programming. Jesus, standing still, says, “Call him here.”

And the word makes its way to Bartimaeus on the side of the road. Suddenly they all want to be helpful. Bartimaeus leaps up and throws off his cloak, scattering the coins he has collected so far this day, and he runs to Jesus. Jesus asks him a simple question: “What do you want me to do for you?”

It is the same question that he asked James and John, the sons of Zebedee, just last week. But now, instead of asking for power and glory, Bartimaeus simply says, “My Teacher, let me see again.”

And Bartimaeus, his sight restored, is now on the way.

Jesus says to him, “Your faith has made you well,” but the word that is translated as being “made well,” is one that has another meaning. And we might just as easily read this as saying, “Your faith has saved you.”

Your faith has saved you, is the message to Bartimaeus, by giving you new vision. Your faith has freed you from the blinders that kept you from seeing the world as God sees it. Your faith has enabled you to see everything – absolutely everything – through Christ Jesus. And this makes all the difference in the world.

When we become followers of Jesus it is as though we are walking through a curtain – on one side of the curtain we can see things in one way, and on the other said of the curtain we can suddenly see what we could not see before. And this new vision leads to new values, new priorities, new desire to live in the kingdom of God, in mutual care and harmony with all of God’s creation.

It is not about putting on blinders that shut out the bad stuff or sticking our fingers in our ears to shut out the discordant noise. When we begin to see through Christ Jesus we see it all as God sees it all.

And we can see that this world God loves is not about transactional relationships – where the one question we always ask is, “What’s in it for me?” but instead we might ask, “What do you need? What do you want me to do for you?”

Kim and I went to the Civic Center last Thursday to cast our votes in this year’s election, and I have felt a lot of anxiety about it. Not anxiety about how I voted, because I am clear about my values and how they direct my decisions in this matter. But just anxiety about the state we are in and about what may come. These are not easy times.

Yet, I know that there are higher powers on the move; there is greater wisdom than yours or mine or anybody running for office. The universe does not turn on our votes. The world does not turn on Kamala Harris’s abilities or Donald Trump’s faculties.

Regardless of the outcome of these elections, we know there will be challenges ahead. There will be suffering that cries out to be alleviated, there will be need that cries out to be filled, there will be conflicts that require the efforts of peacemakers.

No matter who we choose to lead our nation, our nation will need us to see the world through Christ.

And know ourselves called to be salt and light in the world – this is who we are in Christ Jesus. We share this vision with others as we go on the way –

The way of Jerusalem…the way of the cross with Jesus.

But even as we walk through the darkness we can be confident. On this way, we are surrounded by love, we are filled with purpose, we are clothed with righteousness and shaped by God’s grace.

In this new life, with new vision through Christ, we are shaped by God’s grace so that our every action, every decision, every intention reflects it.

May you, like Bartimaeus, boldly ask Jesus for what you need.

May you embrace the gift of new vision through Christ.

May you be on the way with Jesus.

Identity - Who We Are in Christ, Part 2: I Call You Friend

 

John15:15

Mark 10:35-45

You’re sitting with a friend, and suddenly your friend says, “Look. I need to tell you something but please promise me you won’t be mad.”

When your friend says, “promise you won’t be mad,” you know that friend is about to tell you something that is guaranteed to make you mad, right?

Same situation here. Jesus’ friends say, “promise you will do for us whatever we ask of you,” because they are about to ask something from him that is really too much to ask.

But Jesus plays along. “What do you want,” he asks them. I imagine him grinning at this moment. They say to him, “Give us the best seats in your glory. The throne at your right hand and the throne at your left hand. Please, thank you.”

Listen, this is a weird thing for them to ask. Even for these guys who are predisposed to saying weird and inappropriate things, this ranks up there with the weirdest. Weird, because of what they have just heard Jesus say.

This happened while they were on the road, right after the exchange with the rich young ruler. Right after Jesus told the rich man that he would need to sell all his possessions. Right after he told his disciples about all the things that would happen to him – not nice things. He would be handed over to the chief priests, who would condemn him to death. He would be mocked and spit upon and flogged and finally killed.

Somehow, James and John, the sons of Zebedee, they found this to be a fitting time to say, “Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you.” Really? Where are their heads at? Quite possibly, they are desperately seeking something to make them forget.

Because, as Peter said to Jesus after the conversation about riches and heaven, they have staked everything on him. Each of them has left everything and everyone to follow him. And they are beginning to see where that might lead. They are beginning to see that if Jesus is the one who will suffer and die then they, too, might be the ones who suffer and die for his sake. This teacher, this friend, is showing them things they did not really want to know – about himself; about themselves.

There is a novel by the Czech writer Milan Kundera, called Identity, in which one of the characters tells us he believes that friendship is for the sole purpose of knowing who we are. Friends are like a mirror, he says, and we ask only that they polish the mirror from time to time so we can look at ourselves in it. And this makes me wonder: What happens when the friend who polishes the mirror forces us to see something about ourselves that we do not care to see?

“I have called you friends,” Jesus said, “because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father.” All of it.

The topic today is friendship because this is a dimension of our relationship with Jesus. Throughout the time they spent together, Jesus had different kinds of relationships with his disciples. He was their teacher, he was their healer, he was their guide. But then he lifted their relationship up to a higher level: friend.

A friendship is a relationship between equals. Friends may not be equal in every sense, but the basis of the friendship is the acceptance that one does not “lord it over” the other. One does not patronize the other. Friends do not jockey for position and undercut one another. Between friends there is honesty and acceptance and care.

Jesus says to them, “I have called you friends because I have told you everything.” And what is not said but surely implied is that he has told them everything because they will need to know it, because they will need to carry on without him in a short period of time, continuing his work of healing and teaching and leading. What has not been said but maybe should be said is that he tells them everything, the truth, with the expectation that they will be able to handle it.

But friendship is not only honest, it is patient, and surely Jesus knew that it would take his friends some time for them to arrive at acceptance. Some of the things he said they would get right away. Some of it they would push back against because it was harder to accept. And some of the things he said they would try to convince themselves were just the opposite of what he meant to say, and they would respond with non sequiturs, like special requests about the seating arrangements in his throne room. And then, when that was not enough to diffuse the tension they felt, they would bicker with one another about who asked first and who had priority. And it is clear that Jesus still has much to teach his friends.

I spoke to you last week about forgiveness being a part of our identity in Christ. That we are, first and foremost, forgiven by God for everything in our lives that weighs us down and binds us up. And, as ones who are forgiven, we are also called to be ones who extend forgiveness to others.

I think we all know that forgiveness is also an essential element of friendship. Without forgiveness I don’t know how a friendship can survive. Resentment and grudges stand in the way, blocking the flow of love from one friend to another. If you have been hurt by a friend, only forgiveness will save the friendship. And very often, getting to forgiveness requires a level of honesty we have not been accustomed to practicing. Perhaps even the level that Jesus talks about – I call you friend because I tell you everything. Including, I tell you where my soft spots are, my vulnerabilities, because I want to trust you to honor them, be tender about them. I trust you to treat me in the way you would also want to be treated.

No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. This is what Jesus said to his friends, his disciples. He was certainly foreshadowing his death, but it strikes me that his words may suggest something else as well. To lay down your life for your friend may be to open yourself up. To let that friend see you and know you for who you are. To lay down your life can happen when you are simply and purely yourself, the person God made you to be.

And, yes, that is actually risky. We take a risk when we take off our masks, when we stop pretending to be whatever we think the world will value but instead choose to just be what we are deep inside. We take the risk of disappointing others or being scorned by others. We take the risk of losing a friend, perhaps, a friend who no longer likes the mirror we hold up for them.

But the greater risk is hiding yourself, keeping yourself locked up in a dark closet for fear of what others might see, or maybe what you might see. There is no risk-free life.

But even more significant than the risks are the rewards, and in friendship there are so many. There is the reward of feeling the lightness that comes when we unburden ourselves from deceit and judgment. There is the reward of the comfort we find when we share ourselves with a friend and find a kinship. C.S. Lewis once said that a true friendship is born when one person says to the other, “What? You too? I thought I was the only one.”

I thought I was the only one, but now I know that I am not. When we embrace friendship, we know that we are not alone in our fear or our confusion or our doubts. And there is so much more good we can do in the world when we do it with friends. We are a force of nature.

This is what God has made us to be – friends, in the truest sense of the word. It is our identity in Christ Jesus, to be his friend, and to share that friendship with others, even the most unlikely people.

I call you my friends. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Picture: ChurchArt.Com

Identity - Who We Are in Christ, Part 1: You’re Not Going to Believe This

Ephesians 4:31-5:2     

Mark 10:17-31  

One of my sisters, when she was a very young child used to ask an interesting question. She wondered, “When am I going to turn into a boy?” She never did, actually. But young children can express some funny ideas about their sense of identity.

There is a lot of work involved in developing your own sense of who you are, and this was part of the work for my sister when she was four years old.

When we grow into adolescence we tend to look to our peers as a means of figuring out who we are. We want to be accepted by them, we want to be liked, and we want to like ourselves. We want to know who we are, and one dimension of that is knowing who we are not.

We finished our five-week study on risks we must take for peace last week. And in our final discussion we talked about how hard it can be to talk to people on the other side of an issue. We get really dug in on our attitudes and beliefs about things, so much so that we can lose our ability to communicate with the people who are dug in on the other side. Where we stand on something, what we are for and what we are against, becomes a fundamental piece of our identity.

As we struggle to sort out who we are and what matters to us, there are many possibilities competing for our attention and allegiance. To a large degree this matter of identity is a choice we all make. And the choice we make will determine a lot about who we are in the world and what our impact on the world will be. The impact can be significant.

Last month there was a 58-year-old man caught hiding in some trees near Donald Trump’s golf course. He was apparently intending to shoot the former president. Law enforcement, trying to get a handle of his motives, discovered a handful of things about him: that he is originally from North Carolina, but he lived most recently in Hawaii. That as a younger man he was once called a Super Citizen for coming to the aid of a crime victim, but in later years he was charged with possessing weapons illegally. And that at one point he tried to put together his own army to defend Ukraine.

He was described as a man in search of a mission, someone trying to figure out who he is. And most recently, it seems, he began to think that his mission, his identity, was assassin. But in some important ways it seems clear that he really had no idea who he was.

What do you say about yourself? What do you want to be written on your tombstone? I’ve kept a blog for about ten years or so. When I first set it up I was asked to create a profile, which would tell readers something about who I am. I struggled with what to put out there. How did I want to identify myself? There are so many ways. Eventually, I landed on this: “Wife, Mother, Pastor, in the order in which they became a layer of my identity.” I could say other things about myself, too, but in saying this, I am saying that these are the words that define me best, these particular relationships and this particular work. In choosing these identifiers, I am saying something about what is most valuable to me. But, as important as these identities are, there is something yet more important – for me and for you.

Remarkably, no matter what identity we were born with, no matter what identities we have made for ourselves, each of us has been given a new identity in Christ. In the language of our faith, to become a Christian is to be reborn into new life, to become a member of a new family, a new body – the body of Christ. It is astounding. Yet I wonder how much we are aware of that particular identity in our daily lives. In all the decisions we make, how much are we influenced by our identity in Christ?

In the coming weeks we will take a closer look at this identity. We will dig into the qualities of this new life we take on with our faith, the values we adopt as our own when we decide to follow Jesus. We begin today with this story about the rich man who approached Jesus.

Mark calls him rich. Matthew adds that the man is young, and Luke calls him a ruler. And so we sometimes lump it all together and call him the rich young ruler who approached Jesus with a question: What must I do to inherit eternal life?

He seems sincere in asking this question; he really wants to know. He is probably a devout man who seeks to live his best life, and he’s well on his way there. He’s doing well financially, that is quite clear. He is devoted to obeying God’s law, that is also clear. But there is something in him that is still unsettled. He has the notion that there is still something more, some sort of calling, perhaps. Whatever it is, he yearns to know.

So Jesus tells him: You should sell all your possessions and come follow me. And the man was shocked. He went away grieving because he, in fact, had many possessions.

Now I believe most, if not all, of us should be able to identify with the rich man in this story, because we too have many possessions. We might have a little less than our neighbors. We might lack a few things that we feel, if we only had them, would make our lives complete. But, still, we have a lot. And perhaps there is another thing you can identify with about this man: the idea of living without our possessions is frightening.

To the rich young ruler, if I may call him that, what Jesus is asking doesn’t even make sense. He may very well have been taught as a youth that riches are a sign of God’s favor, a reward for righteous living. Why on earth would he give them up?

The rich man walked away heartbroken, grieving because while he kept all his many possessions, he sensed he was losing something of greater value. He left in defeat, and Jesus remarked, “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than it is for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.” His disciples were greatly astounded, Mark says. In answer to their astonished expressions Jesus said, “But all things are possible for God.”

All things are possible for God, particularly all the things that are not possible for humans. There is nothing a human being can do to earn their salvation. There is no way for a human to inherit eternal life, but with God it is possible. Because every way you fail to live into God’s image, every way you fall short of God’s design, every way you neglect this relationship with the divine, God extends forgiveness.

We are forgiven, this is the first mark of our identity in Christ. God extends forgiveness for our every shortcoming, for every ornery act, for every bit of selfishness or narrowmindedness or spitefulness. For every way we can fail to live into God’s image, God is willing and able to forgive. Wipe the slate clean. Offer us a fresh start, new life. In Christ Jesus, God is turning everything upside down and inside out and, as hard as it is to believe, it’s true. Thanks be to God.

But there is one more thing. One thing that goes hand in hand with being forgiven and that is this: to be one who forgives.

As Jesus showed in so many ways, one requires the other, they go hand in hand. We who are the forgiven must live lives of forgiveness, extending the same gift to others – all the others. If not, we find ourselves in the dank, dark room that Desmond Tutu describes, trapped in there with stale air and all our sins. Trapped, because it is forgiveness that makes us free.

This is a choice for each one of us. A choice to forgive others, as we have been forgiven, to be imitators of God, as the letter to the Ephesians says. To offer a new beginning to others, just as God has offered to us.

To live into this identity, the forgiven, what will it mean for your life? Is there someone you have held a grudge against? Is there someone you have had a falling out with and now it is too uncomfortable to reach out in friendship? Is there someone whose politics or opinions are too offensive to you and so you have cut them off?

Is there someone you cannot talk to because it might feel like walking across a minefield? Make up your mind to forgive. Forgive, as God has forgiven you. 

picture: AdobeStock_369837295

A Season of Peace, Week 5: Only Connect

 

Genesis 2:18-24

Mark 10:2-16

I took my title today from the classic English novel, Howard’s End. It is a story about two families, the Wilcoxes and the Schegels. Two families who wind up in a great dispute about a house, two families whose characters are so different, whose worldviews and values are so different, they have difficulty even understanding one another, let alone coming to a resolution about the house.

There is one character in the story who, alone, seems able to bridge the gap. She pleads with the others to find a way to connect the head and the heart, the prose and the passion, the yin and the yang. Only connect the different values and viewpoints.

She is a Schegel by birth and a Wilcox by marriage. She stands in the middle of this dispute and pleads, only connect!

It is a phrase I have always loved; it holds so much meaning in it. It is the crux of human relationships.

Today we have two texts that talk about marriage. And divorce. I did not want to talk to you about marriage or divorce today, so I cannot explain why I chose these passages. Nonetheless, here we are.

Because divorce is on the table in this Mark passage, some context will be helpful to our understanding. The Pharisees pose a question to Jesus that is a test – in more ways than one. They know that the law of Israel allows for divorce, and it goes like this: If a man finds himself dissatisfied with his wife, he may write her a certificate of divorce, hand it to her and send her away. Done. There is not, by the way, a provision for a wife to do the same. But, I hope you noticed, Jesus says there ought to be.

Given this, the Pharisees have spent untold energy and time parsing the law. What, they wonder, would be an acceptable degree and kind of dissatisfaction? Could a man divorce his wife because she burned the dinner one night? Or if she burned the dinner every night? What if she refused to make him dinner? Moses wasn’t clear on the details, so it’s up for interpretation. Which is something the Pharisees loved to spend their time doing.

In some ways, working through these problems of interpretation probably felt like a game to the Pharisees, but there is no doubt in my mind that for the people of Israel this was a fraught subject. There were people in their midst who had been impacted by divorce and knew very well the pain that swelled around it. In fact, right in the very context in which Jesus was speaking, there was the relationship of the ruler, Herod Antipas and his wife Herodias. They divorced their respective spouses, so they could marry each other. John the Baptist was beheaded as a result of his criticism of them. It was a touchy subject, and surely it was on people’s minds. 

But Jesus doesn’t play the parsing games, nor does he shy away from hot topics. He tries to draw their focus in a slightly different direction. Divorce is legal, for some very good reasons, but that doesn’t mean it is God’s hope and desire for humankind. There is a certain tension between these things: it is legal, and it is painful.

I think everyone who has been affected in some way by divorce knows these things to be true. People enter into marriage with joy and hope for a beautiful life together. If these hopes are shattered, there will be pain. There will be sorrow. It is true that these individuals may be better off divorced, but it is also true that they may feel like something wonderful has been lost.

Jesus goes back to the book of Genesis, Chapter 2, where God created a companion for the first human, because humans were not meant to be alone. God made us for relationship, and so there is marriage.

And, I would add, there is friendship. And there is siblingship and parenthood – all of these are powerful, meaningful kinds of human relationships. And the severing of any of these ties is painful. There is suffering when the bonds of relationship break.

The problem is, that is what humans do, again and again. We hurt one another, we fail to understand one another or help one another in important ways. We are unable to reach across a gap and really communicate – only connect – with one another.

Mother Teresa once said, “If we have no peace it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other.” Notice her words. We belong to each other – this suggests that there is an equality, a mutuality which is the ideal for all relationship. Each one of us is made in God’s image.

At last, Adam said. Bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh; here is someone like me. Each one of us is a beloved child of God. Each one of us is deserving of love, honor, and dignity.

In all kinds of human relationship, there is the need for mutual care, compassion, curiosity. And when any of these things are lacking there is the potential for a severing of the relationship. Divorce.

I think it is clear in the Genesis story, as it is clear in the words of Jesus, that God’s hope, God’s intention, is for humans to live in harmony. With mutual appreciation. With care for the needs of others. All the others – even the children, as Jesus makes so clear in this passage.

Many times, we fall short, as we do in all things. Sometimes, a relationship needs to end. Sometimes, divorce brings healing, even though it is not the way anyone hoped it would turn out.

In the beginning, God made us for partnership, for unity, for love.

Today is World Communion Sunday, which is something that began out of recognition that the world is failing in these ways. Failing to connect, failing to care for and appreciate one another. On this one day out of the year we are meant to remember that God created all of humankind in God’s image, that God made us to be partners for one another, creating a great web of connection. God desires unity for all the diverse and beautiful kinds of people in the world.

And let us also remember that we who are the church, the body of Christ, have a special calling to lead the way.

Let us remember that we belong to each other. Not just one Sunday a year, but every day.

A Season of Peace, Week 3: The Risk of Knowing Jesus

 

James 3:13-4:3,7-8a

Mark 9:30-37

I read a newspaper story about a young man named Oliver who had a secret he was so embarrassed about, so humiliated by, that he went to great lengths for many years to keep it hidden. The secret was that he could not read.

When he was in first grade he was suspended for a week, and when he returned to school he felt utterly lost, way behind. His home life was difficult, and school was hard, and he said nobody ever talked to him about why school even mattered. Oliver continued to struggle and never caught up.

Still, he was promoted from one grade to the next, year after year, until he graduated high school – and still did not know how to read.

He went out into the world, looking for a job that wouldn’t require reading skills. He couldn’t read a restaurant menu or a street sign or a text message, and he was ashamed. He lied in order to hide his secret, but his lies were always eventually discovered and then he was fired.

How difficult it can be for us to admit our weaknesses.

It is a little bit painful for us to watch the disciples trying to hide their ignorance when they didn’t understand what Jesus was saying. This is the second time in Mark’s gospel when Jesus tells his disciples that he will suffer and die. Just last week we heard him doing this, trying to help his disciples understand what they were involved in. When Peter had proclaimed the great revelation that Jesus was the Messiah, Jesus wanted him and the others to really understand what it meant for them to say that about him: that he would be rejected by the religious leaders, that he would suffer and be put to death.

At that time, you may recall, Peter – who was feeling quite proud of himself for getting the right answer – took the opportunity to chide Jesus for being such a downer. Jesus let Peter know in no uncertain terms that he was out of line and way off the mark. Still, it seems as though neither Peter nor any of the others really got it. The lessons would need to continue.

So at some point later on their wanderings through Galilee, Jesus broached the subject with them again. Mark tells us they still didn’t get it. And what’s more, they were afraid to say so.

Judging from the conversation, or rather argument, that ensued, I guess they were a bit afraid of being seen as a loser. Isn’t that how it goes? They probably looked around at the others, trying to get a sense of whether or not they were the only dummy in the room who didn’t understand. We all know it takes a certain amount of courage to be the one person who raises your hand and says, “Teacher, I don’t get it. Please explain it to me.”

It was more than Oliver was able to do for many years while he struggled through school, then struggled to survive in the world without the ability to read. Year after year, he was afraid to ask for help; year after year, no one seemed to notice how much he needed help.

And so I could keep it real simple today, end it here, and just tell you there’s no such thing as a stupid question. Just like every school teacher has said at one time or another, it’s always worth asking questions. And while this is important and true, I believe there was something more going on in Galilee. I believe there is another important message for us to hear today.

A very odd thing that happened after Jesus said these things to them: the disciples began arguing amongst themselves about who was the greatest. And I think to myself, were they delusional? Because not a single one of them, up to this point, is looking great. Time after time, they have failed to understand Jesus. Again and again, they have failed to act in a way that would demonstrate they are growing in their discipleship.

I realize that progress often comes slowly. We improve not by leaps and bounds, but by millimeters – at least that’s the way I have felt about my shoulder during all these months of physical therapy – so I want to give the disciples credit for making some progress. If nothing else, they are sticking with him. They are trying. But are they great? Come on, by what standard is any of them great?

I do have to wonder if this is just a distraction for them, a way of denying the things Jesus is telling them simply because they cannot face the possibility that he is speaking the truth. They cannot face the possibility that the teacher they have decided to follow is headed down a path, not of triumph, but of humility.

They weren’t completely positive about this because they didn’t understand what he was saying. But they were afraid to ask because they sure didn’t want to know.

What if following Jesus really did mean taking up one’s cross? What if following Jesus meant letting go of your dreams of power and success? What if following Jesus meant everything you had been hoping for was actually wrong?

What if your standard for greatness was wrong?

Jesus asked them what they were arguing about and once again they were silent. They didn’t want to tell him, because while there were clearly a lot of things they didn’t understand, they did seem to understand that this argument was kind of dumb. Being caught out like this was as bad as having to admit that you didn’t understand his meaning when he talked about what the Son of Man would go through. Actually, being caught out like this was probably even worse.

But Jesus didn’t even say anything about it. Instead, he called to one of the children in the household. And he took that child and hugged him close. And he looked at his disciples and said, “Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.”

To be a disciple of Jesus is to open your arms to those who have the least to offer. To be a disciple of Jesus is to lift up the ones who are weak. And to be a disciple of Jesus is to know that you, too, are weak.

For it is weakness that will lead to his persecution at the hands of the authorities. It is weakness that will lead to his death. But the thing these men have failed to understand is that in this weakness there is real strength. In this weakness there is true greatness.

What they don’t want to know, eventually will know: really knowing Jesus means knowing where true greatness lies and that it is not in the things that the world finds great. Really knowing Jesus means knowing that humility is a spiritual superpower. To really know Jesus means knowing that peace will never come from bringing the fight, but only from bringing the love. As the letter of James says, the wisdom that comes from God is pure, peaceable, willing to yield.

And it is risky to know these things. It is risky to commit your life to following Jesus in the way of peace, gentleness, humility. The world won’t understand it. They will call you sappy, soft – and those are the nice words they will use. The world might think it is actually kind of sad that you never achieved greatness – because the world does not understand what true greatness is.

The risk that you take in following Jesus is that you will really understand who he is and who he is calling you to be: peaceful, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without a trace of partiality or hypocrisy.

This is the risk the world is waiting for us to take.

A Season of Peace, Week 2: A Time to Speak

 

James 3:1-12

Mark 8:27-38

I used to have a friend, Jim. He was a kind and big-hearted man with a great sense of humor, but he also knew how to lay down the law. He liked to say, “I prefer peace over justice any day of the week.” Particularly in reference to his three children when they were bickering about something.

Jim was going to get his peace, which for him meant quiet, if those kids knew what was good for them.

We began our study group last Wednesday, talking about Five Risks Presbyterians Must Take for Peace. I asked the group what they thought of when they hear someone say they just want to keep the peace. And they said it means they just want people to be quiet. This is also what the phrase, “Hold your peace” means: Just don’t say anything.

The letter of James has a lot to say about the harm that speaking can cause, such that his message seems like it could be distilled to, “Just hold your peace. Keep your mouth shut.” But could that really be what peace is all about?

Defining peace is so much more complex than the simple notion of holding one’s tongue.

In Mark, as we continue following the story of Jesus and his disciples, we listen in on a fascinating discussion. Last week we left Jesus and his followers at the end of Chapter 7, where they saw Jesus cast a demon from the Gentile woman’s daughter, and then give a man the ability to hear and speak. They bore witness to the power of God working through him, seemingly without limits.

After that, they saw him continue to perform miracles – feeding thousands from a handful of loaves and fishes and giving sight to a blind man. And after all this, he asked the disciples a question: So what are people saying about me? And they told him: They say you are John the Baptist, you are Elijah, or some other prophet. These were all types they had seen before. But then Jesus asks, “But who do you say that I am?” and Peter gave the answer that no one had dared to speak.

Because the Messiah is a dream. The Messiah is the hoped for, but never seen. The Messiah is in a realm beyond anything they know.

For the church, our understanding of the Messiah is specifically as Jesus, as God taking on human flesh and blood, as the fully human, fully divine one. But that is not what it means to Israel.

The word Messiah in Hebrew is the “anointed one.” The Jewish belief in and hope for a Messiah was focused on a human being who would be anointed by God to lead the people of Israel to freedom, to save them from the tyrannical reign of other nations, to reunite the 12 tribes, the descendants of Abraham and Sarah, and usher in an age of peace around the world.

In Judaism, the Messiah would be a man – not God, but a man; the greatest political leader imaginable, descended from King David. And he would be the greatest king Israel and the world had ever known. The Messiah would be the king Israel needed, to fight for them, to bring them justice and peace, the justice and peace they could not realize on their own.

The Messiah was a hope. And now, in Peter’s words, this hope has become real.

Jesus knew what he was hearing Peter say when he called him Messiah. He knew all the baggage this title carried, all the particular hopes attached to it, and so he turned the subject to some considerations that Peter and the others had probably never imagined.

That the Messiah will suffer. That the Messiah will be rejected by the leaders of Israel. That the Messiah will be killed, but after three days he will rise again. Contrary to all they believed about the Messiah as a conquering hero, Jesus is telling them the Messiah will be humiliated and put to death.

Now, for us, the whole gospel of Jesus Christ is the story of why this is good news. Why it is a message of hope that Jesus came bearing love without bounds, bringing wholeness to the broken ones, casting out evil in our midst. Why it is that the way of peace is never through violence, but through humility and love. We know from the gospel that Christ, in his refusal to be a party to evil, would destroy the forces of evil by shaming them. Shaming them.

But Peter, and surely the others too, could not see this yet. And when he hears Jesus’ words about a suffering Messiah, he feels shame for Jesus. Shame for the very notion of a Messiah who would let himself be humiliated and killed. And shame personally to be associated with that. He’s like, Ix-nay on the suffering and dying, Jesus. Not a strong message!

And in this moment Peter shows us a side of ourselves that we might be ashamed to see. When we are asked to confess our own complicity in the sins of the world and we react with anger because we insist that has nothing to do with us. When we are asked to give of our own time and wealth for the sake of those who are in desperate need, and instead we close our fists, we turn away. When we sit with a friend who is suffering in a way that truly frightens us and we can’t suppress our impulse to pat their hand and say, “There, there, it will all be okay,” even though it probably won’t.

In moments such as these we have denied the gospel of Jesus. And while it is undeniable that we will all have moments of weakness – moments when we are unable to live fully into the image of Christ, serving the poor and the weak, loving without conditions, shouldering another’s pain with them – our weakness is not to our shame. But our denial of it is.

Jesus’ harsh words to Peter and all his disciples present this truth to us. The way of Christ is beyond the ways of this world, and if we are not willing to see that, to try and understand that, we are caving to the ways of the world, to evil.

There are moments when we know that the way of peace is to keep silent, to refrain from using hurtful words. and then there are moments when the only way to peace is to break the silence. To speak loudly, even if words offend, as Jesus did. For silence about injustice will never lead to peace.

Take the situation that has found prominence in our politics recently: the accusations that Haitian immigrants are eating pets in Springfield Ohio. I don’t know who started this lie, but that doesn’t even matter. The problem is in how most of us have responded to it.

Many of us have laughed about it because it sounds so ridiculous. And many have mocked it by sharing jokes about it online. Talking about politics can be very uncomfortable, and it is much easier to talk about politics if we treat it as a joke. But this lie is not funny. This lie about the Haitian immigrants in Springfield has threatened violence in that community, creating a situation that endangers people’s lives just because they are immigrants. It’s not funny when people are being terrorized. It isn’t just an online joke when people are in fear for their lives.

The gospel of Jesus Christ insists that we not turn away from this. The gospel of Jesus Christ demands that we speak out against it.

To speak out against lies is a risk we must take for the sake of peace. To acknowledge the injustices in the world, and to speak out about them, this is a risk we must take for peace.

And there are times when it is in our very own neighborhood.

Christians must come together on this. And together we must raise our voices for justice and for peace. Because we cannot have one without the other.