THE TWENTIETH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST
Isaiah 53:4-12
Hebrews 4:12-16
Mark 10:35-45
Year B/Proper 24
If you have paid attention to
the Gospel of Mark these past few weeks you will know that immediately before
this conversation three different times Jesus had predicted that disaster was
closing in and three times the disciples had managed not to hear him. It’s
understandable because the disciples were hoping for glory while Jesus was
predicting a lynch mob. Rushing up to Jesus James and John asked, “When you are elected Messiah can we sit in
the honored chairs beside you?” When
the other ten overheard this they were indignant, probably because they hadn’t
thought of asking first.
The writer of Mark points out
over and over that the disciples just didn’t get it; or maybe they did get it. As
Mark Twain once said, “It’s not what I
don’t understand in the Bible that bothers me; it’s what I understand all too
well.”
The Gospel of Mark is written
as a journey. What Mark points out to us is that not only did the disciples not
understand the journey; they weren’t even on the same road as Jesus. James and John asked Jesus if they could be
given executive positions in the Kingdom, complete with walnut office furniture
and leather chairs. In short they were seeking position and power.
A distinguished teacher once
said, “If you just want to impart
information to your students, that’s easy. But if you want to change their
lives through that information,
that’s very very, difficult”.
In the same way, listening to
the Gospel or even preaching the gospel is easy. It’s quite another to live it
to the point wherein you are put at risk. Maybe the disciples hoped they could
convince Jesus that success was better than suffering. That was what the
disciples did not understand, although they would come to understand it; as
have thousands of others through the centuries. That is why early in
Christianity the image of the Suffering Servant became such an important image.
As Jewish interpreters poured over the writings of Isaiah they came to feel and
believe that Christ was the Suffering Servant; the one who had borne our griefs
and carried our sorrows; who had, in some mysterious way, through his own
wounds, healed our own.
However, as the church grew
the institutionalization of the Body of Christ became more and more
self-serving.
Philip Yancey writes: “A
major change took place with the emperor Constantine, who first legalized
Christianity..The two kingdoms got confused. The state began appointing bishops
and other church offices, and soon a hierarchy grew up that neatly replicated
the hierarchy of the empire itself….” In such a hierarchical environment,
it’s easy to become self-righteous; easy to accept that discipleship can be
costly – as long as Jesus means someone else, not us.
Among the plethora of emails,
letters and phone calls that we have received in the past two weeks I received
one from a priest out east who wrote:
“Sometimes when I look through my journal……..from
years past I am able to gain a new perspective. So, without knowing, really,
who you are, or the context three years ago for your homily, I felt compelled
to highlight for you, the words in your homily for 19 Pentecost 2003”.(the same
lessons as last Sunday).
“For the journey of discipleship is a journey about
dispossession. To place ourselves at the disposal of God’s will, to give away
the life we have, so that God’s life might be given through us, is the
beginning of authentic discipleship. Perhaps it’s moments like this for which
we were baptized; so that our true discipleship might be shown – or not. The
work of Jesus, our great high priest, above all else, is the ministry of
reconciliation, articulation of the gospel, peacemaking, comfort, renewal,
justice-seeking and the ministry of word and sacrament given to a world hungry
for the presence of Christ conveyed through them”
This priest then wrote, “I hope this can be encouraging for you…”.
Encouraging for me? I wanted to quickly write back clarifying that I wasn’t
talking about me when I preached
those words three years ago. I was talking about everybody else! The searing
truth is none of us ever expect God’s
call to interfere with our lives! It’s always about somebody else’s life,
somebody else’s struggles. The disciples were no different.
The Greek word for Church is
“ekklesia”. It means those who have been called out, called away from the lives
they were living to a new life to which God had called them, but it had nothing
to do with power.
Frederick Buechner
writes: “ …love is not really one of man’s powers. Man cannot achieve love,
generate love, wield love….When I love someone, it is not something that I have
achieved, but something that is happening through me, through (them) as well…it
is bigger than both of us, infinitely bigger than both of us, because whenever
love enters this world, God enters. By applying external pressure, I can make a
person do what I want him to do….But as for making him be what I want him to
be, without at the same time destroying his freedom, only love can make this
happen…”.
The same priest, who quoted
the words I preached three years ago, also sent me her sermon from last Sunday,
underlining a sentence pertaining to St. Andrew’s. Part of it reads, “For
those struggling…… God promises to be with you as you continue to speak in love
and truth with integrity.”
How does that feel folks; to
know that you, that we, are being held up as an example of what it means to
follow Jesus? I find it rather frightening, because it means that others are
watching to see if we just speak gospel words or do we live them. I think that
many times we are thrust into situations that we never ask for or expect.
When Thomas a Becket was
appointed Archbishop of Canterbury by the King it was because he trusted Thomas
to do his bidding. But something happened to Thomas once he took on the robes
of the apostles. He went from being the King’s dutiful minister to the
uncompromising champion of the church. It resulted not in Becket’s assent to
glory, but ultimately to his horrendous assassination at the hands of the King’s
knights in Canterbury Cathedral. One of the most beautiful things about Thomas
was, of course, that he loved the King.
Underneath every theology,
bad or good, lies one heart-rending truth about the Gospel, about the
Psalm 91 speaks of this love
in such beauty that it became part of the fabric of the late night monastic
office of Compline; an assurance of Divine protection in the darkness of the
night before the daily surrender to sleep. But how can it be that God offers us
the fullness of protection when at the same time God’s call always involves
risk?
One preacher beautifully
describes it this way. We are like fledglings who scurry under the wings of
their parent. The force of evil beats on those wings with everything they
have….power, pride, greed, falling tree limbs in the storm, merciless rain and
hail, everything beats upon those wings. When it is finished, when the worst
has done the worst, those wings may be bloodied and broken and hanging at wrong
angles. In all the commotion it is no surprise that the fledglings get roughed
up quite a bit as well. But we are all
right, because those wings have never folded. And when the feathers quit
flying, we peep out and discover that we have been in the only place that was
not leveled. Granted, we have been bumped and bruised and hurt, but the other
choice was to be dead – the other choice was to break out of the embrace of
God. If we had not stayed under those wings we could never have felt the body
shudders and heard the groans of the One who loved us so much that those wings
stayed out there, not matter what. This is the One who protects us from final
evil, now and in the life to come; the life in which at last, it is safe for
God to fold his wings.
On the night before the
Lord’s horrendous death he took a towel, and in an act unthinkable for anyone
but the lowliest of servants, he washed the disciples’ feet. In that room, where
the candlelight flickered against the darkness, no doubt you could have heard a
pin drop, as the sweat stood out on the Lord’s brow with all that was before
him, as down on his hands and knees he showed the disciples what the
Do we know? Knowing means
following, even if we wind up on some kind of cross ourselves. For in following
the Holy One of God, we will find, not just our heart’s desire, but the peace
that passes all understanding. And that, no power on earth can ever equal or
ever overcome.
AMEN
The Rev. Virginia L. Bennett,
D.Min.
St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church