Do We Understand The Bible? Lent 2B

 Do We Understand The Bible?    2B

Let’s back up a bit. Jesus and his disciples are near Caesarea Philippi. It is as far north as he is recorded to have traveled. It was an ancient Roman and Greek city known for its revelations by the God Pan. It is a lush region at the base of Mt. Hermon, and the headwaters of the Sea of Galilee and the River Jordan. It’s here, about as far away from Jerusalem as one can get, in a land of revelations, that Jesus asks the central question in Mark, “Who do you say that I am?” Peter alone answers, “You are the Christos, the anointed, God’s messiah.” And Jesus scolds them to speak to no one about him. This may strike us as odd. But that’s not all. He teaches them that it is necessary that the son of adam [man] suffer many things, be rejected by the Judeans and Romans in power in Jerusalem, and be killed, and after three days rise. He says this all plainly. [i] 

Then Peter begins to scold him. Jesus, turns and sees the rest of the disciples, and scolds Peter. “Get behind me, you satan. You don’t judge things the way God does, but the way people do.” Ouch! We remember the satan is not a guy with a pitch fork and horns. In Hebrew culture and literature, it is someone sent by God to be sure everyone understands. To test people’s faith. In this case, however, it is the tester who does not understand at all.  

This is the heart of the Good News, the evangelion, that Mark is proclaiming. This episode is dead center in Mark’s gospel. Set in this historic region of revelations, this truly deserves to be called, Breaking News! Jesus is revealed for who he is, the Christ, and reveals the rest of the story. Peter does not yet understand who this Christ, this messiah, really is. Begging the question: Does the Church really know who Jesus is? Do we really understand who Jesus is? 

As I pondered all of this, along comes this on Facebook by a Pastor named Brian Zahnd:

"I have a problem with the Bible. Here’s my problem…I’m an ancient Egyptian. I’m a comfortable Babylonian. I’m a Roman in his villa.

“That’s my problem. See, I’m trying to read the Bible for all it’s worth, but I’m not a Hebrew slave suffering in Egypt. I’m not a conquered Judean deported to Babylon. I’m not a first century Jew living under Roman occupation.

“I’m a citizen of a superpower. I was born among the conquerors. I live in the empire. But I want to read the Bible and think it’s talking to me. This is a problem. One of the most remarkable things about the Bible is that in it we find the narrative told from the perspective of the poor, the oppressed, the enslaved, the conquered, the occupied, the defeated. This is what makes it prophetic. We know that history is written by the winners. This is true — except in the case of the Bible it’s the opposite! This is the subversive genius of the Hebrew prophets. They wrote from a bottom-up perspective.

“Imagine a history of colonial America written by Cherokee Indians and African slaves. That would be a different way of telling the story! And that’s what the Bible does. It’s the story of Egypt told by the slaves. The story of Babylon told by the exiles. The story of Rome told by the occupied. What about those brief moments when Israel appeared to be on top? In those cases, the prophets told Israel’s story from the perspective of the peasant poor as a critique of the royal elite. Like when Amos denounced the wives of the Israelite aristocracy as ‘the fat cows of Bashan.’

“Every story is told from a vantage point; it has a bias. The bias of the Bible is from the vantage point of the underclass. But what happens if we lose sight of the prophetically subversive vantage point of the Bible? What happens if those on top read themselves into the story, not as imperial Egyptians, Babylonians, and Romans, but as the Israelites? That’s when you get the bizarre phenomenon of the elite and entitled using the Bible to endorse their dominance as God’s will. This is Roman Christianity after Constantine. This is Christendom on crusade. This is colonists seeing America as their promised land and the native inhabitants as Canaanites to be conquered. This is the whole history of European colonialism. This is Jim Crow. This is the American prosperity gospel. This is the domestication of Scripture. This is making the Bible dance a jig for our own amusement.

“As Jesus preached the arrival of the kingdom of God, he would frequently emphasize the revolutionary character of God’s reign by saying things like, ‘the last will be first and the first last.’ How does Jesus’ first-last aphorism strike you? I don’t know about you, but it makes this modern day Roman a bit nervous.

“Imagine this: A powerful charismatic figure arrives on the world scene and amasses a great following by announcing the arrival of a new arrangement of the world where those at the bottom are to be promoted, and those on top are to have their lifestyle “restructured.” How do people receive this? I can imagine the Bangladeshis saying, “When do we start?!” and the Americans saying, “Hold on now, let’s not get carried away!” [ii] 

As I read this from Pastor Brian Zahnd I said, Wow! Who is this guy? This is brilliant! Can we see the problem here? Do we begin to understand? Do we understand who Jesus is? Do we even know who we are? We are Peter. Peter the satan. Hold on there, Jesus, he says. Let’s not get carried away. We want a Christ, a messiah, who can vanquish these Romans and deliver us from this Exile-at-Home we have suffered for generations now. A messiah who can make all our problems go away. Not a messiah hanging on a Roman cross! 

Then what do we hear as Jesus concludes, “For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it. For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life? Indeed, what can they give in return for their life?” There’s some more upside-down, right-side-up thoughts to ponder. 

Meanwhile, there is this: according to news accounts, we live in a time where in many churches across the land, people are chastising their preachers and pastors for talking about The Beatitudes. Calling them “liberal talking -points,” and saying “they’re too weak.” This is no time for humility, they say. How dare Jesus say the meek shall inherit the earth! And Jesus wept. 

Lent is a time to “meditate on God’s Word,” and begin to see just where we truly fit into Mark’s story of Jesus Christ the Son of God. Pastor Zahnd correctly suggests we need to see ourselves as Pharaoh, as Nebuchadnezzar, and Caesar. And we need to hear Jesus calling us to lift up the meek, the poor, the humble, and those who mourn. The last will be first, and the first will be last, he says. Perhaps we need to stand on our heads as we try to read The Bible right-side-up! It’s a good thing we have forty days to begin to sort this out before launching ourselves into Easter and Pentecost. With God’s grace and God’s Spirit, we may begin to understand. We know that eventually Peter did. There’s hope for us yet to begin to read the Bible right. 

[i] Mark 8:27-38

[ii] https://brianzahnd.com/2014/02/problem-bible/  by Pastor & Author, Brian Zahnd