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

The Hokey Pokey Is What It's All About Lent 1B

The Hokey Pokey Is What It’s All About!

I remember being in awe as Holocaust Survivor Elie Wiesel explained that the manuscript that became his book Night began as a one-thousand-page memoir of his time in the Auschwitz camps as a teenager. He edited it down to a mere 120 pages so that it might be a bare-bones, metaphysical and existential account with no elaboration of the horrors he and some 12 million people experienced at the hands of Nazi Germany, including six million European Jews. 

Among the four gospel accounts of Jesus the Christ, Mark, long understood as the earliest of the four, stands as a similar bare bones existential account: a mere six short sentences sum up his baptism by John, his hearing the voice from heaven and an experience of the Spirit of God, the same Spirit drives him into an extended time of testing in the wilderness, and the beginning of his public ministry. His time in the wilderness in Mark consists of only two short declarative sentences, with no details of what his “testing” by “Satan” consisted of. [i] 

If one brackets out the familiar accounts in Matthew and Luke, which are nearly identical and all too familiar, one might be able to imagine this testing as a sign of an internal struggle to make sense of what the Spirit and Voice had told him: that he is God’s beloved Son, and that the God of his ancestors Sarah and Abraham, Rebecca and Isaac, Rachel, Leah and Jacob is well pleased with him. Too many years of Sunday School, too many years of sermons, too many annual publications around Christmas and Easter time purporting to tell “the real story” of Jesus the Christ, make it difficult to imagine anything other than what others have told us about the man from Nazareth in Galilee as he is in the wilderness. 

Only Mark leaves us to sort it out ourselves. We might ask ourselves, why? Why no details about a time away from everyone and everything else in a place with no resources but himself and the presence of God as angels, and some sort of wild beasts? And of course, the Satan, who throughout the Hebrew scriptures is portrayed as an agent of God’s to test people’s faith. 

Is it possible that after hearing the voice from heaven, that the one who would later by called the Christ, God’s anointed one, himself has some questions about just what on earth all this means? 

The immediate outcome of this extended stay in a wilderness is his confidence to proclaim the closeness of God’s “kingdom,” and the need of everyone, all the time, to “repent and believe the good news.” It is a trademark of Mark’s spare, bare-bones account to suggest in the very first sentence of chapter 1 that this Jesus who joined in John’s ritual bathing in the River Jordan is himself, his very self, the good news that he proclaims! And that Mark intends only to reveal “The beginning of the Good News of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.” Which, similar to John’s account decades later, indicates that there is no ending to the story – at least not until God’s kingdom of Shalom covers the entire face of the Earth. 

After forty days, which is meant to denote something like longer than a Lunar Cycle, more than a month, Jesus calls on everyone to change their minds – metanoia – and turn, or re-turn to God and God’s way of Shalom. Further, Mark’s choice of the Greek metanoia, as opposed to the more definite Koine Greek word for full and total conversion, epistrophe, suggests that this repentance this Beloved Son of God calls us to is not a once-and-done affair, as depicted in the epic Burt Lancaster film, Elmer Gantry – nor as often depicted in endless televangelist shows or tent revivals – but rather is an ongoing process of conversion in most of our lives, as the still popular Shaker song has it: “To turn, turn will be our delight / Till by turning, turning we come round right.” [ii] It seems part of the human condition that we continually need to turn and re-turn to God and God’s way of Shalom: justice and peace for all people, respecting the dignity of every human being. Like the Hokey Pokey, we need to turn ourselves about. 

Very few of us can take more than a month away from everyone and everything to get this turning back to God and God’s way “just right” as Jesus appears to do. Repentance, then, is an ongoing, often never-ending, process in which we mean to never look back, but…inevitably we stray from the path, re-turn to bad habits, creating the need to “turn, turn, turn, turn again” until we “come round right” once again. Repentance is characterized as a coming to our senses and once again grounding ourselves in the presence of God – or for Christians, to see ourselves once again grounded in the promised presence of Christ “until the end of the age!” [iii] 

That is, it’s OK for us all to go astray. There are few, if any, of us who do not! One imagines this testing going on with God’s own administrator of Godly SAT’s, Satan, is based as much on our own doubts about our own belovedness as it may be in any direct questioning of our faith by God’s own tester. It was the great 20^th century theologian, Paul Tilich, who suggested that doubt is not the absence of faith, but rather is an essential element of faith. Frederick Buechner says it best: “Doubts are the ants in the pants of faith. They keep it awake and moving.” [iv] 

It ought to be noted, this ritual to turn back to God is depicted in the Hebrew Scriptures, the Law and the Prophets, or Torah. The word is shuv (pronounced shoove) – which can mean to turn from one place or direction toward another, or to re-turn to one’s beginnings. Thus, in Genesis 3:19 Adam is told by YHWH in the garden, as we were just reminded on Ash Wednesday, that ultimately, “By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return ( shuv ) to the ground ( a damah ), since from it you were taken ; for dust ( a damah ) you are and to dust ( a damah ) you will return ( shuv ).” 

As we were also reminded on Ash Wednesday, our God is an awesome God since the repeated description of God in Torah, the scriptures of Jesus, is often repeated: “Return to the Lord, your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and relents from punishing.” [v] There it is again! We are to shuv, shuv, shuv, turn, turn and re-turn to the Lord our God because our God is not finished with us yet! 

Lent is that time of year for us all to find ways to shuv, to turn, to re-turn to the Lord our God whose Good News IS Jesus the Christ, God’s beloved Son! In his life, death and resurrection, the Christ shows us how to shuv, shuv, shuv until we come down right! And since he promises to be with us to the end of the age, we have lots of time to get it just right! And that is Good News for us all!

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[i] Mark 1:9-15

[ii] Simple Gifts, a Shaker song written and composed in 1848, generally attributed to Elder Joseph Brackett from Alfred Shaker Village.

[iii] Matthew 28:20b

[iv] Buechner, Frederick, Wishful Thinking: a theological ABC (Harper & Row, New York:1973) p. 20

[v] Joel 2:12-14

Death and Transfiguration

 Death and Transfiguration

This episode in Mark’s gospel is singularly the most mysterious episode in the Good News of Jesus Christ, the Son of God: Jesus is Transfigured – has become blindingly white light – and is seen by three disciples speaking to Moses and the prophet Elijah. [i] 

The text in Mark begins, “Six days later….” Six days later than what? Then when Jesus asked the disciples, “Who do you say that I am?” and Peter answered, correctly, “You are the Christ!” Then Jesus told them that he would suffer many things, be rejected, killed, and after three days he would rise again. And he followed that by saying those who want to become a follower of his must pick up their cross “and follow me.” Peter objects strenuously and is told to be quiet and get with the program. 

Six days later is also another way of saying, “On the seventh day…” which for the Bible means much more than just “a week later.” God created the heavens and the earth in six days and rested on the Seventh. The seventh day is ordained in the Ten Commandments as a day of Sabbath rest. Sabbath rest is meant to take us out of the tedium of our day-to-day activities and thoughts and use the time to remember and experience the presence of God in all things, in all places, at all times. 

Then there’s the location on a mountain. Mountains have long been considered “thin places,” higher in altitude, thinner in air, and closer to God. Moses sat atop Mount Sinai for six days, and on the seventh day God spoke to him. And Elijah wanted to see God, hid in a crevice as God passed by. After much thunder and violence, he heard a still, small voice, a sigh, and knew at once that YHWH, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, was there nearby. Moses and Elijah were experienced mountaineers who both were known to have spoken directly to God. 

Curiously, the Bible offers no narrative account of either of them dying – Moses literally just disappears from the narrative, and Elijah, as we read in 2 Kings, flies off in his chariot of fire into the wild blue yonder we know not where! [ii] Both are believed to have the capacity to return to planet Earth. Therefore, who better to be seen with Jesus on a mountain top than Moses and Elijah – the Law and the Prophets. The text tells us they are talking to Jesus who suddenly appears to be radioactive, blindingly bright. His appearance, the location and the presence of Moses and Elijah suggests that the two visitors are once again talking to God. 

Try to imagine for a moment viewing this scene. At the very least, it would leave us breathless, even speech less. Not Peter!  Peter decides to get in on the conversation. He calls Jesus “Rabbi,” and offers to set up three dwellings, or three booths. Why booths? Could it be because that is how the people Moses led lived in the wilderness for forty years? It has been suggested by some that Peter wants to turn this into an extended mountaintop campout retreat. The Transfiguration of Jesus Christ the Son of God will be held over for one more week with cameo appearances from Moses and Elijah! In a rare moment of candor, the text tells us Peter has no idea what he’s talking about because he and the others are terrified. Which Moses and Elijah would agree is the proper response to a direct encounter with God. Which seems to be the meaning of this entire episode: if you want to know who Jesus is, to be in his bright white presence is to be as if you are in the presence of God.

Then comes thick darkness. And a voice, “This is my Son, the Beloved. Listen to him!” We, the listeners have heard this voice before when Jesus heard it at his baptism by John, who by the way, dresses a lot like Elijah. That voice was addressed to Jesus alone. This time it is addressed to Peter, James and John, and of course every one of us. The voice comes with a new commandment: Listen to him! 

One suspects the first reaction from Peter to this voice will be, “Whoever Jesus is, he’s no ordinary rabbi chatting it up with Moses and Elijah! He’s God’s Son. God’s Beloved!” No doubt, followed by, “What does this all mean?” 

Mark is anything but subtle in his purpose of telling us these stories. He begins the Gospel, “The Good News of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. A few verses later, a voice tells Jesus standing in the River Jordan, “You are my Son, my Beloved.” Midway through the Gospel Jesus asks the disciples, “Who do you say that I am?” After several failed attempts, Peter blurts out, “You are the Christos, the Anointed, the Christ Messiah of God.”  But as we know, as in this story of  Transfiguration, Peter once again has no idea what he is talking about. Six days later the voice from the baptism returns in the midst of this terrifying mystical experience to remind one and all, this is the Son of God, God’s Beloved. And in case we were to forget who he is, as the story now turns us toward Jerusalem, the final words that are spoken at the foot of the cross by none other than a Roman Centurion who proclaims, “Truly this man was God’s Son!” [iii] 

We should not forget this all happens on the Sabbath – a time to stop all else that we are doing to listen to God. To remember who we are and whose we are. To ponder a text like this one in which truly astonishing things are going on. And then remember, amidst all the other hub-bub and the endless fire-hose-like stream of events, information, disinformation all aimed at getting and maintaining our attention, if we were to simply stop, and “listen to him,” we will see more astonishing things than this going on all around us every day. If only we take the time out. 

Perhaps this story is meant to remind us of the most astonishing truth of all: by water and the holy spirit we have been incorporated into the body of Christ in our baptism, which, we are told, is a bond that is indissoluble. [iv] We are Christ’s own forever. When we take time out to listen to him, he tells us, “You are my beloved; I am well pleased with you!” I am always with you. Our God is not far off. We are those people who know who Jesus is. Truly he is the Son of God, who promises to be with us always, to the end of the age. And for this we give thanks!   Amen. 

PS On the way down from the mountain, Jesus “ordered them to tell no one about what they had seen, until after the Son of Man had risen from the dead.” Could it be because he wants everyone to have a chance to see him for who he really is for themselves?

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[i] Mark 9:2-9

[ii] 2 Kings 2:1-12

[iii] Mark 15:39

[iv] Book of Common Prayer, 1979, p.298

The Gospel of The Old Ones Presentation/Candlemas 2024

 

The Gospel of The Old Ones   

There are days when it seems easy to imagine the end of the world. Whether it comes from a nuclear holocaust or a super-heated climate crisis; whether it be from the collapse of republican democracy or the advent of a fascistic dictatorship; whether it comes from an asteroid crashing into our planet or the outbreak of civil wars throughout this fragile earth, our island home; whether it be random acts of gun violence or a gradual stripping of individual rights, first for one group, then another, and another; from another pandemic or the simple lack of a well vaccinated population. If we do not imagine these apocalyptic events on our own, there are entire industries devoted to injecting all kinds of fears into our day-to-day existence, whether those fears are from the right or the left; from red or blue ideologies; from fear of education, fear of science, fear of modern medicine, fear of genetically modified foods. There seem to be no end to the kinds of fear entering our lives through radio and television; through social media platforms; through endless conspiracy theories; through cult-like ideologies. 

On good days, we try to keep our heads down to somehow believe we can screen all these fears out and power our way through an equally endless series of tasks and responsibilities we believe we must attend to lest life itself come crashing to a halt. We try to avoid or ignore interruptions of what passes as our necessary “routines.” It becomes more and more rare to allow ourselves to take time-out, take sabbath time, time to look at the sky, let alone time to sit in silent meditation and contemplation. To give ourselves space and time to just breathe and wait. 

The world into which God chose to arrive as one of us, a vulnerable child, a baby wrapped in swaddling clothes that also look strikingly like a funeral shroud, was a world full of the loss and fears of an occupied people. The child is just one among millions born into this world that seems hell-bent to destroy itself. When Luke wrote this account some 80 years after the child’s birth, Jerusalem and its Temple again lay in ruins, and factions of people were struggling, often against one another, to find a way forward. It seemed like the world had come to an end. Luke writes that forty days after the birth of this baby boy, the baby’s unwed young mother goes to the Temple in Jerusalem for her own traditional ritual purification by the priests, and to present this boy-child to God the giver of all good things. [i] She and the older gentleman with her no doubt saw nothing extraordinary in observing these generations-long rituals of their people. For her purification she is to offer a lamb for sacrifice. But for those who could not afford an unblemished lamb, a pair of turtle doves or pigeons would do. One imagines in the hard-times of the Roman military occupation which sought to extract all possible resources out of the country to send back home to Rome, the seat of Caesar’s Empire, that all most people could afford were the birds. No doubt Mary had hoped they could make their offering quickly and unnoticed so they might turn around and head right back home to Nazareth. It was not to be. 

Enter the Old Ones. Simeon and Anna were unique among their septuagenarian peers. They had taken time out of life to stand and wait outside the Temple. Waiting to see what God might do this time. After all, their ancestors had escaped a life of slave-labor in Egypt, a forty-year testing period in the wilderness, and the destruction of the first temple followed by 40-plus years exile in Babylon. Each time the Lord had saved them from the fear and danger surrounding them on all sides. Simeon had avoided joining with the zealots who repeatedly tried to oust the Romans by violent force. He had stayed out of the debates between Pharisees, Sadducees and Essenes as to what kind of life would evoke a response from the Almighty. Taking a path of non-violent resistance, Simeon had been visited by the same Holy Spirit who had announced that Mary would have a child. This Spirit had promised Simeon that he would not die before getting to see the Lord’s Anointed One. Ever since, Simeon had been waiting for a glimpse of a new and better future. The old woman, Anna, had been married, but has long been widowed. She too, like the old man, spent day and night at the Temple where she saw the endless stream of pilgrims come and go. She could see how some of the Temple priests would collaborate with the occupation and corrupt the life of their people. She had seen many babies, many such rituals, as she waited and prayed year after year after year to see what God might do. 

Just one look at this child and Simeon and Anna knew they were looking at the future – and they somehow sensed that the future starts now! What did Mary think as the old man grabbed the child from her arms to get a better look and begin singing? Or, why her old man, Joseph did nothing. Then Anna begins to tell everyone that this child is the One to redeem Israel. What did Simeon and Anna see? They probably saw nothing - and everything! [ii] They saw a family of humble means and demeanor, a young and tender mother and her awkward aging old man – the essence of simplicity. They seemed the kind of people who sadly would ordinarily leave no lasting impression whatsoever. Simeon and Anna knew this was God’s next intervention. 

Yes, Anna and Simeon had seen plenty of people come and go from the Temple. What they had not seen was the simple truth these ancient rituals of presentation and purification proclaimed. Until now. Looking at the infant Christ, it all comes together. Something like light emanates directly from him into them. And in its simplicity and plainness, this family represents all that it means to be human. As Sam Portaro writes, “They had neither the arrogance that pretends to greatness, nor the brooding hostility that hates the human condition. They were neither better or worse than any of God’s creatures, and they came to make an offering. Even they had no idea what an offering it would be…Simeon, who had seen all the world has to offer, and Anna who had seen all that the human soul seeks, took one look at the child and saw the truth…These eyes that had seen it all, for the first time saw all that God desired, and it was a little child.” [iii] 

Simeon and Anna do not only see the future of the world. They see new meaning for their lives, and the lives of all people everywhere. They see love personified in a little child. Their hearts were filled with love! Their lives had been fulfilled. God’s promises to them had come true as they waited patiently upon the Lord. They could now leave this world in peace. They saw at the end of long and very full lives, in the blessedness of life’s wisdom and God’s grace, that God requires far less than we may think; only what we already are. [iv] 

Pema Chodron, that beloved Buddhist nun, writes, “Things happen to us all the time that open up the space. This spaciousness, this wide-open, unbiased, unprejudiced space, is inexpressibly and fundamentally good and sound. It’s like the sky. Whenever you’re in a hot spot or feeling uncomfortable, whenever you’re caught up and don’t know what to do, you can find someplace where you can go and look at the sky and experience freshness, free of hope and fear, free of bias and prejudice, just completely open. And this is accessible to us all the time. Space permeates everything, every moment of our lives.” [v] That’s what happened that day in the Temple forty days after the Christ child’s birth.  Look to the sky and we can see it, feel it and be it. Just take the time to stop everything and look up and remember the old man and the old woman. God requires far less than we may think; only what we already are.    Amen.

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[i] Luke 2:21-39

[ii] Portaro, Sam, Brightest and Best (Cowley Press, Boston: 2001) p,40-41

[iii] Ibid Portaro

[iv] Ibid Portaro

[v] Chodron, Pema, The Pocket Pema Chodron (Shambala Press, Boston: 2008) p.70

Who Is The Disrupter Here? Epiphany 4B

 Who Is The Disrupter Here?

Capernaum by the Sea was a fishing village in 1^st Century Israel. Of interest are the ruins of two ancient synagogues: one very small, barely able to hold a minyan – 10 adults needed to worship; one larger, but still not all that big, perhaps able to accommodate 50-100 or so adults. 

One thing we learn from this episode in Mark 1: 21-28 is that Jesus and his new companions, Simon, Andrew, James and John, regularly attended synagogue on the Sabbath. That is, Jesus is very much a traditional Jewish young man who is fluent in teaching and following Torah in his life. Indeed, when he enters, he joins with at least ten people already there in discussing the Torah portion to be read that Shabbat. People are immediately astonished at the authority with which he knows Torah – another sign that Jesus was an observant Jew. People say he seems to know Torah even better than the Scribes – the scholars of interpreting the texts. 

Just prior to this story, Mark Jesus proclaims that a new reign of God is at hand, has come near, and to repent and accept this Good News. Suddenly, there is a commotion. A man with an unclean spirit cries out to Jesus, “What is all this to you and to me, Jesus of Nazareth? You came to destroy us! I know you. I know who you are: the Holy One of God!” Jesus scolds him and tells him to be quiet and “come out of him.” Making a lot of noise and commotion, the unclean spirit departs. Can we imagine what the rest of the assembly in the synagogue are to make of this disruption of their weekly teaching and worship? If people were astonished before, now they are truly astounded! “What is this?” they say. “A new teaching! With authority! Even to the unclean spirits he gives orders and they obey.” And suddenly, Bang! His fame began to spread throughout the region surrounding Galilee. 

This story is often interpreted as not only a rebuke of the unclean spirit, but a rebuke of the Scribes and Jews in general. And of course, nothing could be further from the truth. And yet, there are dimensions of the story that are, well, odd. 

For instance, the word translated as “Nazareth” is netzer – which can refer to Jesus’s geographical home village. But more often it means “root,” or “shoot,” as in Isaiah 11: 1-2: “A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots.  The spirit of the Lord shall rest on him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord.  Jesse of course was the father of David, the shepherd king. Calling Jesus Netzer would astonish everyone as it seems to announce Jesus as a new David! [i]Just as our first lesson in Deuteronomy infers that Jesus is the new prophet like Moses! [ii] Yowser! Could this kid from the region of Galilee, considered a land of country bumpkins by the authorities in Jerusalem way down south, be all of this rolled into one? 

And what about this unclean spirit? This means the man in the synagogue is unclean for ritual purposes in the Temple not necessarily ill, mentally or physically. Nearly everyone is unclean most of the time, and would have to observe cleansing rituals, not unlike John’s baptism, to be made ready to enter the Temple. Unclean spirits, however, were believed to lead people astray to magic, war, conflict and bloodshed. That is, this man is not a sinner, nor does he have Covid or the Flu, but is in danger of being led down a path contrary to Torah which urges love of God and love of neighbor. Strangely, people tried to perform exorcisms or magic to drive out such unclean spirits and demons. But not Jesus. Jesus needs only his Word to command the departure. This signals that his Word is similar to the very Word of God who at creation speaks a command, “Light!” And there is light. This is Truly a sign that God is with this Jesus Netzer from Nazareth, west of Tiberias on the Sea of Galilee. Can we begin to see just how Mark, in a few short sentences, connects Jesus to the history and traditions of Israel? And as a “new authority” on Torah. This does seem to foreshadow a collision course with the religious and political authorities in Jerusalem as the story unfolds. 

But that’s not all. Do we notice how odd it is that this unclean spirit is the only one present that day in Capernaum who knows Jesus is “the Holy One of God”? Jesus knows. Jesus found out at his baptism by John, in which the words, presumed to be the Word of God, proclaimed, “You are my Beloved Son; I am well pleased with you.” Only Jesus and Mark’s audience know this. And yet, the unclean spirit knows this too. This is true of other unclean spirits in Mark as well. Do we notice how odd it is that unclean spirits agree with God about who Jesus is? [iii] 

But that is still not all. Southwest of Capernaum, along the shoreline of the Sea, near the city of Tiberius there are some hot springs. Hot springs believed to have healing properties. One can see the springs from Capernaum. We know that people from all over the ancient world, not just Israel, but gentiles and Jews alike would come and pay money to take advantage of these healing springs. Presumably, these springs could also make one ritually clean to head down to Jerusalem and make sacrifices in the Temple. While at the springs, no doubt people would find lodging in Tiberius, and restaurants, and no doubt entertainment venues as well. That is, the local economy was fueled by the alleged healing and cleansing properties of these hot springs. 

Along comes a young man, who needs but speak the Word, and voila, free healthcare for all – especially for most of the people of the land who did not have the means to take advantage of the natural resource of these hot springs. It surely could not have gone unnoticed by many that whatever and whoever this Jesus character is, he is potentially bad news for the local economy should he continue this behavior of his. It is not surprising this news would travel quickly, as the story in Mark takes Jesus to Jerusalem where the religious and civil authorities would also be concerned. 

Mark, in just a few sentences, signals that Jesus’s mission on behalf of God’s kingdom is to have deep social, religious and economic consequences. Who is the greater disrupter here in Capernaum? The man with the unclean spirit? Or, Jesus the Netzer, the shoot from the stump of Jesse, the new David and the new Moses all rolled into one? 

This story, then, hinges not on the dismissal of the unclean spirit, but oddly, the spirit’s question to Jesus: What is all this to you and to me? Inviting us to ask, “What is all this to Jesus and to us?” In every time and place, the Church has had to answer this question. Sometimes the Church has responded in faithfully following Jesus with people like Paul, Dorothy Day and Martin King leading the way. And in other times, the Church has acted tragically. We need only think of times like the crusades, the Inquisition, and the Church’s promulgation and support of anti-Semitism. It seems that this text means to ask us as community of Christ: How are we meant to read the signs of our time, and respond faithfully in following Jesus? 

Born in Spain, Teresa of Avila (1515–1582) entered a Carmelite convent when she was eighteen, and later earned a reputation as a mystic, reformer, and writer who experienced divine visions. Here is her answer to the question from the unclean spirit: 

Christ Has No Body 

Christ has no body but yours,

No hands, no feet on earth but yours, 

Yours are the eyes with which he looks

Compassion on this world, 

Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good, 

Yours are the hands, with which he blesses all the world. 

Yours are the hands, yours are the feet,

Yours are the eyes, you are his body. 

Christ has no body now but yours,

No hands, no feet on earth but yours,

Yours are the eyes with which he looks

compassion on this world. 

Christ has no body now on earth but yours.

Amen.

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[i] Swanson, Richard W., Provoking the Gospel of Mark (Pilgrim Press, Cleveland: 2005) p.95

[ii] Deuteronomy 18:15-20

[iii] Ibid Swanson p.98

Voyage To The Bunny Planet Epiphany 3B

Come To The Bunny Planet       Epiphany 3B

We have before us four texts that one way or another seek to address what ought to be the primary focus of any and all faith communities: What ought we be doing in the present time? And, being from the Hebrew and Christian scriptures, more specifically: What does God call us to be and to do? How might we respond to God’s call? 

In the first instance, we have Jonah.[i] For reasons not explained, Jonah has been chosen by the Hebrew God to take a message to a mighty gentile city, Ninevah. God is angry with their wickedness. Jonah knows this is not good news and takes off in the opposite direction to get away from God and the mission. I get it. And I suppose all of us at one time or another have tried to ignore what the Lord God of Israel tells us to do. We are meant to identify with Jonah, who learns, thanks to landing in the belly of a very large fish, there is no escaping what the Lord calls us to do. Like Jonah, I tried myself to head off in several different directions. Alas, here I am.  

Jonah is not told what to say, so he improvises, “Forty days more, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!”  Astonishingly, the Ninevites repent of their evil ways. They fast and cover themselves with sackcloth and ashes. Even the king! That is, they take God more seriously than Jonah does. The lesson here: act more like the evil, gentile Ninevites than Jonah! But that’s not all! God is so moved by the Ninevites that God repents from overthrowing the city. Because, as Jonah later notes, our God is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounds in steadfast love and compassion, and relents from punishment. 

Paul, as the first ever recorded church consultant, has been petitioned by some folks in Corinth on just what they ought to and ought not to be doing as a community of Christ. We are given only a few verses which in our world nearly 2,000 years later seems like somewhat bizarre advice: The appointed time is short. If you are married, don’t act like it, and if you’re not, don’t bother to get married; if you are mourning, don’t mourn; if you’re rejoicing, don’t rejoice; quit buying more and more stuff; forget about what’s going on in the world. The key to his advice, however, is that things are about to change. “The present form of the world is passing away.” Oh, that that would be true and come sooner than later! And yet, history tells us that this is true, just not on our preferred timetable. What Paul is really saying, had we more of the letter, is that we must focus on what God in Christ calls us to do, not what we think we want or need to do. [ii] 

His insistence that buying more and more stuff may be good for the economy, but distracts us from being the community of God’s love and compassion that God in Christ call us to be. Besides, we begin to lose our very identity as Christ’s own forever when we begin to believe that all this stuff, the cars we drive, the clothes we wear, the investments we make, somehow become who we are. We identify with and accumulate so much stuff that many, if not most of us, have to rent the aptly named Self-Storage lockers to store all of our excess Self! 

Then along comes Jesus. After accepting the baptism of John, and skipping over his time in the wilderness, Jesus emerges proclaiming John’s message of repentance, but with a significant addition: “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent, and believe in the good news.” Like Paul, Jesus proclaims that the present form of the world is passing away, and the way God creates the world to work will soon come to pass. Next, he calls a bunch of fishermen to follow him. And surprisingly, they drop their nets, leave their work behind, leave their families behind, and given no idea whatsoever lies ahead, they follow him. So unlike Jonah! One of them is actually named Simon the son of Jonah! Personally, I think that’s meant to make us laugh – a family of fishermen whose father is named after the guy who became fish-food! [iii] 

Like Jonah, like Andrew, Simon, John and James, no one is asked for a resume, given a test, or in anyway examined to see if they are qualified to do God’s work. Because everyone is. And some go another way. And some of us follow. It’s said that Jesus finds ways to qualify us. I don’t know if that’s true, but I do know that God’s kingdom is near. We see signs every day. It is at hand. I think when our youngest daughter, Cerny, was born, someone dropped off a book by Rosemary Wells, author of such other children’s classics such as Max’s First Word and Max’s Disappearing Bag. The book is called First Tomato, the first of a series called Voyage to the Bunny Planet, and goes like this: 

Claire ate only three spoons of cornflakes for breakfast (the rest she spilled on the floor). On the way to school her shoes filled up with snow. By eleven in the morning, math had been going on for two hours. Lunch was Claire’s least favorite – baloney sandwiches. At playtime Claire was the only girl not able to do a cartwheel. Once again, the bus was late. Claire needs a visit to the Bunny Planet. 

Far beyond the moon and stars, twenty light-years south of Mars, spins the gentle Bunny Planet, and the Bunny Queen is Janet! Janet says to Claire, “Come in. Here’s the day that should have been.” I hear my mother calling when the summer wind blows. “Go out to the garden in your old, old clothes. Pick me some runner beans and sugar snap peas. Find a ripe tomato and bring it to me, please.” A ruby red tomato is hanging on the vine. If my mother didn’t want it, the tomato would be mine. It smells of rain and steamy earth and hot June sun. In the whole tomato garden, it's the only ripe one. I close my eyes and breathe in its fat red smell. I wish that I could eat it now and never, never tell. But I save it for my mother without another look. I wash the beans and shell the peas and watch my mother cook. 

I hear my mother calling when the summer winds blow. “I’ve made you First Tomato Soup because I love you so.” Claire’s big warm school bus comes at last. Out her window Claire sees the Bunny Planet near the evening star in the snowy sky. “It was there all along, says Claire. 

The kingdom of God is at hand. You can reach out and touch it. Take one step forward with Christ and you are in it! It’s been here all along, like the Bunny Planet. Like Claire we think we want the First Tomato. But God our Mother knows just what we need: God’s Love and Compassion. First Tomato Soup. God’s kingdom is all about what we need, not what we want. 

The story Mark is telling says that Jesus calls us with no qualification but that we follow him. He is calling us right now to take one step at a time forward with him. He has prepared a meal for us. He sets it before us every week so we will remember him. And remember to follow him. He wants to share the Love and Compassion of God his Father with all who listen and respond to the Good News. It is a chance to heal those who are broken, and to heal a broken world. With the Psalmist we pray, “Be silent, my soul, for God; for my hope is from him” [iv] Can we hear him? Do we follow? Dare we take one step into God’s kingdom, leaving the rest behind? 

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[i] Jonah 3:1-5, 10

[ii] 1 Corinthians 7:29-31

[iii] Mark 1:14-20

[iv] Psalm 62:6-14 

Gustav Holst, composer of the music for the hymn “In the bleak midwinter…” and The Planets, once said, “Music, being identical with heaven, isn't a thing of momentary thrills, or even hourly ones. It's a condition of eternity.”

 

Shine With God's Glory Epiphany 2B

 Shine With God’s Glory

It is said, “Watch out what you pray for! You just might get it!” 

This Second Sunday in Epiphany we pray, “Grant that your people, illumined by your Word and Sacraments, may shine with the radiance of Christ's glory, that he may be known, worshipped, and obeyed to the ends of the earth.” Bishop Carrie has been urging those of us in the Diocese of Maryland to focus on practicing Love in community – within the Church community and within the community in which we live. That is, Christianity which is focused on following Christ is not a personal self-improvement program. We pray that we, as “God’s people,” may “shine with the radiance of Christ’s glory. 

At Christ’s birth the angels sing, “Glory to God in the Highest, and on earth, Peace, Shalom, among those whom he favors!” [i]  Earlier in the first chapter of John we read, “And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.” [ii] And now we pray, as a community of Christ, of those he favors, to shine with this same glory. In Christian worship we sing, “Glory to God in the highest…”; “Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit.” 

Begging the question: What is this glory we sing about? Just what is this glory with which we pray to shine? Frederick Buechner suggests that “Glory is to God what style is to an artist.” [iii] One can recognize a painting by Picasso, a sonnet by William Shakespeare, or a symphony by Gustav Mahler. In the Hebrew scriptures the word is kabod, which represents the aura, the very essence, of God’s splendor, power and absolute sovereignty. [iv]And it is this aura of splendor, power and sovereignty which both Luke and John assert is experienced and able to be seen in the presence of Christ. Those shepherds and magi who visited him at his birth sensed it and experienced it. Christ reflects the Light and Love of God his Father. Light – the very first thing God speaks into being “In the beginning!” 

This glory, or aura of God’s essence, is described throughout both the Hebrew and Christian scriptures as Love of all creation and all creatures; as light that shines in and through all darkness; justice for all peoples; and “peace,” which in biblical terms is shalom. God’s shalom encompasses much more than an absence of war or conflict. Again, Buechner says it “means fullness, means having everything you need to be wholly and happily yourself.” [v] Shalom might be said to be the sum total of justice and peace, or justice for all that leads to ultimate peace among all peoples. And one might add, peace for creation itself. 

Not only do we sing of Christ as the Prince of Peace, he says to us and to his disciples in John’s gospel, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.”[vi] He gives us his shalom for us to give and share with others – all others. 

It has been suggested by some of my colleagues that before any meeting of the church, whether vestry, committee, or all-parish meetings, there is a question that needs to be answered first: Does the business of this meeting have anything at all to do with establishing the kingdom of God in our midst? Will we be talking about how we can bring Christ’s peace, Christ’s shalom, to others? To the world? And if the answer is “No,” then there is no reason to meet. In the context of our prayer today, we might ask, “Does what everything we say and do help us to shine with Christ’s glory? We read in the story of the young man Samuel that one night he begins to shine with God’s glory and becomes a prophet. [vii] In our reading from John we see how Nathanael is transformed from sceptic to one shining with God’s glory and becomes a disciple. [viii] And Paul’s pastoral concern for Christians in Corinth who frequent the prostitutes in the temples of pagan gods threatens the glory and life of the entire Corinthian church. [ix] For Christ’s glory which we pray to radiate is the glory of God his Father, and our Father; his God and our God. This glory is the very essence of what it means to be a Christian. 

The question then is:  just how do we begin to sense this glory and embody this glory we pray for? By letting ourselves be “illumined by…Word and Sacraments.” And there is no better place to start than with Psalm 139. While in seminary studying with The Reverend James Forbes, he shared with us something he learned when he was in seminary. A preacher in the seminary chapel one day recommended reading Psalm 139 once a day for thirty days. He said it would be life changing. Transformative. Illuminating! One reason Psalm 139 is so powerful is that nearly every verse has one of the following words: I, me, my. We seek to be illuminated so we might be those people who radiate Christ’s glory. To get a start on this together as a community of God’s love in Christ, let’s turn to page 794 in the Book of Common Prayer and read Psalm 139 together, followed by a period of silence, with eyes closed if you are comfortable with that. In the silence we will let these ancient words settle down within us and begin to spark and illuminate God’s glory right here in our midst. 

Psalm 139 

(Silence) 

Almighty God, whose Son our Savior Jesus Christ is the light of the world: Grant that as your people, illumined by your Word and Sacraments, we may shine with the radiance of Christ's glory. We trust that you as Father, Son and Holy Spirit will walk with us and fill us with your light these next thirty days that we may radiate your glory in all we say and all we do.  Amen.

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[i] Luke 2:14

[ii] John 1:14

[iii] Buechner, Frederick, Wishful Thinking: A Theological ABC (Harper & Row, New York: 1973) p.30

[iv] Brueggemann, Walter, Reverberations of Faith (Westminster John Knox Press, Louisville: 2002) p.87-89

[v] Ibid, p.69

[vi] John 14:27

[vii] I Samuel 3: 1-20

[viii] John 1: 43-51

[ix] 1 Corinthians 6:12-20