Sermon Mark 10:35-45 21 October 2018 Proper 24 Year B

“You don’t know what you’re asking.” That’s what Jesus says to the disciples this morning. He says it to James and John when they ask to sit at Jesus’ right hand and left hand when he comes into his glory. And when they ask, Jesus must be thinking something like this. “You don’t know what you’re asking. You have no idea. I’ve been talking but you haven’t been listening. I’ve been teaching but you haven’t been learning. I’ve been walking a road that leads to death and you keep missing the road signs. Do you still not get what my kind of greatness means?”

         James and John say they want to be great. But learning how to be great in Jesus’ world is a completely different kind of greatness. Jesus teaches us

·      Being great depends on God alone

·      Being great means we are God’s companions to the least and the lost

·      Being great means freely give our wealth back to God because we know it came from God and belongs to God

·      Being great means becoming the person God created us to be from our beginning

And here’s the part of Jesus’ greatness we really don’t like:

·      Being great means suffering

“Can you drink the cup I will drink?” Jesus asks. And like a couple of enthusiastic team members who aren’t really listening to the coach, James and John say, “Sure we can! We’re ready. Bring it on!”

Have we said the same thing? If we were baptized as adults, or confirmed at what we call “the age of reason?” Did we really know what we were promising? Did anyone warn us what being great for Jesus means? Maybe. But we probably didn’t really hear it.

Jesus has taught us these last weeks that who we are and what we do as followers, as disciples, is an inverted and upside down view of the greatness the world dangles in front of us each day. Are we listening?

         Jesus teaches us to say no to greatness that corrupts so we can say a deeper yes to his greatness. Are we listening?

         I think I can hear some brains buzzing. Some of the buzzing might be a low hum like mine is from time to time: Being great like that doesn’t interest me. That kind of greatness gets you nothing. I need power to get along in this world. I need to be strong, not weak. And furthermore, what was that about suffering? I thought following Jesus meant comfort, warmth, having all my problems miraculously taken away, and being happy all the time. You know, basking in the warmth of Jesus; being loved.

         It’s pretty clear to me the two disciples in today’s Gospel, James and John, want that kind of Jesus. And they want the greatness they think he’s offering. They want to sit on Jesus’ right hand and at his left hand when he comes into his glory. James and John want Jesus’ greatness because they have either forgotten or chosen to ignore what Jesus has been teaching them.

Do you remember who really gets to be on the left and right hands of Jesus? Two bandits. Captured and found guilty. Two weakling criminals not smart enough to escape the law. They were the ones on Jesus’ right and left hands when he died. Not the disciples who ran away when things got tough and they were in danger of losing their own lives. Not Peter who denied Jesus three times. Not even the women at the foot of the cross. Nope. Two thieves. Two deadbeats who’d led lives of crime and made others suffer. And the greatness they received was to be hung on a cross on either side of the suffering savior. This is being great?

         Yes, this is Jesus’ greatness. If we really thought about it, most of us would say no Jesus’ greatness. The cup of Jesus’ greatness is the willingness to suffer by saying no to the world to say a deeper yes to Him. Yes to the one holy and gracious being who lived among us as human flesh, the one who gives us the only greatness worth having.

When we claim the power of Jesus we claim the power of a Lord who gave his life as a ransom for many. He gave his all, every bit of himself from first to last. He gave up all so we might have all.

         This is the power that, if we are willing to claim it, is God’s to give and ours to give away. It is the power to retitle what we own as God’s, not ours. It is the power to give so our doors can be opened to an even wider world. It is the power to give so the mystery and majesty of our worship and the tenderness of prayer and the strength of wisdom can be shared with those who need it most. It is the power to sing so others hear us and are drawn by beauty into beauty even if we don’t think we can sing. It is the power to give so children may learn and grow and fall in love with Jesus. And it is the power to follow our Lord wherever he leads.

         Can we drink the cup Jesus offers? Can we be baptized with his baptism? Can we embrace his greatness?

         It comes at a price, you know. We count the cost and are not sure we can pay up. That great preacher William Willimon tells a story about the baptism of a young Chinese man.[1] Willimon took photographs after the baptism, remarking cheerfully to the young man that he could share those photos with his family. Later the college chaplain drew him aside and told him how embarrassing that had been. Willimon was puzzled until the chaplain told him once the young man became a Christian his family would disown him. His home government would cut off his scholarship for college in the United States. He would become wanted if he went home. An enemy. He had become one of those dangerous Christians. He was now a subversive because he was willing to drink from the cup of Jesus Christ. He was dangerous because his allegiance had changed. Our allegiance has changed.

You know as well as I do that what Jesus says is true. Those whom we recognize as our rulers of the world lord it over us, and the great ones are tyrants over us. And yet Jesus calls us together into his greatness with these words: “But it is not so among you; whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all. For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”[2] If we want to truly be the right and left hands of Jesus, we too will become a ransom for many. This is the greatness of Jesus Christ. AMEN.

The Rev Nicolette Papanek

©2018

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[1] Willimon, William. Found in a series of writings and stories Willimon tells about practicing the Christian Faith. Unfortunately I have lost the original source.

[2] Mark 10:43-45 (NRSV)

Sermon

Sermon Mark 10:2-16 7 October 2018 Proper 22 Year B

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The Gospel today is not about you. And it’s not about me either. Nothing personal, folks, but wait…yes it is personal, but it’s personal in a way quite different from the way you may be thinking.

What the Gospel of Mark has Jesus saying today sounds darn personal. How can we help but take this Gospel both literally and personally? We’ve heard the divorce statistics. We may even be a statistic ourselves. Those same statistics tell us more than half the adults here have been divorced at least once. We may have friends who are divorced. Our grown children may be divorced. Our parents may be divorced. Or more simply, we know someone who is divorced, is going through a divorce, or contemplating a divorce. Many of us hear this passage and sit there hurt, or angry, or ashamed. If not on our own behalf, on behalf of someone we know. Doesn’t Jesus understand what we went through? Doesn’t he understand what our parents, children, or friends went through?

Yes, Jesus does understand, but Jesus isn’t talking about divorce and you. And he isn’t talking about divorce and me either. And he isn’t talking about divorce and your family or friends. He’s talking about vulnerability and the law.

The question the Pharisees ask is a question about law. The question is global. The answer Jesus gives is personal. It’s personal because Jesus makes the answer an opportunity to teach us how to live with one another in community.

Look at the context here. How does this passage begin? “Some Pharisees came, and to test him (Jesus) they asked, ‘Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?’”[1] It’s about the law, folks. Jesus isn’t having a nice chat about whether or not someone should get divorced. He’s being asked to play judge and jury about the legality of divorce. He’s not being asked a personal question about whether someone should or should not get divorced.

In Jesus’ time there were varying opinions on the legal aspects of divorce. And it wasn’t about whether or not divorce was legal; everyone pretty much accepted that it was legal. It was about under what terms the divorce could take place.

In his usual way, Jesus changes the emphasis. He takes a question about legality and turns the emphasis to relationships instead. That’s why Jesus talks about Genesis as he focuses on the question. He’s reminding us of God’s original intent for us, which is to be blessed by our relationships.

The other thing Jesus is telling us is that this is about our communities, the places in which we live and worship. This is personal too. Jesus uses the Pharisees’ question to point toward the purpose of the law. The purpose of the law, in fact all law in its original intent, is to protect those most vulnerable.

In Jesus’ time, when a woman was divorced, her living status changed. Without a husband, or a male relative to protect her and house her, she was poverty-stricken. She lost her standing in society. Her good reputation was gone. Jesus is asking how men of his time could treat divorce like a convenience because it made those who were vulnerable even more vulnerable.

Until now the whole conversation has been about divorce. But at the end of the Gospel reading the subject gets changed to those even more vulnerable than women: children. Jesus’ action and words form another comment about vulnerability.

Once again, Jesus looks for and blesses the most vulnerable: the children. He blesses those with no protection. Just like women in his time, children were a commodity to be used, bought, sold, worn out, and cast off.

And so, in the end, what we have here this morning really is good news. The good news is that the community of Jesus is a place you can come when you are most vulnerable, most broken, and most in need of blessing. You and I have a place here because no matter how imperfect, or inadequate, or incomplete we think we are, this is the place to be. And it’s the place to bring your friends, no matter how imperfect, or inadequate, or incomplete they think they are.

St. John Chrysostom has something to say about this kind of vulnerability and the welcome of the church. It is this: “Enter into the Church…for there is a hospital for sinners and not a court of law.[2] ” AMEN. 

The Rev Nicolette Papanek

©2018

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[1] Mark 10:2 (NRSV) Italics mine.

[2] Exact source unknown, but from a series of sermons by St. John Chrysostom on parables in the Gospel of Luke. Italics mine. This particular saying was in reference to Luke 10:25-37 (Parable of the Good Samaritan).

Sermon Mark 9:38-50 30 September 2018 Proper 21 Year B

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         Jesus is king of a lot of things and to a lot of people. In this morning’s lesson he is certainly the king of hyperbole, or exaggeration. Hung by a millstone around your neck and thrown into the sea! Cut off your hand if it causes you to stumble1 Cut off your foot because it’s better to go lame than to get thrown into hell! Tear out your eye! Unfortunately through the centuries a person here or there has taken Jesus’ exaggeration literally and done one of those bodily harming things to him or herself.

Perhaps as a reaction to that kind of biblical literalism, a few years ago I spotted a rather lengthy headline. “The danger of ‘spiritual, but not religious.’”[1] The description of the article said, “More and more people are rejecting formal religion for a hodge-podge approach to spirituality that stresses positive feelings. Alan Miller (the author of the article), argues that such an attitude is a cop out that avoids having to deal with important questions.”[2]

I think it’s a temptation in today’s pluralistic, multi-religious, grab-all-you-can-get world to scoff at the writer of the article and even to accuse him of perhaps bigotry to other religions. Or, to think he has an inflexible attitude about his own religion being the best. Whatever his variety of religion is was not made entirely clear in the article. But that in itself is an easy out and precisely what he is claiming in his article. The prevailing sense of “bits and pieces” religion leaves much to be desired precisely because it neither asks nor answers the hard questions and gives us no tools for doing either.

         Now do I like the hard questions? No, no, and no! And I’ll bet you don’t either. For one thing, they’re just…well, too hard. The Gospel is hard and confusing. And for another thing it’s got a multitude of hard questions going on in this one short section of about a dozen or so verses this morning.

         One of those hard questions is why we get so exercised about people running off and doing their own thing instead of doing it our way. After all, the unnamed caster-out-of-demons in the Gospel could be seen to support precisely what Alan Miller complained about in his article. He complained about a scatter-shot approach to religious belief that results in casting out demons but has little depth or purpose other than for people to feel good about themselves.

         When you look more closely at our biblical story today however, you see this is not the case. The difference here is outcome, outcome in both action and result. The writer of John’s Gospel may have been more upset that the person casting out demons was successful because the disciples willingly admit they themselves were unsuccessful. How does that look to others seeing this new religion?

         What this makes me think about is how these same successful or unsuccessful actions are present in the church today. One of the primary ways it shows up is in leadership. Leadership from everyone, not just from the stated leaders.

Most of us think we would never sink to using that time-honored phrase, “We’ve always done it this way.” Nor would we be so rude as to say, “We’ve never done it that way.” Episcopalians are far too polite to say such things.         

We might not actually say it, but our actions in response to the “prophesying” of a new member, a younger member, a child, a newly-on-the-scene clergy person, or even a first time guest can mean the difference between the recognition and honor of new ideas and new spirit. It can mean the dead end of failing to recognize the action of someone because it isn’t our usual way.

         There is also a way to refrain from disturbing the status quo by simply not supporting or encouraging something by what we do. We may not openly discourage whatever it is, but we fail to actively support it. Ideas, programs, new classes, ways of tackling administrative bottlenecks, all rise up and then sink back into the mud if they remain unsupported by action.

Remember those times in scripture when Jesus asks someone before healing them, “Do you really want to be healed?” Or asks, “What do you want me to do for you?” Wise of Jesus to ask.

What a pity we often support and encourage someone with a new idea or way of doing something and then gradually withdraw our support through our busyness or our lack of presence. We show our inability to decide we really want to be healed from the old unsuccessful way to be free to improve or begin a new way. No wonder people with new ideas and energy often just drift away.

         We would never be a stumbling block to one of these little ones who want so deeply to believe in Jesus. We would offer them that cup of water. We would offer them that cup that overflows and blesses. We would watch and admire and support their casting out of metaphorical demons in our midst. We would support, encourage, and take action to keep their new ideas alive and thriving.

         We would preserve ourselves for the future by being salty, by retaining the flavor and goodness of all the meals we’ve had in the past. And, we would taste and see that the new dishes offered by the new prophets among us are salted with support, encouragement, and action. This moves us into a salty, well-flavored future preserved by the new seasoning that keeps us fresh and open to Jesus in our midst. AMEN.           

        

The Rev Nicolette Papanek

©2018

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[1] http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2012/09/29/my-take-im-spiritual-not-religious-is-a-cop-out/?hpt=hp_c1 Accessed 30 September 2012

[2] Ibid.