Continuing Thoughts on Luke -- Luke 21

Three years ago, I started writing my First Thoughts about the texts for the coming Sunday of Year C. They weren’t always complete thoughts; and they usually wouldn’t show up in the sermon; they were simply “first thoughts”.

Luke 21

Okay, I know that I am dating myself with this, but, with the first Sunday of Advent upon us, I can’t help but think of the old Roger Miller song, If You Want Me To, which begins “Thunder rollin', lightnin' flashin', / But right through the middle of it I go dashin'.”

As we celebrate our liturgical new year, we will hear variations on the theme of what appears to be earth-ending events: signs in the sky and tsunamis with great distress among the nations. This distress will create great fear, to the point of fainting or withdrawing from the concerns of the world.

There are those who will point to these words and say, “The world is coming to an end.”, but every year, whether it’s the words of Matthew, Mark, or Luke, the gospels agree that, on this first Sunday of Advent, it is not the end of the world, but the beginning of something new.

This year we hear Luke go so far as to say, “When these things begin to happen, stand up and raise your heads because your redemption is drawing near.” (NRSV) Dash into the storm. In the midst of the fearmongering that is so prevalent in our world today, Luke tells us that this is not the time to turtle up. This is not the time to withdraw from the world. This is the time to take a posture of defiance: Stand up and be counted—Dash into the storm.

There is a tendency, in this time of chaos and confusion, to say, “Jesus is coming. Look busy.” But Luke’s Gospel in particular calls us to bear witness to who this Jesus is.

In the First Testament, the first command to the prophets is to stand up. Stand up in the gates of the city (the place of judgment). Stand up and go! Jonah is told to go to the city of Nineveh, the land of his enemies. Elijah is told to go to Zarephath, a Canaanite town. In many other ways, the prophets are told to go to God’s people to tell them of God’s judgment and constancy—Dash into the storm.

In these texts we are told that the world is indeed a dangerous and scary place, but this does not mean that we are given the privilege of being able to ignore the violence and pain of our world. We are told to take a stand, lift our heads, and confront the powers of the world—Dash into the storm.

In the Baptism service, we publicly renounce the devil and the powers that defy God. We renounce the powers of the world that rebel against God. We renounce the powers that seduce and draw us away from God. In other words, we stand in defiance of those things that breed fear. We stand in defiance of the hate-mongering. We stand in defiance of those who do not recognize and lift up the value of all of God’s people. We defy the powers and structures that perpetuate prejudice and discrimination. We dash into the storm.

Yes, we even denounce racist parades that want to continue celebrating Hitler’s antisemitic genocidal regime making the Nazi salute because to say nothing means that we tacitly support the slaughter of 6,000,000 Jewish men, women, and children, and the more than 5,000,000 others whom the Third Reich thought to be undesirables. To say nothing means that we do not regret the chattel slavery and lynchings within the United States. To say nothing means that we do not regret the genocidal practices that continue to be perpetrated on our First Nation peoples. To say nothing means that we support telling those who come to our borders for asylum and a “better way of life”, “You need not apply”. To say nothing means that we believe that the LGBTQIA+ community is an abomination. To say nothing means that we believe that voting rights are not equal and that the disabled, Black, Latino, Native American, and others should not have an equal voice in our political future. To say nothing means we take shelter and hide from the storm. Take heed, there are signs along God’s Way to direct and lead us.

At Christmas, we will hear and read that Jesus is first recognized by the lowliest of his world, the shepherds. Later we will watch the child challenge the priest and teachers of his time concerning God’s relationship with creation. We will witness Jesus’ family fleeing to another country for asylum. We will bear witness to and celebrate Jesus’ walking among the most undesirable of his time. We will witness all these events with particular compassion, and yet, in many cases we will remain silent about events today. We will continue to participate in politics and institutions of our day that work to keep the people Jesus lived with and loved identified as undesirable and unfit to be our neighbors.

In this Advent season, the Church focusses on Christ’s coming again in the clouds with glory ready for the judgment of the nations. But most of us want to say, “Wait! Not yet.” adding, “Give [Christ’s] peace a chance.” So, in this time of waiting for Christ’s coming again, we prepare to tell the story of God’s love for the world and pray for a more loving outcome in world affairs. In Christ there is hope, and that hope is for the world.

When the fig tree and the other trees put forth their leaves, know that summer is near, and know also that the kingdom of God is as real as those leaves that signify life itself. Therefore, let us be the rock in the middle of the stream. Let us look up to where our hope and help comes from. Let us stand in the gap proclaiming God’s forgiveness and mercy for all people. Let us go to those places of the world where Christ is calling us, singing, “Thunder rollin', lightnin' flashin', / But right through the middle of it I go dashin'. Goes to show how far I'll go for you / If you want me to.” (Roger Miller)

 

Bartimaeus

Due to computer illness this week, Rome Improvement is not available and this short story is only a first draft. Keep watching; as time is available, I will be posting finish copy.

It seems like such a longtime ago and yet, it also seems like yesterday. Some friends brought me to an itinerant rabbi who was making some noise around Bethsaida. Everybody was saying to me, “Come meet Jesus.” People said that he could restore my sight. I said, “How can he restore something I never had?” They chided me saying, “You know what we mean. He is healing everyone else, why shouldn’t he heal you too?”

 

I told them that I thought that sight was a good thing to have in this world, but I had been doing just fine, “Thank you very much,” and I didn’t want to be the latest “miracle child” to be fawned over and then forgotten. But they were insistent, and, after a few days of persistent begging, I succumbed to their pleas and went with them to meet the rabbi.

 

Once we got to the place where this rabbi, Jesus, was teaching, I stood around and listened to him talk. He had a nice voice. He was easy to listen to, and he said some things that really made me think. He said that we needed to think about the world differently, that we should change the way we were living with one another, that this world of some having everything and others having little, or nothing, was not the way that God intended us to live. He said that although we didn’t fully appreciate it, the kingdom of God was not something that we had to wait for but that the kingdom of God was actively engaged right now. He said that he had come to speak the words of good news. He said, when we were able to live in a world where all were included, that the blind would see, the deaf would hear, the lame and the maimed would move around with the rest of us. He said we needed to think of ourselves as being one, as God is one, because we are all created in the image of God.

 

That upset a few people. They shouted at him, “We are the Chosen People—favored of the One who led us through the wilderness. We are the ones who have been given the Promised Land that has been restored to us by God’s work in Cyrus. We are the ones who are loved by the Lord. The rest of the world doesn’t get it and Is damned as far as I am concerned.”

 

There was a lot of cheering and some booing along the way, but eventually people stopped trying to trip the rabbi up with their hypothetical posturing that let them make themselves sound important. One guy stood up and said, “Suppose now, just suppose, that a man married a woman and then he died without any children, and just suppose, his brother married her, as he should, and he died and there still wasn’t a child. And suppose then the next younger brother married her, and he died, and there still wasn’t a child. And on and on it went until the woman had married the seven brothers of the family. Finally, the seventh son died, and the woman died, and there still weren’t any children. Just suppose for a minute, whose wife will she be in the afterlife since all seven brothers married her?”

 

We had all heard the story of blind Tobit and how Tobit’s son Tobias marries Sarah, who has been married to six men before, and how each of them died on their wedding night because the evil Asmodeus had fallen in love with Sarah and didn’t want to have anyone else be with her, and how Asmodeus was found out and banished, and how Tobit got his sight back, and everyone lived happily ever after. So, everyone laughed when the rabbi asked, “Is your name Asmodeus or Tobias?”

 

It was clever of the rabbi to put that moment of levity in the conversation because it really got the people on his side. When he told everyone that marriage was something that we needed in order to keep order in our world but that in heaven our relationship with Godself was the relationship that mattered. Heaven was the place where we could truly live out the first commandment. In heaven, we neither married nor worried about worldly marriages. We all would experience the oneness of God and that would be enough. People started arguing with one another and started drifting away.

 

It was then that my friends took me up to have Jesus lay his hands on me in order for me to see. There was a moment when I thought that he was just going to tell all of us to go home and quit bothering him. Really, that was what I was hoping for, but then, he took me by the hand and led me away from the others. When we had gone a fair distance, Jesus told me to look at him, and then he spit in my eyes. He spit in my eyes! I was thinking, “Rude, dude.”

 

He asked if I could see anything and then, I had the most amazing vision. I saw people, or I think they were people, but they walked around with their arms outstretched like trees. It was like a dance. It was like a prayer, and, when the people came together, with their branches intermingled, it was like a choir of peace. I said, “I see people. They look like trees walking around.” Then he laid his hands on me and held my head in his hands and shared his vision with me. I saw God’s plan for the world from the distant future all the way back to the dawn of everything. I saw the world possibilities far beyond the cross all the way back to the Garden of Eden when God was speaking with Adam and Eve. God looked sort of like Jesus. It was…amazing. It was way beyond amazing, but I don’t know what that might be. And then Jesus told me to go home and not even to go into the village.

 

After that vision of the world, home no longer seemed enough. So, I started wandering the roads. People would stop and ask if they could help, and I traveled with them. When we got to a village, I had them take me to the village gate, or just outside the marketplace, and I would beg there for a while. I would tell the people of my vision, but since I was still blind, people usually walked away, and I was left talking to emptiness. When they stayed long enough to hear my story, they laughed at me. “No one can see to the end or the dawn of everything, not even a blind seer can see that far. Only God has that kind of vision. People, like trees, lumbering around? Please, tell us another.” After a few days of that, people would tell me to move on since I had no relatives to care for me and I would find my way to another town.

 

Each place I went, I listened to hear if Jesus was going to be in the area, but no one knew where he had gone. Some said that he had gone up north into the Roman cities; others said he was out in the countryside teaching. There were stories of people being raised up from their sick beds; children who were all but dead, knowing good health and inclusion; a man who was deaf who was able to understand the people around him and speak with them; and a time when thousands were fed. As time went on, I decided that the vision was just that—a dream, a hallucination, a trick of the mind. I sought out the comfort of other beggars and started building relationships with them.

 

I met Abner one day, his body was quite twisted. He could hardly walk. We became fast friends almost immediately. He listened to my vision story and though he didn’t really believe it, he thought that the idea of the story was nice, even desirable. I volunteered to carry him on my back, and he told me where to go. He introduced me to many of the other beggars and at night we gathered in the house provided for the “unfortunates”, our little Bethany. There I learned that we weren’t supposed to beg inside the city and those who were caught would be treated badly, but outside the city, it was safe. Many travelers entering or leaving the city often stopped to toss a coin or two our way, even soldiers tossed a broken quadrans, although they oftentimes intentionally threw them beyond us just to see us scramble for the crumbs of society. .

 

Finally, one day, when I was sitting with the other beggars outside of Jericho, with my cloak laying over my lap to catch any coin tossed my direction, a crowd of people came down the road. When I asked what the commotion was about, people said the rabbi, Jesus, was coming with his disciples on his way to Jerusalem. I knew then, if I was ever going to have the vision again, that I would need to do something right then. Despite the danger of bringing Roman attention to what was happening, and the political implications, I called out claiming Jesus for who I was positive he was—the one whom I would always pledge my loyalty, beyond Herod and certainly above Tiberius. As the volume of the crowd increased, I started shouting, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me! Jesus, teacher, Son of David  have mercy on me!”

 

Some of the people in the crowd kicked at us and told us to get out of the way, but I refused to move. Instead I shouted more loudly. “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me! Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” And when I had all but given up, the crowd stopped. There was this eerie silence and then I heard his voice again. “Bring him to me.” Then the crowd grabbed at me and said, “Quick. The Master is calling for you. Why do you continue to sit there like a marker stone along the  road?”

 

I threw off my cloak, not caring about coins I might receive from the crowd and worked my way toward Jesus’ voice. People moved out of my way and pushed me toward him and then I felt his hand on my shoulder  and I stopped. “What can I do for you?” he asked.

 

“Lord,” I said, “Let me see again. Let me see what I saw before. Let me have the vision of the trees and the dance and the choir of peace. Lord, please, I long to know that the vision was not a dream but a reality of hope. I beg of you, let me see and know the joy of that vision again.”

Jesus reached out and put his hands on me. He took my hands and raised them up into the posture of prayer and he said, “Your faith has made you whole.” And immediately I saw the vision again. I saw people, like trees walking around, like trees dancing with joy and singing songs of praise. I saw people gathering together with their arms spread out in prayer and when the choir of peace gathered I saw the arms of the people making Xs, making crosses, building communities where all could eat and drink with enough to give away. And the vision continued to the end of everything. It was amazing. Ten I joined the crowd and followed him on the way.

ROME IMPROVEMENT October 17, 2021

MORE POWER!  MORE GLORY!!  MORE SPIRIT!!!

SURVEYING THE SITE—Mark 10:32-45

As we hear the words of the third prophetic announcement of Jesus’ trial, shaming, death and resurrection, we need to hold the last lines of last week’s text in our heads—those who give away for Christ’s sake and for the Good News will receive an abundance including fields with persecutions, for many who will be first/great/honored will be last/lowest/dishonored and those who might be last will be first. This subversive language, that is, this language of turning things upside-down, lays the groundwork for Jesus’ prophetic words and his encounter with James and John. Indeed, it sets the stage for Jesus saying, “The Son of Man came not to be served but to serve and to give his life, a ransom for many.”

READING THE BLUEPRINT

They were on the way going up into Jerusalem; and leading them was Jesus; and [disciples] were amazed and those following were afraid. And having taken again the twelve, [Jesus] began to say to them the things being that were about to befall concomitantly to him. Behold, in order that we go up into Jerusalem and the son of man will be given over to the high priests and the scribes, and they will judge against him to die (bring a verdict of death); and they will give him over to the nations; and they will mock him and spit on him and scourge him and kill him and after three days he will rise.

 

And coming before him, James and John, the sons of Zebedee, are saying to [Jesus], “Teacher, we want that what we might ask you would do to us.”

 

[Jesus] said to them, ““What you want me do to you?”

They said to him, “Give us in order that one might sit out of your right (be your right arm) and one out of left (be your left arm) in the glory of you.”

But Jesus says to them, “You know not what you ask. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink or to be baptized with the baptism which I am baptized?”

And they said to him, “We are able.”

But Jesus said to them “The cup which I drink, you will drink, and the baptism which I am baptized, you will be baptized, but to sit out of the right of me or out of the left is not mine to give but to whom it has been prepared. And having heard, the ten began to agonize over James and John.

And having called toward them, Jesus says to them, “You know that the ones, thinking to rule the nations, lord it over them, and the great ones of them exercise authority against them. This is not for you. But who might want to be great in you will be your servant, and who in you might want to be first in you will be slave of all for the son of man came not to be served, but to serve and to give the true life of him as ransom/release/liberated, in place of [the] many.

ROUGHING IN THE HOUSE

Again, as we hear the prophecy of Jesus’ death and resurrection, we have to choose whether we are reading this text on the way to the cross and empty tomb or from the cross and empty tomb. If it is spoken on the way to the cross, then it foretells what is to come, but, if it is from the empty tomb, it speaks of the reality we all know—those fields with suffering and persecution. These words explain the presence of the resurrected Christ active in the world.

In the same way, if the conversation between Jesus and James/John is about going to the cross, then their grab for power and glory looks like the authoritarian world in which they live, and the positions of honor appear to be the bandits on either side of Jesus at the crucifixion. But, if the conversation takes place in the resurrection world, the statements of drinking the cup and baptisms look more like the reality of Mark’s time and the glory looks more like the establishment of the church. As such, maybe Peter and Paul take those places of honor.

It is more likely, however, in a communitarian reading, that those places are held for all who follow Jesus on the way. As such, the hierarchical vision of the church is rejected. Dying to rise leads to Servant Leadership and is lifted up in the subversive message of serving instead of being served, of communal following rather than hierarchical leadership.

This subversive language claims the places of right and left as belonging to those who follow afterwards—us. Our rightful place is as the right and left arms of Christ. The question is, are we

• ·            exercising the authority that has been given to us?
• ·            being the servant-leader followers Jesus models for us?
• ·            bringing wholeness to the world around us or division?
• ·            challenging the oppressive powers of the world or supporting them?

PUTTING UP THE WALLS

The very subversiveness of the Gospel of Mark is the reason to read it as a post-resurrection narrative. If we read this Gospel as a journey to the cross with an empty tomb at the end, resurrection has this promise of some perfected, but uncertain future, ouranic (of the sky) theocracy. As such, world powers are not concerned about the Christian message as Christianity looks like so many other religions.

But, when we read the Gospel of Mark as a post-resurrection narrative, we witness the bodily resurrected Jesus, the Son of God, actively involving himself in the events of our world. We encounter God’s presence poking his nose into the injustices of the world and being indignant with our behavior. We have to acknowledge that resurrection-living is involved and engaged right now, and that following Jesus is not a passive thing. It involves repentance and doing something to change the circumstances of our lives and the lives of our neighbor. This is dangerous stuff because it gives license to question authority and challenges the status quo.

This active image of God’s immanence among us presents God actively bringing wholeness to a broken world. It is engaged in our midst and is less about curing through “sozo” and much more about salvific wholeness experienced through “sozo”. In this context, “sozo” takes on the multivalent qualities of shalom which is both abstractly concerned with societal peace and incarnational in hospitality and relationship.

This is the Jesus we meet in the Galilee of Mark’s Gospel, the one who brings “sozo” wholeness when he declares the leper to be clean, when the man with the withered hand is acceptable in the synagogue, when he, Jesus, confronts the power of Rome while listening to the Gerasene man who lived among the tombs, when he raises Jairus’ daughter from her death bed, when he makes clean the woman with the hemorrhage, when he feeds the five and four thousand, when he makes space for the deaf to hear God in the silence of the world, when the blind man can see the kingdom vision of people like trees walking around.

Each of these events is less about cure than it is about restoring the disenfranchised to the communities they should be part of in the first place. The true healing and salvific wholeness of “sozo” is for society rather than the individual. This is the subversive message of Mark. It shows how the kingdom of God is engaged, now!

And, if James and John cannot be the right and left arms of Jesus when he comes into his glory because it is for those for whom it has been reserved, then we need to look around. We are not to look backward to see the bandits at the cross, but forward to see ourselves and those places of loving care and advocacy that emanate from us.

This place of honor, to be present in Christ as Christ is present in us, speaks of the incarnational, resurrected body of Christ that continues to walk in the Galilees of our lives today. Yes, Jesus the Christ continues to be active in our world. We can witness the presence of Christ wherever there is need, wherever the oppressed are named, wherever abusive governance is seen. Christ is present among those fighting abuse and oppression, alongside the disabled and the chronically ill, at the bedsides of the dying, and in the midst of those who recognize everyone has gifts to bring to the table where we all are fed finding ways to advocate for the inclusion of all people.

These words and deeds of Christ are not done for some future idyllic, elysian utopia. They are done with love for us here today. If we are going to speak of Jesus as being the incarnate Word of God and that the resurrected body of Christ is the incarnational Word for the world, and we do not see ourselves as being part of that body, as being in his right or left side, then neither can we embrace the glory of his coming among us where we follow Jesus on the Way.

HANGING THE TRIM

We continue to come asking Jesus for favors. Many appear to be ridiculous after the fact, but Jesus continues to be patient with us, asking, “What would you have me do to you?” Then when our request is made, he tells us that our deepest wishes will be done to us. Through the cups we drink, the symbol of our covenantal relationship that promises forgiveness of sin, and the baptisms we receive which continue to hold us in that relationship of loving hope forever, we come to understand and value the reality of life.

ROME IMPROVEMENT 10/10/2021

MORE POWER!  MORE GLORY!!  MORE SPIRIT!!!

SURVEYING THE SITE—Mark 10:17-31

Ever since the blind man saw “people, like trees walking around” and “everything from the very far away to the dawn of time” (Mark 8:22-30, see ROME IMPROVEMENT  9/5/2021), we have been presented with images of God’s kingdom community engaged in learning “what this rising from the dead might mean” (Mark 9:2-10, see ROME IMPROVEMENT  2/14/2021). We have been given the comparison between healthy living in the body of Christ and the unhealthy social powers that would destroy that relationship of hope (Mark 9:38-50, see ROME IMPROVEMENT  9/26/2021); we have been shown the kingdom of God in the questioning child (Mark 9:30-37, see ROME IMPROVEMENT  9/19/2021 and Mark 10:1-16, see ROME IMPROVEMENT  10/3/2021), in the “disabled” body of Christ (Mark 9:38-50, see ROME IMPROVEMENT  9/26/2021), the broken relationship of communal turning away from God’s mercy/divorce (Mark 10:1-16, see ROME IMPROVEMENT  10/3/2021); and now this week we see Jesus’ agape/love for the communitarian vision of egalitarian equity.

READING THE BLUEPRINT

And as [Jesus] was going out on the way, one having run toward him and having fallen on knees before him, was interrogating [Jesus]. “Good teacher, what might I do in order that life eternal I might inherit?”

But Jesus said to him, “Why me you speak good? No one is good except one—God. The commands you know: not you might murder, not you might commit adultery, not you might thieve, not you might testify/bear witness falsely, not you might defraud, honor your father and your mother.”

The one but said to [Jesus], “These all I have guarded from my newness.”

But Jesus having seen into him, agapeed/loved him and said to him, “You have one disability. Go! As much as you have, sell and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Come! Follow me!”

Having become gloomy on the word, the one went off grieving for he was having many acquisitions.

And having seen around, Jesus says to his disciples, “How difficult the ones having wealth will have going into the kingdom of God.”

 The disciples were amazed at the words of [Jesus]. Jesus, again answering them says to them, “Children, how difficult it is to go into the kingdom of God. It is easier work for a camel through the needle hole to go than wealthy to go into the kingdom of God.”

And they were totally gobsmacked, saying to themselves, “[Given that], who can be saved/rescued/made whole?”

Having seen into them, Jesus says, “With humankind? [Can’t happen.] Impossible. But not with God. For All power/possibilities are with God.

Then Peter began to speak to [Jesus], “Look here, we have sent off everything and have followed you.”

Jesus was saying, “Truly I say to you, no one there is who sent off house, or brothers, or sisters, or mother, or father, or children, or fields, on account of me and on account of the good news who will not receive 100 times now in the time of God: houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and fields amid persecutions and into the coming ages, the life eternal. But many will be first ones, last ones. And last ones, first ones.

ROUGHING IN THE HOUSE

How wealthy is this man who falls on his knees before Jesus? Is he “Jeff Bezos/Warren Buffet” rich? Or is he “just” a millionaire? Or maybe he is governor-rich, not owning his own riches, but responsible for managing the wealth and health of the people he governs?

As we continue on the Way with Jesus, with the communitarian vision of servant leadership, this story takes on greater meaning when we consider it from the standpoint of living in the “engaged” resurrection world. From the moment when the man calls Jesus “good teacher” to when Jesus states the “first to last and the last to first”, this passage speaks of the aspirational vision the blind man saw back in chapter 8.

Although, in pre-crucifixion thinking, readers/hearers of the story could say, “Of course. Isn’t it ironic that he was so close but didn’t know it?”, the goodness of the teacher, when seen through the lens of the resurrected Christ, is an acknowledgement of Jesus’ true identity. Jesus’ response, “Why do you call me good? No one is good except the One, God,” is less reproof and more a request for clarification. It evokes the unrecorded response, from the man, the onlookers, and us, “Well, yeah, that’s who you are.”

When the rich man asks, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?”, Jesus reviews the commandments, skipping the first three because the man has already acknowledged them in his words and actions. The rich man’s reaction to Jesus’ response indicates his confusion within the catechetical process as he attempts to reconcile what he has long been taught with a post-resurrection understanding.

Jesus places him in the metanoia (repentance) world of rethinking the “how” of living to the “why” of living. It changes what we do from “in order to inherit eternal life” to “because we have already inherited eternal life”.

In this context, we translate the rich man’s guarding of the commandments from his “newness of life” not as from his “youth”, but from his baptism. When baptized in the post-resurrection, we are adopted into the communitarian-resurrection family of God, affirming our justified and egalitarian relationship with God and one another.

The instruction, “as much as you have, sell and give to the poor,” is not necessarily a great liquidation sale leading to impoverishment. In a communitarian post-resurrection reading, this text speaks of surrendering power and status in order for equity to stand as a desired goal. It is the relationship Adam and Eve had with God in the Garden. The proper hierarchy of the world places God at the top, not us.

Some among us are particularly gifted by God to be leaders. Without them, our social structures would crumble, and chaos would ensue. With the acquisition of power, these leaders continue to stumble forward doing the best they can. It is no more possible for humankind to create a fully equitable government than it is for humankind to “do” anything to save themselves. As salvation is “done” for us by God, in the person of Jesus, through the cross and resurrection, so too, a truly equitable society can only be done through Godself.  Only then can the first be last and the last first.

PUTTING UP THE WALLS

The story is told of a Cheyenne chief who, on a buffalo hunt, saw his only son thrown from his horse. When the buffalo had passed and the hunt was over, many buffalo had been killed and the winter food supply was plentiful, but there was no evidence of the chief’s son. The people found some things of the son—a bow, a few broken arrows, his medicine bag, a moccasin, his lance sticking out the side of a cow—but nothing of the son himself. His body had been trampled into the ground leaving nothing to offer up to the God.

As the noise surrounding the butchering ended, as the meat was being taken to the village, each person knew that though the hunt had been successful, the feast to follow would be a somber affair. Because of the tragedy, the people left the one cow alone not knowing what to do while the chief grieved the loss of his son.

Finally, the only people left at the hunting site were the chief and three women waiting to learn the chief’s wishes about the dead cow. While the chief was saying that he thought the last cow should remain as a gift to the wolves because the cow was responsible for the son’s death, they heard a noise from the ground. They were filled with fear and trembling when they heard the voice of the chief’s son crying out to them. The chief moved forward to better hear what his son was saying and then began to laugh. The chief had heard, “Is anybody out there? Can someone pull this buffalo off me?” With shouts of joy and laughter, the chief and the women quickly began butchering the cow. They found the chief’s son relatively undamaged underneath.

That night, after giving the meat from the holy buffalo to the widows and the elderly, as a celebration of his son’s life and the gift that God had given him in preserving his son’s life, the chief began to give away everything he owned. He gave away all his horses, all the meat his wife had prepared for the winter and the pots his wife cooked with, his weapons, the buffalo robes in his teepee, even his teepee. Finally, he gave away the clothes he was wearing. All of his wealth and cherished possessions were gone.

The people said to one another, “Our chief is the wealthiest man in the world. Look at all he has given to us. Look how he sits there by the fire. With his wealth and his generosity, he has made all of us rich too.”

Later, one of the people came to the chief with a gift. “Take this shirt, my chief. It is too big for me, and it will protect you from the cold.” Another came and said, “These leggings are too long for me. Please take them so that your legs can be protected.” Still another came offering a pair of moccasins, “I have more moccasins than I can wear. Please accept these inferior moccasins to wear until you can find better.” A blanket was presented. A back rest appeared to give him ease. And so, the evening went until all that the chief had given away had been restored to him.

And then, the whole village began the celebration. The drummers drummed. There were songs of thanks for the Chief’s son, the abundance of the world, and the protection of the buffalo. There was a new dance that brought delight in the people, a dance that was remembered for many years to come celebrating the day when the chief’s son had died and how the great buffalo returned him to his father when all had lost hope. They ate, sang songs, and danced, celebrating the life given back to them and the abundance of the food they had for that winter. They ate and sang and danced celebrating that they were the wealthiest people in the world. Everyone had enough, and enough to give away.

HANGING THE TRIM

As we, with the rich man, consider the immensity of all we have, let us hold what we have loosely enough that all might share the abundance of our riches.

Happy Indigenous People’s Day this coming week.

ROME IMPROVEMENT 10/03/2021

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SURVEYING THE SITE—Mark 10:1-16

Last week we explored amputation as a means of maintaining the healthy corporate body of Christ and ended with being salty and the admonition to be at peace with one another. After saying this, Jesus and the disciples left there and headed out for Judea beyond the Jordan. Here, people gather, and Jesus begins to teach them.

Into this tranquil place of being at peace with one another, the Pharisees come to test Jesus, not about being at peace but being at odds with one another. It is not a time of building up the body of Christ community but breaking it down.

“Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?” This question cannot, nor should it be, considered without considering the long history of marriage and divorce that precede it. Although marriage and divorce can describe the relationship between two people, they also describe the relationship between God and Israel/Judea. Divorce more often refers to God’s people committing adultery by worshipping other gods than the personal relationship between a husband and a wife.

Nor should this passage be considered without the blessing of the children at the end. The Pharisees’ question, the disciple-teaching in the house, and the women bringing children are all of a piece.

READING THE BLUEPRINT

And from there he got up and went into the territories of Judea beyond the Jordan. And gathered around him again the crowd/multitude and as he had custom, he was teaching them.

And having come, Pharisees, they were asking on him whether it is possible for a man, a woman to loose off? They were trying to discover what good or evil was in him. And [Jesus] answered said to them, “What to you commanded Moses?” But the ones said, “Moses allowed a small book of standoff to write.” But Jesus said to them “For your sclerotic heart he wrote to you this command. But, from the beginning of creation male and female he made them. On account of this, man will leave behind the father and the mother of him, and he will be joined toward the woman of him, and will be the two into the flesh, one. So, no longer they are two but are one flesh. What then God yoked together, let man not separate/sever.

And into the house, again, the disciples about this were asking him. And he says to them “Who might loose off the woman of him and might marry another, he commits adultery on her [his new wife]. And when she, having loosed off the man of her, and might marry another, she commits adultery [against herself and involves the man as well].

And they were bringing to him little children in order that him might touch, but the disciples shamed them. But Jesus, having seen, indignant against what is wrong, said to them, “Allow the little children to come to me. Don’t get up in their faces [now]. For such ones is the kingdom of God. Truly I tell you who might not receive the kingdom of God as a small child NOT will go into it. And having hugged them [to himself] he was blessing them, placing his hands on them.

ROUGHING IN THE HOUSE

The Pharisees’ question is not a “just thought of this to trip you up” type of question. It had long been, and continues to be, debated. The question that Jesus asks in response to the Pharisees, “What did Moses command you?”, introduces us to that discussion and invites us to also consider the issue of divorce in the context of all of Scripture, not just the writings of Moses but also Paul’s writings and the context of Mark’s Gospel.  John the Baptist criticized Herod’s divorce and marriage to Herodias, resulting in his arrest and beheading.

The question also reminds us of God’s chesed—God’s grace, mercy, loving-kindness, especially as demonstrated in God’s steadfastness in relation throughout history with Israel/Judah and the Jewish people, including the liberation story of the Exodus and Jeremiah’s report of God’s words in 31:31-34,

“The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, a covenant that they broke though I was their husband, says the Lord, but this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord, I will put my law within them and I will write it on their hearts and I will be their God and they shall be my people. No longer shall they teach one another or say to each other, ‘Know the Lord.’ For they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity and remember their sin no more.”

As last week’s text of amputation and enucleation is more about the corporate body of Christ, so now, the issue of divorce/putting off is less about the individual marital relationship than the relationship of God/Christ and the worshipping community/following Jesus. In the context of holiness (Romans 11), the root and the tree, the branches that have fallen off, the grafting of wild branches, and the hope of the fallen branches of again being grafted into the tree/cross and the Holy Root of faith—Christ—one comes to see that reconciliation of the lost limbs and relationship continues to be a possibility in the relational body of Christ even when it is not possible in our personal relationships (cf. Deut. 24).

The disciples, suspecting that the conversation about divorce is much more than they are understanding, wait until they get into the house to learn more, but find that they are not able to make the jump from putting off a woman personally to corporate separation from God and the adultery of society.

Into this mix come women carrying the ultimate oneness of two becoming one flesh, little ones. Not understanding the relationship language of Jesus’ teaching, living in a world where women and children are of less value, possibly frustrated by their own obtuseness, the disciples shame the women telling them they have no right to bother Jesus.

Jesus, indignant, having seen the actions of the disciples, reacts to what is wrong. As the Pharisees test/pressure/seek to know “good” from “evil”, so now, Jesus sees the wrong/evil of the disciples and reaches out to bless and touch the little ones/children in order to affirm the oneness of God’s making.

PUTTING UP THE WALLS

As I translated the passage this week, I was taken by the action of the disciples as they run into the house. How many times have we seen the disciples wait until they were in the house before they ask Jesus, “Just what the heck were you talking about out there?” Running into the house for explanation goes all the way back to the Parable of the Sower in chapter 4.

While I laughed at the almost cartoonish movement of the disciples, I realized we do just that today. We live in a world we do not always understand. We believe, but do not always understand, God’s presence and activity in history. Thus, we run into our worship houses for affirmation and understanding.

Like the first disciples of Jesus, we find that sometimes we do not understand God’s activity in our lives any better at the end of worship than we did before we came. We leave our worship spaces thinking that we have some authority over God’s capacity and willingness to welcome others. We find many ways to put things in the way of others to come to Jesus.

•           You have to be baptized in order to come the Lord’s table.
•             You must be confirmed to be a real member.
•             If you aren’t [denomination], you really don’t understand what God is all about.

We get so involved in building up our fortress defenses that we cannot anticipate God’s delight in claiming the goodness of oneness.

As I had the image of the disciples running into the house near the beginning of this text, at the end, I had this image of Jesus stooping down and rolling on the ground with the children piling in on top of him. As they rolled on the ground, I could hear Jesus laughing and welcoming the children. I felt him tousling their hair. I heard him thanking them for lightening up his day.

Then I wondered, “What does it mean to become one in the body of Christ? What does the oneness of that union look like in the world? What is the peace we can speak of in this divorced, broken family world we live in? What does blessing feel like today? Do we need to run back into the house to learn more?”

HANGING THE TRIM

We run to rooms to understand

And work each day by Your command

Then spread those rules throughout the land

To find our house on sinking sand.

Instead of peace, we rancor build

With worldly thoughts and dreams self-willed.

We plant our seeds in soil we’ve tilled,

Forgetting that by You we’re filled

To spread your hope throughout the land,

Restored and blessed by Your own hand.

ROME IMPROVEMENT 09/26/2021

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SURVEYING THE SITE—Mark 9:38-50

We are now deep into considering what this “rising from the dead might mean.” We have witnessed the disciples avoiding the issue by determining which of them was the greater. We have seen Jesus set the little girl in their midst in order to discuss the importance, or lack of importance, of status and the importance of being bold enough to ask questions when they do not understand. Apparently, the disciples are slow learners and wish to preserve their status because this week the story continues with a confrontation between John, and the guys, and someone else who understands the egalitarian quality of the resurrected reign of Christ.

READING THE BLUEPRINT

John said to [Jesus], “Teacher, we saw someone, in the name of you, casting out demons and we [got up in his face] because he was not following us.  But Jesus said, “Do not [get in his face]. For no one who [makes] power in my name will be able soon to speak dishonorably [about] me.”

For who is not against us is on behalf of us. For whoever might give to you a cup of water to drink because you are in the name of Christ, truly I say to you, that he might not destroy the benefit of him.

And whoever might lead into sin one of these little ones who trust in me, it is more good for him if he set around the neck of him a donkey’s millstone and he has been thrown into the sea.

And when your hand might lead you into sin, cut it off; it is honorable for you crippled to go into life rather than the two handed having to be cast into Gehenna, into the unextinguishable fire. And when your foot might cause you to stumble, [i.e.] sin against itself, cut it off; it is honorable for you to enter into life lame rather than the two footed having to be cast into Gehenna. And when your eye might cause you to stumble, throw it out; for it is honorable for you one-eyed to enter into the reign of God rather than the two eyed having to be thrown into Gehenna where the worm of them not dies and the fire not is extinguished. For all in fire will be salted. Honorable the salt, but when the salt might become saltless, how will you make it proper? Have in yourselves salt, and be at peace with one another.

ROUGHING IN THE HOUSE

One would think that the disciples would have been listening to everything that Jesus told them, wouldn’t one? I mean, If I were there, I’d be hanging on every word. Wouldn’t I? I’d have the record app on my phone working all of the time. After all, what the resurrected Christ said might be important for the future, don’t you think? Not to mention the selfies with Jesus just to prove that I was there, no photoshopping necessary.

Well, either the batteries were dead, or the disciples didn’t have the time to listen to those things Jesus said that they forgot, or maybe the demonstration of putting the little girl in their midst was not the best visual aid. At any rate, John reports that the disciples are still concerned about who is deemed most appropriate for making the “engaged kingdom of God” known.

Clearly, they have not gotten the concept of evangelism down. “We ‘got up in the face’ of someone who thought that they could be your disciple.”

Jesus tells John and the boys, “Stop that! If this guy continues to practice faith, he will learn what it is to live a faithful life. If you give a person a glass of water and they drink it, can you take the benefit of the water away from the person?”

John may be the person that is highlighted today, but it is not much of a jump to see the world of denominationalism in his words. “We tried to stop them because they weren’t following us. Because they don’t see the wonder of God and God’s amazing capacity of salvation mercy the way that we see it, we had to tell them they are wrong and have to stop.”

I have refrained from using “hell” in this reading in favor of the Greek word, “Gehenna”. The site Jesus refers to is not hell, neither the place of dishonor where your name was forgotten forever as Teutonic peoples envisioned nor the locale imagined by Dante in the 14^th century. It is much more likely to be the place of refuse that needs purification.

Gehenna is a valley outside Jerusalem that was once the site of idol worship. It was later used as a garbage repository perhaps because of the Temple’s disdain of the idolatrous place. The garbage was burned both to control the volume of garbage and to remove the source of pestilence--rats, maggots, and flies. Eventually, the fires of Gehenna burned twenty-four-seven and, when the wind was from the right direction, Jerusalem experienced 1^st century air pollution.

PUTTING UP THE WALLS

Recently, I heard an interview where the person was talking about Christian Exceptionalism and how Christian missionary practices have created an international climate that presumes a favored—exceptional—place in the world for us because we’re Christian. Somehow, just being Christian means that the people we are trying to serve must not only embrace the Good News of Jesus Christ, but that they should do so the way we do, embracing our culture as well. They must dress like us, think like us, govern themselves like us, and want all of the same things we want in the world—consume like us. Dr. Winston Persaud addressed this same concern twenty-eight years ago when he asked my seminary class, “Can we bring the Gospel to others without bringing McDonald’s as well?”

It continues to be important to recognize Jesus’ words for us this week as post-resurrection. In addition, it is important to hear them through Paul’s vision of being in the body of Christ. In Romans 12 and 1 Corinthians 12, Paul limns, portrays, us, with the many spiritual gifts we have been given in community, to be the body of Christ. This corporate understanding is the body Mark reports when he recounts Jesus’ teachings concerning the hand, the foot and the eye.

If the work the communal hands are doing is not the work of the kingdom or if the hand of guidance does not lead to kingdom living, then sever relations with those people. The body of Christ remains honorable with one hand only.

If the journey of the body of Christ does not lead to the cross and resurrection, if the journey does not lead into the world of need, recognizing the suffering of the world and the healing work of raising people up into justified living in Christ, then amputate the foot. If the vision of Christ’s body does not see people like trees walking or if the vision does not include hope-filled service in the future life of Christ, then enucleate, throw it away, get glasses.

The body of Christ remains honorable one-handed, one-legged, one eyed. And if you cannot lead people into that relationship with the risen Christ, the one who suffers disability and gives it honorability, then it might be better to have, not just any millstone hung around your neck, but a millstone that is so big that it takes a donkey on a windless to turn it, and then be cast into the sea.

HANGING THE TRIM

In a post-resurrection reading, we have already seen the resurrected body of Christ with lacerations of flogging, with nail holes in his hands and feet, with marks from the crown of thorns, and a hole in his side from the soldier’s spear. Now this week, we bear witness to the honorability of disability. Life, even eternal life, gives honor to all who dwell in the body of Christ. In the very truth of Jesus’ disabilities, we find ability and empowerment to proclaim Christ’s justifying words and work for the sake of the world.

ROME IMPROVEMENT 09/19/2021

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SURVEYING THE SITE—Mark 9:30-37

As we continue in the Gospel of Mark, we skip over the Mount of Transfiguration which we read at the end of Epiphany. (See Rome Improvement 02/14/2021.) We also skip over two other events. One is the debate between the disciples and the scribes.

In the other, a man brings his son with epilepsy to Jesus for restoration wholeness. This father entreats Jesus, “If you are able to do anything, have pity on us and help us.” Jesus says to him, “If you are able! All things can be done for the one who believes.” To which, the father immediately cries out, “I believe! Help my unbelief.”

Following this statement of faith, Jesus commands the unclean spirit to come out. The child, after convulsing terribly, is still, like a corpse, but Jesus takes the boy by the hand and lifts him up, and the boy rises.

When the disciples are apart from the crowd, they, who previously have questioned what this rising from the dead might mean, do not ask about resurrection although they have just witnessed this boy rising, restored. Instead, they query, “Why couldn’t WE cast [the unclean spirit] out?” This sets the scene for this week, as Jesus and the disciples are again on the road reflecting on what has happened.

READING THE BLUEPRINT

And from there, having gone forth they were traveling along through the Galilee. And not [Jesus] desired that anyone might know. For he was teaching the disciples of him. And he was saying to them, that the son of man is delivered into hands of men, and they will kill him and having been killed after three days he will stand up (arise). But they were unknowing the word and they were afeared to ask him.

And they went into Capernaum and having come in the house he asked on them, “What in the way were you reasoning out?” But they were silent for they were debating in the way which one [was] greater.

And having sat, [Jesus] called the twelve and he says to them, “If anyone wants to be first, he will be of all last and of all, servant.  And having taken a little girl, he stood her up in the midst of them. And having embraced her he said to them, “Whoever might a little girl welcome on the name of me [that one] welcomes me; And whoever may welcome me, not me welcomes but the one who sent me as ambassador (in his stead).

ROUGHING IN THE HOUSE

If this passage is a pre-crucifixion narrative, it begins to look like a rather ghoulish account of who will be top dog after Jesus is dead. As a post-resurrection account, this passage continues to be an uncertain wondering of bodily resurrection and the continuing engagement of the reign of God. It is another account of the disciples caught thinking they have power of their own only to discover that any power they have is derived through the bodily risen Jesus.

Rather than trying to understand and enter the engaged reign of God, they succumb to putting their minds on human things, not on divine things (8:38-9:1). The disciples are more concerned about their own power than focusing on what Jesus is doing in this “engaged resurrection reign of God world”. Rather than discussing “what this rising from the dead might mean”, they choose a discussion about power, “Which one is greater?

In a world of “honor and shame” each disciple wishes to seize the most amount of honor he can. (See Rome Improvement 09/12/2021.) “I must be better, more skilled, more literate, better looking, be a better friend, more favored, than the others. Well then, I feel that I should demonstrate that to the others, and they should know their place. After all, I was invited up the mountain; I offered to memorialize the place with booths.”

Hearing the teaching about the “son of man” again, “The son of man is delivered into hands of men, and they will kill him, and having been killed after three days he will stand up.”, the disciples still do not understand resurrection and are afraid to ask Jesus what it means. They might have been asking themselves, “When he says “son of man” is he talking about himself or us? This rising from the dead stuff sounds good, but the dying? Not so much.  Can’t we just lean into ‘There are some standing here who will not taste death.’ Maybe the best of us will be the ones or one. Yeah, let’s go there.”

It is this fear-filled, uncertain, and confidence-lacking group that Jesus addresses. “What were you reasoning out on the way?” It is to this group that Jesus shows the kingdom of God when he reaches out and takes a little girl who is running through the house, hugs her (letting her know that she is safe), and stands her in their midst.

Jesus says, “Being most important is not important. Being least important in the eyes of the world AND willing to serve all of the people God sends to you is important. Looking good and always having the answers is not important. Being willing to ask the hard questions is important. This little girl, by her place in the world without status and willing to ask questions when she doesn’t know, that’s where the reign of God is engaged. You can’t serve if you do not know that there is a need. Look around. Ask questions. Learn that it is not about you alone, but the whole of God’s creation.”

PUTTING UP THE WALLS

And on-and-on the reasoning goes down through time to today. Is it better to be Lutheran, Roman Catholic, Presbyterian, Methodist, United Church of Christ, Assembly of God, Baptist, or pick your own flavor of Christianity?

It is so much easier to find solace in the theological teachings, the liturgical practices, the social homogeneity/ethnic cohesion than it is to ask the question, “What does this rising from the dead mean for us today?” It is easier to see our worshipping community as a safe place for us, meeting the spiritual needs of us, of caring for our circle of friends and those who are satellite friends of us, than it is to ask about what we don’t know.

Before the people who followed Jesus were known as Christian, they were known as the people of “The Way”. So, when Jesus asks his question about what they were reasoning out on the way, he is asking not just the twelve but all who are with him on the way.

What are we reasoning out among US today?

How can we make our space a safe space for those who aren’t here?

How can we lift up the people who are thought to be beyond consideration, outside the community of us?

What question/s do we need to ask in order to understand what this rising from the dead means in the marginalized communities around us?

How can we be Jesus’ disciples if we are not willing to ask about what we don’t know?

Or worse, how can we be Jesus’ disciples when we choose to ignore the questions of the day because we don’t want to know the answers.

It is so much safer, even while recognizing each other’s value, to continue to argue, reasoning which of us is greater?

HANGING THE TRIM

Aimee Laramore, Philanthropic Strategist at Christian Theological Seminary, speaking on the connection between faith and giving, says, “To be an ally is safe. Allies are able to give their approval without getting involved. But to be a co-conspirator, that has consequences that may cause you to lose your life.”

When we are willing to ask the questions that give us understanding, we surrender our allyship and become co-conspirators. This is what Jesus is challenging us to become, co-conspirators in the engaged resurrection reign of God, to reason out what this rising from the dead might mean, understanding that we cannot, by our own reason or understanding, save ourselves. (Martin Luther, Explanation of the Third Article of the Apostles’ Creed)

ROME IMPROVEMENT 09/12/2021

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SURVEYING THE SITE—Mark 8:31-9:1

Following the vision of the blind seer where the fullness of God’s reign is seen as people, living crosses, walking around, and following Peter speaking Jesus to be the Christ, the title given to Jesus in Mark 1:1 (“In the beginning of the Good News of Jesus Christ, the Son of God”), this week, Jesus gives instruction on what discipleship looks like. And it looks a lot like the vision of the blind seer with the sufferings that might accompany radical self-giving living.

READING THE BLUEPRINT

And [Jesus] began to teach [the disciples] that it is necessary that the Son of Man to suffer many [things], and to be rejected by the elders and the high priests and the scribes and to be killed and after three days to rise/stand up and in boldness the word he was speaking.

And having taken [Jesus] to him [Peter], Peter began to denounce him. But having turned and having seen his disciples, [Jesus] denounced Peter, and he says, “Go away [to the back of the class], Satan, because you are not devoted to the things of God but the things of men.”

And having called before [him] the crowd with his disciples, he said to them, “If some want to follow after me, let [them] deny themselves thoroughly and let [them] lift up the cross of him and let [them] follow after me.

For…

Whoever would wish/desire to save [their] true life, [they] will lose it. But [those] who wish/desire to lose [their own] true life [or die] on account of me and the Good News, [they] will save it.

What benefits the [one] to gain the whole world and to lose [one’s] true life?

What might anyone exchange for their true life? 

Whoever might be ashamed of me and my words, in this adulterous and sinning generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of [that one] whenever he comes in the splendor of his father and with the holy messengers.

And [Jesus] was saying to them, “Truly I say to you that there are some here of the ones having stood who would not taste death until they would see the reign of God having come with power (“fully engaged”).

ROUGHING IN THE HOUSE

Again, how you read a passage determines the outcome. If this is a pre-crucifixion narrative, then the necessity of suffering “many things” falls solely on Jesus. As such, it is the first of three prophetic statements of the crucifixion cross to come in the gospel of Mark.

Like history, most prophetic writing is completed after the event has taken place. It’s similar to setting the calendar back in your computer in order to recover a setting or document that inadvertently was deleted or like digging through the files of the Wayback Machine to hold politicians accountable for what they believe has been erased. By doing this, it is possible to accurately report the past with certain understanding of the future. It is always possible to have predicted with accuracy the events of the future of today when you actually write about them in the present.

Jesus begins to teach his disciples that it is necessary for the Son of Man suffer many things. We know this is true because, since we are with the disciples in Galilee where we have been promised that Jesus would meet us, we already know that the crucifixion has occurred and that the tomb is empty.

Thus, as a post-resurrection account, these words take on new meaning for us. We know that Jesus has just been named by Peter as the Christ/Messiah and that Jesus has shifted the title from Christ (anointed one) to Son of Man. This descriptor is understood from the Old Testament (cf. Daniel) and leads to the title of Messiah.

In addition, Mark has another reason for using “Son of Man” at this point. Although it claims Jesus’ true humanity and points to the Messianic promise, “Son of Man” also claims all of humanity. We might translate this passage as, “[Jesus] began to teach [his disciples] that it is necessary that the Children of Humanity [must] suffer many things.”

From the perspective of Mark, the suffering of Jesus has become the reality of the persecuted church of his time. It is a reality they endure because of their confidence in the empty tomb. It is possible to speak of the rejection of the elders, the chief priest, and the scribes, because the temple is destroyed. As such, the elders, etc. are not so much those notable for crucifying Jesus as they are the Roman authorities persecuting the early church.

Consider the times. Claudius evicted the Christians from Rome in 49; Paul writes his letter to the underground Christian community sometime in the 50’s; the Christians are blamed for the burning of Rome in 64; and the war with Rome has resulted in the temple being destroyed. The Christian community is right in the middle of much of the conflict going on in the world. All before the gospel of Mark is written.

As a result of the siege of Jerusalem, the early church was impoverished and starving. By some accounts, only Paul’s Macedonian collection and other relief efforts made it possible for the Church in Jerusalem to survive at all (Romans 15:26 and 2 Corinthians 8). These people knew suffering was necessary; cross-lifting was part of discipleship as they continued to bear witness to the resurrection-offered hope amid intolerable life conditions.

This post-resurrection image of the cross is not the defeated crucifixion cross of death. This is the life-giving, “like trees walking around”, resurrection cross. The Christian mindset by the time Mark writes his Gospel, although it includes suffering, self-denial, and cross-lifting as part of following Jesus, already recognizes “for the death [Christ] died, he died to sin once for all” (Romans 6). Therefore, for the disciples and us to die in persecution does not save, but the discipleship witness in death testifies to confidence in the power of the risen one—the one who has already suffered many things, died, and is risen from the tomb.

PUTTING UP THE WALLS

In the first century worldview, honor and shame balanced one another. There was a finite amount of honor. If one were to gain honor, then someone else had to suffer shame. Therefore, the words, “deny oneself, take up your cross, and follow”, was a radical concept. The idea that those with honor would intentionally give that honor away was beyond thinking unless one could realistically expect future benefit, like favors owed.

Although this worldview is not as common in our culture, we still see political favors given with the expectation that future favors will be returned. Therefore, Jesus’ words of self-denial and a cross-lifting way of living continue to challenge us. Indeed, the Children of Humanity must continue to suffer as long as we put our own needs first.

Self-denial is not for the sake of self-improvement, pious status, or self-righteousness. Self-denial is for the sake or welfare of the neighbor. It is a way of living that lifts the needs of those around us to being as, or more, important than our own.

For example, I hate wearing masks. I am vaccinated and therefore have a high degree of resistance to the Delta COVID virus. Yet, knowing I am relatively safe, I continue to wear masks because I can potentially transmit the virus to others who are unvaccinated and remain more vulnerable. In this simple way, we deny ourselves for the benefit of those around us.

But self-denial is not enough to follow Jesus. An article on ψυχή, psuche, (true life) in the Theological Dictionary of the New Testament (vol. 9, p. 643) considers Mark’s addition of the words “on account of me and the good news” to earlier known sayings. Doing so indicates “only orientation to Jesus and not to the [self] can lead to this [true life]”.

Consider the act of fasting. For many, fasting is, in fact, persistent hunger. It is not voluntary or spiritual. It is a way of life. For these people, they simply don’t have enough food. When fasting is chosen, it may be a beneficial practice for health, or it may be part of spiritual discipline which is undertaken to make food available to those who did not have food. If the food we do not consume does not benefit those who need food, then the fasting we do is self-serving and not an act of denying oneself “on account of me and the good news”.

I once asked a friend who was giving up chocolate for Lent, “For the benefit of whom?”

She looked at me quizzically and finally answered, “I guess for the benefit of my wallet and the ten pounds I want to lose.”

I suggested she give the money she saved from not buying chocolate to something like the Heifer Project or ELCA Good Gifts. She said, “But then I wouldn’t be saving anything.”

Giving up chocolate for her, even during Lent, was not a true spiritual practice because such practices need direction, and the direction is always out into the world. If our spiritual practices don’t benefit others, they are simply self-improvement. Self-improvement has its place, but it is not the cross-lifting, tree-walking-around discipleship that Jesus speaks of or that the blind man saw.

Many people do model this self-denying, cross-lifting discipleship. We recognize them and even reward their behavior with medals and honors—Gandhi, Martin Luther King jr., Mother Teresa, William Barber, and others. Although we admire them, we rarely let their examples change our lives. In part, this is because we live in a “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” world. We are focused on self-improvement, self-advancement, and self-satisfaction.

But when we are able to deny ourselves for the sake of Christ and for the Good News, we recognize the importance of denying self and cross-lifting. Seeing the possibility of what the world might be, we stand on the threshold of the kingdom of God coming in power. We have a moment when we stand with Christ and those who exemplify self-denial in order to bring good news to the oppressed, the poor, and others who are marginalized and, in that moment, we can believe that the reign of God is “engaged”. This indeed is not a distant, someday vision. It is present to us today.

HANGING THE TRIM

The hope and the promise of the resurrection cross, walking-around-tree living, is found in denying oneself for Christ and the Good News brought to others. Martin Luther King, Jr. said, “I have a dream …”. John Lewis encourages us all to, “Get into good trouble.” How will we speak that Good News into being today?

ROME IMPROVEMENT 9/5/2021

MORE POWER!  MORE GLORY!!  MORE SPIRIT!!!

SURVEYING THE SITE—Mark 8:22-30

This week’s Gospel reading addresses:

§              What does life in the newly “engaged” reign of God look like?

§              Who does the world believe Jesus to be?

§              Who do the disciples claim Jesus to be?

§              Who do we say Jesus is?

 Mark describes how the disciples and Jesus, after taking the detoured-, side-trip-, or maybe, in my family’s vernacular, “the scenic route”-cruise begun in chapter six, finally arrive in Bethsaida which means the house of fish, maybe even the house of The Fish (IXTHUS). Here the disciples are challenged to claim Jesus as more than a leader of old after a vision of the reign of God is revealed.

 

READING THE BLUEPRINT

And they come to Bethsaida, and they carry/bring to [Jesus] a blind [person] and call upon [Jesus] in order that him [Jesus] might touch. And having taken on the hand of the blind [person] [Jesus] brought/led him out, out of the village, and having spit into the eyes of him, having set on the hands to him, [Jesus] was asking on him, “Whether anything you see?”

And having looked up, he was saying, “I see the [people]e, but I see them as trees walking around.” And again, [Jesus] set upon the hands upon the eyes of him and looked into them, and he was returned to wholeness, and he discerned from the far away to the dawn of everything.

And [Jesus] delegated/sent him into the house of him saying, “Not into the village you might go in.”

And Jesus and his disciples went on into the villages of Caesarea Philippi, and on the way, he was asking on his disciples, saying “[Who] do the people me speak to be?”

The ones but said to him saying, “John the Baptizer, and others Elijah, others one of the prophets.”

And [Jesus] was asking on them, “But you, who do you speak me to be?”

Answering, Peter says to him, “You are the Christ!”

And he scolded them [so] that to no one they might say about him.

ROUGHING IN THE HOUSE

This is the fourth time that we have seen people carry/bear/bring people to Jesus. Earlier, some carry the paralytic; in Gennesaret, the diseased and the broken; in Sidon, the deaf man; and now they carry a blind man. I have heard sermons which claimed that someone carries, bears, or brings the lame, the diseased, the deaf, and the blind to Jesus because they are unable to come on their own accord.

Someone, we, the able-bodied, are burdened with caring for the unclean of the world. It is “our Christian responsibility” to bring “them” to Jesus. Within the “disabled” communities, this attitude continues to rankle. It is not simply pejorative; it is incorrect.

In these accounts, Mark demonstrates how the disabled reveal God’s activity in all lives and how their inclusion can repair and bring wholeness to the world. Instead of needing to bring the lame, the diseased, the deaf, and the blind to Jesus for them to know wholeness, Mark has them brought to Jesus to indicate that these people may have already known wholeness in their lives and that the wholeness that Jesus gives is beyond the simple benefit of the “disabled”. It is for the wholeness of the world.

More radically, in carrying/bearing/bringing the disabled, the crowds put Jesus to the test or on trial. He continually fails this worldly test as he takes their uncleanness unto himself when he touches the unclean and is touched by them and when he eats with tax collectors and feeds the crowds without discrimination.

The crowd also carried/took Jesus from the Garden of Gethsemane to be tried, where they carried/brought charges against him, and carrying the cross to him, they crucified him (Mark 14-15). As a pre-crucifixion narrative, the trial is yet to come, but, as a post-resurrection narrative, we are cautioned against the yeast of the Pharisees and Herod. (See Rome Improvement, 8/22/2021.) Every success of the risen Christ is a source of condemning conflict for the pre-crucified Jesus.

Wholeness and healing/salvation as described here goes far beyond the healings that many commentaries and preachers dwell on. Instead of Jesus’ gift of salvation wholeness being for the “defective” “dis-eased”, his gift of salvation wholeness comes to all. Jesus’ healing/salvation needs the “disabled” to fully know and proclaim the “engaged” reign of God, then and now, and who Jesus is.

In today’s lesson, the vision of the blind challenges those who would be disciples of Jesus to claim him in new ways—to see people as living crosses walking around, little Christs to one another. Jesus lays his hands on the blind man who then sees into the “telaugos of everything.” Often translated “as seeing all things clearly”, there is more to it.

“Telaugos” is a compound word that comes from “tel” which means “far off, afar, at or to a distance” (cf. telephone, telegraph, television) and “augos” which means “dawn - break of day, brightness, radiance”. After seeing people who look like trees walking around, the blind man sees everything from the very far away to the dawn of everything, the time of creation.

Three weeks ago, when we met the deaf man with a speech impediment, I talked about the amount of water needed for a baptism and noted that when water is not available, spit is sufficient. This week, we again witness Jesus using spit (baptism) to give new vision for the world. The vision of the blind man and the journey into the center of Roman power challenge the disciples and us to proclaim whom we speak Jesus to be and what the “engaged” reign of God looks like.

PUTTING UP THE WALLS

If this text is a pre-crucifixion narrative, this image of the people walking around like crosses leads to the crucifixion itself and death. But if this is a post-resurrection account of Jesus, then those walking around crosses become the sign of not only life, but eternal life.

Further, if this is a post-resurrection account, then the activity of the living crosses leads to the vision of God’s eternal plan. “And he saw into the far away to the dawn of everything.” In a dream vision at the end of Milton’s “Paradise Lost”, Adam sees the salvation of the world despite his sin and punishment. Similarly, this blind man sees, not just clearly, but the entire scope of God’s merciful salvation.

This vision is not physical seeing. It is the gift of the blind seer, a well-established trope (character) in classical literature. Some scholars describe this as “the miracle that didn’t work”. In fact, not only did it work, but the miracle worked better than any could have imagined.

This vision of the “fully ‘engaged’ reign of God” precipitates Jesus’ questioning of the disciples, “Who do people speak me to be?” Embedded in this question is the very essence of creation itself. In the beginning, God speaks creation and us into existence. So, “who do the people speak Jesus into being?” Is he a reincarnate leader of the past? Or is he being spoken into a new reality?

Peter’s response is both precious and prescient. “You are the Christ,” the promised one, the risen one whom we have come to see in Galilee. Still, as Peter has answered for himself, the question of “Who do you speak me to be?”, continues on because the “you” is plural. This question hangs in the ethereal realm for all of Jesus’ disciples to answer.

Do we speak Jesus into being as the risen Christ who leads us into the future? Or is Jesus one of those of the past, reincarnated in order to lead us into some glorified “dead” garden time?

Do we see people walking around like crosses of death and persecution? Or are these, resurrection crosses of new life?

When we look into the far away places to the dawn of everything, do we see apocalyptic death and destruction? Or do we see hope, promise, and life?

HANGING THE TRIM

“If you are going to follow Jesus, you better look good on wood.” So said Daniel Berrigan, SJ, Christian pacifist.  Raised up in the body of the risen Christ, marked by the cross, and sealed by the Holy Spirit forever, let us go out looking good on wood.