Sermon: Signs of the Times

First Presbyterian Church

November 17, 2024, Pentecost 26B

Mark 13:1-8

 

Signs of the Times

 

 

Every lectionary cycle ends basically the same way. The final Sunday of any lectionary cycle is celebrated as Christ the King or Reign of Christ Sunday. What happens the Sunday before that, however, can be a bit wild. 

Year A, on the gospel of Matthew, culminates with the barrage of parables Jesus lets loose in Matthew 25, just before all Hell breaks loose, in about as literal a sense as that phrase can be used, in chapter 26. Mark and Luke, on the other hand, choose to put forth a bit of apocalyptic teaching from Jesus. (Matthew also includes such an apocalyptic discourse from Jesus, but the lectionary framers chose not to include it; apparently two years out of three is enough.) Curiously, the start of the next lectionary cycle will also touch on an apocalyptic theme; we will be on to the gospel of Luke at that point, but the text will address Christ’s return, “the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory.” Don’t worry, after this you won’t have to hear about apocalypse for the rest of the lectionary year. 

But for this Sunday we come to this seemingly out-of-nowhere discourse from Jesus on What to Expect When the End Is Coming. As unfamiliar and different as it may seem, though, it is prompted by something very familiar in Mark’s gospel; a disciple vocally and obviously Not Getting It.

Hot on the heels of Jesus’s denunciation of the power structure of the Temple and its exploitation of those who partake in its worship (at the end of chapter 12), one of the disciples (mercifully unnamed) goes off in a tizzy over the Temple building itself: “what massivee stones! What magnificent buildings!” Jesus ends all discussion with the blunt assessment “Not one stone here will be left upon another; every one will be thrown down.” Only when the group has reached the Mount of Olives do Peter, James, John, and Andrew (something of an executive committee of the disciples) dare to ask Jesus for an explanation.

There is a bit of history, though, that can keep us on track here and keep us from going off on apocalyptic tangents too soon. While you can get a good argument among biblical scholars on the exact date, those scholars agree that Mark’s gospel was written some uncertain time around the year 70 – maybe a little before, maybe a little after. That date is very significant, as it was the year that, after extended conflict between Judean rebels and the imperial Roman occupiers of Judea, the Romans destroyed the Temple and much of Jerusalem. Jesus’s words here as recorded by Mark are describing an event that either is imminent or has just happened. There’s no forth-telling here; Mark’s readers will know exactly what this is about.

The aforementioned four disciples seek an explanation from Jesus on the Mount of Olives, but instead Jesus presses on with more detail and warning. Emilie Townes, biblical scholar and dean of Vanderbilt University’s theology school, summarizes the horrors described like so: 

The ebb and flow of creation as we know it, the relationships we have established, the cultural markers that help define us – these and more are now obliterated. This is total destruction at its sharpest. It is unrelenting and unforgiving, and no one – not even the faithful – can escape its devastating blows as the old age is swept away for the new one.

And that’s just these first eight verses, which Jesus, clearly pushing beyond that initial shock, describes as just “the beginning of the birth pangs.” The rest of Mark 13 gets even worse, at least until that appearance of the Son of Man with great power and glory (v. 26). That’s the thing about these apocalypses in the gospels; they end with the very thing we’re looking forward to, right? We long for Jesus to be present among us again, right? 

In the meantime, though, things aren’t easy. And here’s the kicker; no one gets off scott-free, not even the faithful. No one gets raptured away to be “kept safe” in the dark and dangerous times. And yet notice also that there is no “call to arms” here, no summons to battle. There’s nothing here about fighting to save … well, anything. 

What are we called to do, then? Keep watch. Beware. Keep bearing witness to the gospel. Endure to the end. Don’t be led astray by false witnesses or would-be messiahs. Pay attention to the signs of the times. Don’t be stupid enough to think you know when this is all going to happen. And one more time, in verse 37, “Watch!”

There are two things about this passage we’d do well to remember, lest we get too distressed or hopeless over it all. One: this is not new talk. Frankly, what Jesus is saying here is, more or less, boilerplate apocalyptic with a long, deep history in Jewish tradition. And at least in these first eight verses, the events described are, well, not all that uncommon. Would-be messiahs? Check. Wars and rumors of wars? Check. Nations rising against nations, kingdoms against kingdoms? Earthquakes? Famines? Check, check, check. We can certainly claim these things, but so can frankly almost any age.

Point two to remember is found in verse 8: all of this that Jesus describes is but “the beginnings of the birth pangs.” As one who has never experienced nor will experience that particular sensation, I would not dare to comment upon it. However, we have to note that the birth pangs are not the end-all and be-all of pregnancy; birth pangs give way to birth, new life, new love.

So it is with these times. The birth pangs of conflict and trouble give way to the new birth of life in the unending presence of Jesus, the Son of Man coming with great power and glory.

The times of trouble can be stressful indeed. Even the poet William Butler Yeats was struck by the sense of turmoil and discord and the loss of innocence that comes with these, in his poem “The Second Coming”; 

 

Turning and turning in the widening gyre

The falcon cannot hear the falconer; 

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; 

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere

The ceremony of innocence is drowned; 

The best lack all conviction, while the worst

Are full of passionate intensity.

 

 

If that doesn’t sound familiar just from a glance at daily headlines, I don’t know what to tell you. And yet…and yet…and yet, here we are promised that for all the birth pangs, for all the trials and conflict and violence, our end is promised in the returning of our Lord among us. 

In the meantime, we endure. We keep listening to the Spirit, we keep studying what we have been given in scripture – not hunting and cherry-picking for stuff that gives us an excuse to do what we want, but taking what Jesus says and learning how to live it, taking what the early church experienced and learned and figuring out what that teaches us, paying attention to those signs of the times without obsessing on them or using them as an excuse to launch a holy war. We endure, we wait, we keep awake, we keep faithful. And we await, even await with joy, what comes after the “birth pangs.”

 Thanks be to God. Amen.

 

Hymns (from Glory to God: The Presbyterian Hymnal): #352, My Lord! What a Morning; #361, O Christ, the Great Foundation; #629, Jesus, the Very Thought of Thee

 

 

Sermon: Finally, Someone Gets It!

First Presbyterian Church

November 3, 2024, Pentecost 22B

Revelation 21:1-6; Mark 10:46-52

 

Finally, Someone Gets It!

 

 

What makes a saint? 

This isn't about the technical qualifications for sainthood in the Roman Catholic church, nor even those qualities that we attribute to "saints" in a more informal sense, the types who would be first in line to get into that Holy City depicted in our verses from Revelation. Maybe you've seen the paintings, utterly pure-looking with eyes cast longingly upward, as if in constant seeking prayer. Even when the painting is depicting the martyrdom of such a saint, you can count on those eyes being directed piously upward.

This is, of course, not a tradition in which all corners of the church participate. Presbyterians, for example, don't "do" saints; if they did, however, you could probably find a large swell of support for one Rev. Fred McFeely Rogers, once ordained by a presbytery in the Pittsburgh area with a charge to minister to children and their families through the media. You might have heard of that show, ultimately titled Mister Rogers' Neighborhood.

So what is it about Mister Rogers, for example, or about anyone who comes to have so touched so many with good, to the point of being so highly regarded by so many? 

Perhaps in its simplest form, these "saints" get it, in ways that so many of us do not.

The gospel of Mark gives us a lot of examples of Jesus’s disciples demonstrating that they just don’t get it. Chapters 8-10 in particular bring this point about the disciples home with extra force, as they falter again and again in the face of Jesus’s repeated insistence on his coming suffering and death. Even the rare occasion of one of them seeming to “get it,” Peter’s proclamation of Jesus as the Messiah back in chapter 8, is immediately followed by Peter’s demonstration that he really doesn’t get it. As we noted two weeks ago, Jesus isn’t going to give up on them, since at that point he is literally in the process of giving his whole life, his very being, his soul for them. Still, you have to figure that it got frustrating.

We (along with Jesus) finally get a break from this relentless downer streak in today’s reading, when at long last we encounter a person who, in ways that are rare in this gospel, gets it. And it’s a person you might least expect to do so, to boot.

This passage begins curiously, with the terse statement that “they came to Jericho” followed immediately by the declaration that “as he (Jesus) and his disciples and a large crowd were leaving Jericho…”. What happened in Jericho? Is this like that popular line that got its start in TV commercials, the one about how “what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas”? What happened in Jericho that suddenly there is this large crowd traveling along with Jesus and the disciples? What do they think is going to happen, so that they choose to drop whatever they’re doing and follow Jesus? What do they want from Jesus? Do they get it any better than the disciples do?

Whatever the case may be, this newly enhanced crowd is making its way out of Jericho and comes within the range of a common fixture, one we ourselves can see often enough: a beggar on the side of the road. Mark gives us his name, Bartimaeus, and also helpfully translates the Aramaic name to tell us that he is “son of Timaeus.” We also learn that Bartimaeus is blind. 

Somehow, in the hubbub of the crowd, Bartimaeus picks out the fact that this person passing by is the one called “Jesus of Nazareth.” At this he springs into action. Notice that in his calling out, he doesn’t cry out to “Jesus of Nazareth,” but to “Jesus, Son of David.” Now that sounds like a common enough reference to us Christians two thousand years later, but this is the first time that term is used in the whole gospel of Mark. The second time it comes up is in the next verse. The only other time it appears is a couple of chapters from now, when Jesus is in dispute with some of the religious scribes and authorities. And as far as Mark is concerned, that’s it. It’s not a typical name for Jesus, at least not in this gospel, and that tells us right away something about Bartimaeus. 

In a way that almost nobody in this gospel has shown so far, Bartimaeus gets it. 

To call Jesus “Son of David” is to tap into some of the deepest, longest-held prophetic teaching of Judaism at this time. It reaches back, obviously, to one of the most revered figures in Hebrew scripture. It ties Jesus not only into a royal line, but also into one of the most treasured promises of that scripture, the promise of a deliverer, a redeemer, who would come to save his people Israel. A Messiah, in other words. 

We can’t claim that Bartimaeus gets everything, but he gets that much, and determines to call out to this Son of David. Getting shushed and shamed by the crowd (beggars weren't supposed to be this noisy) only jacks up his determination that much more. He calls out “Son of David, have mercy on me!” even more loudly. 

And Jesus stops. 

The crowd, quite likely, grows quiet at this unexpected stop.

Jesus says, “Call him here.” 

The crowd, up to now the ones shushing and shaming Bartimaeus, now calls him forward, and Bartimaeus does not hesitate. He throws off his cloak – quite likely his only earthly possession – and springs up from his blind-beggar position and makes his way to Jesus. 

Jesus says, “What do you want me to do for you?”

We’ve heard this before, just a few verses earlier in this chapter, when James and John come to him with their request for seats of honor in glory, a request born of their spiritual blindness. That’s what Jesus asks them, and Jesus asks that question again here, to a man pleading from his position of physical blindness. 

Bartimaeus keeps it simple. “My teacher, let me see again.” Notice: my teacher. Not the generic “Teacher” more commonly heard throughout this gospel, even from Jesus’s disciples. My teacher. Again, to a degree not seen so far in this gospel, Bartimaeus gets it. We still don’t fully understand just how much he gets it, not quite yet, but somehow, more than what we’ve seen so far, Bartimaeus gets it.

And Jesus seems to realize this. The last time he restored a blind man’s sight, back in chapter 8, the process was rather involved: spitting in the dirt to make some mud (sounds like an awful lot of spitting), applying that mud to the blind man’s eyes, then repeating the touch when the man reported seeing people looking like trees walking around. Not this time. The striking reply comes: “Go; your faith has made you well.” Then, Bartimaeus could see – no rinse-and-repeat necessary. One moment he couldn’t see, the next he could. 

Still, though, that wasn’t the final evidence that this once-blind man understood. That comes in the final phrase; once Bartimaeus had regained his sight, he “followed him on the way.” So far as we are told he didn’t even pick up his cloak. Leaving behind what, again, was probably all he owned, he followed Jesus. If this sounds like an inverse echo of the story of the rich man from earlier in this chapter, the one who left sorrowing at the thought of selling off all he owned, you’re right. Unlike that rich man (so far as we know), Bartimaeus gets it, and not only does he get it, but he also acts upon that understanding. 

Maybe this is our caution for the day. Whatever image of "saints" we may carry around with us, be they the pious ancient saints of those paintings or the ever-so-upright "saints" of our more recent church history, they probably don't include a blind beggar sitting on the side of the road. And yet it was exactly that man who "got it," and acted upon it, when so few others did.

For, finally, the one who got it, and what he teaches us, Thanks be to God. Amen.

 

Hymns (from Glory to God: The Presbyterian Hymnal): #326, For All the Saints; #517, Hear, O Our Lord, We See You; #772, Live Into Hope

Sermon: Always in Need of Being Reformed

First Presbyterian Church

October 27, 2024, Reformation

Mark 12:28-34

 

Always in Need of Being Reformed

 

 

October 31, 1517 is commonly reckoned as the day on which a young monk named Martin Luther nailed a document to the door of the cathedral in Wittemburg, now part of Germany. The document outlined ninety-five “theses” or arguments against what he saw as corruptions in the established church of his time. Even amongst the many other documents or broadsides likely nailed to that cathedral door, this one did get attention, and the established church did exactly what you’d expect; set out to discredit and then disfellowship Martin Luther. Nonetheless his arguments caught on with many, some from genuine theological or ethical concern, others from political expedience. Eventually most of Germany and other northern reaches of Europe took on Lutheranism as their establishment church. In later years differing reformation movements broke out in France and Switzerland and later in England and some in a handful of other places; the former of those is the tradition from which our own Presbyterian denomination was born (after a side trip though Scotland).

Some observers have suggested that this is something the church goes through every five hundred years or so. About five hundred years before the Reformation (and these numbers are extremely approximate) was the Great Schism, when the eastern and western branches of the church separated, resulting in the traditions we know now as Eastern Orthodox and Catholic churches. Five hundred years before that, give or take, came the fall of the Roman Empire with which the church had become closely intertwined, ultimately progressing over many decades to the great reform of the church initiated by Pope Gregory. (You might say things moved more slowly then.)

Even rudimentary ability at math will tell you we’re right in that 500-year-give-or-take window following the Protestant Reformations. With all this in mind you’ll not be surprised to hear that more than a few observers of the church are suggesting that it is due for reformation, if not right smack in the middle of one already. To be fair, it’s hard to blame folks for that suggestion, as the state of the larger church these days is frankly low-hanging fruit for its critics:

Ø  A large segment of the church has disintegrated into little more than an appendage of a political party. 

Ø  A large segment of the church more closely resembles a media/entertainment empire than an agent of mission or worship.

Ø  A large segment of the church, in the face of evident decline in membership and finances, has taken up the mantra of “survival at all costs,” again without regard for mission or worship.

Ø  A segment of the church (perhaps not so large) resorts to social outlets and “gatherings” without much commitment or challenge.

Ø  And a segment of the church has basically given up, resigned to playing out the string the same way they always have.

Ø  To be sure, these characteristics overlap and intermingle across all reaches of the church.

And that’s just the church in the United States. We’re not even getting into what challenges the global church faces.

What has any of this, you might ask, to do with today’s reading from the gospel of Mark? Perhaps everything, if we pay attention to what question is asked, and how it is answered.

Since last we left Jesus in Mark 10, a lot has happened. Jesus and his newly-enhanced crowd of followers have entered Jerusalem (that thing we celebrate on Palm Sunday), and Jesus has disrupted the commerce surrounding the Temple. A fig tree got cursed. Jesus has since been under siege from one group or other of the religious elite of Jerusalem, putting up with “gotcha” questions and attempted rhetorical trappings. Jesus fended them off with some straightforward traditional answers right out of the Torah, some debunkings of the questions themselves, a parable about wicked tenants overthrowing their landlord that was clearly directed at those religious authorities, and probably a few facepalms – you know, that gesture that happens when it’s all you can do not to exclaim how ridiculous or just plain stupid someone else is being. 

One of the scribes has been observing the humiliation of his fellow scholars and perhaps wondering if he truly wants to be affiliated with them right now. He cuts in with the most basic question possible: “Which commandment is the first of all?” Jesus’s answer, far from being radical, is about as Torah as you could get, directly citing what we have in our Bibles as Deuteronomy 6:4-5. There are two interesting additions here: Jesus adds the phrase “with all your mind” into the mix, which likely pleased a scholar of the law, and added a second commandment from Leviticus 19:18; “you shall love your neighbor as yourself.” The scribe agrees, sounding out his agreement even that loving neighbor as self “is much more important than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices.” Jesus’s semi-cryptic answer, “You are not far from the kingdom of God,” ends not only that conversation but the whole trap-question campaign – “no one dared to ask him any question.” 

As cryptic as Jesus’s last comment might have seemed in that instant, it’s not so hard to figure out in context. Think back to chapter 10 two weeks ago and the rich man who went away sorrowing when Jesus told him to sell all his stuff, give the proceeds away to the poor, and follow Jesus. Think also of Bartimaeus, later in chapter 10, who “immediately followed him on the way” after his sight was restored (and was presumably among the crowd that had accompanied Jesus into Jerusalem; we'll get to him next week). The difference, you’ll remember, was in the doing. We get no indication at all of how this scribe responds; Mark’s account moves on quickly to more teaching, and we never hear of the scribe again – after all, we are just three days before Jesus’s crucifixion. 

The implied challenge before the scribe is, I submit, where a modern impulse towards reformation might be centered. How much of what the church does and says and clings to in today’s world and across this country can’t be reconciled with those two greatest commandments? How much of the behavior of the church or its members across this country looks at all like loving God with all one’s heart and soul and mind and strength, and loving neighbor as self? 

You know what? I’m going to give our denomination credit. The PC(USA) is trying. It might not always be clear or effective, and you can be sure not everybody is on board, but with such efforts as the Matthew 25 initiative, there is at least the attempt to act upon that commandment about loving neighbor as self. It is, at the least, not going away sorrowing over the call to give up our possessions.

Two caveats need to be applied here. Other commandments don’t go away. Jesus doesn’t dispose of the law with this statement, even if he does assign a hierarchy to it. Loving God and neighbor comes first. Any one thing, anything at all that puts us in a position in conflict with loving God and neighbor needs to give way, no matter how righteous it might seem or might have been intended to be. 

The second caveat applies to the whole idea of reformation itself. One of the earliest quotables from the Reformed tradition – the branch we come from, that is – is the catchy Latin phrase ecclesia reformata, semper reformanda. It commonly gets mistranslated as “the church reformed, always reforming.” That’s a problem, because reformanda doesn’t really translate as “reforming,” but as “being reformed.” Grammar fans understand the difference, hopefully. Is the church acting, or is the church first being acted upon? From whence comes the initiative for being reformed, as opposed to merely reforming? 

Whether or not the church is truly entering (or amidst) a season of reformation depends tremendously upon this understanding. Given some of the behaviors and characteristics noted earlier, it’s not unfair to wonder whether much of the church has at all, at any even remotely recent point in its history, engaged in the simple yet profoundly challenging exercise of waiting upon the Lord. How often does the church or its leaders simply read scripture, instead of hunting and cherry-picking passages to prop itself up or denigrate its chosen enemies? How often does much of the church or its leadership, instead of praying for a lot of smiting of those chosen enemies or for the appointment of judges who will do what they want, simply pray “your will be done”? How often does the church love the Lord our God with all our heart, all our soul, all our mind, and all our strength? How often does the church love its neighbor as it loves itself?

Any 500-year upheaval, any new reformation in the church will almost inevitably have to be preceded by a season of listening. Listening to God. Listening to those neighbors. Listening to the hungry, the thirsty, the stranger, the naked, the sick, the imprisoned. Listening to those who aren’t white, or male, or straight. Listening to those who know what it means to be under somebody’s heel, and who have too often seen the church propping up that somebody instead of lifting up the oppressed. 

And all of this goes not just for the larger church, but for the individual church too. Without such a season of listening, of being in scripture and in prayer, and of making ready for and seeking the prompting of the Spirit, no church is going to come out on the other side of this pandemic time or this post-uprising time with much of a future, or even much of a reason to go on. There’s a challenge for everybody and every church, from the smallest family church to the largest megachurch. 

Let us pray, let us listen, and let us await being reformed.

Thanks be to God. Amen.

 

Hymns (from Glory to God: The Presbyterian Hymnal unless otherwise noted): #624, I Greet Thee, Who My Sure Redeemer Art; #---, O love your God with all your heart; #275, A Mighty Fortress Is Our God

Sermon: What Jesus Really Gave

First Presbyterian Church

October 20, 2024, Pentecost 22B

Mark 10:32-45

 

What Jesus Really Gave

 

 

I am old enough to remember The Andy Griffith Show, not in first-run but in the daily-rerun pattern of syndication. When you see a show that often, you learn certain patterns of the show. One of the more obvious patterns was that Barney Fife, the seemingly hapless deputy, would inevitably bungle something and Sheriff Andy would pick up after him. Another was that Barney would get far too agitated and want to do something rash or extreme, and Andy would have to reign him in. These two patterns, often in combination, constituted one of the show’s regular tropes.

I’m guessing that I’m not the first to wonder if Jesus’s disciples, at least as portrayed throughout the gospel of Mark, have a bit of Barney Fife in them. And yes, that would put Jesus in the role of Sheriff Andy, having to clean up after them (as in chapter 9, when the disciples can’t manage a healing without Jesus around) or rebuke them for their rashness (as in earlier in chapter 10, when the disciples were turning away those who were bringing children to Jesus). Perhaps the most prominent examples of this dynamic in Mark’s gospel are Jesus’s three proclamations of his coming suffering and death, and the inept response of the disciples in each case – such as Peter’s rebuke that in turn got him rebuked with “Get behind me, Satan!” in chapter 8, and then the chapter 9 argument among the disciples over which of them was greatest. Today’s reading seems to offer an echo of that second incident. 

The verses immediately preceding today’s reading make up the third of those disturbing proclamations by Jesus. John, who got all hot and bothered about a man casting out demons in Jesus’s name after the previous event, drags his brother James into the mess this time. They come to Jesus with the schoolyard-taunt request to be appointed to sit at Jesus’s right and left “in your glory.” You can imagine that if Jesus had acceded to their request, the two of them would have immediately gotten into a fight over which one got to sit on the right or the left. When this tiff comes to the attention of the rest of the disciples, more dissention breaks out. Deputy Fife has messed up again, and Sheriff Andy has to clean up after him. 

In short, the disciples still don’t get it.

One of the other features of that Barney/Andy pattern on the show was that no matter how badly Barney messed up, Andy never did give up on him. Andy never fired Barney (at least not for good) or ran him off in any way. Andy kept him on, kept putting him back to work. 

So it is, as we see, with Jesus and these dunderheaded disciples. No matter how badly they messed up or got crosswise with what he was teaching them, Jesus never did cut them loose. He continued to teach them, continued to lead them, and continued to love them. 

To understand the final portion of this reading is to understand – or perhaps to begin to understand – why that is. It is a deeply important statement from Jesus about his very reason for existing, his very purpose on this earth. And as with many such statements, we often interpret it poorly.

Jesus begins by drawing a contrast between the community of Jesus’s followers and the world around them, or what such a contrast should look like. Out there in the world the powerful lord it over the powerless, but that’s not how it works here. You want to be the greatest? Be the servant of all. You want to be first? Be the least of all. That’s why I’m here. 

Verse 45 then supplies the critical understanding, in two parts. It’s not that hard to grasp “For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve.” We’ve seen Jesus use that term for himself in Mark’s gospel, and the reversal of “not to be served but to serve” is clear enough, if rather unsettling to we who have lived in the world of social-climbing and career ladders all our lives. 

It’s the concluding phrase where we tend to get off track, and our misunderstanding tends to hinge on two words that jump out particularly strongly in this phrase. I know I’m not supposed to get heavily into the business of translating Greek in these sermons, but we need to get the words right here. In the spirit of Jesus’s argument here, we’ll take the last word first.

The Greek word λυτρον (Lutron) is translated here as “ransom,” and that would be a typical translation in most contexts. However, our modern concept of that word is narrower than the Greek meaning. Our minds most quickly associate “ransom” with a kidnapping or hostage-taking situation, in which some amount of money is demanded for the release of those held captive. This causes many to interpret this phrase “gave his life a ransom for many” as some kind of transactional ransoming; the forces of evil get to kill Jesus so we can go free. 

That’s not how the Greek usage of “ransom” works, though. That Greek word λυτρον doesn’t involve a transaction; there’s no payee. Instead, the “ransom” involved here (going back to the Greek verb λυω ‘luo,’ the root word from which λυτρον comes) carries the image of removing a hindrance or obstacle, or perhaps of loosening bonds or releasing one held captive. It’s not about our modern image of paying ransom; a closer modern metaphor might be one in which Jesus breaks us out of prison. Being ransomed is being set free. Being ransomed is being delivered from that which oppresses or destroys us. It’s not a prisoner exchange; it’s a total jailbreak.

The other word that often messes us up, tied into the whole modernized “ransom” idea, is ψύχην (psuxen), here translated as “life.” In this context Christian thinkers have long tended to use the rather shallow definition of ψυχην as basically what makes us not dead, whatever biophysical condition would tell a doctor that we are in fact living. Therefore, in this way of thinking, to say that Jesus “gave his life” has to be about the part where Jesus died, the part Jesus has been foretelling to his disciples three times now.

But that’s not all there is to ψυχην. It also carries the meaning of “life” as “that which is integral to being a person beyond mere physical function.” We might think of this as our inner self, or even what we call our soul. It’s the difference between “being alive” and living, one might say. 

And understanding this as what Jesus gave hopefully opens our eyes to what is really going on in this passage, and why Jesus keeps cutting the disciples so much slack. 

Jesus gave his living. Jesus gave his whole inner being, his very soul, everything that he said and did and felt and thought and lived for the ransom – the setting free, the breaking out, the releasing – of many, of us, of all of us here. We are cut loose from the chains that bind us by everything Jesus said and did. 

And when Jesus is giving his living, his whole life, his whole being for our redeeming and liberation, Jesus is going to hang in there with those dunderheaded disciples in ways far beyond anything Sheriff Andy had to do for Deputy Fife. 

Yes, the suffering and death are part of that whole life. If anything, Jesus’s suffering and death were the inevitable result of a life so completely devoted and committed to our redemption and liberation. You can’t go upsetting the tyrannical order of things, “the way the world works,” without coming to the kind of end that Jesus did at the hands of imperial power. And Jesus faced it head-on, embraced it even, as part of coming to serve and giving his whole being to liberate us all. Then of course there’s that resurrection part as well. But if you’re looking for scripture to justify some doctrine of substitutionary atonement, this isn’t it. Not at all.

A Jesus who gave everything that he was for our redeeming is not going to give up on us because we bungle it once or twice or a few times or several dozen times. A Jesus who came to serve with his whole life, every minute of his very being, and to teach us so to serve, isn’t going to bail out on us no matter how backward we get it. We aren’t abandoned, we aren’t given up on, no matter how much we still don’t get it. And that, friends, is our hope. 

Thanks be to God. Amen.

Hymns (from Glory to God: The Presbyterian Hymnal): #299, Ye Servants of God, Your Master Proclaim; #65, Guide Me, O Thou Great Jehovah; #450, Be Thou My Vision

Sermon: Great Big Stuff

First Presbyterian Church

October 13, 2024, Pentecost 20B

Mark 10:17-31

 

Great Big Stuff

 

 

In 2005 a new musical, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels,  premiered on Broadway, another in a then-novel trend of musicals based on movies instead of the other way ‘round. The movie in question had starred Michael Caine and Steve Martin as competing con men; the musical debuted with John Lithgow and Norbert Leo Butz in those roles. As the novice grifter introduced to Lithgow’s high-class world, Butz gets the big song; when Lithgow, having grown tired of this penny-ante grifter, exasperatedly asks “what do you want!!??” Butz responds by gesticulating around wildly and shouting “I want this!!”, and then breaking into his big number that sums up everything he has seen and now wants for himself. It is simply titled “Great Big Stuff.”

It’s not the worst summary of one of the seemingly chronic conditions of our world; humans see, and then humans want. For example, it’s a driving premise behind an awful lot of the entertainment that passes by on our various screens, going back at least as far as reality-show predecessors like Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous or opulent prime-time dramas such as Dallas or Dynasty. (Yes, I’m dating myself, but I know many of you know what I’m talking about.) Sure, the dysfunction of the characters of those shows counts for a lot of the alleged entertainment value, but so does the “great big stuff” those characters possess. We see, and then we want. That’s been a defining characteristic of humanity in general for a very long time.

It's also worth acknowledging that the church has not been free of that inclination, in any age of its history. Just to throw out one example, you might remember the televangelist Jim Bakker (the one with two “k”s in his name) being at least as interested in accumulating wealth as in preaching. He is, however, hardly the only example of such divided loyalty, and emphatically not the last.

Of course, today’s gospel reading isn’t very hard to tie into this human predisposition. The man comes to Jesus and asks the question that sets off this encounter: “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” That phrasing is interesting in itself; to speak of “inheriting” eternal life might offer some suggestion of how the man has gained the “great wealth” (or the "great big stuff") we learn of a few verses later. Jesus’s answer is also curious. After the seemingly odd digression over being called “good,” he lists a few of the commandments and law. While many seem to get agitated about the man’s response that “all these I have kept since my youth” as sounding arrogant or prideful, given the examples Jesus gives it’s not that shocking an answer. Personally, I’ve never committed murder myself, and a lot of people can say the same, just to take one of those.

The story gets a little more interesting after that answer. It’s a bit of a jolt to read that “Jesus looked at him and loved him…”. That’s not a typical response in these encounters. At the minimum it seems that Jesus is taking this man at his word, and that this man is not one of those who will appear in coming chapters of this gospel who are trying to trick or trap Jesus with their questions. Jesus seems to believe this man is sincere in his searching, and one might also guess that Jesus knows what’s going to happen when he gives his final answer.

Let’s make sure we take in that whole answer: “You are lacking one thing: go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.” Notice that the mandate here isn’t just about selling off those possessions, but also using the funds gained specifically to help those in need, and then turning to follow Jesus.

We know of course what happens next. The man goes away grieving, “because he had great wealth.” What we don’t know is what happens after that. When the man goes away, we don’t follow him; we are given Jesus’s words to his disciples about what had just happened. But we don’t know what actually happened to the man himself. 

In fact there’s a lot we don’t know about this man. Mark doesn’t even give the extra details that Matthew and Luke add, whereby we often call this person “the rich young ruler”; in Mark all he is is a man who “had great wealth,” regardless of age or social stature. We don’t know the nature of his possessions or his “stuff.” It’s entirely possible, given the Roman Empire setting in which this takes place, that among the man’s ownings are slaves tasked with overseeing his many possessions. We don’t know if there is family involved. We don’t know how far this man has come to see Jesus. 

But even more, we don’t know what the man does after he walks away grieving. For all we know, the man does exactly what Jesus tells him to do, sorrowing all the while. Maybe he’s one of those in the crowds that have accumulated around Jesus by the time he gets to Jerusalem. We tend to assume not, but we don’t know. What we do know is that he had "great big stuff", and the very idea of giving it up was shocking and grief-inducing to him.

The “shock” part shouldn’t surprise us. We are hardly the first age to assume that great wealth somehow means that God has particularly favored a person. The “prosperity gospel” might not have been invented yet, but those living under Roman rule were certainly led to believe that accumulated wealth and power and status were marks of divine favor from some deity or another. The idea of having to give up those seeming markers of divine favor likely made no sense in the eyes of this man or of anyone else listening to his exchange with Jesus. The attachment to his “stuff” was so strong, and so presumed to be so good, that Jesus’s words provoked a deep emotional reaction. 

After the man walks away, we get the rather famous line about it being easier to get a camel through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God. It’s one of the more quoted and quotable lines from Mark’s gospel, but also one that is easily misinterpreted. Is it merely the fact of being rich that makes it so hard? Or is it something about the condition of having many possessions that is the problem?

In a technical sense it wouldn’t necessarily have been hard for the man to sell all his stuff, give it away to the poor, and then come follow Jesus. It might have been an involved process to be sure, but you have to guess that if the stuff was good stuff, there would be people happy to buy it. Giving it away to the poor, again, would not be hard; in Roman society there were going to be plenty of poor people around. The hardest part might be tracking down Jesus to follow him once all those financial transactions were completed.

No, it’s not necessarily a hard task to accomplish. Involved, maybe complicated, to be sure, but not hard. What’s hard, of course, is the very idea of giving up the stuff, even if (maybe especially if) it's not the "great big stuff" from that Broadway show example. We get attached to it. It has sentimental value, sometimes. It gets connected to some special event or memory in our lives or family. It feels like giving up the stuff is giving up the memory.

Hopefully this reminds us of the lesson of this passage that is trickiest for the non-rich among us: you don’t have to have many possessions to be owned, so to speak, by those possessions. 

Our stuff, even if it's not "great big stuff," becomes our security, our comfort, maybe even our identity in some cases. Maybe it seems harmless to us. We can certainly point to others who have more stuff and fancier stuff and more extravagant stuff than we do, and perhaps hide ourselves from our own attachments by doing so. But do we still run the risk of being so attached to our stuff, so owned by our possessions, that we miss the kingdom of God?

There is that last paragraph of story, where Peter (rightly, in this case) points out that these disciples really didleave behind all their stuff to follow Jesus. Peter, James, and John didn’t even wait around to sell their fishing boats to jump on board with Jesus. And Jesus does in turn tell the disciples that their forsaking has not gone unnoticed; their sacrifices won’t be forgotten in this age or in the age to come. But even then, there has to be a precautionary note added, that even in that remembering and rewarding, there will be upsetting of the order of things – “but many who are first will be last, and the last first.” If you’re doing all of this sacrificing and selling and giving things away in expectation of being big number one in the end, you’re still getting it wrong. The reward is following Jesus. The reward is entering the kingdom of God. Period. Full stop. End of discussion. Ladder-climbing and gain-seeking and currying favor to gain more importance? None of this is part of the scheme in that kingdom, in this age or the age to come.

We are left with, in the end, a fairly simple question in the wake of this gospel story, one that is nonetheless dreadfully difficult and challenging to answer: what do we “own” that, in fact, owns us? And how do we give it away and follow - really, humbly follow - Jesus? 

Thanks be to God. Amen.

 

Hymns (from Glory to God: The Presbyterian Hymnal): #35, Praise Ye the Lord, the Almighty; #720, Jesus Calls Us; #729, Lord, I Want to Be a Christian