Proper 19B. 12 September 2021. The Rev. Pamela L. Werntz
Proverbs 1:20-33. How long, O [stupid] ones, will you love being [stupid]?
James 3:1-12. From the same mouth come blessing and cursing….This ought not to be so.
Mark 8:27-38. Let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.
O God of Integrity and Compassion, grant us the strength, the wisdom and the courage to seek always and everywhere after truth, come when it may, and cost what it will.
Before I speak about our Gospel reading for today, I want to say something about our reading from Proverbs. It sounds to me like it could be a column in The New York Times (or a sermon in Boston) addressing those in positions of influence over our climate or our white-supremacist culture, or those who are still unvaccinated against COVID-19 by actively discouraging vaccines for economic or political gain, and who really and truly should know better. Wisdom, personified in Proverbs as a woman, is preaching, and she is making her strongest plea[1] to those who seem to love being stupid, willfully naïve, not simple in the sense of incapable of understanding, but those who have arrogantly rejected her insights and warnings. “How long, O stupid ones,” she says, “how long will you love being stupid?” Her laughter at the easy-to-predict catastrophe that has resulted from ignoring her sage advice may seem harsh, but it’s not unlike any of us rejoicing when an oppressor or tyrant falls because of self-induced calamity.[2] Wisdom’s laughter is not a generic form of Schadenfreude (or joy at another’s suffering). She is calling to account corrupt leaders, not innocent lambs.
Our Gospel lesson this morning finds Jesus and his disciples on their way into what we might call Caesarville, a seat of political, military, and economic power: oppressive, corrupt, and idolatrous. They were heading right into the thick of it, on their way. They were called people of The Way. And this episode lies at the exact center of Mark’s gospel; it is Mark’s centerpiece. In ancient literature, this means that it is a very important passage. It is the heart, coeur in French, the core message, the crux, a turning point when Jesus moves from the ministry of healing and feeding into an articulation of the ministry of suffering with, the ministry of compassion, a ministry which will cost everything. This is a story of how Peter almost didn’t make the turn (but we all know he did).
If you’ve heard me preach before, you probably know that I’m particularly interested in interpretations of scripture that challenge our complacencies and disrupt our sleep when it comes to understanding what a Gospel lesson might mean. And, if we really mean it when we pray for the Holy Spirit to direct and rule our hearts in all things, as we did in our collect for today, we have to expect a wild ride; so buckle up! And so I’m sharing with you, from Mark Davis’s translation blog called “Left behind and loving it,” his interpretation of Mark 8:27-38, which goes against the grain.[3] His reading of this Gospel story is that this is not a moment of breakthrough understanding by Peter, or a sharing of “The Messianic Secret” with the small group. Rather it is a highly contentious scene of a “heated roadside argument between Peter and Jesus over which [ministerial] direction they should take.”
In Mark Davis’ reading, Jesus is interrogating the disciples about what they and others are saying about him; he’s not casually inquiring. His tone is demanding and harsh. And Peter is not making a faithful response to Jesus when he names Jesus the Messiah or the Christ. Of course, the Gospel writer understood Jesus to be the Messiah or the Christ, and the Church understands Jesus to be the Messiah or the Christ, but Jesus refers to himself here as the Son of Man, the salt of the earth, a mensch among men, a person of integrity and honor. For Jesus, that is entirely different from the form of Messiah-ship or Christology that would avoid suffering and death. Peter’s would be a Christology that is imperialistic and dominating, triumphalist, that would clearly avoid anything as shameful as suffering and death on a cross; it would avoid the death of a common criminal to accomplish the repair of the world. Frankly, it’s the Christology of later Christendom, the dominating cultures and institutions claiming to be Christian.
Mark Davis points to three passages in the Gospel of Mark after this one that indicate that the term Messiah or Christ, which folks around him are using, is not what Jesus intends, and that Jesus’ followers need to watch out for such Christological claims, or the arguments that, if Jesus were the Christ, he wouldn’t have died on a cross. When Peter uses the term, Jesus warns him and the other disciples not to talk about that with others. The kind of discipleship that Jesus is talking about here is not one in which the whole world will be gained. The discipleship Jesus is calling for will require a willingness to be rejected, to suffer, to die, and to rise anew. This kind of discipleship rejects the idea that giving up some personal liberties for the sake of other people’s well-being somehow makes us less free. The other kind of discipleship deeply misunderstands the cross that Jesus is inviting his disciples to pick up and carry.[4] The kind of discipleship that makes Jesus proud is full of integrity and honor, compassion and mercy. Suffering and death are inevitable.
Poor Peter. He reminds me of a great country song, recorded by Mary Chapin Carpenter: “Sometimes you’re the windshield, sometimes you’re the bug.” Perhaps Peter had figured that if someone is chosen by God, surely that person would be saved from suffering, or at least that anointed person should attempt to avoid magnifying the danger of death by talking openly. The word rebuke here is the same word that gets used to describe casting out demons, the work Jesus and his disciples have been doing along the way. So maybe the writer of Mark is telling us that Peter thinks Jesus might not be in his right mind. And who could blame Peter? Isn’t that still the way many people think of being in God’s good graces: playing it safe, trying to stay secure, while disregarding those who are more vulnerable? “Don’t some of us behave as if we are kind of dating God?” one of my colleagues asks. “Always on our best behavior, never angry or indiscreet [with God], and ever attentive and respectful; but at some time we need to quit dating God and begin working on a serious relationship.”[5]
Jesus orders his disciples over and over not to tell things – about healings, about exorcisms, that they understand Jesus to be the Messiah. I’ve never really felt as if I had a good handle on why that might have been, but now I’m persuaded that it was because Jesus wasn’t seeking or promoting his own glory or power. It’s not that he was being overly concerned about safety or even that he wanted to prolong the time that he would have to get work done. But the pairing of this Gospel passage with our recent readings from James, makes me wonder if it has to do with demonstrating faithfulness with works (rather than with words), his integrity and honor, compassion and mercy. I’m wondering if he wanted to be training his disciples to continue to live the discipline of the Good News in their actions, rather than telling it with their voices.
The Letter of James is one of the great proof-texts for uncomfortable Evangelists — Christians who prefer not to talk about what they believe, or who are certain that they do not believe traditional Christian dogma, but who are committed to social justice because of their faith. James tells us that “faith without works is dead,” that faith can be made manifest only by works. Today’s portion is about minding your tongue, keeping your mouth shut! It reminds me of what St. Francis of Assisi is often quoted as having said: “Preach the Gospel at all times. Use words if necessary.”
So perhaps the Gospel of Mark’s question is, “Who do you say that Jesus is when you aren’t using words?” Who do you say that Jesus is when you aren’t using words? How do you and I honor those who are poor, or sick, or possessed with demons, or in desperate need of forgiveness yet again, without words? How do we demonstrate that we understand that Jesus is Lord and the Good News that mercy outshines judgment every time? How do we live our faith, not by talking about it, not by statements of belief, but through our actions? Denying oneself is not about denying that one has a self; it’s about renouncing self-centeredness. It’s about the idea that self-advancement or self-preservation cannot be the highest ethic. Taking up your cross means voluntarily carrying a burden on behalf of another for the love of God.
Mahatma Gandhi offered this guidance:
I will give you a talisman. Whenever you are in doubt, or when the self becomes too much with you, apply the following test. Recall the face of the poorest and weakest [people] whom you may have seen, and ask yourself, if the [next] step you contemplate is going to be of any use to [them]. Will [they] gain anything by it? Will it restore [them] to a control over [their] destiny? In other words, will it lead to [freedom] for the hungry and spiritually starving millions? Then you will find your doubts and your self melt away.[6]
We can’t all be a Gandhi, or a Harriet Tubman, or a Martin Luther King, Jr.. I don’t actually think any of us is called to be any of those people. I think we are called to be ourselves, marvelously made, compassionate, generous, and merciful in the way we spend our lives. Once upon a time, the great preacher Fred Craddock said that for most Christians in this country, living the Gospel is not often a matter of life and death. To paraphrase his words: We think giving our all to God would be like taking a $1,000 bill and laying it on the table: “Here’s my life, God. I’m giving it all.” But the reality for most of us is that God sends us to the bank and has us cash in the $1,000 for small bills. Then we go through life putting out a dollar here and two dollars there. It’s not so dramatic or glorious; it’s done in those little acts of justice and love, a dollar or two at a time.[7] This way of compassion will cost everything but usually not all at once. As we navigate this way through our own territories marked by political, military, and economic idolatry, perhaps the best way to follow Jesus deeper into the extravagant love of God, is one step at a time, one dollar at a time, one day at a time.
[1] https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/ordinary-24-2/commentary-on-proverbs-120-33-2
[2] Raymond C. Van Leeuwen, “Proverbs,” in The New Interpreter’s Bible (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1997), pp. 40-41.
[3] https://leftbehindandlovingit.blogspot.com/2015/02/the-imperatives-of-discipleship.html#comment-form
[4] August 22, 2021, tweet from The Rev. Ben Cremer @brcremer.
[5] Tom Woodward, “Who Do You Say That I Am?” The Witness Magazine online, Wednesday, September 13, 2006.
[6] Mahatma Gandhi, Last Phase, Vol. 11, 1958, p. 65.
[7] Pheme Perkins includes this in her reflections in “The Gospel of Mark,” in The New Interpreter’s Bible, Vol. VIII (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1995), p. 629.