Hard Gospel, Hard Choices, Hard Discipleship

“…He said all this quite openly” (Mark 8:32)

Genesis 9:1-7, 15-16

Psalm 22:23-31

Romans 4:13-25

Mark 8:31-38

 New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized Edition, copyright © 1989, 1995 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. http://nrsvbibles.org

(Year B: Second Sunday of Lent, 28 February, 2021)

(with minor updating adjustments this blog was written on the Second Sunday in Lent – Year B – in March 2018. The points considered seem as relevant today as they did 3 years ago).

Being a disciple of Jesus the Christ in the world today certainly has its challenges; perhaps more than in the past when not to be a believer or a disciple was often looked at with disdain in this part of the world. Today’s readings remind us that the call to follow God’s call demands sacrifice, suffering and above all love and trust.

Although we do not hear about it much, sisters and brothers of ours are daily martyred in parts of the world where diabolical attempts are underway to exterminate Christianity where it has flourished in strong little communities going back to the 2^nd Century. After we emerge from some of the strictest social restriction measures in Europe concerning public worship, we might wonder about whether to go or where to go on a Sunday morning. On the same time, Christians in the Middle East put their lives and the lives of their loved ones at some degree of risk in walking to Church and staying there to celebrate the Lord’s Resurrection every Sunday. They might await in fear and trust that noise of commotion or banging at the front door some night.

The call to follow Jesus as recounted in Mark 8:31-38 is blunt. We may have our own notions of what following Jesus means. We may cultivate our souls, bodies and minds thinking that following Jesus is about conforming to some pattern of intellectual compliance and a ‘theology of works’. We might be still persevering with our little bit for Lent this second week of the season.  However, in the Gospel reading for this Sunday, we are reminded that following Jesus means putting our lives – our very ‘souls’ on the line for the One who faced death and resurrection ahead of us. We do this not on the basis of our own strength or virtue but that of our Saviour who has gone before us.

Does this matter for us today? I suggest it does. If we take our vows at baptism seriously then we are invited, urged, commanded to make the love of God the cornerstone of our lives. In big ways and in small ways this might call for ‘heroic virtue’.

Is all of this martyrdom talk over the top? I suggest not.  Christians serving in our health and related services in Ireland are faced with tough life-changing choices. The face of medicine is dramatically changing from what it was as the means to save and protect all live.

Would I speak and act out in respect for all human life – unborn, born, mothers, fathers, women, men? Would I have the courage to do the right thing and refuse?  Or, would I register some protest?

Will I acknowledge the need for real and genuine compassion, sensitivity and humility in the case of each complex individual case?

It is easy to pontificate on how others – especially vulnerable, poor, sick and traumatised women – should or should not do. Would we give our very lives to make life better for everyone and not just that life that is in the womb? Do we take all life for all of the time seriously?

Would I remain silent while fundamental changes have taken place to our laws that redefine who is unworthy of life (the practice of Lebensunwertes Leben familiar to Christians in Germany in the 1930s)?

Would I put my career and promotion at risk – were I working in areas of the health service – by exercising my conscientious objection to lethal practices or the administrative processing of same?

Would I be prepared to lose my job?

Will I act, protest and vote in such manner as to attract the misrepresentation, ridicule, judgment, incomprehension, exclusion and ostracism of others including, perhaps, those very near and dear to me at home, at work, in the Church or in the wider community?

Will I listen to the experiences, wisdom and insights of those who know more than I do about complex issues of health, life and personal tragedy? 

Who do I listen to? What experiences and insights do I choose to shut out?

Is it right and convenient to live a comfortable life because these matters have nothing ‘directly’ to do with me?

Do I have the courage to lovingly question the teaching, stance or silences of my own Church or that of other Churches?

Will I, together with others, join up the dots and acknowledge the bigger picture of social injustice and dysfunction that provides the backdrop for the difficult question on hand?

Would I do something about that bigger picture when these current controversies abate somewhat?

Would we work, all of us, tirelessly to address the economic, social and gender discrimination conditions in which many feel they have no life-affirming options?

Is anyone out there up for the challenge of being the ‘King’s faithful servant but God’s first’? (Saint or Sir – depending on your ecclesiology - Thomas More, 1478-1535*).

Are there any Dietrich Bonhoeffers** out there today in Ireland and right now who are going to take the road of costly discipleship while eschewing ‘cheap grace’?

Indeed, we are living in truly challenging times and this is why Mark 8:31-38 has particular salience this second Sunday of Lent in 2021 as it did on the same Sunday in February of 2018.

And the Lord of Love says to us again today:

‘For those who want to save their life will lose it’ (v. 35)

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*“He judged it not fit to determine anything rashly; and seemed to doubt whether those different forms of religion might not all come from God, who might inspire man in a different manner, and be pleased with this variety; he therefore thought it indecent and foolish for any man to threaten and terrify another to make him believe what did not appear to him to be true.” (St Thomas More, Utopia).

* Sir/Saint Thomas More was, apparently and curiously, hailed by Mark, Engels, Kautsky and Lenin for his witness and service to the ‘liberation of humankind from oppression, arbitrariness, and exploitation.’ (source:  Thomas More – Wikipedia)

**  “Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ.” (Dietrich Bonhoeffer, 1906-1945, in The Cost of Discipleship).

 (words above = 922)

 &&&

Further reading: notes and questions, verse by verse

Preliminaries

In this passage, Mark fuses the ideas behind that of the ‘Suffering Servant’ (Isaiah 53:3) with the ‘Son of Man’ (Daniel 8:17)

31:   We have been warned

Then he began to teach them that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. 

Where the Son of Man leads there we go, too.

32-33:   Peter still doesn’t get it

He said all this quite openly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. But turning and looking at his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, ‘Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.’

The way of thinking revealed by Jesus in this passage of Mark is challenging. It was challenging for Peter who would not hear of the cross and the way of much suffering. Yet, it is Peter – again – who speaks up and takes the lead where others drew back and waited. The impetuous, reckless, sometimes faithless Peter who sticks his neck out only to have it pushed back – in this case by attracting the undiplomatic expression ‘get behind me Satan’.

34:  Losing to gain

 He called the crowd with his disciples, and said to them, ‘If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. 

Denying or forgetting self runs counter to our natural instincts. It is, also, counter-cultural.  To take up our cross is not just about imitating our lives on that of Christ: it is about being marked with the sign of the cross as in Baptism. (It is suggested by some scholars that the cross such as + or x or the Greek letter Tau marked on the body signified repentance and branding as God’s own among Jews ever before Jesus arrived on the Jewish scene.  One thinks of the seal of baptism and the cross on the forehead whether at baptism or at the beginning of the Lenten journey when, in the Western Christian tradition, ashes are marked in a cross-like shape on our foreheads.)

35-37:  The meaning of Christian life

For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it. For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life? Indeed, what can they give in return for their life? 

‘life’ or ‘ψυχὴν’ or ‘psyxḗ’ could mean soul, breath, life or living being.

38:   Without shame or fear

Those who are ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of them the Son of Man will also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.’

It takes courage and wisdom – which are among the gift of the Holy Spirit – to speak out, to act out and to renounce our dead selves. Discipleship is, always, costly. We would be deceived to think otherwise.

Choosing the good

 “…The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.” (Mark 1:15) 

Genesis 9:8-17

Psalm 25:1-9

1 Peter 3: 18-22

Mark 1:9-15

 (Year B: First Sunday of Lent, 21 February, 2021)

Trials can bring out the best and the worst in people.  Alone with the ‘wild beasts’ in a lonely desert place, Jesus the child of the earth or the Son of Man was confronted with the rawness of nature. But, he was confronted, as a full human being with the realities of hunger, thirst, danger and temptation.  He went into a place that we, all of us, will have to face sooner or later as our bodies wear out and our time beckons. Some are fortunate to avoid much sickness and material poverty in the course of a long life; others are less fortunate.

Lent gives us a time and an opportunity to reflect and re-focus our lives.  In a strange way, the Great Tribulation that we are, each, passing through as a result of covid and the necessary restrictions arising from this dreadful global and local virus presents an opportunity to read, pray and connect with others in new ways.  We may still be juggling many things.  Staying still and focussed even with the ‘wild beasts’ of negative people, situations and inner feelings not to mention the beast itself of covid is an art. Even now we can arrive at a place of great peace and inner empowering. This is the fruit of a masterly stillness in the presence of God which enables us to love others. God keeps those in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on him (Isaiah 26:3).

How does Mark 1:9-15 speak to us on this first Sunday of Lent 2021? The short passage from this Gospel speaks of kingdom, repentance and belief.

First, the Kingdom of God…

The phrase ‘kingdom of God’ had deep resonance in Jesus’ milieu. It may be a little lost on the world today, unfamiliar or unfriendly to human notions, metaphors or institutions of royalty. But, the idea of the Kingdom still has currency and relevance if we understand it as a spiritual reign or ruling over minds and hearts freely accepting of this. It signifies a reign of personal and social freedom and justice. The two go hand in hand. It implies that those who are poor, oppressed, excluded are brought into the centre of our communities and listened to and empowered. There, peace and love are established where, before, suspicion, resentment and factionalism prevailed.

And the kingdom belongs to those who received it with childlike simplicity, trust and openness (Luke 18:17). It is a common practice to associate the term and the idea of the kingdom of heaven with the world that it is to come, or, simply that which is after death. But, it is clear from most usages of the term in the Gospels that the kingdom is also in the here and now: it is in our midst; it is very near and about to break into our little world.

In the long history of the Christian community there are times when Jesus’ followers reduced the Kingdom of God to the ‘Church’ (and that very often in strictly party denominational sense). Others over-identified or reduced the Kingdom of God to some interior, subjective state of feeling or reasoning.

It is near to us ….

It may be a question of time or place. In truth we can say that our lives are short and the day we anticipate is nearer now than was the case on the first Sunday of Lent last year.

Repent…

Lent is very much about repentance.  To repent is to turn away from something. It means turning away from all that is harmful, poisoned, destructive within us and around us. This is difficult because we seek refuge, sometimes, in falsehoods, riches and comfort – the comfort of our systems of thinking and association that surrounds us all the time. We are invited to return or turn back to the basics of:

• Doing what is right
• Believing in what is true
• And avoiding what is evil for ourselves and others.

Our role is not to go about confronting people with the language and a system of ideas that means nothing to them. Rather, we are invited to gently lead others to where they are ready and willing to go in their own time at their own pace. Ultimately, we are called not to pronounce the Word so much as to live it and thereby draw others into the family of trust, belonging and purpose which is the community founded on the example, teaching, death and resurrection of the Christ who continues to live in our midst.

And so….

This lent let’s take that prayer, Our Father, seriously and practically meaning what we say and putting it into practice day by day. And ‘Your Kingdom Come’ will be a reality more and more as we walk towards Easter. And we will be amazed to find that it is indeed true that ‘For the Kingdom, the Power and the Glory are yours’.

May this Lent be a special time for each of us as we move from winter to spring, from despair to hope and from defeat to ultimate victory over the Covid virus as we prepare, hopefully, for other winters and springs on this earthly journey. For the kingdom of God has come nearer to us this year. We must make haste, focus on the Gospel, change what needs changing in our lives now and trust and believe in the good news that Jesus announced 2,000 years ago and still announces to a broken world waiting for hope.

Something to cling to

 ‘… it is good for us to be here’(Mark 9:5)

2 Kings 2:1-12

Psalm 50:1-6

1 Corinthians 4:3-6

Mark 9:2-9

 Parallel gospels readings on the Transfiguration are found in Matthew 17:1-8 and in Luke 9:28-36

(Year B: Last Sunday before Lent, 14^th February 2021)

It is good to remember and celebrate an important event in the life of Jesus this very wintery Irish Sunday in the middle of what seems like an endless Lockdown (at least for some). A little bit of light, a little sound of something different and the feel that spring is coming is welcome. In the liturgy the celebration of what is known as the Transfiguration occurs at different times of the year depending on which liturgical cycle is followed. In the Revised Common Lectionary used, typically, by many of the churches of the Reformation the Transfiguration is celebrated on the last Sunday before Lent.

The transfiguration is a story of how Jesus, accompanied by three of his disciples, were ‘transfigured’ on the top of a mountain. It was very definitely a ‘high’ moment. There, on the mountain top, the disciples along with Jesus were lifted up in light and covered in a divine presence of the Cloud.  Yet, the story continues with a descent into warning, fear and an expectation of something very ominous is in store for Jesus and his companions.  The  Cross is getting near.

We are told by Mark that Jesus ascended the mountain ‘six days’ after the proclamation of the Messiah in Caesarea Philippi (Mark 8:27). This echoes the six days found in Exodus 24:15-16 when:

For six days the cloud covered the mountain, and on the seventh day the Lord called to Moses from within the cloud.

The presence of God and the transformation over Moses to be found in Exodus 33:7-23 has a strong resemblance with the Transfiguration (or metamorphosis in Greek). Further on, in Exodus 34:30, we are told that Moses’ face shone in the presence of God.

The episode of the Transfiguration comes in the middle of an intense period of healing, preaching as well as opposition and contestation. Jesus had warned his disciples, six days before the Transfiguration, that ‘Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me’ (Mark 8:34). The stakes were high and expectations were bounding forward. The disciples needed a reality check. But, they also needed an uplift during a period of intense stress and uncertainty. (and God knows how we, each, need an uplift right now – just something to cling to). They did not know what was next. They had a sense that all was not well and that they were in great danger.

There on the top of the mountain they came face to face (in so far as anyone can in this world) with the Almighty. It was moment of great fear and great wonder and joy – all in one. Note that Jesus chose not to go to the top of the mountain on his own. He brought others with him. Each person, on this mountain, experienced something wonderful and extraordinary. Yet, it was not an experience of single individuals on their own. It was a shared experience. The ‘high’ was experienced with Jesus in the midst of the chosen disciples. More than that, the story tells us that Elijah and Moses were in their midst. That was an impressive company of persons. Their topic of conversation (according to Luke 9:30) was about his departure (exodos in the Greek).

Although the synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark and Luke) tell us that the disciple John was present at the transfiguration there is no direct and explicit reference to this event in the Gospel associated with John. However, it could be said with accuracy that the entire Gospel of John is a meditation on the inner meaning of the Transfiguration.  And the essence of this event is captured in John 1:14:

The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

The huge significance of the presence of Moses and Elijah would not be missed on the Jewish listeners to the evangelist’s story. Moses was the dispenser of the law and leader of God’s people. Through his hands came the ten commandments, the Law and the promises. Elijah was the great prophet who foretold God’s salvation. Yet, in their midst stood another Prophet in whom God was well pleased and ready to acknowledge as his only Son.

After this ‘when they looked around, they no longer saw anyone with them except Jesus.’ (v. 36).  And this is the point. The stage has been vacated, so to speak, by Moses and Elijah while Jesus is the messiah, prophet and leader now. His time has come and so has ours. Elijah had come already (Mark 9:13) according to Jesus (in the person of John the Baptist).

This was one of those moments like the baptism in the Jordan and later on the cross when Jesus’ Sonship is proclaimed to those ready to listen. Listening is what we are invited to do in the story of the transfiguration. The one consistent message from the Father to us is ‘Listen to him’. Listen to him in ourselves, in others and in the events and environment of our lives. The famous German philosopher, Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) once wrote:

Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing admiration and awe, the oftener and the more steadily we reflect on them: the starry heavens above and the moral law within.

We must listen to the voice of honest reason and of concealed emotion within us as to discern that ‘moral law’ deep within. (And we may need the help of another.)  As the prophet Jeremiah writes:

I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts (Jer 31:33)

We have had the occasional Transfiguration moment in our own lives. It was good for us to be there on this mountain. But we could not stay there for too long. We had to make the descent back and face what we had to face before we started the climb. However, our hearts were refreshed and, perhaps, some baggage was lost or thrown off on the way.

It is important to remember these times especially now that many of us sense isolation, uncertainty and the pain of not knowing when or how we can reach a new normal of living.

With Jesus, Peter, James and John we can sing out from within this cruel situation in which we find ourselves along with the whole world. In this moment of transfiguration we can declare in all honesty what Habakkuk wrote (3:19)

The Sovereign Lord is my strength; he makes my feet like the feet of a deer, he enables me to tread on the heights.

Postscript

Anastasis (resurrection) appears 42 times in the New Testament.

Loving all that is created

 “…rejoicing in his inhabited world and delighting in the human race.…” (Proverbs 8:21)

 

                                            photo credit: Irish Times

 

Proverbs 8:22-31

Psalm 104:26-37

Colossians 1:15-20

John 1:1-14

 (Year B: Creation Sunday / Second Sunday before Lent, 7^th February 2021)

In some Churches, this Sunday is celebrated as Creation Sunday. It seems appropriate any Sunday of the year to rest, give thanks and renew our bodies, souls and minds. We need to join in the great cosmic act of Re-Creating in cooperation with the Creator.   As it stands written in the holy scriptures, ‘And on the seventh day God finished the work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all the work that he had done.’ (Genesis 2:2)   But, what did God do on the seventh Day? Well, he sat back so to speak, and enjoyed what He created! ‘ God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good.’ (Genesis 1:31). Just in case we missed the point that all of creation is good, the author of Genesis writes seven times for each Day or act of creation ‘God saw that it was good’.  In sharp contrast to some religious manifestations there was not and is not a hint that the material world and all within it is anything but good.  Badness crept in somehow. God who is good through and through did not create or will badness. Rather, humankind made in his image and likeness (Genesis 1:26) who was seen to be ‘very good’ was given the free will to choose life or death (Deuteronomy 30:15-20).

So, material is good. And to prove the point God became one of us in his only Son at the appointed time that we might be made divine and people who would join in the utter bliss of heaven beginning here on earth. Nothing was created by chance. All was created in love by love and for love. As I write these lines beside an open window a little robin landed on a garden chair near me fluttering his wings and going ‘chip chip’ as to remind me ‘I am here too’. All of creation sings God’s praise. ‘Before you all the earth shall bow, shall sing to you, sing to your name!’ (Psalm 65:4 – Grail translation). ‘Let the heavens and the earth give him praise, the sea and all its living creatures.’ (Psalm 68:35). ‘How good is the Lord to all, compassionate to all his creatures.’ (Psalm 144:9). If God is compassionate to all his creatures so should we. We owe compassion to one another and to all that God has created. And we owe compassion to ourselves not as an afterthought but because we, too, have been made in the image and likeness of God.

So, the next time someone jumps the queue ahead of you in the supermarket or refuses to wear a mask in public and brags about it – they too are creatures made in the image and likeness of God worthy of compassion even if their behaviour is appalling and in some cases dangerous. 

A theology of positive creation has its challenges. It is not just about protecting the bees and birds (I will come back to that). It is about cherishing all that has been created. Love them all. If we are expected to love one another and cause no hurt or pain to another living creature – human or non-human then that is what we should do because we love ourselves in others. Perhaps the hardest parts of creation to love is human beings because of their behaviour. In a different way we are called to love what cannot be seen in the depths of the earth where, as the psalmist says, ‘For it was you who created my being, knit me together in my mother's womb.’ (Psalm 138:13). Each of us was once a defenceless creature being knit together in our mother’s womb.

The golden rule of creation is to love all creatures big and small and to do to others as we would wish them to do to us.  In times past we took the Earth for granted. We burnt lots of coal, peat and other fossil fuels. We pumped enormous amounts of toxic materials into the atmosphere. Now we are beginning to see and understand that this is not sustainable or moral. What about the next generation? Back to the birds and bees. What could nature have to do with agricultural production, roads, cement factories and forestry clearance?  We don’t realise how much we are part of nature and how much we depend on nature for food, medicines, fibre and energy. We pay a heavy price when we treat Nature as something to be plundered, exploited and dumped on.  A misreading of holy scripture might present Man as Lord of the earth only to destroy and thrash it (and leave it as trash).  Instead of being stewards of a common home which will be left to future generations we have been selfish imposters denying the truth and evidence of climate change and unsustainable living and living however we please. This is a great sin embedded in the social structures, mindsets and norms of our upside-down and inside-out world.

The covid crisis is a wake up call. It has been evil, devious and divisive. Yet, it signals a fundamental imbalance in nature and our being part of nature. Creation Sunday urges us to think again and join up the dots. If we continue to thrash the planet and turn a blind eye to the massive destruction of habitats as a result of deforestation and other human activities not to mention the practices where viruses can more easily jump from animal to human (and back again and on and on) we are creating the perfect storm.

Let us listen again to the words of Wisdom crying out to us in the Book of Proverbs and again in the Prologue to the Gospel of Saint John. We are indeed the delight of our Creator but we share this delightful world with so many living creatures in all its beauty and ugliness of behaviour. To live in harmony with God and God’s creation is our call now.