16th
Sunday after Pentecost / Year B
Jeremiah
11:18-20; Jm 3:13-4:3, 7-8a; Mark
Pastor
Gayle M. Pope
Following
the Crucified King
My daughter Danielle was six years old when her Grandma Highness
died. Grandma Highness was a young
grandma – only 59 when she died – and my kids spent a lot of time with
her. She was a wonderful grandma – a big
part of their lives.
So I thought Dani would take Grandma’s death very hard. But she didn’t seem sad at all. I can still
see her at the visitation playing with her cousin right in front of the coffin,
as if this were just another day.
She did ask to write a note to her grandma and put it in the casket so
that Grandma could read it when she got to heaven. That done, she was on to something else.
At age six, the concept of death and loss didn’t really register with
Dani.
Adults can be like that, too, in a little different way. I can remember immediately after the death of
my parents feeling like there was some sort of a wall up in my soul – a barrier
keeping me away from the full realization of my grief – a wall beyond which I
just was not yet ready to go.
I wonder if that’s where the disciples were at in the story we heard
this morning from Mark’s gospel.
Jesus had just told them, for the second time, that he was to be
betrayed and killed and three days later, would rise again. But the disciples “did not understand what he was saying and were afraid to ask him.”
What was not to understand? The
first time Jesus predicted his death, we were told, “He said all these things quite openly.” That time, Peter rebuked Jesus and said it
would never happen, which got Peter a stern rebuke from Jesus.
So, it’s not that they didn’t understand the WORDS, they just could not accept
the reality that Jesus could die in such a way.
They had invested their lives in following him. He was their friend and they couldn’t imagine
losing him. But even more, he was their Messiah! He was ushering in a new
Kingdom. There just was no way it could end like that!
They would not go there. They
would not even ASK about it. Instead,
they went in just the opposite direction.
They were arguing about who was the greatest – or who had the most
authority or stature among their group.
Such a discussion implies the expectation of a more predictable future –
a kingdom in which there would be a hierarchy where some would have positions
of power over others.
They were in denial. I can understand that – it’s pretty normal. I think Jesus understood. He asked what they had been arguing about and
they were silent because they had to know, deep down, their argument was off
base. But Jesus knew what they were thinking.
He still had a lot to teach him.
Whenever it says in the gospels, “Jesus
sat down,” that signals he’s about to teach. He called the twelve and said
to them, “Whoever wants to be first must
be last of all and servant of all.”
Then he went and got a child and brought the child in to the center of
the circle, took it into his arms and said, “Whoever
welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me
welcomes not me but the one who sent me.”
A child, in the culture of that time, was a nobody. Children had no
status, no rights, and nothing to contribute. But Jesus equated a child like
that with himself and, not only with himself, but with the God who sent him.
Jesus was trying to help the disciples understand that the Kingdom he
was ushering in was NOTHING like they were imagining. He was trying to get them to think way
outside the basket they thought they had put all their eggs into.
When Jesus talked about dying, they couldn’t go there because it didn’t
fit their Kingdom image. What they
needed was a whole NEW image. The
In this Kingdom, the least are the greatest and the greatest are the
least. In this Kingdom, you lose your
life in order to save it. In this
Kingdom, you give away everything you have in order to receive what you really
need.
In this Kingdom, the KING is tortured and hung on a cross to die and, in
that death, achieves the greatest victory ever – victory over death itself – a
victory fulfilled in the resurrection.
Jesus needed to teach his disciples these things so that, eventually,
they COULD go there … so they COULD accept the reality of a crucified Savior, which is not
an oxymoron after all … so they COULD understand that Jesus’ death was not a
failure, but a victory – a victory in which they, too, could participate by
faith.
As Paul wrote in Romans 6:5, “For
if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be
united with him in a resurrection like his.”
Last Sunday night, a few of us met here to continue our conversation
about the mission of
Someone brought an article that had just come out in the Quincy paper
about a couple of huge “mega churches” in Quincy that are growing large and
fast, while more traditional mainline churches are losing members.
This phenomenon is not unique to
These are churches with high-powered preachers who expound on God’s Word
with passion and relevance and expect
a faith-filled response. Among the thousands who worship at these churches, are
maybe hundreds of highly committed members who contribute large sums of time,
talent and treasure to keep everything rolling.
Churches like these can give churches like ours an inferiority
complex. We compare ourselves to them
and either we wonder how we can be more
like them, or we find fault with what they’re doing to justify NOT being like
them.
When you think about it, we almost sound like the disciples. We don’t exactly say, “Who’s the greatest?”
among Jesus’ churches, but isn’t there just a bit of similarity between the disciples’
conversation and the conversations where congregations like ours discuss
congregations like those in
It’s not that we can’t learn from what others are doing effectively – we
can and SHOULD.
But if there IS a parallel between the disciples’ argument about “Who is
the greatest?” and the discussions we have about our own church in comparison
to others, let’s press it a little further.
Considering Jesus’ response to the disciples, let’s ask ourselves
questions like:
o
Is there something about God’s Kingdom that we’re not
seeing?
o
Are there realities we’re afraid to face?
o
Are we discussing and planning things that have nothing to
do with what Jesus is trying to show us?
o
Are we willing to be great by being least of all and servant
of all?
o
Are we willing to welcome and embrace whomever Jesus would
see as “one such child” in our time – and who might that be?
o
What does it mean that we follow a King whose mission was to
die first and THEN rise?
I don’t have answers to these questions, but, I think
they’re worth asking as we work on the four areas of initiative that we DID
identify at the meeting last Sunday night and that we will be pursuing further
in the weeks and months ahead.
In our second reading for today, James talked about the
“wisdom from above” – which is pure,
peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without
partiality or hypocrisy – versus “earthly wisdom” – which is unspiritual and
devilish, characterized by envy, selfish ambition, disorder and wickedness.
As we reflect on the mission of our congregation, and
on our individual callings in our own lives, we need that “wisdom from above”
to help us see the world from God’s perspective, where success and victory is
often very different from what the prevailing culture would say.
How do we get that wisdom? How do we ask rightly? The answer is there in verses 7 and 8 of the
reading from James, Chapter 3. “Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist
the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and he will draw near
to you.”
Submit to God.
Resist the devil. Draw near to God, and God will draw near to us. That doesn’t sound so difficult, if we let
God help us. May God grant us the faith
to and humility to do so. Amen.