St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Fayetteville, Arkansas
Second Sunday in Lent, March 16, 2003

Genesis 22:1-14
Romans 8:31-39
Psalm 16:5-11
Mark 8:31-38

God is God And We're Not

     At the beginning of Mark’s Gospel, Jesus is baptized by John, and immediately driven into the wilderness by the Spirit.  Upon returning from the wilderness, Jesus immediately gets to work, proclaiming the Gospel and “saying, ‘The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news’.”  Whew!  And all this happens within fifteen verses of the Gospel!  But that is the way with Mark’s Gospel.  It is a sparse telling of Jesus’ life and ministry in which Mark portrays the good news of the kingdom of God by Jesus’ actions.  It is through Jesus’ deeds that we come to understand what this kingdom is all about.

     So, what does Jesus do?  As he was walking along the sea of Galilee, he saw some fisherman who immediately dropped their nets and immediately followed him to Capernaum.  Jesus’ first action of his public ministry was to teach in the synagogue there, and did so in such a way that his authority was easily recognizable.  The second thing Jesus did was to drive an unclean spirit from a man in that same synagogue.  And all this happens within the first 28 verses of the Gospel.  And the pace of Jesus’ ministry does not slow down one whit.  By the time we get to today’s Gospel lesson, Jesus has cured a demon possessed man in the synagogue (1:23-26), a leper (1:40-42), Peter’s mother-in-law (1:30-31), a paralyzed man (2:3-12), a man with a withered hand (3:1-5), two men from Gedara (5:1-5), the woman with the hemorrhages (5:25-29), the Canaanite’s daughter (7:24-30), the blind man at Bethsaida (8:22-26), raised Jairus’ daughter (5:22-24, 38-42), calmed a storm (4:37-41),walked on water (6:48-51), and fed nine thousand people in two different settings (6:48-51; 8:1-9).  Whew!  Mark’s story is as action packed as any one of George Lucas’ episodes of Star Wars!

     And this action is carefully constructed to get us to the question that is asked by Jesus Himself in the passage immediately preceding today’s reading:  “Who do people say that I am?”  All of the miracle stories portray Jesus as a man who by his actions, spreads the kingdom of God to every kind and manner of person:  lepers, the blind, people with disabilities, women, non-Jews, children.  Jesus’ actions show us that everyone – even those who are not worthy to eat the crumbs that fall from the masters table – are welcome in God’s Kingdom. 

     And in today’s Gospel reading, Mark shows us that Jesus knew that the ways of the Kingdom of God would be on a direct collision course with the ways of the powers of the earth.  In the story today, Jesus returns to how he started his ministry by teaching the disciples plainly that he will suffer, be rejected by the earthly authorities (elders, chief priests, and teachers of the law), and be killed.  Then Jesus turns to the crowd that always seems to be lurking about in Mark’s Gospel, and teaches the crowds that those who follow Him and continue His ministry will also suffer.  The decision was straightforward and simple:  Either follow the ways of the world, or this new thing called the Kingdom of God.  Mark portrays the ways of the world as really pretty simple:  Mark sees that the institutions of his time – including the oppressive Roman provincial government, the puppet government of Herod, and the religious establishment – as supporting the status quo of class distinction.  Jesus promoted a whole new idea of egalitarianism, and he was a populist anarchist.  He saw the boundaries that had been set up around the poor, the helpless, the Gentiles, widows, children, and the diseased, as barriers that needed to be eliminated. 

     Although the idea of “class distinction” seems out of place in our culture today, I contend that it is as real as ever.  We often hear the words “conservative” and “liberal” used to describe segments of society, and I am not sure we really know what those terms mean or what attitudes they imply.  Tex Sample recently wrote that “most working people are committed to a traditional political view” that is neither conservative nor liberal. [1]   Traditionalists, according to Sample are committed to family, basic institutions, and morality.  Working class people tend to use traditionalist values to “keep order in the face of the potential for chaos.” [2]    

     What Jesus called his disciples and the crowd – that is you and me – to do is to form community with one another.  Jesus called us to a radical kenosis – a self-emptying – from our class posturing, from drawing distinctions between each other, and to live fully into a world of equality and inclusivity.  And Jesus knew that talk about this new idea – this thing Mark called the Kingdom God – would put him on a collision course with history.  He knew that the powers of his time – the Romans and the Jewish authorities – would kill him.  But, he also knew that committed people would pick up the cause and continue to try to bring the Kingdom of God onto this earth, and he both warned them and blessed them for their courage to act as if the Kingdom was already here. 

     Many of you know that I am a biologist.  I have been collecting and studying crawly things since I could walk.  My mother used to dread opening the refrigerator for fear of what kind of creature I might have left half dissected in one of her pickle trays.  As one who has studied and learned from nature all of my life, I have come to appreciate the extreme vastness and beauty of creation.  I have also come to realize that the boundaries that seem to separate one life form from another are really very blurry.  In the early days of biology, natural scientists developed organizational schemes to identify species.  This was an important step in the development of scientific thought.  Those of you who have children or work with children know that this kind of organizing activity is an early stage of the learning process. 

     In biology, classification systems worked pretty well until creatures were found that did not fit the order that scientists had imposed upon nature.  For example, mammals, like you and me, are routinely classified as creatures that have hair, are warm-blooded, and nourish their young with milk.  Reptiles are classified as cold blooded animals with scales that usually lay eggs.  The duck billed platypus is a meat-eating mammal which has fur and suckles its young, but it lays eggs like a reptile.  It has webbed feet, an electrified bill that looks like that of a duck, and a tail resembling that of a beaver.  Males have a poisonous spur on their hind legs which can cause excruciating pain to humans and kill dogs.  When the platypus was first discovered, and its pelts were brought back to England, some people believed that they were Frankensteinian creatures sewn together from other animals.  No one could imagine such a creature existed.  Just like no one imagined that there were large saber-toothed marsupial cats, yet such animals roamed North and South America. [3]  

     This situation from biology illustrates what we humans often do in many aspects of life:  we impose our human rationality on the diversity of God’s creation; we set our minds on human things, and not on divine things.  We see the world through human eyes and not God’s eyes.  In so doing, we categorize and order creation according to the human perspective, often unaware that our view of creation is subconsciously influenced by cultural, religious, and social values.  We then cling to the artificial reality we invent as if it was holy writ, and pass our ideas to subsequent generations who inculcate them as something akin to God-given truth.  It is in this way that ideas and some oppressive social practices and distinctions between groups of people become fixed or institutionalized:  black people always sit at the back of the bus, women never become priests, loving relationships between same-sex couples are not recognized.

     As both a biologist and a priest, I tend to view nature from a slightly different perspective, and that is what I would like to share with you now.  As a student of the natural sciences, and as someone who did molecular biological research with viruses for over twenty years, I have learned that nature is amazingly vast in its diversity.  I have learned that just when I think I have grasped a small piece of truth, another piece of information will come along that causes me to reorder my thinking just like the platypus caused the relationship between mammals and reptiles to be re-evaluated.  Over time, I have come to see the universe as an unfathomable mystery, rich in diversity, and even more exciting because of its complexity and immeasurable depth.  It is not a place of categories, but a series of gradients.  It is not a place of conservatives, liberals, or traditionalists.  It is a place of seekers.  This point of view enables me to live comfortably with provisional truths, theories that are likely to be disproved, and with categories that I know will change. 

     As a priest in the Christian Church, I recognize that we Christians are, by definition, people who must understand that change lies at the very center of our belief system.  After all, what is resurrection but change?  Jesus’ resurrection and transformation are the “origin and guarantee of human hope,” and indeed the source of hope for the redemption of the entire cosmos. [4]   It is through Jesus’ new beginning as the resurrected Christ that we recognize God’s transforming power in the universe and in our lives.  And that power is love.  It is what enables us to love our enemies and achieve peace.  As followers of Jesus’ way, “we are called to be more interested in loving than in being loved, in caring for rather than being cared for.  Whatever our lifestyle, it needs to be ordered by love.  The heart and center of all life, whether celibate, married, or in a committed partnership is love.” [5]   It is God’s love for us and our love of each other that enables us to achieve the unattainable, like equality and recognition of all of the loving relationships that God has blessed.  When we bless, whether it is a couple in a relationship or a person being ordained, we are not blessing what they have done or who they are.  What we are blessing is a set of promises.  It is the making of these promises that begins a new relationship whether it is a marriage or a ministry.  The church blesses relationships such as these because it is the way the church can participate in the bringing in of the kingdom of God.  The promises made inaugurate a new beginning, and as such demonstrate God’s incarnate loving power to order and renew God’s own creation. [6]  

     But the kind of change Jesus addresses in today’s Gospel is not easy; it comes at a great cost.  It can mean putting ourselves individually or collectively on a collision course with contemporary history.  It certainly means trying to see the world through God’s eyes; it means setting our minds on Divine things, and not human things.  It means opening ourselves to the possibility that what we have been taught by our society, our church, our parents, and our teachers may be contrary to the Gospel, and therefore subject to examination and change.  It means listening to each other and seeing each other as both a teacher and as a fellow sojourner. 

     It also means trusting God; implicitly and explicitly.  Abraham had been promised by God that his descendents would be more numerous than the dust of the earth (Gen 13:16) and more numerous than the stars in the sky (Gen 15:5).  Abraham was therefore confident on that day when he and Isaac climbed the mountain together; Abraham knew that Isaac would be spared in order that God’s promise to Abraham would be fulfilled. 

     Christians are called to be a people of radical transformation and change.  We are called to live our lives in accordance with the symbolic Eucharistic banquet we re-enact every Sunday in this holy place.  Our church is called to become a place that opposes the classifications and distinctions of the ordinary world – the principalities and powers.  We are called to create in this space and in our community a place where human values and self-proclaimed views of righteousness are turned upside down and each and every human being, regardless of social standing, lifestyle, or sexual orientation, is treated with the honor, dignity, and respect due by right of our Baptismal covenant. 

     There will always be disagreement over how we might individually perceive what is meant by the Kingdom of God and, perhaps especially, how to get to that Kingdom from here.  But, if we can remember that God is God and we are not, then we stand a much better chance of finding God’s kingdom and not confusing it with our own worldly constructions.  In the end, I trust in God’s love for us to guide us to that Kingdom in God’s own time.  For I, like Paul, believe that that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Comments? E-mail me.

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Genesis 22:1-14

After these things God tested Abraham.  He said to him, “Abraham!”  And he said, “Here I am.”  He said, “Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains that I shall show you.”  So Abraham rose early in the morning, saddled his donkey, and took two of his young men with him, and his son Isaac; he cut the wood for the burnt offering, and set out and went to the place in the distance that God had shown him.  On the third day Abraham looked up and saw the place far away.  Then Abraham said to his young men, “Stay here with the donkey; the boy and I will go over there; we will worship, and then we will come back to you.”  Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering and laid it on his son Isaac, and he himself carried the fire and the knife.  So the two of them walked on together.  Isaac said to his father Abraham, “Father!”  And he said, “Here I am, my son.”  He said, “The fire and the wood are here, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?”  Abraham said, “God himself will provide the lamb for a burnt offering, my son.”  So the two of them walked on together.

When they came to the place that God had shown him, Abraham built an altar there and laid the wood in order.  He bound his son Isaac, and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood.  Then Abraham reached out his hand and took the knife to kill his son.  But the angel of the LORD called to him from heaven, and said, “Abraham, Abraham!”  And he said, “Here I am.”  He said, “Do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him; for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me.”  And Abraham looked up and saw a ram, caught in a thicket by its horns.  Abraham went and took the ram and offered it up as a burnt offering instead of his son.  So Abraham called that place “The LORD will provide”; as it is said to this day, “On the mount of the LORD it shall be provided.”

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Psalm 16:5-11

Conserva me, Domine

5

O LORD, YOU are my portion and my cup; *
it is you who uphold my lot. 

6

My boundaries enclose a pleasant land; *
indeed, I have a goodly heritage. 

7

I will bless the LORD who gives me counsel; *
my heart teaches me, night after night. 

8

I have set the LORD always before me; *
because he is at my right hand I shall not fall. 

9

My heart, therefore, is glad, and my spirit rejoices; *
my body also shall rest in hope. 

10

For you will not abandon me to the grave, *
nor let your holy one see the Pit. 

11

You will show me the path of life; *
in your presence there is fullness of joy,
and in your right hand are pleasures for evermore. 

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Romans 8:31-39

What then are we to say about these things?  If God is for us, who is against us?  He who did not withhold his own Son, but gave him up for all of us, will he not with him also give us everything else?  Who will bring any charge against God’s elect?  It is God who justifies.  Who is to condemn?  It is Christ Jesus, who died, yes, who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed intercedes for us.  Who will separate us from the love of Christ?  Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?  As it is written,

“For your sake we are being killed all day long;

we are accounted as sheep to be slaughtered.” 

No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.  For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

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Mark 8:31-38

Then Jesus began to teach his disciples 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.  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.”

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.  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?  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.”

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