“Whoever is not against us is for us”
Proper 21, Year B
September 20, 2009

What does it mean to be Grace Church? What does it mean to be the body of Christ that meets in this place? Those are questions I’ve already asked you from this pulpit before. They are questions I will continue to ask. My hope is that you have begun to ask them of yourself, that you have begun thinking and talking about them. They help us explore what our role in this community is. But they also explore what it means to be community and how to be community.

These are not easy questions for any one or for any congregation, but they are particularly difficult given Grace’s past. They would be difficult even if we didn’t have the history of conflict that we do, for in the twenty-first century, the question of community is at once more pressing than ever before. Community building is more difficult, even though technology seems to have made it easier to communicate.
Community and communication go hand in hand, one can’t create bonds across the aisle, across the generations, across cultural and linguistic divides without communicating clearly and carefully. Yet almost everything in our culture makes such communication more difficult. Our political discourse has devolved into shouting matches, people trying to score points rather than listening, and that carries over into the rest of our culture. Dialog is devalued in favor of making and scoring points.

And then there is the decline of face-to-face communities. Some of you have heard me tell this story before, but it’s a good one, so it bears repeating. As most of you know, I spent most of the last fifteen years teaching in liberal arts colleges as well as serving in ministry. Over that time a vast chasm opened up between my experience, my cultural values and those of the students I was teaching. Of course, that was inevitable. The students got younger every year. But the depth of that chasm came home to me one day in the classroom. As class ended that day, I noticed that as students began to leave the room, not one of the fifteen or twenty was talking to another student. Instead, they had all put in their Ipod buds, pulled out their cellphones, or continued sitting, checking their email. They had abandoned face-to-face community and communication for the virtual variety.

The most obvious reason for such behavior is that my students, even though they were at a small liberal arts college, preferred nurturing community with friends and family who were separated from them by a few hundred feet or hundreds of miles, rather than do the hard work of talking to someone who sat in the desk next to them. Most of us are tempted by such virtual communities. We have facebook pages with dozens, hundreds, sometimes, thousands of friends. We know what those friends are doing from minute to minute, thanks to the status postings. But what is the quality of those relationships?

Of course, it’s easy for someone like me to complain about social networking. I’m over fifty and the realities of the lives of younger people, even people in their thirties, elude me. I don’t text, I can barely see the numbers on a cellphone let alone try to use my thumbs to write messages with it. But it’s not just that. There are now virtual religious communities, apparently. In a way, it’s an extension of the televangelist phenomenon of the seventies and eighties. People related more deeply to the tv-star preacher than to their local church. Now, the relationship is with a virtual community, that may or may not involve real people.
Above and beyond that, here at Grace we worship as a community on Sunday morning, by and large in three distinct and separate congregations. Each week we have visitors who may or may not return, other people who come here seeking connection. But for the most part, we are community on Sunday morning. Some few of us may have relationships that are deeper than that; some of us have known one another for years, decades even, and so there is something of a core, or perhaps cores, webs of relationships. But on the outer boundaries of those webs, there are many others, who are tied to us by the slenderest of threads. With all of these obstacles, how do we create and nurture community?

We should take some small comfort in the fact that early Christian communities described in the New Testament struggled to create and maintain community. Paul’s letters are vivid evidence of the intense conflict that roiled early Christianity, but that conflict is also reflected elsewhere, even in the gospels.

The author of the letter of James urged his community to take care of its weaker members, the ill as well as those who might have strayed from the path. The image of community he depicts is one in which members pray for one another especially for the sick. But the ties that bind them are so strong that they also confess their sins to one another.

In the reading from the Gospel of Mark, we have a pot pourri of sayings, that seem somewhat disjointed. But what unites these disparate sayings is a concern for community. The first odd, saying of Jesus is in response to a rather strange event. An exorcist, who was not a disciple, was casting out demons by invoking the power of Jesus Christ. When the disciples complained rather bitterly, Jesus replied, “whoever is not against us is for us.” Now, what’s odd about this is that just earlier in Mark, the disciples had tried to cast out a demon and were unable to do so. The puzzle is what all this has to do with discipleship, but it would seem to me that Jesus is treating discipleship in rather expansive fashion, “whoever is not against us, is for us.

Then come the central teachings about community. As did the writer of James, Mark wants his readers to recognize the importance of maintaining the community, and the dangers that conflict within the community present. It is not just outsiders who are threats. For Mark, writing around the time of the great Jewish rebellion against Rome that culminated with the destruction of Jerusalem and of the temple, the Christian community faced severe, mortal threats from outside.

But there were also threats from within: “If any of you put a stumbling block before one of these little ones who believe in me, it would be better for you if a great millstone were hung around your neck and you were thrown into the sea.” The rest of the sayings ought to be read in light of that. It is not that one should pluck one’s eye out, or cut off one’s foot. What might a community, the body of Christ look like if all of us took seriously our responsibilities toward each other?

It is an exciting time at Grace Church. We have weathered a difficult period and come through. We have survived. But being the body of Christ is more than about keeping the doors open and the electricity on. It is about reaching out to others. Among congregational development literature there is an image that has become something of an old saw—the phrase goes “from maintenance to mission.”

In the weeks I’ve been at Grace Church I have come to learn a great deal about those people who have kept things going for the last decade, the last two or three decades. They’ve done incredible work. But they are tired and ready to pass the torch and the responsibilities on to the rest of us, to younger generations, with new energy and new ideas. In a few minutes, one of those torches will pass quite literally, as we install new leadership for the ECW, the Episcopal Church Women. But that’s only one organization, one area in which new leadership needs to come forward.

To take on those responsibilities, to live into our mission, we all need to roll up our sleeves, bend our knees, get to work, and to pray. We need to do the hard work to build community and the hard work of reaching out and extending that community beyond our doors, beyond the worship service which we find most comfortable, and comforting. The gospel for today concludes with a message that continues to resonate, “have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with one another.”

“Good Advice, Bad Advice, No Advice”

Proper 20, Year B

September 20, 2009

It’s tempting for many to view scripture as a rule book, a how-to guide, with advice on how one ought to live one’s life. Of course, even for those most committed to such a view of scripture, there is much in scripture that they would and do ignore. For others of us, scripture is little more than a relic of a long-gone age, ill-adapted and irrelevant to contemporary culture. Perhaps many, or most of you, had that reaction while you were listening to this morning’s reading from Proverbs. Not only is it irrelevant, it seems at times downright dangerous.

Now, I could have taken the easy way out and used the alternative reading for today. In fact, there are two alternative readings, and either would be less jarring to contemporary listeners. But you may as well know now that I am not one to avoid a difficult text, or a difficult issue, simply because there’s an easier way. No, I like a challenge, and today we all are challenged by this image of the ideal wife.

Well, I’m not going to preach on that trope. And I will refrain from making any jokes about wives, ideal or otherwise. Rather, I would like to step back and take a look for a few minutes at where we’ve been in scripture these past few weeks, and where we are going. This September, we’ve been reading from the Book of Proverbs, and shortly we will shift from there to another book, the Book of Job for our lessons from the Hebrew Bible. Scholars put these two books, along with Ecclesiastes, and some apocryphal texts into a category called Wisdom literature. Wisdom is more than a genre or type of literature. It is also a world view.

What sets Wisdom literature apart from the rest of the Hebrew Bible is the approach its authors take. They are not interested in the Mighty Acts of God, salvation history. They are not interested in the exodus, or covenant, or even the law given by God at Sinai. Instead, they look closely at themselves, at the world around them, and try to derive principles for living from their analysis of human life. In Proverbs, this can be a very optimistic a very cheery look at life. Do this and you will be rewarded. The rules are clear, straightforward, and relatively simple to follow. As we will see when we begin reading from the Book of Job, there is another, rather pessimistic side to Wisdom literature.

Wisdom literature doesn’t downplay the importance of God. Rather, it assumes that one can see God in the workings of creation, human society, and in the mind. Earlier in Proverbs, in Chapter 8, there is the beautiful and famous, hymn to wisdom. It begins, «The Lord created me at the beginning of his work, the first of his acts of long ago… when he established the heavens I was there, when he drew a circle on the face of the deep… I was daily his delight, rejoicing before him always. It is significant, especially given the way our text talks about the ideal wife, that in both Hebrew and Greek, the word for wisdom is a feminine noun, in Greek, sophia.

When early Christians began to reflect on their experience of Jesus Christ, one of the important images they used was that of wisdom. So in the first verses of the Gospel of John, we have the famous hymn to the logos, the word, or reason.

We may not like the particular advice that Proverbs provides us with today, but we need to remember that it is conditioned by its historical and cultural context. The advice was probably the sort of common-sense advice that in an earlier age, but there is an important lesson for us to remember. The underlying notion that the universe as created by God is reasonable and its laws and ways can be understood rationally is a lesson that needs to be relearned time again. For the authors of wisdom literature, especially an author like that of Proverbs, or Ben Sirach, whom we hear occasionally in the lectionary cycle, natural law is subject to reason, to wisdom, and thus ultimately to God.

But there’s a tendency in the Christian tradition to downplay reason, to claim that human reason and wisdom are no match for God, that our reason will fail in the attempt. Often, supporters of such views will quote the words Jesus says in today’s gospel, “whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me.” But that’s a misreading of this saying. There are several ways in which this has been reinterpreted. In Matthew’s gospel, for example, the parallel saying is transformed into the statement that “unless you become like a child, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.” So when we hear Mark’s version, we tend to interpret it in light of Matthew.

There’s more to it, however. The Aramaic word that presumably underlies this saying, the language Jesus spoke, the same word is used for child and servant. So by drawing his disciples’ attention to a child, he is making the same point he made when he used the image of a servant. Thus we come back to the central point of this section. In today’s gospel, we have the second passion prediction by Jesus. Last week we heard the first, and in a few weeks, we will hear a third. Mark has shaped these into a very tight narrative pattern. Three times Jesus predicts that he will go to Jerusalem, will suffer and die, and be raised from the dead.

After each of these, the disciples make clear that they don’t understand what he is talking about. Last week, it was Peter. This week, Jesus embarrasses them by asking them what they had been discussing. Each time, Mark then follows it up with Jesus saying something about discipleship. Last week, it was “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.” This week, an equally difficult saying, “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.”

I have to confess that this section of the Gospel of Mark among my favorites. It is also one of the most important sections. When I used to teach Bible, we would spend a day on these three chapters. When we came to the end of the gospel that we heard last week, That verse I just read to you, I would read it aloud to my students, most of whom were fairly conservative Christians, and ask them what they thought Jesus was telling them to do.

They would look confused for a moment, a common response to my questions, and then invariably, someone would try to explain. Well, Jesus is telling us that in order to be saved…” I would stop them right there and point out, that the saying goes, “whoever would save their life… will lose it. With these two sayings we are at the heart of one of his central teachings in the gospels.

Scholars often call it “reversal” or turning things upside-down. When Jesus teaches about discipleship or about the nature of the kingdom, the reign of God, he emphasized that what matters in the reign of God is a completely different value system than that which operates in our daily lives. What do we hold most dear? What is most important to us? Our life? Our family? Our health? Our wealth? Eternal Life? Whatever that is, the reign of God, according to Jesus, turns that value on its head. Whoever would be first will be last, the last will be first. Whoever will gain his life will lose it. Whoever would be greatest will be the least.

Hard as that may be for us to hear, and it is hard, because it challenges almost everything we hold dear—status, position, wealth, power, if you really think about what Jesus is saying, he is challenging even those things that we would do, those things we would give up for the kingdom. He is challenging even our deepest religious values. Whoever would save his life will lose it.

Proverbs would give us advice about human life. There are self-help gurus with infomercials, and how-to books who offer us the same. Oprah and Dr. Phil are ready with easy steps for happiness, and wealth, and weight loss. Jesus offers us none of those things. There is no twelve-step path for discipleship or for realizing the reign of God. Instead, Jesus confronts us with a call and a challenge: Whoever wants to be first must be last and servant of all. That’s not a recipe for success, survival, or recovery. That is the mindset of a disciple who walks with Jesus to the very end.

I remember very well the first assignment I was given when I began my M.Div program many years ago. I remember it so well because it was such an eye-opener. We were told to do a “parish study,” to pick a local congregation, do a little research, interview the pastor and a few parishioners, and, most importantly for me, to look at its environment, its neighborhood, and the congregation’s relationship to its neighborhood.

That was the eye-opener for me. I had never thought of a congregation in connection with its geographical surroundings. Why should I have? I grew up in a church that, quite literally, was surrounded by cornfields. Not much ministry to be done in that context, is there? But in that assignment those many years ago, I learned something very important, that congregations, like it or not, or linked to their communities, even if, as is often the case these days, most of a congregation’s members do not come from the immediate vicinity.

That assignment has come back to me since I’ve arrived in Madison. Living downtown, walking to work everyday, being the rector of Grace Church is very much being a part of the community. I can’t think of my ministry in this place only as ministry among you, the members of Grace. I have other responsibilities, other tasks, among them being present as a priest and pastor in the heart of the Capitol Square. That I am here, that Grace is here on Capitol Square, has an enormous impact on what it means for us to be the people of God, the body of Christ in this place.

Geography is important. Last week, I pointed out the significance for Mark of the two miracles Jesus worked. Both were in Gentile territory; both were done for Gentiles. In today’s Gospel, Jesus and his disciples are near Caesarea Philippi. They are “on the way,” Caesarea Philippi was a place of great symbolic and political importance. It had been given to Herod by the Emperor in 20 bc, and built as a city to represent the connection between the two rulers. Herod built a temple dedicated to Caesar Augustus, his patron. In Jesus’ day, it was the capital of Herod’s successor, Philip’s kingdom. So it was a center of the political power of Rome and its local henchmen, the power of Rome, and the willingness of local figures to suck up to it. It is in this geographical political context that Jesus asks his disciples a question of enormous significance.

What makes this particular story so important for the Gospel of Mark is that for one thing, this is the first time that any of Jesus’ disciples call him the Messiah. Jesus asks his friends what people think of him, and they give him all sorts of answers–Elijah, John the Baptist, a prophet. Clearly, Jesus is seen to be a remarkable individual, perhaps even super-human, a reincarnation of a great religious leader. But it is Peter who responds quickly and confidently to Jesus’ second question, “Who do you say that I am?” “You are the Messiah,” Peter replies.

We tend to stop there, with Peter’s great confession, and focus on the meaning of the question, and of Peter’s response. But Mark doesn’t stop there. He tells us more, and as the story continues, we learn precisely what it means, both for Jesus, and for his disciples, to confess that Jesus is the Messiah.

That’s crucial for Mark’s gospel. It’s the first time a human being has confessed Jesus to be the Messiah. But he doesn’t stop there. He makes two additional points that are of great significance. First, he follows Peter’s confession with Jesus’ prediction that he will go to Jerusalem, be arrested, and be crucified. Second, he begins to tell his disciples what they’ve signed up for: “If you would be my disciple, take up your cross and follow me.”

Both of those points are challenged by the disciples in the coming chapters. First, Peter contradicts Jesus. No, he says, that’s not going to happen. In the coming chapters, we will see the disciples not understanding what Jesus has to say about his death and about what it means to follow him.

What was it that so bothered Peter? That Jesus predicted the Messiah would undergo suffering and death.  For Peter and his contemporaries were waiting for a Messiah to deliver the Jewish people from the occupying Roman empire. Apparently, when Peter identified Jesus as the Messiah, he hoped Jesus would be that deliverer. But for Jesus, messiah-ship meant something quite different.

But it is not just the notion of the Messiah that Jesus radically reinterprets. He also turns upside-down the expectations of what it meant to follow him. For if the Messiah was going to be a revolutionary, a political deliverer, then his followers would also be revolutionaries, fighting against the Roman occupation. But Jesus understands discipleship in very different terms.

For Jesus, to be a disciple means to share in his suffering and death.  Jesus put it quite clearly, “If you want to follow me, take up your cross and follow me.” Following Jesus means following him to the bitter end, expecting the same fate that Jesus knew was awaiting him in Jerusalem.

To follow the Messiah, to follow Jesus, did not mean sharing in his glorious victory over the forces of Rome. It meant just the opposite, to share in his suffering and death.

Those are hard words for us to hear. They seem far distant from our religious experience and from our daily lives. But, just as Jesus challenged Peter and the disciples in today’s Gospel, so too does this gospel challenge the way we think about ourselves and about Jesus. Jesus confronts our assumptions about him, he confronts our complacency, our everyday world and tells us, “Friends, that’s not what it means to follow me.”

Jesus stands in front of us, asking us, like he asked Peter and the other disciples, “Who do you say that I am?” But confession is not enough, empty words, no matter how profound, don’t matter. In the South, it’s something of a marketing ploy to identify oneself as Christian. Small businesses will put the sign of the fish in their Yellow Pages ad, or will put their faith up on their marquee. One of my favorites appeared just after 9/11. A bar I used to pass on my way to work advertised. God Bless America! Draft beer $1.50. Indeed. I’m sure one sees much the same in rural Wisconsin as well.

Peter’s words were easy, because he hadn’t gotten Jesus’ point about what he was about. Okay, Jesus said, you think I’m the Messiah? Well, here’s what that means. And when Jesus made clear what messiah-ship was, Peter turned around and said that he didn’t sign up for suffering and death.

Like Jesus and his disciples, we are “on the way. We come from all over the area, to this place to worship. Most of us do it for very personal reasons—because we have family or friends here, because we like the worship, or the preaching, the atmosphere, the programs. We may travel a few blocks, a few miles or many more. And I wager few of us really think about the connection between our lives of discipleship and this particular place. But we have followed Jesus here, and that matters.

Last week, I preached about the baptismal covenant, that it served as something of a job description for Jesus’ disciples. It’s easy for us to think of our selves as Episcopalians—for many of us, to call ourselves Christians is more of a stretch. We don’t want to identify ourselves, or be identified with the religious right. Even difficult is to think of ourselves as disciples. You will hear that term a great deal in the coming weeks, because for the next two or three chapters of Mark, we will be hearing again and again about what it means to be a disciple, to follow Jesus.

I can’t tell you how precisely to respond to Jesus’ demand to follow him. That is up to you. I can give you some suggestions, some guidelines perhaps. Discipleship is about responding to that call with concrete actions and with a desire to deepen your relationship with Jesus Christ.

There are many ways in which you might become more involved in Grace Church and in our outreach into the community. I encourage you to take advantage of those opportunities—serving in some capacity on Sunday morning, or volunteering in the Food Pantry. It is also important to continue learning about our faith and asking the hard questions. I hope many of you will participate in the Gift program with its in-depth examination of our relationship with food—questions of sustainability, hunger, and the like. We are also beginning our fall stewardship campaign and as you think about your commitment to Jesus Christ, your commitment to Grace Church, it is also appropriate to consider how that commitment might be reflected financially.

Yes, it is a hard road that Jesus walked, the road from Caesarea Philippi to Jerusalem. His disciples didn’t know what they were getting into. We know what lay at the end of that journey, and for most of us, such a fate is incomprehensible. Yet, for all that difficulty, we should think of ourselves as disciples, sharing the journey Jesus walked. It won’t look the same. The circumstances are radically different. But for the most part, the questions, the challenges are the same.

What does it mean to follow Jesus, to have followed Jesus to this place this morning? To confess Jesus is Lord, to confess with Peter that Jesus is the Messiah, is quite easy. To do what Jesus asks of his disciples, to take up a cross, and follow him to Jerusalem, is something quite different.

We have followed Jesus to this place, to Grace Church, this morning. It is our responsibility as his disciples, to reach out, as he did “on the way to Jerusalem.” To reach out to others, to those in the pews around us, to those in this community, to offer them healing, and hope, and bread for the journey.