Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16 Psalm 22:22-30
Romans 4:13-25 Mark 8:31-38
In Church history, the apostle Peter became
quite a heroic leader for the early Jesus Movement. But Peter is remembered in the Gospels for
more than his heroism. The Gospels do
not always present him in his heroic mode.
One might say that he is presented in his learning mode. In the Gospel presentation, Peter like all of
the disciples is presented in the process of learning from Jesus. It is sometimes surprising that the disciples
are often presented more like Snow White's seven dwarves than as Christian heroes. So to use metaphors from education, they are
presented as stumbling students and not as learned professors.
Why would the early Christian writers present
the disciples living as students of Jesus in such unenlightened states? We are tempted to read the Gospels as a blow
by blow historical narrative rather than seeing that the writers had teaching
points that they wanted to get across to their readers or listeners. The Gospel writers used narrative
scenarios/events in the life of Jesus and his disciples to instruct their
readers about their teaching points.
A more direct method of teaching might be
just to write a more intellectual treatise on why Jesus of Nazareth was the
messiah in the setting of his time. (Modern theologians and preachers could
bore you to death with such scholarly presentations with fifty pages of
footnotes copiously citing all sources for all of the theories and counter
theories). But just as Jesus used the
indirect method of parables to teach his listeners, the Gospel writers used the
story or narrative of Jesus and his disciple to teach their message to their
listeners. The narrative method of teaching
has the advantage of catching the reader or listener in the immediacy of what
could be called a primary naiveté, an immediate response to story rather than
thinking about what the writer wants us to learn from the story. Using stories to teach is an effective and
tricky method way of teaching and lots of really witty people have done it from
Mark Twain to Will Rogers to Garrison Keillor.
A topic du jour for the writer and readers of
our appointed Gospel has to do with the nature of the Messiah. What is the nature of the Messiah? Peter was a Jew and a famous follower of
Rabbi Jesus. Peter came to understand
that Jesus was the Messiah but he had to learn about the nature of the
Messiah. For many Jews in years before
and after the appearance of Jesus, there was an expectation for a great figure
like David who would arrive on the scene and lead the people of Israel to
independence and greatness. At the very
least, the Messiah would bring deliverance to a captive people Israel. In this regard, one would have to say that
such a Messiah did not arrive to the people of Israel until our modern era; the
1948 declaration that re-established the State of Israel and the string of
military victories whereby Israel has protected and expanded their
borders. And now Israel has that kind of
Messianic power in possessing nuclear weapons.
A triumphant militaristic Messiah Complex with weapons even greater than
King David had has now come to Israel.
Peter, the great leader of the church, is
presented as one who understood the Messiah to be more of a triumphant military
figure. But the Christian movement was
not successful because the early Christians possessed armies and weapons. The Christian Movement was successful because
it showed itself to be the Kingdom of God on this earth through a strange
counter-logic, the logic of suffering.
In the Socratic-like dialog of the Gospel
conversation, Jesus was teaching another kind of meaning for the Messiah than
the meaning that Peter wanted. Peter in
his lack of understanding is stating the view of many of his fellow Jews about
the nature of the Messiah. “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.” And what
did Jesus say about this militaristic view of the Messiah? Well, he said to Peter, “Get behind me Satan. You are thinking in a very logical human way,
but that is not the way of the Messiah.”
What is the way of the Messiah as it came to
be understood by the writer of the Gospel of Mark? The way of the Messiah is the way of taking
up one’s cross. The kingdom of God is an
interior process within the lives of people who are progressively changing
their lives through the power of death and resurrection. The transformation of the world happens one
person at a time as each person realizes this process of repentance that can
take place within one’s life.
The literal cross of Jesus and the meaning of
the resurrection of Jesus had become in the early community an interior
spiritual methodology. How can I change
my life? How can I quit doing things
that I don’t want to do? How can I do
things that I want to do? The death and
resurrection of Christ became the symbol of the interior change in the lives of
people and it was anchored upon this person, Jesus of Nazareth.
Why was this message of Jesus catching fire
and spreading? Why did many people
suffer so much and endure suffering because of this message? Where did they get the courage to suffer so
much? People with this interior courage
stood against the Roman power; they had courage to confess Jesus to be the Son
of God and Messiah even while the Roman citizenry professed their Caesars to be
divine beings with divine lineages.
We can understand the Gospel for today as a teaching
tool. You and I live in an age when
we’ve seen what we call Christianity become associated with a series of world
empires. We’ve seen Christianity expand
because of colonialism. Today, you and I
have to admit that our context is much different than the context from which
the Gospel writers wrote. We understand
the more militaristic messianic notion because we live in the nation of a world
power that protects our Christian rights.
I believe where you and I can reconnect with
the intended meaning of the Gospel of Mark is to deny our “group identity” and
receive this Gospel in the personal mode.
The laws of the Empire, even the American
Empire can force upon me lots of behaviors in my life, but as all of us know,
the laws of our Empire cannot reach the places in me to transform my life. We can be law abiding citizen and still not
know the sense of esteem that would be called abundant life. And this is where we come to the genius of
the Gospel; it is a way of grace given for the transformation of our lives in a
way that cannot be accomplished by the external laws of our country. And that is why it is relevant good news for
us today.
This Gospel is an invitation to the gradual
transformation of our lives so that we can know the sublime experience of
abundant life which cannot be accounted for in any other way except through
knowing the gift of God’s grace. I
believe that the Gospel invites us to this subtle, but profound experience of
the Messiah today. Amen.
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