We are free to risk, to dare, to love, to live, to work, to dream, and yes, free to fail

What would you do if failure didn't matter? What would you endeavor, dare, or try? What mission would you attempt, what venture would you risk; what great deed would you undertake? Would you, like Bartimaeus in our Gospel (Mark10:46-52), shout out for healing even though the people around you try to shush you into silence? I wonder, could it be that Bartimaeus was so used to failure and disappointment that he saw no reason not to try one more time?

Would your cry be for healing? Would it be for justice, or peace, or equality, or any of the things that the world calls idealistic? Or maybe you would volunteer at a food pantry, or help out with ministering to the sick, or visit an elder who most have forgotten, or reach out to someone who is overwhelmed by grief... even though you don't know what to say?

So often, these things – whether great or small – seem either so hopelessly impossible or so ridiculously insignificant that we just don't even try. Yet the promise of the Gospel is that we are free ... free to risk, to dare, to love, to live, to work, to dream, and yes, free to fail, because we have God's promise that there is no small gesture and there is no impossible deed, and that the God who raised Jesus from the dead will also bring all things – even our failed efforts – to a good end.

So, if you're going to risk anything that matters, "not failing is not an option." Risk entails failure. Change entails failure. Creativity and innovation and experimentation all entail failure. And if we forget that, we will either never try anything that matters or end up sorely disappointed.
(Adapted from David Lose , Working Preacher, 10/23/12)

 

There's no such thing as a stupid question...really?

Throughout our lives, most of us have been told by our teachers that there is no such thing as a stupid question. Well, in Mark 10:35-45 James and John blow the lid off that myth. They really did ask a really dumb question at an even more inopportune time. Jesus just finished telling the twelve for the third time, that his fate was all about suffering, death, and resurrection. Yet, immediately following they ask if they can sit on his right and left side "in your glory."

Talk about not getting it! What do you suppose the Zebedee brothers had in mind? They want a piece of the “messianic action,” on either side of Jesus’ throne. James and John think they know what it mean to follow Jesus but they still don’t get it.  

Jesus is, as he tells James and John after their bold request, a servant messiah, and to follow a servant messiah one must become a servant: "whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all. For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many" (Mark 10:44-45).

In fairness to James and John, answering the call to "servant-hood" does not come easy. We are so much like then in many ways, aren't we? We would much prefer to be known as a great "anything" but servant. Yet, when by His grace, we are called to give of ourselves to serve the least of our brethren, we know that we are in God's presence.

 

If I were a rich man...

For Christians, personal union with Christ is how we come to divine union with God. When we are free from those attachments that divert our attention from God, we are able to turn our lives over to him, and he comes alive to us through Christ. In essence, we get out of the way and let God’s love take us through the rest of our journey.

We can accept what Jesus says at face value in that wealth can be hazardous to our spiritual health; however, Jesus is not suggesting that it’s impossible for a rich man to “enter” the kingdom of God. In our reading this week Mark 10: 17-31 Jesus reinforces the metaphor of wealth as a spiritual liability to our gaining entry into God’s kingdom. But is he only talking about money and riches here? All too often we relate one’s being poor as an automatic “ticket to admission” to the kingdom. Yet, if we refuse to take responsibility for our own lives and well-being and passively accept our self-imposed fate as a “gift” in and of itself, we are missing the point. There are no merit badges for being rich or poor and co-dependent. Not taking responsibility for one’s own welfare…if one is able, is as much a distraction and a liability to entering God’s kingdom as being diverted from our union with God by coveting excess and abundance for abundance sake.

An important message in this reading is Jesus’ call for us to give up our “false selves,” as Thomas Keating calls it. Whether rich or poor, he asks us to set aside all the attachments, devices, security blankets and even spiritual practices that we devise as “props” so that we can stay in our comfort zones. As such, we hide behind an egotistical illusion of the false self. Simply stated, anything that gets in the way of our becoming closer to and being united with God is a stumbling block. Jesus makes it clear that people, places and things can be millstones, or "stumbling blocks" that can block us from our relationship with God.

Christian practice aims at our dismissing the false self by developing an awareness of God’s presence in our lives. Then as we can see our deep-rooted attachments and with God’s help, let them go as he takes them away and replaces them with Himself. (Keating, Open Mind Open Heart, p 72.)

I have always enjoyed Eugene Peterson’s citations in The Message on the false self or ego: Then Jesus went to work on his disciples. "Anyone who intends to come with me has to let me lead. You're not in the driver's seat; I am. Don't run from suffering; embrace it. Follow me and I'll show you how. Self-help is no help at all. Self-sacrifice is the way, my way, to finding yourself, your true self. What kind of deal is it to get everything you want but lose yourself? What could you ever trade your soul for? "Don't be in such a hurry to go into business for yourself."  

Is it Caesar's or to God's

 

Once again in Mark 10:2-16, the Pharisees ask Jesus about divorce "to test" him and once again they misunderstand or misuse the scripture to justify their agenda. They hope their question will expose Jesus as dangerous to families, in light of his scandalous comments in prior encounters.

In typical fashion Jesus turns the table on the Pharisees away from their legal foundation for divorce to God's design for marriage. Because of the hardness of your hearts, he [Moses] wrote you this commandment. But from the beginning of creation, God made them [husband and wife] male and female. For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother, and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. So they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together no human being must separate.

God is love. We are products of God’s love and handiwork, a small but unique part of God’s great ongoing work of art. Love cannot be governed by temporal laws of man any more than God can. We speak of marriage, a construct of civil law that we attempt to apply to God’s law, as a contract. But is it? 

I can remember studying what goes into the essential parts of a valid contract in a Business Law course a long time ago. For a contract to be valid there must be a valid offer and a valid acceptance of that offer; there must be an agreed upon exchange, or a quid pro quo, that is “something for something,” and the contract must detail specified “consideration,” a term used to affix a value exchange, usually money or equitable services rendered.

“God established a creation, a covenant bond, with humanity, with A-dam. Adam’s name is not only the name of an individual, the founding father of the human race, but it’s also the Hebrew word for humanity…The difference between covenant and contract, in the Old Testament and throughout scripture, is profound. Contractual relations usually exchange property, exchange goods and services, whereas covenants exchange persons. So when people enter into a covenant, they say, ‘I am yours and you are mine.’ So God uses the covenant to enter into a relationship with those whom he created in his own image: humanity and all human persons.” (Scott Hahn, Contract vs. Covenant, Outlook, February, 2002.)

So how do we apply a transactional agreement to love? We can’t. Love cannot be governed by man. No human can break the love between two people; it’s not theirs to break. Once again in our reading, Jesus refuses to be trapped by either the Pharisees or his disciples as he challenges the rules of men with the law of God. Each of the synoptic gospels cite some variation on Jesus’ take on separation of Church and state with the famous quote Render to Caesar that which is Caesar’s and to God that which is God’s. This phrase has profound resonance throughout scripture and God’s law based on his love and covenant with man. It has become widely quoted as a summary statement of the relationship between Christianity and secular authority that goes far beyond whether it was lawful for Jews to pay taxes to Caesar.

"We renew our faith in the word of the Lord which invites faithful families to this openness. It invites all those who want to share the prophecy of the covenant of man and woman, which generates life and reveals God!”(Pope Francis, Openness, 9-27-15, Philadelphia)

"I leave you with this question, for each one of you to respond to. In my home, do we yell, or do we speak with love and tenderness? This is a good way to recognize our love.

(Pope Francis, Patience, 9-26-15, NYC)

In Jesus Name...

Go Figure? In Mark 9:38-50, the apostles are all bent out of shape because someone outside of their “elite” group dares to do their job and has been caught casting out demons. Ironically, none of the twelve were able to exorcise an unclean spirit from a boy earlier in Mark. Now, they want to forbid someone who is doing the same thing, but successfully.
Jesus’ response is unequivocal: Cut out all your elitist nonsense and get over yourselves; he was acting in my name.
What does acting in my name mean? Jesus tries to teach us that acting in the Name of Jesus is not merely a knee jerk response to a liturgical prayer.

It's living a life under the reign of God in Jesus, as Jesus.

Jesus was also unequivocal when he tells us that anything that gets in the way of living in His name, should be eliminated. So should stumbling blocks disguised as precious body parts, be severed? Again, the violence of Jesus' hyperbole here is palpable and unequivocal. It serves to remind us that preventing another from being “of Christ” and acting in his name is far worse than self-mutilation.


We ask:

What stumbling do we put in the way of others?


What does it mean to be “of Christ?”


What criteria should we use to determine if someone is "of Christ" or not?What about active church membership?


What if, rather than "active church membership," we call it "being a part of the body of Christ"?


Can one be "of Christ" and not be an integral part of the "body of Christ?

Whoever welcomes me...welcomes the One who sent me

 

 

 

 In Mark 9:30-37 the disciples continue to be confused with Jesus’ message partly because their burning question was not “How can I live my life as Jesus?” but rather, “How can I be seen as the greatest?”


Their self-centered thoughts were barriers to their understanding of what Jesus was telling them. In addition, their “arrogance,” reminiscent of Adam and Eve, breached the lines of communication with Jesus and their relationship with Him. They were unsuccessful in their attempt to heal the child because they were more intent on impressing the crowd; competing with each other and vying for Jesus approval rather than serving as instruments of God’s Peace. 

In citing the child, Jesus is telling us that we have to welcome those “non-persons” who occupy the lowest rung of society’s ladder: "whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me."

Once again Jesus is challenging us to reverse long-standing, ingrained, human habits and to set aside our common human understanding of how to win fame and glory, and instead learn from Jesus, God's way.

Who do you say that I am

When Peter responds to Jesus’ question with the right answer, that Jesus is the Messiah, we breathe a sigh of relief. (Mark 8:27-35). The rift between the reader and the characters appears to be closed. However what Peter quickly learns is that grasping Jesus’ identity is not simply about getting the title right. Naming does not define. Mark opens the can of worms again, this time between expectations of the title Messiah and the reality of what Jesus’ role as Messiah is. Jesus pivots immediately and  reveals how the Son of Man must suffer and die and be raised after three days. Jesus says all this with a boldness that contrasts the secrecy preferred only two verses earlier.


A suffering Messiah, is this what Peter and the disciples were prepared to hear or understand? Jesus does not suffer and die because suffering is good. The necessity of the suffering is attributed to his turning over the rules currently designed to exclude most observant Jews of the time. In so doing Jesus served as a model, reaching out to those who are ostracized, considered unclean or marginalized.  Mark has already profiled this suffering in the story of John the Baptist’s death in chapter 6. John is arrested and dies because he ran afoul of those in power. God’s kingdom does not line up with those who subscribed to the love of power vs power of love..


What we find then in this passage in Mark is a series of questions about identity and expectations. It is important that we realize that these issues are not locked in the past. This was not only a problem for the disciples or those early Christians to whom Mark is writing. Mark profiles a deeper dynamic that spans the ages: human knowledge based on religious tradition are often in tension with the aims of God? We know the way things are, how they are supposed to go. If we believe God is active is active in the world and that Jesus is very alive in the world, then the question posed to us is not whether we confess Jesus as the Messiah. That is the easy part. We know what the title is. Then the question really becomes how do we understand what the implications of the title Messiah are? And how do our expectations not align with God’s?