First Sunday in Lent, Year B, February 18, 2024

Prayer

Gracious God, every true to your covenant, whose loving hand sheltered Noah and the chosen few while the waters of the great flood cleansed and renewed a fallen world, may we, sanctified through the saving waters of baptism and clothed in the shining garments of immortality be touched again by our call to conversion and give our lives anew to the challenge of your reign.

From Prayers for Sunday and Seasons, Year B, Peter J. Scagnelli, LTP, 1992.

Some Thoughts on Mark 1:9-15

"Believe in the good news" is better translated as 'Trust into the good news,' since the whole point is not, 'Have an opinion about the good news.' Rather, Jesus is calling for a radical, total, unqualified basing of one's life on his good news."
Holy Textures, Understanding the Bible in its own time and in ours, Mark 1:9-15, David Ewart, 2012.

"To preach the temptation of Jesus in Mark is to call attention to our greatest temptation -- the temptation to think that God is not present."

"The Greatest Temptation," Karoline Lewis, Dear Working Preacher, 2015.

"The loneliness of God's servant, a theme that persists throughout the gospel, is already suggested in these verses. "

Commentary, Mark 1:9-15, Sarah Henrich, Preaching This Week,WorkingPreacher.org, 2012.

Oremus Online NRSV Text

We move quickly from the image of Jesus resplendent in light at the moment of transfiguration in Mark's Gospel, Chapter 9, to his baptism and the immediate work of preaching the Gospel in Chapter 1.  This is the first Sunday in Lent and we are reminded as we make our way from Ash Wednesday that we are utterly dependent upon the grace of God - the Good News of God proclaimed by Jesus on the edge of his own wilderness journey of preaching and healing.

“The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.” (vs 15)  Could our author have captured the words of Jesus and the words of an early baptismal formula? Perhaps both. What is very clear in the scholarship is that these words that Jesus offers in our passage today is key to the understanding of his message.  Joel Marcus (Mark, vol 1, 176) writes:

"Repent, and believe in the good news!" - at their baptism they would have heard this exhortation as a call to bury the moribund world in the water and to rise from it to view, through the eyes of faith, God's new creation.  They would in short, have been reminded by Mark 1:15 of the moment when they became disciples of Jesus."

Jesus' proclamation begins following the imprisonment of John the Baptist.  This is the first public ministry of Jesus recorded in Mark's Gospel.  We might remember from a previous Sunday that while Jesus has come to heal and to over power the evil of this world, ultimately he is here for this single purpose.  To bridge the divide between this world and the kingdom of God - the dominion of God.

Joel Marcus (Mark, vol 1, 175) gives us a very clear suggestion of what Jesus is saying:

time has been fulfilled  AND   dominion of God has come near
repent                            AND   believe in the good news

The time is now, the dominion of God is near.  Our response to that grace is repentance and to trust in the good news of God.

For those who now are making their way in Lent, and for those who are still seeking to be restored to the family of God,  the faith reality is one that challenges us to change. To be aware.  To take notice of our own selves and the way we do not live in the ways of God and to amend our lives.

I was interested recently in an interview that I did and the question that I was asked: Do you think that at times like this we especially need Ash Wednesday? Our culture is a mess the interview seemed to be saying perhaps we all needed this special day and season in order to make things right.

Human nature is the same. Ash Wednesday, as is Lent, a very personal discipline.  The confrontation of this ritual life of repentance we so carefully cling to during this season as Christians is one that is not just for today but true for us year round. It is not specifically more important today than it was when Jesus invited us to respond to the dominion of God and the good news.  It is only specifically so because you and I today choose to follow Jesus. Relevance to the culture and all of our want to be special is washed away somehow in this invitation of Jesus.  Our season is not a time when we are to critique others, a time when we are to find the splinter in another person's eye, or blame and castigate our culture, rather (and on the contrary) it is a time when we remind ourselves personally that we have not done what Jesus asked us to do.

I claim to follow Jesus but fail. I try to amend my life and fail. I make the kingdom of God my goal and do not reach it.  Yes the dominion of God is near and I rest fully upon his grace and mercy to discover it. I repent because of my continuing human frailty which is my nature. I take a moment on this Sunday to be reminded of Jesus' invitation to rise out of the depths of my failure and moribund world/life/relationships and to see before me grace, mercy, forgiveness and invitation.

Some Thoughts on 1 Peter 3:8-13

"In our text, Peter counsels a very different response to persecution. Rather than focusing on your persecutors and being overwhelmed by fear and hatred, keep your eyes on Christ."

Commentary, 1 Peter 3:18-22, Judith Jones, Preaching This Week,WorkingPreacher.org, 2015.

"While talk of principalities and spirits bound in prison may strike us as a vestige of a bygone world, we should not be so quick to discount the contemporary relevance of this text, especially during this season of Lent. "

Commentary, 1 Peter 3:18-22, Daniel G. Deffenbaugh, Preaching This Week,WorkingPreacher.org, 2012.

Oremus Online NRSV Epistle Text 

The letter of 1 Peter is written in the midst of Christian persecution - many believe. So it is that the author concerns himself with the questions about how to be ready. Be ready to make your defense of your faith he offers. This is not to make some kind of argument though which wins the day. Instead we are to give, according to the author, our understanding of hope. We Christians have hope in our life when it is going well and we have hope in our life when we are suffering. We have hope because we know that we are not alone in this work of suffering - Christ too suffered and so God understands and knows what we go through on our behalf. But this is not where hope comes from. 

Partnership with God is not the locus of hope. Instead hope is in the certain faith that death has no victory. We share in Christ's death and in Christ's resurrection. So it is that we shall on the last day enter into our heavenly habitation. We will be forever united to God through the mercy and grace of Jesus Christ.

Baptism is our earthly entrance into this new life believes the author. In our own baptismal words we hear the hope of people delivered out of slavery, people delivered into freedom and the promised land. We understand that for the Christian, the follower of Jesus, pain, suffering, and death do not have the last word. And, that when the end does come, in hope we make our song to the grave: Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia.

Some Thoughts on Genesis 9:8-17

"The Old Testament readings for the first three Sundays in Lent give us glimpses of three covenants: God's covenant with Noah, God's covenant with Abraham, and God's covenant with Israel at Sinai."

Commentary, Genesis 9:8-17, Cameron B.R. Howard, Preaching This Week, WorkingPreacher.org, 2015.

"This is a salvation story, a tale of commitment to the opposite of genocide, commitment to preserving the diversity of life and all of life's messiness. And God is actively part of this commitment."

"Lent - The Season of Good News," Nancy Rockwell, The Bite in the Apple, 2015.

"Contemplating the destruction of an entire civilization is disturbing, and so it should be."

"When Bad Things Happen to Bad People," Rabbi Jane Rachel Litman. Torah Commentary at BeliefNet.

Oremus Online NRSV Text 

Let me be honest. As I have grown older, I have become more uncomfortable with the story of the flood waters. Rabbi Litman's words about it resonated with me:

I find that my discomfort with the flood story is not so much with the Torah's sacred narrative, but with our modern response to it. The Torah relates a fearful epic of evil, punishment, and salvation. By ignoring the most chilling part of the story, we have trivialized and discounted the Torah's moral message. This is a common American cultural process. One only has to look as far as this week's holiday of Halloween to see how we have to come to trivialize and discount even death. It's pretty difficult to feel much genuine awe around an 8-year-old Grim Reaper complaining that it's cold outside. 

The unjust suffering of the innocent still evokes moral outrage and pain in most of us. We wish and hope that the good are rewarded. But we have become uncomfortable with the reverse. We know that human evil is complex, sometimes as much a sickness as a sin. We are often unwilling to grapple with human cruelty and wrongdoing, to expect justice against those who harm others, because that justice is often very difficult to define. Even God's justice, as in the mighty flood, makes us nervous.
("When Bad Things Happen to Bad People," Rabbi Jane Rachel Litman. Torah Commentary at BeliefNet.)

When we Christians read this story we read it through the eyes of our childhood and a small version of our story of creation and redemption. With more than two thousand more years of reflection on this passage I find the Rabbi's words resonate in a deeply powerful way. Rabbi Jonathan Sacks says:

The story of the first eight chapters of Bereishit is tragic but simple: creation, followed by de-creation, followed by re-creation. God creates order. Humans then destroy that order, to the point where “the world was filled with violence,” and “all flesh had corrupted its way on earth.” God brings a flood that wipes away all life, until – with the exception of Noach, his family and other animals – the earth has returned to the state it was in at the beginning of Torah, when “the earth was waste and void, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the spirit of God was hovering over the waters.” (http://rabbisacks.org/trace-god-noach-5778/)

Perhaps there is more here than another creation story - or recreation story. Perhaps there is more here than a story of an angry God at the unjust behavior of humanity.

As Sacks reads the texts compared to Genesis he notes that Genesis 1 tells us God makes humanity in God's image - he and she God created them. Genesis 9 tells us that other human beings are made in the image of God. As if bringing full circle the sin of man (murder which is created by humans - see Cain and Abel story) this story reminds us that not only am I created in Gods image but you are too.

Again Sacks writes,

Genesis 9 speaks about the sanctity of life and the prohibition of murder. The first chapter tells us about the potential power of human beings, while the ninth chapter tells us about the moral limits of that power. We may not use it to deprive another person of life. 

This also explains why the keyword, repeated seven times, changes from “good” to “covenant.” When we call something good, we are speaking about how it is in itself. But when we speak of covenant, we are talking about relationships. A covenant is a moral bond between persons. 

What differentiates the world after the Flood from the world before is that the terms of the human condition have changed. God no longer expects people to be good because it is in their nature to be so. To the contrary, God now knows that “every inclination of the human heart is evil from childhood” (Gen. 8: 21) – and this despite the fact that we were created in God’s image. (Ibid)

It is not good for humans to be alone and the flood narrative tells us that we are to see each other, those of our tribe and those outside our tribe as created in the image of God.

This is a new idea and a constant theme for Christians. God is interested in a human community bound together for our common goodness, that in fact when we do this, we are reflecting a kind of fullness of God. Other religions teach fear of the other. Other religions teach sacrifice of the other. Christianity rooted deeply in its ancestral faith of Judaism is about being the beloved community - a blessing of peace, of shalom, to the world.

Interestingly, the New Testament does not play on this message from Genesis very much at all. There are not quotes, no parallel passages in the Gospels. Certainly there is mention of "Noah's Ark"in the letters - I Peter for this day's reading is an example. Only later would Roman Catholic Theologians compare Mary to the Ark. However, one might argue that as this passage is partnered with Mark there is something important here. That is: God in Christ Jesus continues his work of reconciliation and solidarity by breaking open the community of God and through the power of the Holy Spirit including all people. The mission to the other cannot be lost and is intimately tied to a heritage that did not begin with Jesus but is deeply rooted in the ancient texts of Israel that we find in our canon. In my sermon from 2018 I point out that a theological case (beyond typology) could be made that God's saving act from a sin sick world in the Ark is what Jesus does permanently. From the word "good" to the word "covenant" we see a story arc (pardon the pun) to Jesus and his cross which becomes a new ark and a permanent promise. Creation, de-creation by humanity's inhumanity to man, and recreation by God.

Previous Sermons For This Sunday

Moving into the Desert to Meet Jesus

Transfiguration of Our Lord, Last Sunday after Epiphany Year B - February 11, 2024

Prayer


God of life, in a blaze of light on Mount Tabor you transfigured Christ, revealing him as your Beloved Son and promising us a share in that destiny of glory.  But in a blinding flash we, children of the promise, annihilate life, disfiguring the face of Christ and mocking his Gospel call to gentleness and peace.  Let the beacon of that gospel pierce again the clouds enshrouding the earth, so that even in the darkness of these times we may believe your day will dawn.  We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God for ever and ever. Amen.

From Prayers for Sunday and Seasons, Year B, Peter J. Scagnelli, LTP, 1992.




Some Thoughts on Mark 9:2-10

"Mark's use of the story connects so strongly to what follows that we can scarcely interpret it without reference to what Jesus? disciples were to ?listen to? in the chapters which follow, namely lowliness and compassion. It is not just any elevation of Jesus which will do, but this particular one, which we appreciate when we know the whole story. Mark?s story reminds us that disciples, then and now, frequently get it wrong, through fear and ignorance and much else."

"First Thoughts on Year B Gospel Passages in the Lectionary," The Transfiguration of Jesus, William Loader, Murdoch University, Uniting Church in Australia.

"The Transfiguration, then and now, is a shining mountaintop experience amid scenes of violence and suffering."

"The Shining," Alyce McKenzie, Edgy Exegesis, Patheos, 2012.

"Transfiguration is one of those 'non-holidays' that appears in lectionaries with its own particular set of readings, but doesn't draw much attention from local congregations."

Commentary, Mark 9:2-9, Sarah Henrich, Preaching This Week, WorkingPreacher.org, 2012.

Oremus Online NRSV Text

The passages that come before this are filled with a pounding and unrelenting march by Jesus to proclaim the good news and to overturn the forces that now bind God's people. He knows this proclamation and action campaign (to use the military imagery of the Greek text) which is the Way will ultimately lead to the cross.  Therefore, everyone who is on the Way must be prepared to pick up his cross and follow. (8.34)

Yet here in this passage we have a vision of the God's glory and in the last two verses the connection of this mission with the resurrection.

Jesus in this moment of transfiguration is revealed as the new Adam, the new Moses, the great prophet, the Son of God and is clearly the Messiah.  He is God in all his glory revealed in the person of Jesus to the disciples sitting at his feet, to the first hearers of this Gospel, and to us.  And, this work is well pleasing to God. 

We are reminded perhaps of the words of Enoch and his response to his own heavenly vision.

And there I saw another vision of the dwellings of the righteous and the resting-places of the holy. 
And there my eyes saw their dwellings with the angels And their resting places with the holy ones...
And I saw their abode beneath he wins of the Lord of Spirits,
And all the righteous and elect were radiant like the brightness of fire before him....
There I desired to dwell and my spirit longed for that abode.  (I Enoch 39:4-8, trans. Marcus, Mark, 638)

While Peter echoes Enoch's vision in this world, the disciple and follower of Jesus along the way (with the certainty of the cross before them) sees instead the great hope of Resurrection and our eternal dwelling beneath the wings of our "father hen when he calls his chickens home" - to quote Johnny Cash.

The transfiguration is a theophany in which the followers of Jesus and the generations that follow are able to glimpse their future. 

In the months to come our people will enter Lent, we are in tax season, election time, our economy is slow, people are suffering and hurting.  They are pretty sure that this is not heaven! 

Our preaching is to so move those who listen that they may have a glimpse of the transfigured risen Lord.  That they may see the promise of their future and understand that the present sufferings in this world are ones that will eventually be swallowed up by the glory of God.

We are to so move our hearers that on this Sunday, they like Jesus and his first followers, will be moved through their vision of things to come to change the world around them. We are to move our people to understand that their glimpse of the heavenly family and our place under God's embrace is not something to be waited for in some distant future, but that we are to make our drum beat loud and to act in this world building up stone by living stone the kingdom of heaven.

But there is more here...let me offer a bit of reflection about how often we heist this particular gospel from its broader message of a gospel mission to the world.

Taken from my book entitled the Jesus Heist.

Let’s take the story of the transfiguration, for instance. This is a passage that appears in Matthew 17, Mark 9, and Luke 9. The story comes shortly after the revelation that Jesus is on his way to Jerusalem to die. Jesus heads up a high mountain with a few friends: John, Peter, and James. Jesus is “transfigured” there. He is changed and his face and clothes shine dazzling white. This is a mystical event of great power where the disciples see Moses and Elijah (two great Sinai prophets) standing there with Jesus. They are clear that this is a great sign, a revelation, about the person of Jesus. Peter says, “Lord, it is good for us to be here; if you wish, I will make three dwellings here, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah” (Matt. 17:4). Immediately, their human nature kicks in to make a holy shrine because of their experience. They would build booths; people would come and visit. Here on this mountain people would come to worship Jesus, Moses, and Elijah. But Jesus heads back down the mountain. We don’t get much from Jesus. only that the real work isn’t happening on that mountain. He goes right down the mountain and begins a ministry of healing in the town. We see very clearly that the ministry is among the people who are in need of God.

In Matthew’s Gospel [Mark's too], a man had gone to the disciples, but they couldn’t help. Jesus says, “You faithless and perverse generation, how much longer must I be with you? How much longer must I put up with you? Bring him here to me” (17:17). It is as if Jesus says, “Look, you guys want to go around and replicate a new system of religion, build booths, and set up pilgrimages. The work of this community I keep teaching you about is in the midst of the people.” This is right before the wonderful passage where Jesus rebukes the idea of a religious ingathering and sends Peter to go find a fish with a coin in its mouth. In every passage the disciples are to listen to Jesus, follow Jesus, and do what Jesus tells them to do. It has always struck me as funny that Jesus does not say, “Great idea. Let’s build a building where people can come and worship God; after all that is the highest form of love.” But instead Jesus takes them out into the world to be with people. So, I have always found naming a church “The Church of the Transfiguration” a bit odd given the story. Jesus’s ministry of loving God is always in the midst of helping people.

Some Thoughts on 2 Corinthians4:3-6

"Third in a series of lectionary texts which at first blush appear to consist of insider-trading for homileticians, 2 Corinthians 4:3-6 wrestles, in what is just small part, with what is a huge issue for the church..."

Commentary, 2 Corinthians 4:3-6, Karl Jacobson, Preaching This Week, WorkingPreacher.org, 2009.

"Paul plants himself firmly on the cross side of life; the resurrection is to come (4:13-15). Cruciform ministry constitutes his self understanding as an apostle and invites us to see our ministries in the same light."

"First Thoughts on Year B Epistle Passages in the Lectionary," Transfiguration, William Loader, Murdoch University, Uniting Church in Australia.

Oremus Online NRSV Text

It has been a while since we have been into the letter of Paul to the church at Corinth...so lets have a little refresher. It is written sometime in the late 50's; and possibly from Macedonia or on the way to Ephesus. Paul is out and about traveling to his communities and supporting them. He is also quick to correct misunderstandings. In particular this letter is addressed at problems within the community. One can easily imagine a letter being written to Paul with myriad complaints. As a priest, pastor or bishop today...we know letters like these from our folks. We have to be careful to not normalize Paul's letters as they are meant to be specific guidance for specific contexts and situations.

We might infer that Paul is dealing with some who are not happy with his own teaching. It is almost as if someone wrote and said, "Paul you are making this all too complicated. It is this complicated theology of yours that keeps us from growing."

Paul's response goes something like this. God's gospel doesn't work like the rest of the world. If you are all caught up in a world that trades loyalty for power, bribes officials, or is working a hustle to get you ahead in life...well then this Gospel of God in Christ Jesus is simply not going to make sense. 

Remember, this isn't news. The book of Deuteronomy describes God as one who has no partiality and cannot be bribed! And, this God loves the lost, least, fatherless, widow, and the sin-sick soul. 

So, this is not about you liking me, or getting me to like you as your leader. This is not about getting God to like you. This is not about appeasing lesser gods on family altars for good harvests, wealth, and children. That isn't the way our God works. 

God came in the form of Jesus Christ - a human being. Weakness proves to be power in this Gospel, death is life, and the least will be the greatest. In this way Jesus is flipping the old religion game. 

So, yes, if you are hustling then you will be blinded. Because, all this God invites you to do is believe that God will save you and you can stop all that religious business. For all of us stuck in the world of exchange rates for love and success this Gospel is a gift. Paul writes:“Let light shine out of darkness." At the end of the day I am a desperate man...give me some of that light!

Some Thoughts on 2 Kings 2:1-15

"The opening verse of this pericope hints at the focus of the following narrative, reminding the reader that everything that follows must be read in light of the end of the story."

Commentary, 2 Kings 2:1-12, W. Dennis Tucker, Jr., Preaching This Week, WorkingPreacher.org, 2009.

"Our reliance on technical reasoning to fix whatever the problem d'jour plots us in the narrative in a circumstance similar to faithless Israel, albeit on a much more powerful and grandiose scale."

"The Politics of 2 Kings 2:1-12," Timothy F. Simpson, Political Theology, 2012.

Oremus Online NRSV OT Text

The reading for this Sunday is the transition from Elijah to Elisha. The mantle of Sinai prophet is passed along. They are on their way to one of the holy Sinai cult sites - Bethel. They make their way down to Jericho. There they are met by local prophets and keepers of the tradition. So it is they the go on to the Jordan. Elisha travels the whole way with Elijah. 

When they arrive at the Jordan Elijah takes up his mantle and strikes the water with it. Here then the waters divide and they are able to cross on dry ground. The mantle is the great shawl that was worn across his shoulders.

We are meant to see in this journey a walking and claiming of the land promised by Elisha. They crossing over is no mere crossing over but a reenactment of the crossing over the Jordan into the land that is promised.

On the other side Elijah plainly passes on a double spirit of his prophetic powers to Elisha. After this a chariot of fire and horses come down and take Elijah away in the whirlwind. Elisha is left grieved by the event. He then picks the mantle and puts it on. He then reverses the river Jordan crossing. 

We know historically that the prophetic Sinai tradition was strong, especially in the North, but as some scholars now point out in the South as well. Jeremiah certainly being one of those great southern prophets. Nevertheless what we see here is a deep connection with all that is past, with the covenant theology rooted in their tradition.

Elisha's very passing over is not only meant for us readers to see that he will also be a great prophet, or that he is the inheritor of Elijah's spirit, or that he is welcomed by the local prophetic schools. There is, you see, a message we are meant to receive. God makes way, God delivers, God will take care. The prophet themselves is not some kind of inheritor of a magic mantle as he is a very participation in the deliverance of Israel out of Egypt. His prophecy and his ministry is rooted in the delivering act of the God who frees Israel and hears the cries of his people.

Now, here is what is interesting about this text. We are fascinated with the story of Jesus as a parallel story to the Exodus. And, if we read through Luke we get very confused when this doesn't happen. Why? Well, because Luke is appears very interested in connecting Jesus with Moses only, but with the prophets. And, especially Elijah narratives.

I very much like what Richard Hays says about this. He offers that Luke repeatedly is avoiding a typology here. Where as John seems to reject typologies and seek to accentuate uniqueness, and Matthew and Mark seem to create typologies... instead Luke allows for Moses and the prophets to hover int he background. Hays writes:

"Luke does not permit his readers to linger over either one as a distinctively privileged precursor or typological pattern. Instead, they appear on the flickering backdrop, lending depth and resonance to the story of Jesus; then the images shift again, and the story moves on." (Echoes of Scripture in the Gospels, p 202).

What I want to say here is important, I think the lectionary makes a mistake. Mark is playing with images from the Psalms, Daniel, Deuteronomy, and Exodus. Attaching this passage from 2 Kings makes for an odd choice. In Mark's Gospel the connecting person to the Elijah stories are connected to John the Baptist. (Ibid.) Preacher be warned not to mix too much the Old and New Testament story this week!

Previous Sermons For The Transfiguration

Go and Grow: Transfiguration Sunday Sermon at Church of Holy Apostles, Katy and St. Paul's, Katy

You are Awesome: Mediations on the Transfiguration and the Lego movie, St David's Austin, Last Epiphany A

Tenemos una Vida con Jesus: Sermon preached on the transfiguration in Spanish at San Pedro Episcopal Church, 2015

God wants us to have more meetings: Sermon on the Transfiguration at St. Christopher's Houston 2013

Building the Alamo: Preached at Holy Spirit Episcopal Church, Waco, Tx on March 6th (Alamo Day). Matthew 17:1-13

5th Sunday after the Epiphany, Year B, February 4, 2024

"You could surmise that Mark is making a point here by having the kingdom start at home. That may not be in Mark?s intention, but its truth stands nevertheless."

"First Thoughts on Year B Gospel Passages in the Lectionary," Epiphany 5, William Loader, Murdoch University, Uniting Church in Australia.

Prayer

With a father's care and a mother's compassion, you embrace as your own, O good and loving god, the sufferings borne by the whole human race, and you join these to all that your Son endured in his Passover from death's bitter pain to risen life.  In all our time of trial and testing, purify our hearts and fortify us deep within so that, bearing the light of unfailing trust in your power to heal and save, we may hasten to the support of our brothers and sisters as they face the mystery of illness and pain.  We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
From Prayers for Sunday and Seasons, Year B, Peter J. Scagnelli, LTP, 1992.


Some Thoughts on Mark 1:29-39

After reading and studying this passage I have these two questions for us preachers: Are we bringing people a glass of cold water on the battlefield of life? Or are we delivering them off the battlefield?

Jesus is here to teach (vs 38) and specifically to offer Good News.  Joel Marcus points out that this is decidedly the most important message of the verses which follow the healing of Peter's mother-in-law.  (Marcus, Mark, vol 1, 201ff)
Jesus is invited to come and heal Simon Peter's mother-in-law. He touches her hand and she is healed and is so revived that she begins to serve them. Jesus does many works of healing and casting out demons and these are important to show his power and his might over and against the strong man of this world.  He is a doer of great deeds.  Yet this is not the purpose of his coming (vs38). 

Jesus does not come to heal us. He does not come to cast out the demons. He does do these things but they are specifically acts that show his strength and his power.  And, in so doing draw us to his teaching and preaching.  He has come to proclaim a gospel of Good News. As one scholar put it, to give us the good news from the battlefield. (M. E. Boring, Beginning, 56; see also Marcus, Mark, 146)  This ties into Isaiah's prophetic voice of offering good news for the captives.

He has come to tell us the good news. And, that good news is accompanied with mighty acts that free people from their lives.  Lives are changed, the world is different.

I wonder what battlefields will be brought into our churches this Sunday morning? What battlefields will you be bringing in with you?  How easy it is to stay on the battlefield and to remain captive to our fear and anxiety. How easy it is to be imprisoned by our anger at someone.  How immobilizing it is to be so angry that we might avoid our real work. 

What about the battlefield where people are hungry, naked, and in prison? What about the battlefield of raising kids alone? Yes...there will be many battlefields carried laboriously into the church sanctuary this week.  Can we let the mighty Jesus heal us as he heals Simon Peter's mother-in-law, so that we may hear the good news of deliverance, and serve him in mission?

A Little Bit for Everyone

Oremus Online NRSV Text

General Resources for Sunday's Lessons

Textweek Resources for this week's Gospel

Mark 1:29-39

29As soon as they left the synagogue, they entered the house of Simon and Andrew, with James and John. 30Now Simon’s mother-in-law was in bed with a fever, and they told him about her at once. 31He came and took her by the hand and lifted her up. Then the fever left her, and she began to serve them.

32That evening, at sundown, they brought to him all who were sick or possessed with demons. 33And the whole city was gathered around the door. 34And he cured many who were sick with various diseases, and cast out many demons; and he would not permit the demons to speak, because they knew him. 35In the morning, while it was still very dark, he got up and went out to a deserted place, and there he prayed. 36And Simon and his companions hunted for him. 37When they found him, they said to him, “Everyone is searching for you.” 38He answered, “Let us go on to the neighboring towns, so that I may proclaim the message there also; for that is what I came out to do.” 39And he went throughout Galilee, proclaiming the message in their synagogues and casting out demons.

4th Sunday after the Epiphany, Year B, January 28, 2024

Prayer

In Christ your Son, O God, you impart to us a new teaching from one who speaks with authority, for Jesus is the unique master of wisdom, and our only liberator from the forces of evil.  Make us convinced and courageous in professing our faith, so that by word and deed we may proclaim the truth and bear witness to the happiness enjoyed by those who center their lives and put all their trust in you.  We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God for ever and ever. Amen.

From Prayers for Sunday and Seasons, Year B, Peter J. Scagnelli, LTP, 1992.




Some Thoughts on Mark 1:21-28

"The kingdom of God in Mark is good news because it brings liberation at a number of levels. The central thing is enabling people to be how God made them to be."
"First Thoughts on Passages from Mark in the Lectionary," Epiphany 4, William Loader, Murdoch University, Uniting Church in Australia. 

A Byzantine church was built on top of
a synagogue in Capernaum

Oremus Online NRSV Text


What is unbound in us?  This is the question that I am taking with me into the Gospel reading from Mark appointed for this Sunday.

This is a very dense and important passage. The author of the Gospel is very much laying a firm foundation upon which he is building his revelation of who Jesus was and the import of his mission in this world and in the world to come. 

First, let me caution the reader and preacher against taking this simply as a story about healing.  I think this is an important caution as there are people in our congregations who are prone to seizures and epilepsy.  They, like their loved ones, are very wounded by preaching on this lesson that does not embody Good News for all people.  We as pastors and leaders should not do anything in our teaching or in our preaching that implies that these people are filled with some demonic spirit when what we know is that they are ill.  In point of fact to say that this story is solely about healing and the casting out of demons from a person is to miss a great deal of what is going on in the passage and in the entirety of the Gospel according to Mark. 

Is this a story about healing? Yes, by all means, it is.  But what is it that we are being healed from? What is it that is being unbound in us? How and for what are we being freed? These are the questions that must be answered as you prepare your sermon for Sunday.

A couple of things to note: First is that this passage parallels the passage in Mark 5:1-20; wherein Jesus heals the Gerasene demoniac.  It parallels the passage EXACTLY.  The difference is that this passage takes place in the midst of the Jewish community and the passage in chapter 5 takes place in the midst of the gentile community.

The second note is that the community of Mark was indeed a community oppressed on every side.  Joel Marcus writes:

For Mark's community, which feels itself to be the focus of the hatred of the whole world because of its preaching of the good news about Jesus (13:9-13), this feature of the initial exorcism would function as a reassurance that eh world's reaction of convulsive hatred does not invalidate the community's claim that its preaching imparts God's eschatological message. (Marcus, Mark, vol 1, 195)

In keeping with most of the scholarly perspectives around this passage, it is my opinion that Mark's community feels bombarded by hatred from both the religious leaders of the day and the political leaders of the day.  As the passage in chapter 5 reflects the political attacks and adversity to the Jesus message; so here in our passage for this Sunday, we can see the attack from the religious leaders of the day.

Let us look at the passage closely. We remember that John the Baptist is now faded to the background. Jesus is taking up his full teaching mission. He is calling people to follow him and he is proclaiming the absolutely good news of God and the kingdom of God.  We find ourselves then in this Sunday's passage following him into a major center of religious life - Capernaum.  It is the sabbath and so he goes and he teaches in the synagogue.

They are astounded at his teaching in part because his teaching is good news but also because he teaches with authority.  This kind of teaching is different than the leaders of religion that they normally hear from.

As if to sharpen the distinction between the different messages and preaching a force enters the synagogue.  Characterized in a demon-possessed man, this force challenges Jesus' teaching.  This is essential. We can get caught up in the demon part and not realize that the dialogue here is of the utmost importance. The man says, in the midst of this religious center filled with people:

24 “What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are, the Holy One of God.”

We might remember that the earliest manuscripts had no punctuation so that these may not be questions at all.  We might read this as:  What are you doing. Why are you teaching here? This is not good. You have come to destroy us.  And, yet too in the enmity cast on Jesus (and for Mark's community anyone who is proclaiming Jesus as Lord) we see recognition and proclamation of Jesus as the son of God - the Holy One of God.  Let us also remember the rest of the story and how these same religious authorities will decry Jesus' ministry and that of his followers.

Jesus unbinds the man from his rejection of the Gospel and his preaching.

The response to this is that people are amazed. Amazed at the freedom to believe? Amazed at the revelation of Jesus as Holy One? Amazed at his power over and against the religious authorities? "Yes," I say.  All of these and there is in verse 27 a recognition that this is a new teaching and one that comes from God. The response of the people is one that affirms Jesus as preacher and teacher of this new movement. He is bringing reform to the old way. He is in fact leading a new way of being disciples of God.

I am currently reading the Bonhoeffer biography by Metaxis.  In it, the author makes a persuasive case that Bonhoeffer while on the one hand believed in the importance of the Christian community he also recognized the reforming nature of Jesus' words and ministry upon a Christianity that was simply religious.

Yes, people who trust in Jesus do experience the healing of life. I have seen it. I know it is true.  But the passage for this Sunday is about the reform of religion. The Gospel of Jesus Christ challenges all Christians and their communities to remember the Holy One of God and the Good News of Salvation at the core of its life. It challenges Christian communities to boldly proclaim the uniqueness of Jesus Christ.  It challenges the Christian community to hear the absolute and grace-filled message of love. 

I want to take a moment and ask you to think about your religion. Now I am not talking about your denomination. I am not talking about your church. I am talking about your personal religion? I am wondering if you might make a list of certain things that are required for you when you go to church. Only men as priests or women as priests, incense or no incense, lots of vestments or no vestments, Rite One language or Rite II language or non-gender-specific language, ancient hymnody in Latin or guitars... I can tell you these are not the requirements of Jesus. None of these are mentioned in his teachings.  Yet people are constantly at war over these or other lists of required religious iconography in order for the true gospel to be preached.  The Gospel is there every Sunday and Jesus is present but I wonder what shackles we bring into the church that keeps us from hearing it and proclaiming it.

Let us think of our own church now.  As a church embattled in structure and economy, in a church struggling with the different orders of ministry and asking questions about how we do our mission, we must hold the mirror of Mark's Gospel up and ask some serious questions about reform.  Has religion become more important than the message? Is the benefit of the Christian community lost in the chaos of faith at war with itself? 

As Christians, as Episcopalians, we are imprisoned by our religion.

Jesus Christ comes into our midst. He comes right down into the center of every congregation this Sunday.  He challenges us to teach our faith with authority. To boldly claim the Holy One of God as our own.  To proclaim that God is love and that we are to love one another. We are challenged to teach our response to that love is the mission.

Jesus comes in and this Sunday looks at our heart's religion and he seeks to free us from it.  Jesus offers us unbounded love, free from the shackles of our inherited religion, and challenges us to be at work in the mission field.

I am an Episcopalian and I love being an Episcopalian and I want other people to meet Jesus in our church and worship him as Episcopalians. To do that we must be freed from our heart's religion and our church's religion that says it is my way or the highway. We must be freed and unbound from those ties that bind us to a certain death that our faith and our communities may be part of the kingdom that is coming.

And, like the demoniac in that synagogue and the religious leaders of Jesus time you and I both know our religious heart and our puritanical faith rejects this invitation be to be free.

Jesus keeps coming though.  Again and again he invites us along the way just like his disciples and those he first goes to in Capernaum.  He invites us to allow those parts of ourselves that do not glorify God to fall to the wayside and invites us to be freed for the mission.  We are invited to live lives in communities where the Holy One of God is present and alive and proclaimed.  He invites us most of all to change the nature of our dying religion, that all that is around us (in our neighborhoods and cities) might be amazed at our proclamation of freedom and our teaching with authority -- the unbounded love of Jesus and the freedom to lay our religious shackles down and follow him.

Some Thoughts on 1 Corinthians 8:1-13

"Paul suggests, in reply to the Corinthians, a new reason for caution about eating such food, and that is a concern for the effect that doing so might have on others who lack the knowledge that the Corinthian church claims keeps them safe from harm."

The Politics of Food Offered to Idols, 1 Corinthians 8:1-13, Richard Davis, Political Theology Today, 2015.


"The passage gives us a glimpse in the manner in which Paul understood the world, and in particular the space between God and human beings."
Commentary, 1 Corinthians 8:1-13, Frank L. Crouch, Preaching This Week, WorkingPreacher.org, 2015.


"The problem develops when we let football (or other sports, or a military, or corporations, or other forces) define strength in terms of dominance."
"The Superbowl and the Church in a Culture of Dominance: 1 Corinthians 8:1-13," Matthew L. Skinner, ON Scripture, Odyssey Networks, 2015. Video: 5 Things You Didn't Know About America and Violence.

Oremus Online NRSV Text

If you know this text well, or you have it open in front of you, you will see that Paul is continuing to answer the questions posed by the situation in Corinth. 

The issue at hand is eating meat that had been an offering at a pagan festival. Those who ate this meat were believed to be "weak believers." The issue seems trite in today's world, though we can easily think of religious traditions that continue with strict dietary rules of life. So, the weak believers and their counterparts are disruptive to the community. 

Paul, as he does in other texts, comes at the issue as an apostle offering wisdom to the community. He points out that Christians should not be so convicted by knowledge so as to miss the commandment to love. For Paul, the "necessary knowledge" is that of "love."

He then offers a different way of seeing the problem. He turns the problem on its ear and points out that if people in the community were wise they would understand that there is only one God and no lesser gods. That because there are no lesser gods then nothing is happening to the meat. This act of worshiping other lesser gods is nonsensical. He then performs a mic drop. He suggests that those who do not understand this (clearly he means those who are suggesting the community has "weak believers") still maintain that the lesser gods of Greece and Rome are powerful. The weak are those who have not let go of the power of the gods of the world. They are the ones being disloyal to Christ. 

He concludes by suggesting that if the meat, and we might add the conversation about the meat, draws you from the "love" of each other and of Christ then one should abstain. 

In an age of "doing right," we in the Christian Church today have similar issues. Our partisan politics, our social wars, are all examples of our weakness. 

I suggest the church should be clear and vocal about those things that draw us from the love of God and the love of each other. At the same time, we should be careful not to judge such that we are drawn from the love of Christ as well. It is a very easy thing in the age of partisan politics and litmus tests for faithfulness that we get wrapped up in doing right rather than serving the one who good or doing good. We need to be wary of those things about living in the community and in the world that draw us from the love of each other and the love of Christ.

Some Thoughts on Deuteronomy 18:15-20

"Who speaks for God? The answer requires discernment and prayer."
Commentary, Deuteronomy 18:15-20, Kathryn Schifferdecker, Preaching This Week, WorkingPreacher.org, 2015

"Maybe Moses was remembering” even as he spoke these words ”his own failure at the rock some years ago. God told him to speak to the rock, he whacked it with his staff instead, and even that little switch-up of the divine message was enough to get Moses banished from the Promised Land for good."
Sermon Starters, Textual Points and Illustration Ideas, Scott Hoezee, Center for Excellence in Preaching, 2015.


"All of this is relevant to our thinking of Jesus, the word of God incarnate, and to our pondering of his teaching and what the church has proclaimed about him."
Deuteronomy 18:15-22, Epiphany 4, The Old Testament Readings: Weekly Comments on the Revised Common Lectionary, Theological Hall of the Uniting Church, Melbourne, Australia.

Oremus Online NRSV Text

This passage is about how the people of God are to remain faithful to God. They are entering a land of many gods. Moses is the chosen one, the prophet, who will be their go-between. Moses will have a vocation of going on behalf of God to the people, and speaking on God's behalf to the people. In this way, the people will be able to be in contact with God.

I suggest there are two facets of rabbinic tradition worth considering before we consider the Gospel application to our Gospel mission today. The first consideration is: what does it take to be a faithful people? The second is: how does the prophetic word work? Let me begin with the first consideration.

In Rabbi Jane Rachel Litman’s Torah commentary we discover that part of becoming the people of God is not about individually besting others but about a shared experience of communal flourishing with God. She writes, 

"Deuteronomy teaches, 'If there is a needy person among you in any of the land Adonai your God gives you, do not harden your heart. ... Rather, open your hand and lend what your neighbor needs' (15:7-8). The tribal world of the Torah isn't a dog-eat-dog competition. The 'primitive' society of the ancient Hebrews is interdependent--all members of the community jointly support each other and their religious and political institutions.

Rabbi Litman offers that the key to the ethic of a survivor mentality is the notion of competition for scarce resources accompanied by personal bias. The Torah community of Deuteronomy on the other hand has a different set of values that have an orientation to justice for all in the community. There is a turning to God in humility and a turning to each other without partiality in this deuteronomistic vision of the whole. I propose that this actually rejects individual flourishing that comes at the cost of others or the wider community. The theology of the deutoronomists is that there can be no individual flourishing that does not include the whole of the people. 

This is a vision of a community that is wholistic before God and will depend not only upon Moses as intercessor but upon one another to live out the faithful invitation of God.

The second consideration is the prophetic vision of a faithful people who together will inherit a land of milk and honey. What we know of prophecy in the rabbinic tradition is that negative prophecies that do not come true do not prove the prophet's worth. Only the prophet who foretells good things may be tested. In Yesodei haTorah 10:4 it is written, "But if the prophet, in the name of G‑d, assures good fortune, declaring that a particular event would come to pass, and the benefit promised has not been realized, he is unquestionably a false prophet, for no blessing decreed by the Almighty, even if promised conditionally, is ever revoked..." (See Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks, Testing Prophecy)

As Richard B. Hays wrote regarding the people of God and its connection to the first followers of Jesus: “There can be no question here of a purely individualized spiritual formation. Matthew is strongly ecclesially oriented.” (Hays, Echoes of the Scripture in the Gospels, p. 97) We have here a rabbinic notion of The Shekinah meaning to ‘settle’ or ‘dwell’ and is an attempt in rabbinic teaching to speak about the presence of God among the people. As Christians, we understand that Christ has come and dwelt with us in the manner described by the deuteronomists. God has manifested God's self in Emmanuel. In this way God has revealed in the person of Jesus not only God's presence or shekinah, and also the manner of living with one another. Jesus Christ brings forward the lesson from Deuteronomy, it does not exist as a past notion of communal life but as the template for the ministry, teaching, and life. It is the structure upon which Jesus Christ offers the sermon on the mount - as an example.

3rd Sunday after the Epiphany, Year B, January 21, 2024

Prayer

In your Son, O God, you have given us your word in all its fullness and the greatest of all your gifts. Rouse our hearts to grasp the urgent need of conversion, and stir up our souls with longing to embrace your gospel. May our lives proclaim to those far away from you and to those filled with doubt that the one Savior of us all is your Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy spirit, God for ever and ever. Amen.

From Prayers for Sunday and Seasons, Year B, Peter J. Scagnelli, LTP, 1992.

Some Thoughts on Mark 1:14-20

"How ready are we to encounter people, share our truth and then instead of manipulating, cajoling and trapping them, allow them the freedom to re-enter the waters of life and make up their own minds about the truth we have shared?"
"Hooking up with Jesus," Peter Woods, I Am Listening, 2012.

"What would make you drop everything and pursue an entirely new life?"

"The Call of the Disciples and the Decline of the Church," David Lose, Dear Working Preacher, 2012.

"People in the New Community would derive their identity not from their present economic condition or their past familial relationships, but rather be given a new identity as followers of the 'way' of the 'kingdom of God' as taught and lived by their leader, Jesus of Galilee."

Lectionary Blogging, John Petty, Progressive Involvement, 2012.

Oremus Online NRSV Gospel Text

We begin this passage as Mark clearly breaks from the testimony of John the Baptist and focuses directly on the work of Jesus. Jesus is now the focal point of the Gospel and of Mark's witness.

A second theme emerges directly as Galilee. We are beginning to read Mark more regularly in this year's cycle of Gospel readings. In Mark's Gospel Galilee is the "land of salvation" while it is contrasted throughout the story with Jerusalem; which is the place of rejection. (This was pointed out by such great New Testament scholars as Lohmeyer and Lightfoot; and has been repeated throughout most Markan commentaries.) In Galilee, great and miraculous things happen. Healings, exorcisms, teaching, and the growth of the Jesus movement all hallmark Galilee as the place of salvation. Mark as a Gospel author so focuses on this theme that it is the primary and driving force behind his confusing geography. For the Gospel author, the story and miraculous works are more important than factual place.

In our passage, John is handed over, Jesus comes from Galilee, and he proclaims "good news." I love Mark's Gospel and I have studied it quite a bit. What stood out for me in this reading is Joel Marcus' point that this is "good news" really stood out. In his exegesis of the text (Marcus, Mark, vol 1, 171) Marcus points out that the word "God" and "kingdom of God" were later added and not necessarily part of the early Christian witness to Jesus' ministry. Marcus even reminds us that John's Gospel does not even use the term "euangelion," or Good News. This is Good News! It is not good news and, or good news but. The early Christian testimony preserved in Mark's account is that what we have is Good News.

Then Jesus teaches our response. Our response to the Good News that God is near, that God claims us, that God reinserts himself into the world, that God invites our relationship is to discover that we are in a new age of God; we are now in an age of the kingdom or dominion of God...our response is repentance and belief.

What seems very inspiring here is the notion that this is not a one-time event. We are not to repent and believe, but rather we are to live a life of repenting and believing. These words of good news and repenting/believing are words that would have resounded in the ears of the newly baptized Christian. They are words deeply connected with the earliest Christian tradition. We are a people who recognize our relationship with God; we celebrate the grace of God and the goodness of God. We then are constantly responding attempting to glorify God in this world by moving our lives closer and closer to the life of God.

We are a people who are not satisfied with the old age or the past; we are a people who want to come ever closer to God's kingdom. We are a people not satisfied with the world as we experience it for we know that when we try and work and repent and move ever closer God's love and grace transforms us and the world around us. It does this through kindness, charity, and good works. This is the center of living a life virtuously. The virtuous life is one that is constantly trying to remove the old and dead life; letting it fall away. And, consequently attempting to live a life where belief matters and affects how I am going to act in the next moment.

This opening reading from Mark's Gospel would have reminded the first hearers of the first moments when they followed Jesus. (Marcus, 176) As we read it today and think about our words for Sunday morning we must recognize that we have the opportunity to stir up and reinvigorate our discipleship. We have the opportunity to see again for the fist time what it means to turn and follow Jesus.

Good News of our salvation and the unique proclamation of God's kingdom and our invitation to be a part is good news indeed!

Some Thoughts on 1 Corinthians 7:29-31

"Paul's word may jolt us into asking whether we have in the process lost God and lost ourselves - let alone the real interests of others."
"First Thoughts on Year B Epistle Passages in the Lectionary: Epiphany 3,"William Loader, Murdoch University, Uniting Church in Australia.

"And so, the challenge for us today who are in the world is not merely to divorce ourselves from it. And I use the word “merely” intentionally here."

Changing the Form of the World, Amy Allen, Political Theology, 2012.

"In the end, the primary message of this text is that nothing in this world can compare to the eternal fellowship we have with God and Christ."

Commentary, 1 Corinthians 7:29-31, Arland J. Hultgren, Preaching This Week,WorkingPreacher.org, 2009.

Oremus Online NRSV Epistle Text 

Almost all of our historical understanding of Corinth points to the fact that it was a major port during Jesus' time. Because of the Peloponnesus peninsula, it also was an essential land route. It was a commercial center, a center for the arts, and the crafts of shipbuilding, and trade.

Into this cultural mix, we know that the church there has asked for help and is having some trouble. So it is that Paul sits down to write.

The point of the passage seems to be at first glance centered on the relationships between husbands and wives.  Marriage is important and somehow their faith is causing problems within families. Based on my own experience my feeling is that people are in each other's business and have asked Paul to intervene. Paul has done so BUT he is desperately trying to redirect their attention from what he believes are cursory matters.

Corinth is caught up in issue conversations. They are important but for Paul, they are not as important as the mission.

So it is that Paul reminds them they are living in an in-between time. They are waiting for Christ who is to return. Their work is clear - the few Christians in Corinth are to work hard together to share the Gospel and teach others about Christ. They are to bring people into the family. They are to work with God to bring salvation to as many people as possible.

Paul certainly believed this was all going to be over before he himself died.

How often we look at and focus upon those things which really are the things of this world and issues of our time, instead of being attentive to God's reconciling love and his ministry of grace.

Some Thoughts on Jonah 3:1-10

"As you preach this sermon, you might ask your listeners to think of a person that they find difficult to love. (Be sure, of course, to make clear that they are not called to stay in abusive situations.) Then proclaim to them that God loves that person, and that God loves them, too."
Commentary, Jonah 3:1-5, 10, Kathryn Schifferdecker, Preaching This Week, WorkingPreacher.org, 2015.


"Maybe we are not actively awaiting and licking our lips over the potential destruction of this or that group, but if certain types of people did come to us (as they are), would we generate the kind of joy over this one might wish for?"
Commentary and Illustrration Ideas, Scott Hoezee, Center for Excellence in Preaching, 2015.

"Jonah challenges the perspective of the righteously indignant to put aside moral superiority and take on the character of God, whose mercy is from everlasting to everlasting."
Commentary, Jonah 3:1-5, 10, Callie Plunket-Brewton, Preaching This Week, WorkingPreacher.org, 2012.

Oremus Online NRSV Epistle Text 


God invites Jonah to go, he gives him a vocation, to go and speak on God's behalf.  Jonah does not go out and do God's work in part because they don't see eye to eye. Jonah felt it was unjust they should suffer the consequences and be punished and not be forgiven so easily. Jonah did not like that God was going to forgive the people because they repented after hearing the prophet's words. Jonah believed Jonah had a sense of retributive justice. God then teaches Jonah a lesson about how God is concerned for the people and concerned that they learn and change their ways.

I suggest this is more than doing right or a moral idea of acting rightly. God is interested in the people
coming to understand how to serve the one who is good and the good itself. 

Rabbi Jonathan Sacks wrote:

God teaches Jonah to care by giving him something and then taking it away. Loss teaches us to value things, though usually too late. What we have, and then lose, we do not take for granted. The religious vision is not about seeing things that are not there. It is about seeing the things that are there and always were, but which we never noticed, or paid attention to. Faith is a form of attention. It is a sustained meditation on the miraculousness of what is because it might not have been. What we lose and are given back we learn to cherish in a way we would not have done had we never lost it in the first place. Faith is about not taking things for granted. (The Unanswered Question.)

For early Christians, Jonah prefigures the three-day resurrection of Jesus. (See Matthew 12:38-41.)

These are two themes that I think you can easily preach about. 

I am interested in the story of Jonah as a call about vocation. there is the story of Jonah. I mention Jonah because he flat out rejected God’s invitation at first. God asked Jonah to go to Nineveh. Jonah’s response was to go to Tarshish. He went to Joppa, got on a boat, and attempted to flee from God’s call. A storm came up, the sailors threw Jonah overboard, a big fish swallowed him, and then, upon being spit upon the shore, Jonah heard God again: “Get up, go to Nineveh, that great city, and proclaim to it the message that I tell you.” Jonah went to Nineveh to be God’s messenger (Jon. 1–3).

The reason that Jonah did not want to go was because God was too forgiving! Jonah knew that if he did what God wanted, then God would simply forgive the people. Jonah complained angrily when God proved him right. He cried out in prayer, “O LORD! Is not this what I said while I was still in my own country? That is why I fled to Tarshish at the beginning; for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and ready to relent from punishing” (Jon. 4:2).

God’s invitations are very persuasive. Through visions, voice, and the advice and counsel of friends, God invites God’s people to go. The specific circumstances of this going vary across different contexts, but there is always a purpose behind God’s invitation to go. People are always being sent. There is a hinge here in the language—a double meaning: going and being sent are about both the invitation and the purpose. 

God called Abraham and Sarah to become a people that bless the world, which is a habit of God’s throughout all of scripture. Jonah reflects a similar habit. Faithfulness is the act of accepting the invitation and opening oneself to becoming the blessing. Those whom God invites, God also blesses, in order that they might bless others. God said to Abraham and Sarah, “In you all the families of the earth shall be blessed” (Gen. 12:3). Their promised family would outnumber the stars of Abraham’s counting and be a blessing to the world. Brueggemann ponders the meaning of this blessing and says, “‘Blessing’ is not a religious or moral phenomenon in the world,” it is a “characteristic feature of creation that is fruitful and productive.”  (See Vocātiō: Imaging a Visible Church.)

Excerpt from Võcatiõ on The Call of the Disciples

You can purchase the book here.

Chapter Three: Disciples of Peace

I love to think of them at dawn

Beneath the frail pink sky,

Casting their nets in Galilee

And fish-hawks circling by.

Casting their nets in Galilee

Just off the hills of brown

Such happy, simple fisherfolk

Before the Lord came down.

William Alexander Percy, Poet 

The gospels differ in their account of how Jesus and his disciples begin their ministry. Nonetheless, a common pattern emerges: Jesus' ministry begins after his baptism and his journey in the wilderness, as John the Baptist is fading away. Jesus boldly renounces worldly power and violence during his conflict with the devil in the desert. This powerful renunciation foreshadows the choices Jesus makes throughout his ministry: The community he founds, and the reign he reinvigorates will demonstrate God’s intentions. Through Jesus, God will create an intentional community of shalom.  

The first two disciples that Jesus brought into this community are two brothers, Simon (who is Peter) and Andrew. Jesus came across them as he walked by the Sea of Galilee. They were fishing from the shore. Jesus invited them to follow. (Mark 1:16-18, Matthew 4:18-19) They dropped their nets and followed immediately. A little further along, they picked up James and John - the sons of Zebedee. (Mark 1:19-20, Matthew 4:19-22) John's Gospel tells us that Andrew brought Peter to Jesus after John the Baptist points him out. Jesus said to Andrew, "Come and see." (John 1:35-42) The disciples took Jesus’ invitation because they believed that he had inherited the mantle of John the Baptist. Jesus was the one about whom John had been preaching. John's Gospel continues with Philip in Galilee. Philip and his brother Nathanael came to Jesus. Jesus is proclaimed as the one "about whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote." (John 1:43-51) Significantly, Nathanael believes that Jesus was to be the king of Israel. Jesus flatly rejected the revolution Nathanael implied. Jesus’ kingdom is to be a reign of peace, and not borne from the world of violence.  (John 1:10; John 14:17) As the disciples came and saw, they discovered that they too were called to inaugurate a reign of peace, and reject the world of violence. (John 15:18; 17:20-26) 

The first disciples Jesus encountered beside the Sea of Galilee were invited to be "fishers of people." This is not a general invitation to follow. It is not a mere pun. The Church's unconscious habit of reading scripture as legitimating text for a vast institution has made these call stories about bringing people to Jesus and church growth. The call stories represent how church members should bring other people to church where they can meet Jesus. Within the narrative arc of the shalom community, these stories have a different meaning. 

"Fishers of people" create the shalom community itself. By calling his disciples to become, fishers of men Jesus harkens back to the holy narrative of the Old Testament and the patriarchs and matriarchs God called to make a community for all people.  The first mention of this metaphor in the narrative of God is found in the prophecy of Jeremiah: "Behold, I am sending for many fishers, declares the LORD, and they shall catch them. And afterward I will send for many hunters, and they shall hunt them from every mountain and every hill, and out of the clefts of the rocks." (Jeremiah 16:16) The people of Israel have forgotten their call to build a community of shalom. Jeremiah is reminding them that they were to be a community of blessing to the world. They were to take care of the poor and the least and the lost. The blood of the innocent poor are on Israel's hands. (Jeremiah 2:35) Through Jeremiah, God says that the leaders of God’s people have been poor shepherds, scattering the people when they were supposed to gather them. (Jeremiah 23:1-6) God pledges to overturn Israel because it has forgotten itself and its God. (Jeremiah 18:15; 30:14) God intends to gather God's people anew, and frustrate those who prey upon the poor. The image of “fishing for men” returns in the prophesies of Amos (4:2). Through the prophet Amos, God declares that those who forget the needy and live upon their backs will be taken away by fishhooks.   And, again in Habakkuk (1:13-16), God will catch the people up in his dragnet. Ezekiel prophesies that the people are the fish and shall be gathered in (29:3b-4),. 

Jesus uses the image of fishing for people to convey that his mission is in line with God’s mission of ancient days. Using the Old Testament and language of Palestine, Jesus declares his intention to gather God's people into a new reign of peace (Matthew 23:37-39). This gathering will include the rich and the poor, the found and the lost. All people will be gathered into a community of peace exploitation, injustice, and violence of any sort are unknown. In this community, neither the poor nor the rich will become scapegoats. God’s people will be gathered in like fish caught in a dragnet. Jesus’ message is consistent with the scriptural narrative from Abraham and Sarah to Mary. So when Jesus called these fishermen from the Sea of Galilee, Jesus invited them to be part of a different community doing a different kind of work. Their habit in life was to be different from the world of violence that surrounded them. They were joining Jesus in his work of shalom. Remember, the reign of God is near. The captives were to be released, the blind receive sight, and the oppressed to be unbound. God's blessing is proclaimed, all are to be gathered in, and a new order of living is to be established. (Luke 4:16-19)

Let us pause here and speak of this word “vocation” because what Jesus is definitely not doing is inviting these fishermen into a church job or an engaging hobby, which is how must of us understand vocation for the Church today. If we aren’t careful, our ingrained expectation of a professional class of clergy quickly sabotages our ability to understand the ministry of Jesus and the disciples. Our bias builds churchy furniture into this story where there is none. We put our church goggles on and read back into the scripture the idea that the disciples called on that seashore were the first priests of the church. They used to make money as fishermen now they are going to make their money as ministers. (Luke 10:4-11) This is not the case.  

The root of the word vocation is the word “voice”. A related term is vocāre which means “call”. To be “called was to be invited to do this or that.  The meaning of vocation as we have been using it is a call to "go" on God's behalf. Vocation is about being sent to be the voice of God. This is not a professional obligation, but rather a dynamic partnership of humans with God that has persisted from the very beginning. Adam and Eve worked with God in the caretaking of the garden and creation. God walked with them in the evening to survey the work they were doing together. Humans have always been invited to join God and to "work it and keep it." (Genesis 2:15) We are possessed by God's invitation to speak and be a blessing to the world. We are occupied with undoing the violence of the world by ending the cycles of sibling rivalry. Humans are uniquely suitable to this vocation. 

Martin Luther and John Calvin regularly thought of vocation as a community at work, though they were not the first.  The Middle Ages imbued vocation with an expectation of special training or craft skill. The guilds promoted this idea of vocation, and bound up the practice of the professions in religious ritual.  Only after the sixteenth century would the term vocation be regularly used to describe the priesthood. Modern Christians and humanist philosophers strained the sacred meanings out of the idea of vocation over time, and eventually participation in the church became an optional avocation unless you were part of the clerical hierarchy, and then church work would be your vocation - your professional work. Such a partitioning between religious obligation and professional obligation is foreign to the Scriptures. The disciples are called into the community of God's peace. They are being invited to be God's voice and to cooperate with Jesus in making a different community that rejects violence.

We return now to our disciples on the shore of the Sea of Galilee. Luke's Gospel tells the story of the calling of the first disciples as a fishing miracle. Jesus came by and taught the people using the boat as a platform. He then invited the disciples to cast out into the sea and to put their nets in. The fishermen doubted, as they had been fishing all night with nothing to show for their efforts. They did as Jesus said and a great multitude of fish was brought aboard. Luke tells us that their nets were breaking. They called other boats to come and help. Peter immediately told Jesus he was not worthy to follow. Jesus told Peter, James and John to join him and he would teach them to fish for people. (Luke 5:1-11) At the end of the John’s Gospel we have a similar story, where Jesus appeared on the seashore and called out to his followers who had gone fishing, ordering them to cast their net on the others side of the boat. Again, they did so, and multitudes of fish were brought in. They joined Jesus for breakfast and he was revealed as the risen Christ on the shore in the breaking of the bread. Jesus then invited them to be leaders in the new community of shalom. He says to them, "Follow me." (John 21:1-19) These two miracles gesture towards the work of fishing for people, and demonstrate that the reign of God is a community of shalom.

In the Gospel of Matthew, chapter thirteen, Jesus returns again to fishing images when he taught that the kingdom of peace is like a dragnet. Jesus said, "The kingdom of heaven is like a dragnet that was thrown into the sea and caught fish of every kind." (Matthew 13:47)  This parable is the last among a long series of parables about the kingdom of peace.  Robert Farrar Capon uses this parable to speak eschatologically about the kingdom to come at the end of the age. I think Jesus must also be speaking of the reign that is at hand in this world. So, while I concur with Capon’s interpretation, I want to broaden it to fit into a wider discussion of the disciples’ work as peace builders,  because followers of Jesus are doing work in this world that will remain at the end of the age. Jesus uses the dragnet as a metaphor for this peace-making enterprise. The community the disciples build is to be universal, catholic, with everyone included.

Dragnets gather in everything because they dredge the sea floor. They capture wood and plants as well as fish. They capture inedible fish as well as edible fish. The community of peace that Jesus inaugurates in this world has the same characteristic of "indiscriminate-ness".  God is making a community that connects, or net-works all kinds of people. While we normally think of this kingdom-net only containing fish, and good fish at that, it truly contains everything: the weeds, the detritus of dysfunctional relationships and human brokenness, the debris of daily life lived in service to the masters of economies and political power-mongers. The community of shalom, our dragnet, "touches everything in the world: not just souls, but bodies, and not just people, but all things, animal, vegetable, and mineral."  God in Christ Jesus is in this very world gathering into the community of shalom the whole of creation. As God in Christ is lifted up on the cross, the great crossroads of community is bridged - heaven with earth, man with God. All is drawn to God's self. (John 12:32) As the book of Revelation indicates: all of creation is drawn to God in Christ - not just people. 

The disciples are called to participate in the transfiguration of the world. This is partly why they are led down from the mountainside after Jesus’ transfiguration. They are to be the transfigured Christ in the world. The work of transfiguring creation only happens down in the village where demons are cast out and people are healed. (Matthew 17:1-27) The mystery of the community of shalom is that it includes God and people and must include the whole of creation. Secular moderns, imprisoned as we are in the immanent frame, will want to differentiate between what is worth capturing in the net and what is not, but no such distinction is made in the parables of the kingdom in the Gospels.  The dragnet rejects nothing in the sea and encompass all things. The only people missing from God’s dragnet when it is hauled ashore will be those who carve themselves out of the net with their own sickle of judgment. This is what the scriptures imply when they say that the sickle will soon enough come for those who refuse the community of peace and instead choose power, abuse of the poor by neglect, and do violence to others and creation. (Matthew 25:31-46; and Revelation 14) The sickle comes for those who cannot live with the least, the lost, and the unclean. They have spent their whole life being different from those “other” people. They hold too much judgment in their heart, keeping track of the negative marks against others. It is very hard for people who routinely use power and authority to keep others down and out, to accept that God has invited all into the reign of peace. I pray that it will be very difficult indeed to resist God’s grace, to deny God’s sacrifice is enough even for my enemy, and to reject God’s love when I come face to face with God’s eternal peace.  

The story of scripture also tells us that this separation of judgment will not take place before the transfiguration at the end of the age. There is always time. In this hope we live and work and have our being. Between now and the end of time, the disciples of Jesus can reject nothing, for the dragnet rejects nothing, and the community of peace has no "business setting itself up in the judging business. And, neither, a fortiori, does the church." The disciples are to follow Jesus and learn from him, as regular members of the great narrative of God's shalom. They are to learn how this new dragnet of community is to hold all kinds of people. This is how the band of Jesus followers become a "sacrament", the continuing body of Christ in the world. They will have to "avoid the temptation to act like sports fishermen who are interested only in speckled trout and hand-tied flies," says Capon.   No, the disciples are to be the worst kind of fishermen. The only thing they are to discard is the temptation to reject the mess of creation and humanity. Their community of shalom in this world participates in the reign of God at the end of the age if it remains in relationship with all the "old boots, bottles, and beer cans" that a truly random dredging of humanity must be. The Church will be transfigured to the extent that it is one and the same with the mess it intends to drag in.  

To point out how important this work is, Luke follows the call story of the disciples with an encounter with a leper. Lepers were shunned from the religious community of the day. Their illness made intimacy and belonging impossible. Lepers were seen as sinful and not worthy of community membership, but Jesus restores one such leper back to the community by engagement with the God of creation. God's Living Word made the leper whole, rejecting the status quo. God in Christ Jesus engaged someone who was not to be engaged. (Luke 5:12-16) Moreover, Jesus tied his healing of the leper into the story of Moses. 

After the call story in Mark, Jesus went to the home of Peter where they found his mother-in-law on death's door. Jesus brought the dragnet of peace into Peter's home, and there restored the woman into community. (Mark 1:29-31) 

In Matthew's version of the call story there is a fight between Jesus and the religious powers that be. They were concerned about Jesus’ congregating with sinners. In Matthew’s version of the gospel, Jesus' next action was to call a sinner to participate in the community of shalom, a tax collector named Levi. (Mathew 9:9) Levi participated in the systemic oppression of the poor, supported the Pax Romana, and the religious powers in league with Rome. He participated in a system of “peace” enforced by religious and political violence. Levi collected the seven layers of taxes that oppressed the people while lining the purses of the powerful. Of course he would have added some cost into the mix for his own trouble, as was the tradition for tax collectors. Jesus invited this sinner, this corrupt player in the systems of violence and oppression, to follow and to join a different community - the community of God's shalom. Levi received the call and left his table. (Matthew 9:9) Jesus then took Levi with him into a home. Again, Jesus placed the new community of shalom within a home and at a table. Here Levi, one of the undesirables, an inedible fish, joined Jesus and other tax collectors and sinners and they ate together a meal. (Matthew 9:10) Jesus responded to the critics, explaining that the community of shalom is going to be like the dragnet. It will be made up of many who the religious and the political establishment see as unfit. Levi's call is a powerful witness to this dragnet kingdom that Luke made the call of Levi the first call of all the disciples. (Luke 5:27-32) 

The community of shalom and God in Christ Jesus is not populated with worthy heroes resplendent in glory. The community of shalom is composed of unworthy and unlikely human beings who renounce systems of violence out of a hunger for peace. They reject sibling rivalry. They are random contents of the dragnet- the good fish and bad.

The only place in the Near East where such a heterogeneous community could be assembled was in the Galilee, in Nazareth, Capernaum-  places outside of orbit of Jerusalem. Jesus’ work is only possible at the margins of society, for it is there that the mixture of misfits is found. In the Gospels the kingdom of peace always takes root in the wilderness - out in the countryside. As the reign of peace begins to take root, it immediately comes into conflict with the powers of state and religion. Its very existence challenges the accepted norms of social behavior that protect the powerful. Transgressing these norms brings violence. So to accept the call to speak the voice of shalom brings the violence of the systems of oppression down upon the follower of Jesus. Mark's Gospel provides an example. From the beginning Jesus eats with sinners, challenging accepted religious and social boundaries. (Mark 2:15) Jesus challenges religious purity codes by being in contact with lepers. (Mark 1:41) He gives food to the hungry. (Mark 2:23) All of this creates conflict with the authorities (Mark 1:22; 1:43; 2:6; and 2:15).  By the time Jesus and his disciples have traveled for three years building their community of peace, the Roman political machinery, the Jewish religious hierarchy, and the most revered clerical powers decide that violence is the only solution to the threat that Jesus’ community poses to their power and they plot Jesus' death. (Mark 3:1-6)

The reign of peace demands a transfiguration of the community and portends radical change for the institutions that enforce order. Jesus’ own experience demonstrates that building the kingdom of shalom will require direct confrontation with the powers of this world. In Mark's Gospel, Jesus takes on the powers of religion that prey on humanity and in the next moment he takes on the powers of the state which do the same. Jesus wants to show all who follow him what work is in store for them. New Testament scholar and activist Ched Myers writes, "Thus at the heart of Mark's Gospel is the assertion that the messianic vocation--and our discipleship as well--is defined by redemptive suffering, not triumph.” 

Sermon Preached on these Texts

The Perfect Meal and Perfect Christianity

Jan 27, 2015

Sermon preached at Holy Apostles, Katy and Hope, Houston on 3 Epiphany Year B, the calling of the disciples in Mark's Gospel.