It feels like tension and anxiety are running ever higher in our society with each passing day. There are almost no significant topics that we can talk about in a civil way. Talk about immigration and people immediately divide into two camps. Talk about politics and people immediately divide into two camps. Talk about climate change and people immediately divide into two camps. You can do the same with abortion, gender issues, Israel and Palestine, racial dynamics, and more.
A big part of the problem is that people hear what they want to hear and they ignore what they don’t want to hear. You may have heard, especially with social media, that people live in echo chambers always getting reinforcement for the ideas they already agree with.
For a class I had last week I was assigned to read the book, Fantasyland; How America Went Haywire, by Kurt Andersen. The book is, ironically, proof of what it critiques. It talks about the way Americans have always been easily duped by half-baked religious beliefs, pseudo-science, and downright lies. The book is ironic because it makes countless unfounded claims. It contains few scholarly citations. And it is downright wrong countless times. In fact, every time it talks about a topic I am even remotely familiar with, it is factually inaccurate.
And yet, here’s the real irony… it’s on the New York Times bestseller list! …proof that Americans will buy up lies and believe them wholesale. In the case of this book, it was a publication pushing liberal ideology. But the book the professor chose have just as well chosen a book pushing conservative ideology because there are also countless best-selling publications out there that are promoting similarly half-baked conservative lies.
What are we to do? How do we know what is true and what is not? How are we to faithfully live in this society as followers of Jesus?
The first thing I think we need to recognize, although this is a truth we do not at all want to hear, is that our economy is pretty much built on deception. That isn’t news to you because I’ve said that very same thing before. The retail market – both online and brick-and-mortar stores – are designed to hide the truth from us.
If you want to have a chicken for supper and you walk into Tops or Wegmans is there a pen of roosters inside that you go up to and can grab one? You then take it home, kill it, pluck it, gut it, and then bake it? Nope! The lie that we literally buy is that chicken comes on a foam platter wrapped in plastic with a price sticker on top. I’m not going to belabor the point, but I could do the same with each and every product in the retail world. And the waste and disposal streams equally hide the truth from us.
We really do like lies!
But we also like the truth. The truth is what sets us free. And the truth is what creates genuine good in the world. I can’t give you the full truth about politics and economics and immigration and racism, and what all. But the Bible does give us the truth we need to engage all of that well.
We read Mark 4:1-34 as our gospel reading. It is a collection of parables that Jesus gives about the kingdom of God. The first of the parables is the famous Parable of the Sower, where someone sowing seed scatters it indiscriminately. The seed goes all over the place – where it is likely to grow and where it will almost certainly fail. Despite seed being valuable, it is sown everywhere. We understand that the sower is God and the seed is God’s love.
When we hear the interpretation of the parable we immediately start questioning what kind of soil we are. Are we the good soil that produces abundantly, or are we one of the problematic soils that ultimately fails? I would suggest that if you’re asking yourself that question you’re probably among the good soil. So do not worry. But ultimately that approach misses the point of the parable. As what we read today shows, the Parable of the Sower is just the first of a series of parables about the kingdom of God.
Jesus creates a parable about a lamp. A lamp lights a room and should be allowed to shine, not be hidden. In regards to that, Jesus adds that the measure you give is the measure that you get; and more.
Jesus says another seed-scattering parable. The seed sprouts and grows and we don’t know how. Well, technically we do know how these days, but we get the point. The growth and produce of the kingdom of God is not always clearly evident.
In the next parable Jesus says the kingdom of God is like a mustard seed. In Jewish tradition the kingdom of God was usually portrayed as a great cedar tree – a Cedar of Lebanon. These can be tall and majestic trees that could live for hundreds of years. They are symbols of power and permanence. Perhaps think of a white oak in our own forests. White oaks are the kings of the eastern forests. They can reach over 100 ft in height and about that wide as well. They’ll live for 500 years. The Lebanese Cedars the Israelites usually used to describe God’s kingdom grow even taller and live longer.
But a mustard shrub is a truly humble thing. They are more like weeds. They don’t live long. They don’t inspire a sense of grandeur at all. Think of honeysuckle around here. They are a tangled mess that grows maybe 15 feet tall and have no constructive or economic value whatsoever. They’re worthless by all human standards; just like mustard shrubs. And yet, as Jesus says of the mustard, they put forth large branches so that the birds of the air can make their nests in it.
All of these parables are to be read and interpreted as a group. They help us understand the kingdom of God – kingdom of God not meaning eternal life, but life in God’s reign here on earth – something that we can create… in community with God.
There’s nothing new to what I’m going to say next, and yet it all speaks to how we respond to the world around us.
I think there is something in all of us that wants to make a lasting impression on the world. We want to do something significant. We want to be like Lebanese Cedar or a white oak. But it is to the mustard that Jesus points. That means that we should not set our sights on changing the world; and then give up when we think we can’t really change anything, or give up because we don’t see ourselves having any extraordinary talent. No, just be a mustard shrub. Be a common honeysuckle bush. Nothing special. Nothing talented. Unremarkably ordinary. And yet, God’s true kingdom.
Simply live God’s love. Treat all others like they have value, whether they look like you or not, and whether you disagree with them or not. Do not accept the polarized views our society likes to create to cause divisions. Instead, truly see people and their life experiences as more complex. You will be a lamp shining light into the world.
I know that’s simple – too simple. How can that change the world? How can that be productive? How can that be good soil that produces a hundred-fold? How can that be the truth in our world so full of sophisticated lies and deceptions? Yet God’s kingdom is indeed that simple.
The effects of God’s kingdom can remain quite hidden for what seems like ages on end. Just like a little kid who plants a seed and wants to see results right away. But it takes days, or maybe even weeks, for something to sprout and grow. And grow it does!
Like God the Sower, we sow goodness. Sow it indiscriminately, not strategically. Be patient. In many places the Bible talks about seed being planted, growth happening later, and the harvest later still. It’s often done by multiple people.
Perhaps look at it this way. If you seek to do some great and splashy good in the world it will fail. But if you simply seek to live the ordinary with God in mind, God’s kingdom will sprout and grow through you. Do simple things. Do mundane things. Do things that people may or may not notice. Don’t be afraid of truly hard work. For all of that is really a huge thing. It is a thing that changes all the world.
Monday, January 15, 2024
Tuesday, January 2, 2024
December 31, 2023 1St Sunday of Christmas Mark 1
Perhaps it is a sign of aging, but I don’t like the pace of many movies today, especially action movies. They seem to be one superhuman crisis after another. Everything is loud, fast, and jarring. People survive the impossible and do the impossible. Of course, in the Marvel universe of movies the people doing the impossible are superheroes. But that still doesn’t make for an enjoyable story. As for me, I like the pace of the original Star Wars movies, for example. There was some plot development, some humor, a couple high drama action scenes, and a bit of romance to round it all out.
We begin reading Mark’s gospel today. It is surprising that I like it as much as I do because its pace is even faster than today’s action movies. It is one crisis after another and another and another. Scenes shift every few seconds. Try this some time. Sit down and read Mark’s gospel with a stopwatch. Time how long it takes you to read before the scene changes. You’ll probably find that as you read the scenes change several times a minute. There are nine scenes in Mark 1, plus the introduction in verses 1-3. Which, by the way adds words in our translation to what Mark actually wrote to help us read it easier.
Mark’s gospel doesn’t start off with, “The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ the Son of God.” It is literally, “Genesis, of the gospel Jesus Christ, God’s Son.” And then we’re right into a quote from Isaiah.
You’d think this gospel was written in an age of text messages. It’s like a story being told on X, formerly Twitter. There are no developed sermons like in Matthew. There are no long stories or parables like in Luke. And there are no developed discourses like in John.
One of Mark’s most-often used words is “immediately”. Mark uses it 27 times in only 16 chapters. That’s the highest concentration of the use of the word immediately in all of scripture.
There are no soft edges in Mark’s gospel. It’s like trying to order food from a street vendor in New York City. Know what you want. Be strong. Talk loud. Keep it simple. Rudeness is expected.
Every time you turn around in Mark’s gospel something is getting torn apart, drown, silenced, cast out, or killed. Yes, not even the makers of action movies could keep up with the pace of Mark!
Mark’s gospel is also confusing and deeply mysterious. Much of Mark’s gospel has biblical scholars guessing. We’ll talk about that some Sunday in the future because in the last several years a whole bunch of answers have been emerging. For today we’re going to focus on just one of the nine scenes that flew before us. We’re going to look at Jesus’ baptism.
In that scene, like so many in Mark’s gospel, the translators are smoothing over the roughness and abruptness. We easily picture the scene as we hear it from the gospels of Matthew and Luke. There it’s a serene scene where Jesus is baptized by John in the Jordan River. As Jesus is coming up out of the water the Holy Spirit descends onto Jesus like a dove. A voice then speaks from heaven. Not in Mark!
First, the scene takes only two verses. As Jesus is coming up out of the water the heavens are ripped apart and the Spirit comes rocketing down as a pigeon and hits Jesus so hard it actually goes INTO him. It does not alight upon him as a gentle dove settling on his shoulder. Then from the ripped apart heavens an unidentified voice announces, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I have willed the good.”
Now, everything happening fast and often with violence. But don’t think Mark is just a careless writer of high adventure. We’ll talk about this later in the gospel, but in what we read today Mark has also crafted numerous parallels with the end of the story. For now, just know that while Mark may be fast and somewhat violent, it is also very skillfully crafted.
But, to our scene. The heavens are ripped apart. There is no going back. There is no fixing this. Think of violently ripping a piece of cloth in half. You can’t just go back and fix it. The damage is done. No repair can cover it. It isn’t a coincidence at all in Mark’s gospel that he uses the exact same words to talk about the curtain in the temple being ripped in two at the death of Jesus. In both scenes, the normal dividing line between God and humanity has been irreparably changed. A new age has begun.
In the remaining scenes in Mark 1 we start to see what the new age is like. Jesus goes throughout Galilee proclaiming that the time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God has come near. Jesus’ message is very simple. Everyone is invited into God’s reign of grace. This is completely open.
Jesus goes along the Sea of Galilee to recruit his first followers. You’d expect a new world order to begin by recruiting in the ivy league schools of the day and the head-hunting titans of business and politics. But Jesus does his recruiting among common laborers like fishermen.
You’d expect Jesus to head to Rome to make appointments with the religious and political leaders of the day to introduce God’s inbreaking kingdom. But Jesus doesn’t go there. Jesus doesn’t even head to Jerusalem to talk to the Jewish leadership. Jesus goes to the synagogue in Capernaum. Who’d ever heard of Capernaum?!? You don’t start world-ripping movement in Capernaum! The rest of the chapter is Jesus ministering to ordinary people in obscure places. Yes, it’s all very faced paced. But it’s happening in nowhere-ville.
Maybe we can understand it this way. Imagine what it would be like if Marvel set the latest Spiderman movie to happen in… Penn Yan!
Huh?
That tells us a lot about what God’s new reign is like. Do not make the mistake of thinking that because you do not have super powers you cannot do things that rip apart the fabric of this world.
Here is the fabric of this world. It’s been almost 2000 years since Mark wrote but some things never change:
-Those who have continue to have. Those who do not have will not get.
-The best way to move up in this world is to rub shoulders with the rich and powerful.
-Form friendships and relationships with people who are advantageous to you. There’s no point in spending time with people who aren’t an asset to you.
-Along with that – it’s perfectly okay to be generous and charitable to those beneath you, but leverage your charitable giving to improve your image.
-Work hard to protect what you have. Once it’s lost you’ll have to fight to get it back.
-Your value as a person is measured by what you can do.
The list could go on.
Live a life in God’s kingdom:
-work hard,
-be patient,
-ask for help when you need it and give help wherever you can,
-be willing to do those tasks that are boring and mundane,
-consistently choose that which is healthy rather than that which is convenient,
-and make your personal decisions with an eye towards the community rather than yourself…
Do those seemingly simple obscure things, even in places where they don’t feel like they are significant at all- and you are ripping the ways of this world to pieces. God’s kingdom is coming roaring into this world through you.
Do not make the mistake of thinking that if you are doing God’s work effectively you’ll be living the dynamics of Mark’s gospel. That’s the opposite of what Mark is trying to say! Mark is raising up the ordinary and obscure in his gospel because that is exactly what God is doing.
We are mere hours from the end of 2023. 2024 lay before us. But by God, the all-important work of God’s kingdom is our past, our present, and our future. Through us, and through ways that probably seem too insignificant to notice, God rips apart the things that destroy. In their place God brings about goodness and wholeness for all. We are invited into that new kingdom now and for forever.
We begin reading Mark’s gospel today. It is surprising that I like it as much as I do because its pace is even faster than today’s action movies. It is one crisis after another and another and another. Scenes shift every few seconds. Try this some time. Sit down and read Mark’s gospel with a stopwatch. Time how long it takes you to read before the scene changes. You’ll probably find that as you read the scenes change several times a minute. There are nine scenes in Mark 1, plus the introduction in verses 1-3. Which, by the way adds words in our translation to what Mark actually wrote to help us read it easier.
Mark’s gospel doesn’t start off with, “The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ the Son of God.” It is literally, “Genesis, of the gospel Jesus Christ, God’s Son.” And then we’re right into a quote from Isaiah.
You’d think this gospel was written in an age of text messages. It’s like a story being told on X, formerly Twitter. There are no developed sermons like in Matthew. There are no long stories or parables like in Luke. And there are no developed discourses like in John.
One of Mark’s most-often used words is “immediately”. Mark uses it 27 times in only 16 chapters. That’s the highest concentration of the use of the word immediately in all of scripture.
There are no soft edges in Mark’s gospel. It’s like trying to order food from a street vendor in New York City. Know what you want. Be strong. Talk loud. Keep it simple. Rudeness is expected.
Every time you turn around in Mark’s gospel something is getting torn apart, drown, silenced, cast out, or killed. Yes, not even the makers of action movies could keep up with the pace of Mark!
Mark’s gospel is also confusing and deeply mysterious. Much of Mark’s gospel has biblical scholars guessing. We’ll talk about that some Sunday in the future because in the last several years a whole bunch of answers have been emerging. For today we’re going to focus on just one of the nine scenes that flew before us. We’re going to look at Jesus’ baptism.
In that scene, like so many in Mark’s gospel, the translators are smoothing over the roughness and abruptness. We easily picture the scene as we hear it from the gospels of Matthew and Luke. There it’s a serene scene where Jesus is baptized by John in the Jordan River. As Jesus is coming up out of the water the Holy Spirit descends onto Jesus like a dove. A voice then speaks from heaven. Not in Mark!
First, the scene takes only two verses. As Jesus is coming up out of the water the heavens are ripped apart and the Spirit comes rocketing down as a pigeon and hits Jesus so hard it actually goes INTO him. It does not alight upon him as a gentle dove settling on his shoulder. Then from the ripped apart heavens an unidentified voice announces, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I have willed the good.”
Now, everything happening fast and often with violence. But don’t think Mark is just a careless writer of high adventure. We’ll talk about this later in the gospel, but in what we read today Mark has also crafted numerous parallels with the end of the story. For now, just know that while Mark may be fast and somewhat violent, it is also very skillfully crafted.
But, to our scene. The heavens are ripped apart. There is no going back. There is no fixing this. Think of violently ripping a piece of cloth in half. You can’t just go back and fix it. The damage is done. No repair can cover it. It isn’t a coincidence at all in Mark’s gospel that he uses the exact same words to talk about the curtain in the temple being ripped in two at the death of Jesus. In both scenes, the normal dividing line between God and humanity has been irreparably changed. A new age has begun.
In the remaining scenes in Mark 1 we start to see what the new age is like. Jesus goes throughout Galilee proclaiming that the time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God has come near. Jesus’ message is very simple. Everyone is invited into God’s reign of grace. This is completely open.
Jesus goes along the Sea of Galilee to recruit his first followers. You’d expect a new world order to begin by recruiting in the ivy league schools of the day and the head-hunting titans of business and politics. But Jesus does his recruiting among common laborers like fishermen.
You’d expect Jesus to head to Rome to make appointments with the religious and political leaders of the day to introduce God’s inbreaking kingdom. But Jesus doesn’t go there. Jesus doesn’t even head to Jerusalem to talk to the Jewish leadership. Jesus goes to the synagogue in Capernaum. Who’d ever heard of Capernaum?!? You don’t start world-ripping movement in Capernaum! The rest of the chapter is Jesus ministering to ordinary people in obscure places. Yes, it’s all very faced paced. But it’s happening in nowhere-ville.
Maybe we can understand it this way. Imagine what it would be like if Marvel set the latest Spiderman movie to happen in… Penn Yan!
Huh?
That tells us a lot about what God’s new reign is like. Do not make the mistake of thinking that because you do not have super powers you cannot do things that rip apart the fabric of this world.
Here is the fabric of this world. It’s been almost 2000 years since Mark wrote but some things never change:
-Those who have continue to have. Those who do not have will not get.
-The best way to move up in this world is to rub shoulders with the rich and powerful.
-Form friendships and relationships with people who are advantageous to you. There’s no point in spending time with people who aren’t an asset to you.
-Along with that – it’s perfectly okay to be generous and charitable to those beneath you, but leverage your charitable giving to improve your image.
-Work hard to protect what you have. Once it’s lost you’ll have to fight to get it back.
-Your value as a person is measured by what you can do.
The list could go on.
Live a life in God’s kingdom:
-work hard,
-be patient,
-ask for help when you need it and give help wherever you can,
-be willing to do those tasks that are boring and mundane,
-consistently choose that which is healthy rather than that which is convenient,
-and make your personal decisions with an eye towards the community rather than yourself…
Do those seemingly simple obscure things, even in places where they don’t feel like they are significant at all- and you are ripping the ways of this world to pieces. God’s kingdom is coming roaring into this world through you.
Do not make the mistake of thinking that if you are doing God’s work effectively you’ll be living the dynamics of Mark’s gospel. That’s the opposite of what Mark is trying to say! Mark is raising up the ordinary and obscure in his gospel because that is exactly what God is doing.
We are mere hours from the end of 2023. 2024 lay before us. But by God, the all-important work of God’s kingdom is our past, our present, and our future. Through us, and through ways that probably seem too insignificant to notice, God rips apart the things that destroy. In their place God brings about goodness and wholeness for all. We are invited into that new kingdom now and for forever.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)