Terrible Pun Fully Intended

Mark 9:38-50

John said to him, “Teacher, we saw someone casting out demons in your name, and we tried to stop him, because he was not following us.” But Jesus said, “Do not stop him; for no one who does a deed of power in my name will be able soon afterward to speak evil of me. Whoever is not against us is for us. For truly I tell you, whoever gives you a cup of water to drink because you bear the name of Christ will by no means lose the reward.

“If any of you put a stumbling block before one of these little ones who believe in me, it would be better for you if a great millstone were hung around your neck and you were thrown into the sea. If your hand causes you to stumble, cut it off; it is better for you to enter life maimed than to have two hands and to go to hell, to the unquenchable fire. And if your foot causes you to stumble, cut it off; it is better for you to enter life lame than to have two feet and to be thrown into hell. And if your eye causes you to stumble, tear it out; it is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than to have two eyes and to be thrown into hell, where their worm never dies, and the fire is never quenched.

“For everyone will be salted with fire. Salt is good; but if salt has lost its saltiness, how can you season it? Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with one another.”

In a previous episode of the Gospel of Mark, a father brought his son to Jesus and his disciples.  The son had a demon that threw him on the ground, caused him to grind his teeth and foam at the mouth, and sometimes this would cause him to fall into the fire, or into the water!  The disciples gave it a shot first, but they couldn't get it done.  Shaking his head, Jesus said, “You faithless generation, how much longer must I be with you? How much longer must I put up with you?”  So, THAT stung the disciples… A LOT!

Now, in this week’s episode of the Gospel of Mark we see the disciples come upon a person casting out demons in Jesus’ name.  Unlike the disciples, this guy had been SUCCESSFUL in the exorcism business.   So, THAT stung… A LOT… AGAIN.  So what did the disciples do?  They told him to stop!  Of course they did!  Because having fewer people walking around this world with seizure-causing demons isn’t AT ALL what Jesus and the disciples are about!  Jesus and the disciples are all about protecting the brand!  Right?  NO!  The goal Jesus had and the goal Jesus was trying to get through the thick disciples’ noggins… disciples then and disciples now… is supposed to be… as Bishop Curry says, “changing the world from the nightmare it is for so many, into the dream that God has for it.”  

Here, in this gospel lesson, Jesus outlines the two ways we can move the world closer to God’s dream.  BOTH are very legitimate and Biblically sound ways of getting to the same goal, and BOTH come with difficult and sometimes nearly impossible demands on those disciples who want to move in the direction of God’s dream for the world.  

The first method is to follow the Law completely.  Follow it like you were driving your car straight down the center line.  Do NOTHING to waver from that center line.  No changing stations on the radio, no sip of coffee, no trying to read that Berkstock sign.  Another car is coming at you?  NO wavering.  A deer?  No wavering!  Not even an inch!  Perfect… and I mean ONLY PERFECT following of the law will change the world, so if something causes you to waver, do whatever it takes… I mean WHATEVER it takes to stay on that center line up to and including chopping off or gouging out body parts.  Hard core, right?  But it is Biblically sound.  You are fully in charge.  It’s completely up to you.  Follow the Law and the world changes.  

The OTHER way to change the world… that is, if you are interested in another way?  You are?  Okay, just wanted to check… the other way to change the world is to be “for” Jesus or I think Jesus would say, to at least not be AGAINST those who walk the Jesus Way of living in the world.  And what is living the Jesus Way in the world?  It is the way of love… doing what is in the other’s best interest.  It is the way of compassion… caring for the least, the lost, and the last.  It is the way of generosity… giving what you have, even if all you have is a cup of water to drink.  Brother Curtis from the Society of St. John the Evangelist, an Episcopal monastic group here in Massachusetts put it this way “There is something about participating in life as a gift, not clinging to it, not hoarding it, but cherishing it, then sharing it with a kind of reckless abandon that is the real deal, because that’s like God. We are invited to be generous with the things in life to which we’ve been entrusted, as well as with our kind­ness, attentiveness, gratitude, gentleness, and interest for others.” 

Nice, right?  A better way than the choppy/gougey way?  I think so too, but it isn’t less difficult… in fact this way might actually be MORE difficult because it isn’t as “clear cut” as the other (terrible pun fully intended!)  This way of changing the world asks for our egos to step fully aside and allow the power of God to do its thing without us worrying about who gets the credit.  This way of changing the world asks us to give a cup of water to someone who is thirsty and then it asks us to keep working on ourselves so we continue to grow into a place where we can give more and more and more of who we are and what we have.  This way of changing the world asks us to live our lives each day living so generously that we approach the point where, as Paul says, “it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.”  

The disciples, fresh from their own failures and stinging from seeing someone from the other party being successful, wanted Jesus to bring down hellfire on this other guy who was working outside the LAW.  Jesus reminded them that while the LAW is an option, it literally cuts both ways (again, terrible pun fully intended) and there is no one who can follow that path and remain unscathed. 

Instead, Jesus tells the disciples… the disciples there and us disciples here… that he recommends the Way that, as Brother Curtis says, treats life as a gift, not clinging to it, not hoarding it, but cherishing it, then sharing it with a kind of reckless abandon, because that too will change the world into the dream God has for it… not with any less difficulty on our parts for certain, but with a lot less gore.  Amen.  

Humanity and Divinity

Mark 8:27-38

Jesus went on with his disciples to the villages of Caesarea Philippi; and on the way he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that I am?” And they answered him, “John the Baptist; and others, Elijah; and still others, one of the prophets.” He asked them, “But who do you say that I am?” Peter answered him, “You are the Messiah.” And he sternly ordered them not to tell anyone about him.

Then he began to teach them that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. He said all this quite openly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. But turning and looking at his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, “Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”

He called the crowd with his disciples, and said to them, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it. For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life? Indeed, what can they give in return for their life? Those who are ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of them the Son of Man will also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.”

Today we find ourselves at the halfway point of Mark’s Gospel.  Through these first 8 chapters Jesus has been showing the disciples WHO and WHOSE he was.  Mark’s Gospel starts with John the Baptist, Jesus’s Baptism, and the voice of God saying “You’re my Son!” In this moment Jesus is showing them his DIVINITY!  But IMMEDIATELY Jesus is pushed out into the desert to be tempted by Satan where a physically hungry and thirsty Jesus shows us his full HUMANITY. Okay.  Then Jesus walks by the sea, calls a few fishermen, teaches, casts out demons and heals Simon’s mother in law and when word gets out he heals the whole town. DIVINITY. Then while it was still dark he snuck out and went to a secluded place to pray and recover.  HUMANITY.  He then tried to move on to do more teaching but was stopped by a leper, whom he healed. DIVINITY. Then got thrown out of a temple for his teaching. HUMANITY. Told a paralytic to “Take up your mat and walk!” DIVINITY. Got in a theology fight with the Pharisees. HUMANITY. Healed a withered hand. DIVINITY. Went out to sea to get away. HUMANITY. Huge crowds follow and called him the SON OF GOD. DIVINITY. Fights with his family who thinks he’s crazy. HUMANITY. Heals a Demoniac. DIVINITY. Escapes in a Boat. HUMANITY. Heals a bleeding woman and raises a dead girl. DIVINITY. Gets rejected in his hometown. HUMANITY. Sends the disciples out to heal people and they did!  DIVINITY.  Grieves the brutal death of his friend John the Baptist. HUMANITY. Feeds five thousand! DIVINITY! Sends the disciples off and climbed a mountain to pray exhausted. HUMANITY. Walks on water. DIVINITY. Fights with the Pharisees and goes up North to get away. HUMANITY.  Calls a Syrophoenician woman the “D” word.  HUMANITY.  Comes around and heals her daughter and the old Jewish deaf man. DIVINITY. Escapes the crowd to get away to Caesarea Philippi. HUMANITY. Asks the disciples “Who do you say that I am” and Peter responds for the group and says “DIVINITY” and Jesus tells them he must suffer and die in his full… HUMANITY. Peter says “GOD FORBID YOUR HUMANITY” and Jesus says to Peter, “GET BEHIND ME SATAN!”

I know it’s a very obscure, hidden, difficult pattern to pick up in all of that but that’s why you have me!  It turns out that Jesus spends the first half of Mark’s Gospel going back and forth between showing his HUMANITY and then his DIVINITY and I think that was very much on purpose.  You see, I don’t know about you, but I know ABSOLUTELY NOTHING about how to do miraculous healings, raise the dead, or walk on water.  But, you know what I DO know a WHOLE LOT ABOUT?  Desert times.  Fights with bullies.  Family craziness and drama!  You and I can easily relate to being tired, worn, and not acting out of our best selves. You and I know all about trying to get some peace, only to be tracked down by a kid, an office, a genuine emergency, or a perceived emergency that turns out to actually just be a question about potato salad. You and I know what it is to be rejected. You and I know the real and deep pain of the death of someone we love. You and I know what it is to think about and face our own mortality. You and I… you know what it is we know?  We KNOW humanity!  

So, Jesus shows us HIS humanity, because THAT’s the part of Jesus that we can most easily recognize in ourselves… and in that connection, Jesus has offered us a door. A door through which we’re being invited over and over and over again to walk with Jesus from our very recognizable communion with Jesus in his humanity into the much more difficult to see, but just as real, communion with Jesus in his Divinity!

I think we’re being shown, over and over and over again the fullness of Jesus’s humanity so we can see ourselves in the person of Jesus. THEN, seeing ourselves in Jesus… Jesus becomes someone easy to relate to… easy to walk with… easy to live with, and then, as we walk with Jesus in his humanity, day after day, living as Jesus lived, trying our best to live with compassion, love, generosity and grace, we grow more and more deeply into the Jesus WAY of living and then eventually… we end up walking smack dab, right into the Truth.  The Truth, which is that we’re not ONLY sharing this life intertwined in Jesus’ humanity, but we’ve also been walking and living, intertwined the whole time in Jesus’ Divinity as well!

I think what Jesus is doing with all of this, is basically taking us all by the hand walking us all into what he prayed for us in John’s Gospel.  In John’s Gospel he prayed that we may all be One.  One with one another and One with God and here in Mark’s Gospel, he takes us by the hand of our humanity and walks us into the fulfillment of that prayer… into our place within God’s Divinity.   

Jesus meets us where we are, wherever we are, deep within our humanity, and in a generousness of love, grace, compassion and care, walks us into a LIFE filled with meaning, purpose, dignity and self worth.  And there, with our lives interwoven between humanity and divinity, Jesus helps us to discover that together we have all that we need to change the world into the what God created it to be.  So, let's go do it!  Amen.

Jesus Shows his Butt

Mark 7:24-37

From there he set out and went away to the region of Tyre. He entered a house and did not want anyone to know he was there. Yet he could not escape notice, but a woman whose little daughter had an unclean spirit immediately heard about him, and she came and bowed down at his feet. Now the woman was a Gentile, of Syrophoenician origin. She begged him to cast the demon out of her daughter. He said to her, “Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” But she answered him, “Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.” Then he said to her, “For saying that, you may go—the demon has left your daughter.” So she went home, found the child lying on the bed, and the demon gone.

Then he returned from the region of Tyre, and went by way of Sidon towards the Sea of Galilee, in the region of the Decapolis. They brought to him a deaf man who had an impediment in his speech; and they begged him to lay his hand on him. He took him aside in private, away from the crowd, and put his fingers into his ears, and he spat and touched his tongue. Then looking up to heaven, he sighed and said to him, “Ephphatha,” that is, “Be opened.” And immediately his ears were opened, his tongue was released, and he spoke plainly. Then Jesus ordered them to tell no one; but the more he ordered them, the more zealously they proclaimed it. They were astounded beyond measure, saying, “He has done everything well; he even makes the deaf to hear and the mute to speak.”

Hello?  Is this Jesus?  Yes?  Okay good.  Well, I’m calling from HR.  The Heavenly Resources department.  Well Mr. Jesus, we’ve had a serious complaint from one of your co-humans that you were, and I’m quoting from the complaint here, “a pretty big butt” when you first talked to the Syrophoenician woman when she came in to talk to you about her demon possessed daughter.  You apparently called her the “D” word?  No, Mr. Jesus, that wasn’t very nice.  Yes, I am fully aware you did cast out the daughter’s demon and that was absolutely “meets or exceeds expectations” work, but Jesus Christ… you have to know that is simply not an acceptable way to speak to another human being! 

You see, Jesus had just come from a huge fight with the Pharisees.  He had come up North, out of Jewish territory, to Tyre where the world was a lot less “People-y” so that he could come down from that encounter.  It’s easy to imagine then, that Jesus was emotionally, spiritually, and physically drained… you know… fully human.  He was just like we all get when we have to deal with super grouchy people.  He had no more… we’ll say “Cares to Give” and by coming to Tyre, he had TRIED to give himself a timeout to recover.  But what happened?  What happened is what always happens!  He got tracked down by yet another person needing something and the fully human Jesus just snapped.  A Jesus that snaps when he’s tired and over it?  Now there’s a Jesus who looks a whole lot like me!

That’s the first point of this story.  Even Jesus, King of Kings, Lord of Lords, and Son of God had days where he couldn’t help but to show his butt… just like all of us humans do.  The second point of this story is for us to understand that while showing our butts is a genuine part of being human, it is also NOT a spot where God is calling us to live full time!  That’s why in this encounter we see BOTH Jesus being fully human AND we also see him working with his Syrophoenician, female therapist to help him return to the fullness of the person God created him to be!  Back and forth they went in that therapy session until Jesus finally arrived at a place where both he and that little girl were freed from their demons.  

The story of the deaf man then extends the point being made in the first story.  Because while being run down, out of sorts, hangry, done with people and showing your butt is absolutely a part of being a genuine human being, doing the work to move and grow out of that part of being human, not only opens us to living a more abundant life OURSELVES, but also gives us the opportunity to pass that sort of abundant life on to others.  Whether we do that work on our own, or with the help of our own Syrophoenician therapist, God calls us into that work of becoming a better human being, not just so that WE might live a better life than we live when we’re dwelling in the cellar levels of humanity, but also so that we can move beyond ourselves and also bring a better life to those we meet along the way.  

It was only after Jesus had done the work he needed to do within himself that he was then able to take that deaf man away to put his fingers in his ears, spit, and scream “BE OPEN” so then that man could then ALSO stop living in the basement of humanity and move upstairs where the light shines, friends and family and neighbors come and go, AND where he would then ALSO have the opportunity to be part of lifting up and healing others around him.  

This Gospel story tells us that it is absolutely understandable and fully a part of the human experience for us to get run down, run over, and rung out and end up in a place where we are NOT at all functioning as our highest selves.  Even Jesus, it turns out, had those sorts of days.  But this story ALSO tells us that while being human and getting to that spot is understandable, its NOT the place God created any of us to live full time.  In this story Jesus started out REALLY showing his butt, but then he got help, did the work, got better, and went on to help others.  

SO WHAT JESUS DID HERE IS A MODEL FOR YOU AND ME TO FOLLOW!  We too, just like Jesus, are being called to be open to doing the work we need to do when we get to a place where our butts are showing.  We too, just like Jesus, are being called to be open to getting the help we need from a Syrophoenician therapist, or really a mental health professional of any ethnic origin.  BECAUSE when we DO that work… When we GET help… we FIRST return ourselves to life on the upper floors of humanity and SECOND we become able to help others live into those upper floors of humanity as well and it is there... on the upper floors of humanity where we will all find the abundant life in which God created ALL of us to live.  Amen.