At the End of the World

Luke 21:24-35

Advent 1

December 2, 2012

William G. Carter

“There will be signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars, and on the earth distress among nations confused by the roaring of the sea and the waves. People will faint from fear and foreboding of what is coming upon the world, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken. Then they will see ‘the Son of Man coming in a cloud’ with power and great glory. Now when these things begin to take place, stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.”

Then he told them a parable: “Look at the fig tree and all the trees; as soon as they sprout leaves you can see for yourselves and know that summer is already near. So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that the kingdom of God is near. Truly I tell you, this generation will not pass away until all things have taken place. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.” 

“Be on guard so that your hearts are not weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and the worries of this life, and that day catch you unexpectedly, like a trap. For it will come upon all who live on the face of the whole earth. Be alert at all times, praying that you may have the strength to escape all these things that will take place, and to stand before the Son of Man.”

Where do you want to be at the end of the world? There is a small town on the western edge of France, near the Pyrenees Mountains. When the end of the world comes, some people are saying you have to be there.

It is the village of Bugarach, a scenic hamlet of 176 residents in the shadow of a large mountain. Villagers joke, “It’s not exactly the end of the world, but you can see it from here.” The conspiracy theorists are much more serious. They believe there are extraterrestrials sleeping in caves deep inside the mountain.

And on December 21 of this year, when the world is supposed to be destroyed according to the ancient Mayan calendar, the extraterrestrials are supposed to wake up, climb into the spaceships that they have stashed in their caves, and rescue the people of Bugarash by taking them to another planet.

I don’t make this stuff up. It comes from a two-year-old article in the New York Times.[1] CNN calls it “the Doomsday Destination.” And I suspect as we get closer to December 21, there may be more waves of anxiety breaking on shore.

You know about December 21, right? The ancient Mayan people had a calendar that stretched into the future, and December 21, 2012 was the last date on their calendar. They were an ingenious and capable people, so some true believers think the Mayans knew the world would run out on December 21. Scientists point out that the Mayan calendar made no adjustments for leap years, so it’s probably a good bit off. Skeptics remind us that, as fortune-telling goes, the Mayans did not predict the demise of their own civilization around the year 1100 AD. But still, the X-Files conspiracy hunters are pretty much convinced: the end of the world is coming.

My wife asked, “Should I bother to wrap your Christmas presents?” I said, “Nah, just give them to me now.” Then I thought better of it and added, “You had better wrap them after all. If the end comes, I won’t have a lot of time to enjoy them. And if doesn’t come, I will enjoy the surprise.” (I think I’m getting sock and underwear.)

Jesus speaks of the end of the world in our Gospel text. That is how the season of Advent always begins: with an end of the world Bible passage. “There will be signs in sun, moon, and stars. The powers of heaven will be shaken,” he says. “On the earth, people will be terrified by the roaring of the sea and the waves.”

If you believe, as I do, that terrifying storms can be caused by global warming, this is indeed a scary thing. And if you are somebody who believes the weather patterns are part of some big natural cycle, you still have to concede that we have been putting a lot of junk in the sea, the soil, and the atmosphere for a long time. Our recklessness and overpopulation puts great stress on the planet. Some people think the end of the world will come from an ecological meltdown.

I had lunch with an economist the other day. He thinks the world is heading for a financial meltdown. Forget whatever financial cliff you have been hearing about. He says the amount of global indebtedness is going to drag human civilization down the drain. His prediction is that sometime in the next two years, the American economy is going to fall apart. I was trying to sip some corn chowder while he told me this; I lost my appetite.

Others remind us of what none of us want to remember: that technology has led us to develop weapons that could wipe out billions of people in a few mushroom clouds. That was the quiet fear of my childhood, maybe yours. We sat in the hallway of Washington Gladden Elementary School to duck and cover our heads, just in case the wrong person pushed the wrong button somewhere. The fear kept me awake sometimes. Eleven years ago, that same fear sent our country into two wars. And even though the fear turned out to be based on untruths, we haven’t been able to get out of the war business. 

Where are you going to be when the world comes to an end?

Do you know what Jesus says? You are going to be standing on the ground, lifting up your eyes, and seeing the Son of Man coming with power and great glory. He is teaching that the end of the world is a time of hope. The end of the world is an event for God to make everything right about the world as we know it. The end of the world is a moment of redemption; that’s a grand Biblical word that means “God is going to buy everything back,” that God will pay off the ransom to get his people back. That’s redemption.

What strikes me is that this is such a different view of the same old fear-mongering that we get in every generation. Every generation has earthquakes, massive storms, and wars. According to our text, Jesus is not the least bit surprised at this. The world is a perpetual mess. That is why God sent Jesus into the world, to do something about the mess. That is why Jesus calls us to join him to keep doing something about the mess. And the hope we are given by Christ is that a final day will come when God will say, “enough is enough,” and God will come to buy back all of his people. The word is “Redemption.”

In the ancient world, redemption was paying off a slave owner so the slave could go free. Redemption was cancelling an unwieldy debt so a family was released from it. Watch for this, says Jesus. Don’t get dragged down by the doom and gloom. Turn a deaf ear to the naysayers and the nattering nabobs of negativity. This world belongs to God, the only true God, the God of love and justice. It does not belong to those who traffic in fear or cultivate destruction. It belongs to God. We have to keep that in perspective.

Jean-Pierre DeLord knows that. He is the mayor of the little town of Bugarach. He has been re-elected mayor for thirty-nine years. As he watches all the wide-eyed crazies descend upon his little village and start their final countdown to Apocalypse, he says, “This is the 183rd end-of-the-world prophecy since antiquity.” He sighs and says they will get through this one too.

The best way to be on guard is to keep loving all the people that Jesus loves. To keep teaching the children that perfect love drives out all fear. To keep protecting those who are frightened for they are God’s beloved ones. To feed the hungry, to rebuild the disrupted, to offer a hand-up to those who have been pushed down. We don’t have to live by terror or fear. Oh no.

When the end of the world comes, I want to be right here – at the communion table – offering the bread of Christ’s life and the cup of Christ’s mercy.

© William G. Carter. All rights reserved.

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[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/31/world/europe/31bugarach.html

The Invitation to Generous Poverty

Mark 12:38-44

November 11, 2012

William G. Carter

As Jesus taught, he said, ‘Beware of the scribes, who like to walk around in long robes, and to be greeted with respect in the market-places, and to have the best seats in the synagogues and places of honor at banquets! They devour widows’ houses and for the sake of appearance say long prayers. They will receive the greater condemnation.’

He sat down opposite the treasury, and watched the crowd putting money into the treasury. Many rich people put in large sums. A poor widow came and put in two small copper coins, which are worth a penny. Then he called his disciples and said to them, ‘Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the treasury. For all of them have contributed out of their abundance; but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on.’

            This weekend marks the 27^th anniversary of my first major failure as a minister. I preached a sermon on this Bible passage and it didn’t go well.

            It was my first-ever stewardship sermon and I did the best I could. Four weeks after my ordination, I pointed to the widow who gave her last two copper coins to the Jerusalem temple. I praised her sacrificial contribution and declared it was a generous example. I quoted a famous preacher who once declared, “The Lord can do a lot with a little when he has it all.”

            The church members sat with their arms crossed. Nothing that I said seemed to register any emotion. The offering plates were as thinly covered as usual. It was completely flat experience. When I walked into coffee hour a few minutes later, the people looked up, smiled benignly, and went quickly back to their conversations.

            I turned around and standing in front of me with the church treasurer. He was a retired Air Force colonel and he was not happy. He proceeded to unload in me in front of the coffee hour crowd. “That was the worst excuse for a stewardship sermon that I have ever heard,” he said in a voice far too loud. “What do you think you were trying to do?”

People began to shuffle away awkwardly. I stammered out, “I was talking about the generous widow as a good example for Christian giving,” I said. He bellowed back, “I thought that’s what you were trying to do. What a stupid sermon!”

I stood shell-shocked. I didn’t know what to say. So he filled in the gap. “What you should have done is lay on some guilt, and make these people feel guilty for the pitifully small contributions that they make to this church’s budget. We will never make it on two pennies per person.” Then he spun around and stomped away. That was 27 years ago today. My first ever stewardship sermon.

            I realize that whenever scripture gets read, people often hear whatever they are prepared to hear. That guy wanted his pastor to shake down the congregation by laying a big guilt trip. As he heard the story, the widow wasn’t giving enough. Two small copper coins, equivalent to one of our pennies. He wanted me to yell at them, and when I didn’t do so, he yelled at me.

            And the fact of the matter is, Jesus is watching the whole line of donors as they make their offering to the Temple. The rich people put in large sums (you see, back then, they didn’t have offering envelopes!). Even so, they were contributing their leftovers, said Jesus. But the widow put in everything that she had. Everything! She had no public assistance, no welfare or survivor’s pension, no official means for making an income – and she put in her last two cents. That is sacrificial giving. Jesus points her out, and she has been immortalized in countless stewardship sermons over the centuries. That’s how most of us have heard the story.

            But did you hear what comes immediately before that brief vignette? Jesus is hammering away at the religious leaders of his time. He’s going after the scribes of the Temple. They preen around like they are important. They call attention to how they look and where they sit. When they pray, he says, they go on far too long – and God gets bored by their heaped up words. And what else do they do? “They devour the homes of widows.”

            Now, that puts a new frame around the picture. Step back a few paces, and get a bigger view. Jesus denounces the scribes for pillaging the livelihoods of widows, demanding the money of those women who lost their husbands and had no other legal means of support. He criticizes the whole religious establishment. And then he points out this one woman, a widow, who gives generously to the very institution that plunders her life.

            It’s disturbing. Why does that temple exist? To maintain the relationship between God and God’s people. How does the temple function? By teaching the scriptures and following what they teach. And what do the scriptures say? “Doom to you who legislate evil, who make laws that make misery for the poor, that rob my destitute people of dignity, exploit defenseless widows, and take advantage of homeless children!”[1] Isaiah, chapter 10. “Do not oppress the widow, the orphan, the alien, or the poor; and do not devise evil in your hearts against one another.” Zechariah, chapter 7. [2]

            Over and over in the Jewish scriptures, the word “widow” is more than a description of a woman who lost her husband. It is a code word for those who have no voice in society, no means of income, no protection or care. Take care of them, God says. Do not plunder them. That’s the very thing Jesus warns about the religious scribes of his day. And then he points to one of the very people who is being drained dry.

            Institutions can lose their souls. An institution gets bigger. More levels of management are inserted. It will do whatever it can to maintain its authority, and sometimes it merely perpetuates its shell. In the process, the heart decays. All of us have stories about this, whether it’s a business, a school, or a government agency. Procedures become fixed. The rules take over. The bottom line becomes more important than people.

            I can’t speak about how this looks in the business world. But I know how it looks in the religious world. When I worked with alumni from my Presbyterian seminary, we regularly heard how students are beneath the bottom rung of the ladder. The school administration refused to hire a full-time counselor at the same time that the trustees were cheering on the endowment to climb over a billion dollars.

            Or just this week: my Presbyterian minister health insurance company sent out a memo. Rates for clergy health care are going up in January 2014. Sure, that happens everywhere. But here’s the thing: if the minister has kids young enough to be dependents, the company wants the church to kick in even more. This will push small churches to hire an old minister who has no kids. And here’s the thing: that memo was sent out from a corporate business meeting being held at a resort on Hilton Head Island.

            Or I remember an Op-Ed column in the Washington Post years ago. Somebody wrote that the average age of Roman Catholic nuns is over sixty-six, and most nuns have no pensions. As the writer said, “Unlike the male hierarchy who controlled the collection plate, the sisters put neither their trust in money or their money in trust. . . they worked for less than the widow’s mite. The church never offered to care for its own nuns.” The vow of poverty has become a vow of destitution with few new takers.” (Colman McCarthy)

            Peter Drucker, the management guru, did a study of non-profit institutions. He warned that every human organization can decay from within, unless it keeps revisiting its mission statement. The critical questions are these: Why are you here? Why do you exist? What is your real business?

            Maybe the best answer to such questions came from Jacob Marley to Ebenezer Scrooge: “Mankind was my business! The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence were all my business. The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business.”[3]

            My friend Carlos Wilton is pastor of the Point Pleasant Presbyterian Church in Point Pleasant Beach, New Jersey. He’s the one who had the Weather Channel guy broadcasting live two weeks ago today. As many as a quarter of the five hundred Point Pleasant church members have lost their homes or left the area since Hurricane Sandy. Today was scheduled to be that church’s Stewardship Sunday, when they were to dedicate their financial pledges to God and God’s church. It's hard to even imagine doing that, he said.

            When we talked earlier this week, Carl said, “For the last two weeks, we have been remembering about why we have a church. We exist to pray together. We exist to worship God together. We exist to care about human needs.” Today he tells people to come as they are, ragged or intact, and to come forward after worship if anybody needs individual prayers of healing. Tomorrow night and Friday night, his people will prepare a free community meal for anybody who is hungry or needs a friend.

            “There is a circle of service,” he says in his sermon today. “There are times in life when we are able to serve, and other times when – as uncomfortable as that may feel – there is nothing else to do but graciously allow others to serve us.” Hurricanes do not discriminate. Neither should our hearts.

            Now, there’s a church with its soul intact.

            “Do you see her?” asks Jesus. “Do you see that woman over there?” She was a widow, which meant she was poor. She didn’t have hardly anything, but she gave freely of herself. We can speculate about her motives. Did she give out of obligation? Perhaps. Was giving her habit? Certainly. Was giving a spiritual practice? Probably so. She did not give her money because the institutional temple was corrupt, selfish, or heartless. She certainly did not give money out of guilt, or because the retired military colonel serving as the institutional treasurer cajoled her into doing so.

            No. She gave because she believed God was in the middle of the whole thing. She gave because God is bigger than the institutions that claim to do God’s work. She gave because she wanted to be part of God’s great salvage operation to the world.

            I believe she gave because she knew the bedrock purposes of any temple are still essential: to lead people in praising God, to gather around the sacred texts, and to listen when the scriptures say, “The Lord upholds the homeless child and the widow, but the way of the wicked God brings to ruin.” (Psalm 146:9)

            “Look at her,” says Jesus. “Look at her!” She believes God is bigger than the church. She believes God wants to work through the church. That’s why she gives her all. That’s why Jesus gives everything, too.

(c) William G. Carter. All rights reserved.

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[1] Isaiah 7:1-4

[2] Zechariah 7:10

[3] Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol, stave 1.

The Invitation to See

Mark 10:46-52

Ordinary Time 30  

William G. Carter

They came to Jericho. As he and his disciples and a large crowd were leaving Jericho, Bartimaeus son of Timaeus, a blind beggar, was sitting by the roadside. When he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to shout out and say, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” Many sternly ordered him to be quiet, but he cried out even more loudly, “Son of David, have mercy on me!” Jesus stood still and said, “Call him here.” And they called the blind man, saying to him, “Take heart; get up, he is calling you.” So throwing off his cloak, he sprang up and came to Jesus. Then Jesus said to him, “What do you want me to do for you?” The blind man said to him, “My teacher, let me see again.” Jesus said to him, “Go; your faith has made you well.” Immediately he regained his sight and followed him on the way.

           A good friend was having eye problems. He woke up one morning to flashes of light, believing at first there was a lightning storm raging outside. But the storm was in his eyes. He couldn’t see sideways. There were little “floaters” in his vision. The optometrist couldn’t see him right away, so my buddy says he started to panic. What if he was losing his sight? What if he went from seeing the colors of the rainbow to the perpetual darkness? What if he could no longer see his grandchildren’s faces, no longer enjoy the sunrise, no longer have the freedom to drive around in his car?

It turned out to be a torn retina. He could get treatment for that, and he was fortunate that his sight could be restored. That’s not the case with everybody, as you know. When people lose their sight, they have to find new ways to travel through the world. They can learn Braille and work with a guide dog, but they inevitably have to rely on others. They depend on the people around them. And in the ancient world, that meant you were reduced to begging for help.

Bartimaeus was a beggar, a blind beggar. His life was reduced to sitting by a well-populated road. The cloak that he wore to keep him warm was also his offering basket. First thing in the morning, he would cast it before him, smooth out the wrinkles, and wait for generous people to walk by. Calling to them, he would ask for mercy, particularly in the form of spare change. “Can you help me?” he’d say. “Would you have mercy on me?” Then he would listen with heightened attention for the sound of coins to fall on his cloak. Whatever fell on his cloak was his, and he could afford to eat for another day. That was his routine. That was his life. He lived on the spare change from others.

One day, he hears that Jesus of Nazareth is drawing near. There is a buzz in his home city of Jericho. We don’t know what everybody around him was saying. Some had heard of Jesus as a wise teacher. Others knew of him as a miracle worker and a healer. Still others spoke of him as an exorcist, as a holy man who could defeat the powers of hell. What is so striking about this story is that Bartimaeus the blind man sees Jesus as the Messiah of God. He calls out, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy! Jesus, Son of David!”

Now, that’s code language for “Messiah.” King David would have a Son someday. He could come from God, and he would begin to restore everything and everybody that was broken. “Jesus, Son of David” meant “Jesus, Messiah.”

And that is politically charged language. Jericho was occupied by the Roman army. The Caesar of Rome had put his troops there to expand his empire. The popular notion was that the Messiah would come to restore Israel to its ancient glory. To do that, the Messiah would drive away the oppressive soldiers, drive away the system that put the citizens under the emperor’s thumb, cast out the evil that comes with putting people down. The people around Bartimaeus heard him talking like this – “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy! – and they said, “Hush up! Be quiet!”

Do you know why I think they said that? They didn’t want any trouble from the imperial troops stationed there, yes. But more than that, they saw Jesus of Nazareth, heard the code word for “Messiah,” and said to themselves, “We don’t think so.” He didn’t look like a Messiah. He didn’t look like a tall gladiator, ready to fight. He didn’t look like anything other than what he was: a Galilean, a peasant like the rest of them, a person with no obvious external abilities . . . except that things happened around him all the time. The sick became well. The hungry had food. The possessed were set free. The blind regained their sight.

In his physical blindness, Bartimaeus sees Jesus as the Messiah. His insight is that there is another way through the world than the way of the empire and its brutality. There is the way of Jesus. That’s the Holy Way. It will be costly. It will be awkward. But to care for the people for whom Jesus cares, to join him in doing the things that he does – this is the way of the Messiah in the world.

The blind man’s insight is remarkable. Up until this point in Mark’s account, nobody else had gotten it quite right. We heard it last week, in the text immediately before this one. Jesus predicts for the third time that his ministry will run a collision course with the powers of the world. His way is the way of sacrifice. Remember what happens? Two disciples, James and John, come up and ask for preferential treatment. They want to sit on special thrones when Jesus finally rules the world. Then the other ten disciples hear about it, and they get angry because James and John got to him first.

Jesus denounces this me-first, what’s-in-it-for-me mindset. His way is the way of service in the name of God. His sacrifice will pay the ransom to set people free from the powers that demean them. Bartimaeus sees this with something other than his eyes. He cries out to the merciful Messiah, even as his nervous neighbors ask him to hush.

I have always wondered how some people come to follow Jesus. I marvel at how they “get it.” Those Roman Catholic nuns who speak up for the hungry and work to get them food, where did they get their tireless energy? One of them says, “I heard Jesus say, ‘I was hungry and you gave me food.’” It was not a political statement, except as the political system has to be addressed on behalf of those who are hungry, who have no other voice. They speak for Jesus.

I heard one of my seminary classmates talk about a mission project in Kenya. She went with some people from Sacramento to build a school. One of the Kenyans asked, “Why are you here?” She said, “I am here with the Presbyterians working in partnership with this school.” He got this look on face, broke into a grin, and said, “Oh, we know the Presbyterians!”

With a faraway look, he said, “When I was five, I lost my sight. My family could only afford one bus ticket. So they pinned a sign on my shirt that said ‘Kikuyu Presbyterian Hospital.’ My parents put me on the bus, and I went by myself across Kenya. They met me, did the surgery, and now I see.” He nodded and said, “Yes, I know the Presbyterians.”   

Bartimaeus “gets it.” He understands that the Messiah has mercy on those with great needs. When Jesus calls him, he casts off his cloak, leaving behind his only possession and his source of income. Literally, he “bounces” up – he springs up. He refuses to sit in a pool of self-pity, and goes to the One who can heal him. And when Jesus said, “Faith restores you, go your way,” where does he go? He goes after Jesus, on his way. As far as we know, the cloak is still sitting by the side of road.

In recent years, the scholars have pondered the name of this man. It’s stated twice – Bartimaeus, which literally means “Son of Timaeus.” Timaeus was a famous name. Anybody know this? Timaeus was one of the titles of a work by Plato, the Greek philosopher. All the cultured people who could read would have known it. In that work, Plato describes a perfect cosmos, pure, unblemished, distant from us. All of us mortals can’t see anything more than a dim Xeroxed copy of this, unless they attend to a certain kind of elitism that removes them from the muck and grime of daily life.

Among the wealthy and the educated, this was a prevailing view of the world. It was a kind of a high rent snobbiness that only the very few and the privileged can attain. That was the view of Plato’s famous essay Timaeus.

So here the “Son of Timaeus” meets the Son of David.  Bartimaeus hasn’t turned out so well, has he? His eyesight is flawed. He is reduced to begging beside a dirty road. Even after he is healed, he follows a loser Messiah who is going to be crucified. And he does so because he sees who Jesus is. He knows that Christ’s Way is the Real Way. It will involve sacrifice because the idols of success must be forsaken. It will involve suffering, because if you minister to those who suffer, it affects you. You give up the beggar’s cloak, and all that it meant, the way that it reduced you to somebody that the world ignores – and you go the others that the world ignores, and you do what you can to infuse their lives with compassion and love.

As somebody notes, the Gospel of Mark perceives Christian faith as, "The determination to shed denial and face the world as it is, in order to struggle for what could be.”[1] Real faith is giving up on the crazy idea that the only thing that matters is a perfectly beautiful house, a perfectly successful career, with perfectly obedient children nurtured by a perfectly obedient spouse. There are a lot of people who believe that stuff, and it’s not working out so well for them. All of us have our social fractures and our difficulties. All of us have our bruises and our imperfections. All of us get jostled around by the empire and its attempts to consume us.

Bartimaeus is the one who says, “Teacher, let me see again.” Let me see what is real. Let me toss aside my empty efforts for security and status, and follow you, come what may.

Sometime ago in my travels, I met a remarkable lady named Dana. She was running a halfway house for women who are recovering drug addicts. She schedules twelve-step groups, arranges for child care, and arranged for job interview. You would never expect her to be involved with such work. She is even-tempered, gentle, and articulate. But she will tell you what happened to cause her to see anew.

She was a graduate school student in Pittsburgh, looking for a part-time job. A newspaper listed an administrative position with a soup kitchen. That looked interesting, so she called and got an interview. The day came and she put on a dark blue business suit, put her resume and references in a briefcase, and clipped back her hair.

Dana arriving a few minutes before noon and knocked on the door. Someone yelled, "It's unlocked." She went in, only to find a long line of people in front of her. Disappointment washed over her. Then she realized it was lunch time. The people ahead of her weren't there for the interview, they were waiting for soup.

She grew nervous as she looked at the people in line. Some of them, in turn, looked at her. She felt self-conscious about the way she was dressed. Apparently others began to sense her anxiety. A woman in a worn-out sweater smiled and tried to make conversation. "Is this your first time here?"

"Yes, it is."

"Don't worry," said the lady in the sweater, "it gets easier."

"The scales fell from my eyes that day," reflected the young woman. "I went there looking for a job, and that woman thought I was there for soup. As far as she knew, the world had been as cruel to me as it was to her. But in the kindest way she could, she welcomed me as a fellow human being. She saw me as someone equally in need, which I was and still am. I didn't realize it at the time, but that was the day when God began to convert me." She motioned around the halfway house and said, "You see all these things God is doing here? God gave us the eyes to see where Jesus was leading us."

Jesus looks at any one of us and says, "What do you want me to do for you?" I suppose we could ask for more prestige, a greater impact, and a sense of power. But if we have the eyes of faith, the answer is clear: "to see Thee more clearly, love Thee more dearly, follow Thee more nearly" . . . all the way to the cross.

(c) William G. Carter. All rights reserved. 

[1] Ched Myers, Who Will Roll Away the Stone? (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1994) 46.

The Invitation to Serve

Mark 10:32-45

October 21, 2012

William G. Carter

James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came forward to him and said to him, “Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you.”And he said to them, “What is it you want me to do for you?” And they said to him, “Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory.” But Jesus said to them, “You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?” They replied, “We are able.” Then Jesus said to them, “The cup that I drink you will drink; and with the baptism with which I am baptized, you will be baptized; but to sit at my right hand or at my left is not mine to grant, but it is for those for whom it has been prepared.”

When the ten heard this, they began to be angry with James and John. So Jesus called them and said to them, “You know that among the Gentiles those whom they recognize as their rulers lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them. But it is not so among you; but whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all. For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.”

            Through twenty centuries, the church has usually painted a pretty picture of the twelve original disciples of Jesus. Pious people have named churches after them, often referring to the first disciples as the rocks upon which Christ has built his church. You have heard of Saint Peter’s Cathedral. There is a monastery of Saint Thaddeus in Iran. With incense in the air, I have even heard somebody say, “Pray for us Saint Judas Iscariot, patron of all Christ’s betrayers.”

Yet anybody who hears the Gospel of Mark's stories about the disciples will wonder if they were saints at all. Mark gives us a tinted picture of who they were and what they wanted. Sure, the disciples walked the road with Jesus. They listened as he taught. They watched as he did signs and wonders. They followed where he led. However, according to Mark, they never really got the point. In fact, they usually look foolish.

            Today we hear about James and John scurrying up to Jesus while the others weren't looking. "Teacher," they said, "we want you to do whatever we ask." Hear that for what it is: that is a shameless request. Those two brothers really didn't have the right to ask for a blank check. Jesus, in his eternal patience, decided to sound them out. "What do you want?" he said. They replied, "On the day when you enter your glory, when you ascend as King of Kings and Lord of Lords, at the great moment when you sit upon the throne over heaven and earth, we want to sit at your right and at your left."

            Well, it was a ridiculous request . . . and when the other ten disciples heard about it, they got very angry with James and John. They were upset, not because they thought it was the wrong request to make, but because James and John asked for it first. Those two lowly fishermen wanted two premiers seats in the Kingdom of God, two thrones of honor for that day when Jesus will finally shine in the fullness of his glory.

            This is what the Gospel of Mark reveals about the twelve disciples who stood closest to Jesus. They sound like children who play "King of the Hill." They shamelessly tried to scramble to the top of the heap. We hear them beg for power, and shake our heads in disbelief.

            It is jarring to hear such blatant self-promotion. We don’t expect that in the church, because out in the world, such attitudes are present every day. The world we know encourages us to take the initiative, climb the ladder, and push to the front of the line. "Blessed are the aggressive," says our culture, "for they will get what they want." If that means pulling the boss aside and making a private pitch, then that is what must be done. Like it or not, this is how the world works. How strange to see the same attitudes in the church, even if they may not be immediately obvious.

            Will Willimon is a a Methodist pastor. He once wrote about power and politics in his denomination. Methodist preachers, he notes, are under the care of a bishop. Bishops, in turn, are Methodist preachers who are elected by fellow Methodist preachers after an extensive campaign for the office in which the candidate tries not to be caught campaigning. As he observes,

It is a long-standing Methodist tradition that bishops must not appear to have sought their office and, once elected, the new bishop must make a public declaration that "I didn't seek this office and I didn't want it but, once the Lord calls . . . Methodist preachers take all of this with a grain of salt, the same way Baptist congregations have learned to be somewhat skeptical when one of their preachers moves on to a better church claiming, "I hate to leave this church and I would rather stay here, but the Lord calls." Baptists note that the Lord rarely calls someone out of one church into another church unless that church has a higher salary. Methodists have likewise noted that there have been few preachers who, once they are elected bishop, turn the job down.[1]

            The curious thing about Willimon’s words is that, shortly after he made that crack, he was elected the United Methodist bishop of North Alabama. And he didn’t turn down the job.

            "Teacher, we want you to put us on your right and on your left. But keep it quiet. Don't make it too obvious. Others may become offended that we asked first." By telling us this story, Mark knows what you and I know: anybody is prone to the same desire for privilege and protected status. We want a Jesus who will give us what we want, a Lord who can shower a little power on us, a Savior who can make us better than we are.

            It happens in congregations. I remember reading a book that a friend gave me when I became a minister. He wanted to knock the crust off my naiveté, so he gave me this tongue-in-cheek book. According to the book, here is the first principle of church life: "Despite the pious things we say, at any given time, less than five percent of any group in the church is operating with purely Christian motivation. The other ninety-five percent is asking, 'What's in it for me?’”[2]

            Oh, I read those words, and thought, "Oh, no. That's not true. Christian people are inherently generous and gracious. They are always eager to help, remaining free from selfish motives and concerns about getting their own way." Then I tried to gather a group to volunteer at a homeless shelter, and one after another said, "What's in it for me?" Somewhat discouraged, I attempted to gather adults to make meals for the homebound. Each one said, "What can I get out of it?"

            "Teacher, give us what we want. Give us the seats of glory." Jesus seems naïve when he replies, "You don't know what you're asking." We know perfectly well what we are asking. We want God to meet our unlimited, unchecked, unwarranted needs and help us get ahead.

            Yet in a deeper sense, any request for cheap success reveals we do not know what kind of God we meet in Jesus. "Look," he said to his disciples, "we are going up to Jerusalem. And it's uphill all the way. The road is hard and difficult. We face painful twists and turns. There will be suffering, humiliation, and death. There is no easy road to glory. Are you able to drink this cup? Are you able to bear this kind of baptism?" 

            James and John reply, "Sure, no problem." But do they really know? Do we know?

            Jesus came to proclaim the kingdom, the mysterious reign of God that grows like a secret seed, ever so gently, ever so silently, until it becomes the greatest of all plants. One morning, God willing, we will wake up and see this gift of God and we will wonder how it happened. We won't know. The kingdom grows in spite of us, in ways we cannot comprehend.

            The key is Jesus himself, who comes with a kind of paradoxical, left-handed power. Recall what Jesus does in the Gospel of Mark. One minute, he screams away the demonic forces that torment human minds, telling them to hush. The next minute, he gathers little children and lepers into the embrace of God. One day he shouts at wind and waves and all the turbulent powers of an unruly creation. Another day he rides a humble donkey into a hostile city. Once Jesus puts his fingers in the ears of someone who has never heard the good news of God. Immediately he uses his words as a scalpel for cutting away the cancerous lies that keep people from the health which God intends.

In every way, Jesus Christ has come to make a difference in this painful, haunted world. This is his mission. He has come to serve, not to sit on a throne with dull-minded disciples on his right and his left. He has come to give his life to pay off our ransom to the powers and principalities, to set people free from all that can damage, hurt, and destroy.

            Are you able to drink that cup? Are you able to share his baptism? Anybody who would follow Jesus must be a servant as he is a servant. It requires a total change in how we live. If we want to follow Jesus, we can't live for ourselves anymore. That’s what conversion looks like. We must give our lives in service to others.

            Richard Foster tells about receiving a phone call from a friend. The friend's wife had taken the car, and he wanted to know if Richard could take him on a number of errands. Richard was preparing to teach a college class, but since the man was his friend he reluctantly agreed. As he ran out the door, car keys in hand, he grabbed a book to read along the way. It was a book by Dietrich Bonhoffer called Life Together.

            Foster picked up his friend, and the errands did not go well. There were plenty of stops and starts, traffic was bad, and precious time kept ticking away. Finally they pulled into a parking lot, the friend got out, and Richard stayed behind with his book. He opened it to the bookmark, and read these words:

The second service that one should perform for another in a Christian community is that of active helpfulness. This means, initially, simple assistance in trifling, external matters. There is a multitude of these things wherever people live together. Nobody is too good for the meanest service. One who worries about the loss of time that such petty, outward acts of helpfulness entail is usually taking the importance of his own career too solemnly.[3]

            Ah, God gets through sometimes. Just when you are feeling so important, God gets through. Happens to me all the time.

            It happened at my high school graduation. I was elected senior class president; I was so proud of myself. Of course, my opponent was visiting Europe at the time of the election, so she couldn’t really campaign. So I was the president. That meant I could give a speech at graduation, an important speech by an important leader. I was so proud of myself. Worked on that speech for weeks.

            When the day came, and they called out my name, I stood regally and moved toward the platform. As I climbed the steps, my big feet started walking up the inside my graduation robe and I fell flat on my face. Ever try to give a speech when 320 of your classmates are laughing at you?

            And then, when it was all over, my mother said, “God did that, to make you humble.” Gee, thanks, Mom. So much for my big moment.

            To this day, I’m not sure I believe that God make us to fall on our faces. I think we just do that naturally. And if you’re living close to the ground, humble, it isn’t as far to fall. The word “humility” comes from the word “humus,” as in the soil, as in, “your feet are flat upon the ground.” You don’t think more highly of yourself than you need to.

            This is a picture of how we follow Jesus, the same Jesus who says, “I did not come to be served; I came to serve.” No pretention. No arrogance. No ambition to prove his power. Mark says, one day after another, Jesus went to the people where he could offer the most help. He set all glory aside and did what he could for the benefit of the people around him.

            You know, we have people like that in this church. A lot of people like that. They are tireless in doing what needs to get done. I am reluctant to single anybody out, but there are so many of you. Sometimes the service offered is quiet, behind the scenes, just a phone call, or a greeting card, or a simple offer of support. Maybe it’s a delicious meal made and delivered. Or a ride to a doctor, even a ride to a far-off hospital. It happens all the time around here. God bless those who serve. Not those who talk about serving, but those who actually do it. God bless you.

            This is the ministry of Christ that we do. We speak of the stewardship of our money, and that is critically important. But there is also a stewardship of power, to be lived out in the life of service. As Christ sets aside his glory, as he hides incognito in the Galilean countryside, so he calls us to set aside all self-importance to make a constructive difference in the places where we live, where we love, where we spend our time.

            Are you able? Can you drink that cup? Share his baptism? To follow Jesus, in our time, in our place, means to live for the benefit of other people. That’s why we are here. Not to stand out, not to single out, but to serve.

           

Jesus still asks the questions: "Are you able to drink my cup? Are you able to share my baptism? Are you able to walk with me, giving yourself to others in a life of service?" If we dare say yes, we must remember the road of discipleship is uphill all the way, and it leads to the foot of the cross. Whoever would follow Jesus must follow him all the way there. He never promised anything else.

(c) William G. Carter. All rights reserved.

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[1] William H. Willimon, And the Laugh Shall Be First (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1986) 94.

[2] David S. Belasic and Paul M. Schmidt, The Penguin Principles (Lima, Ohio: CSS Press, 1986) 17.

[3] Richard Foster, Celebration of Discipline (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1978) 117-8.

The Church That Christ Chooses

The Church That Christ Chooses

Mark 3:13-17, Exodus 19:1-6

October 7, 2012

A Sermon for the FPCCS Centennial

(Jesus) went up the mountain and called to him those whom he wanted, and they came to him. And he appointed twelve, whom he also named apostles, to be with him, and to be sent out to proclaim the message, and to have authority to cast out demons. So he appointed the twelve: Simon (to whom he gave the name Peter); James son of Zebedee and John the brother of James (to whom he gave the name Boanerges, that is, Sons of Thunder); and Andrew, and Philip, and Bartholomew, and Matthew, and Thomas, and James son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus, and Simon the Cananaean, and Judas Iscariot, who betrayed him.

Every once in a while, somebody takes a survey of Bible knowledge. In our increasingly secular age, the pollster wants to know what information is still sticking. Can you name the four Gospels in the New Testament? Can you recite the Ten Commandments? Do you know how many Psalms there are? As of yesterday, I have been an ordained preacher for twenty-seven years, so I can get around the Bible pretty well.

But the one question where I will always stumble is the question that the Gospel of Mark answers for us this morning: What are the names of the twelve apostles?

Simon Peter, James and John. Andrew, Phillip, and Bartholomew. Matthew, Thomas, and the other James. Thaddaeus, Simon the Canaanean, and Judas Iscariot. There are twelve of them, just like the twelve tribes of Israel – and I couldn’t name those either, not without some help. We should be gentle on ourselves. Many of us past the age of forty can’t remember the three things that we wanted to pick up in the grocery store.

The Gospel of Mark makes a list of the twelve apostles, those Jesus appointed to stay with him. That’s not to say they all stayed with him. They weren’t perfect. There is Judas, of course. But the other eleven also scattered after Jesus was arrested. Jesus chose them, and they weren’t perfect.

In fact, of all the Gospels, Mark is the one who paints the most negative picture of the twelve. Every time Jesus asked a question, they got it wrong. He taught them every day, and they never understood. One day, he explained that he would be crucified in Jerusalem, and they started bickering among themselves. He said, “What are you arguing about?” And they said, “Lord, which one of us twelve apostles is the most important?” They didn’t understand him.

Simon Peter, James and John. Andrew, Phillip, and Bartholomew. Matthew, Thomas, and the other James. Thaddaeus, Simon the Canaanean, and Judas Iscariot. That is the list. There are a few things that I want you to notice.

It’s not a complete list. These are the names of twelve men, and everybody knows there are more women in church than there are men. That is a statistic to be proved by looking around. Elsewhere, the New Testament reminds us that some women followed Jesus and funded the ministry of Jesus out of their own purses.[1] It never says the men coughed up any money. They argued about money but they didn’t seem to contribute any. Mark’s list is not complete. Women belong on the list.

What’s more, this is not an accurate list. Forget what somebody told you about the Bible. The Bible does not exactly agree who is on the list.[2] Matthew copies Mark’s list, but Luke doesn’t mention Thaddaeus. Instead he mentions a second man named Judas, son of James. And when we get over to the Gospel of John, he mentions somebody named Nathanael. We don’t even know who that is. Some of the pious scholars scramble to say things like Thaddaeus, Judas, and Nathanael are all the same person – but the Bible doesn’t worry about straightening that out.

The only time we see anything like all twelve disciples standing still is when Leonardo DaVinci told them to get on the same side of the table so he could paint them into his picture!

This is not a complete list. It is not an accurate list. But let me say it: this is a diverse list. Sure, Mark tells us about twelve men. In our imaginations, we can picture them at thirty years old with curly hair. Yet it’s hard to imagine a group like this ever being convened.

There are two sets of brothers, Simon and Andrew, James and John. They left behind their fishing boats and their fathers. Jesus came from the hill country, a euphemism for “the sticks.” We don’t know anything about Thomas, Thaddaeus, or James 2.0.

But we know something about Matthew – a tax collector, a despised collaborator who worked for the Empire. He swindled his own neighbors to fund the soldiers who occupied their town. Standing next to him is Simon the Canaanean – a Zealot, a revolutionary with a dagger under his cloak, ready to take out the tax collectors like Matthew. And Jesus called both of them to be part of his team. That would be like inviting Daniel Berrigan and Pat Robertson to the same Passover Seder. Or seating Grover Nordquist and the Rev. Al Sharpton in the same church pew.

Not only that. We are pretty sure that eleven of the disciples came from the northern territory of Galilee. The twelfth may have been the man from Kerioth – “ish-Kerioth” or “Iscariot” – Kerioth was a town way down south in Judah. So there may have been eleven Yankees and Judas the Confederate. Jesus wants them all at his side. Diverse backgrounds, different political views, distinct geographies – none of that matters to him, because he chooses them all.

It’s a photograph of the church. This is what a church is like. Diverse, young, old, male as well as female, whoever, wherever, however. There is no unanimity in the group, except as Christ calls them. And that’s the point of it all. Standing at the center of this new community is Jesus. He is what they hold in common.

OK, we have two sets of brothers: Peter and Andrew, and James and John. But that can be awkward. Ever have two brothers who agree on everything? Every national election, my brother and I cancel each another’s votes.

And who knows how many of them were married? Earlier this Gospel says Simon Peter had a mother-in-law. I guess that means he also had a wife. But we don’t know her name, or how she felt about him quitting the fish business and running after Jesus. Did they have kids? Did she have to watch them while he gallivanted around Galilee? It’s almost as if Mark says that family status is irrelevant when it comes to following Jesus. What matters is that you know that he is calling you – and that he is giving you work to do.

Now we get to the heart of the matter. Jesus calls the twelve and gives them two-fold work: to proclaim his Message and to cast out the demons. The Message proclaimed was clear: that God is coming close, that God shall rule over earth as clearly as God rules heaven, and that we must make the necessary adjustments to welcome God’s ownership of our lives. “Preach the Message,” Jesus says. The time is right here, God rules over us right now, so change your lives to claim God’s love.[3]

To cast out demons is first-century code language for confronting everything that resists God. If illness twists people out of shape, we must confront it. If hatred oppresses a human life, we must cast out the hatred. If evil sneaks in, and entices us to give in to lesser gods, we speak the truth that only the God of heaven is worthy of allegiance. It is hard work casting out the demons, if only because they look so respectable. But Jesus gives his people power. He equips them to work together and make a difference.

This is what matters. Jesus calls together a bunch of diverse people, with different backgrounds and different skills. And he says, “Proclaim the authority of God over all of human life!”

From this we can extract all kinds of principles. Here’s one: in a diverse group called “church,” you might not get your way all the time. You might not get your way at all. Instead we work together to pursue God’s way. The most important question before the church is always this: What does it mean, in our place, in our time, that God rules over human lives? What would it look like for us to build the love of God? To welcome the justice of God? To do the work of God?

I’ve noticed that when churches stop asking these questions, they start to fizzle out. Perhaps they get tangled in personality disputes; the “Sons of Thunder” start mouthing off rather taking care of the neighborhood, or Matthew the tax-collector and Simon the revolutionary start plotting harm to one another in the parking lot. If a church, like any other organization, is merely a human organization, it can go off the rails in a hundred different ways. And it will need a Book of Order to keep Christian disciples from beating up on one another.

But the true church of Jesus is always more than a human organization. It is a holy fellowship, commissioned by Jesus to do the work of God. We are God’s tactical team on this planet. We welcome God’s Breath to fill our lungs, we pray for God’s Power to push us into action, and we know God’s Spirit will raise our spirits. Christ infuses his people with his own presence. When we put a bridle on our own whims, when we submit our willfulness to God’s greater will, the Gospel Message takes on skin and bones – and the world’s demons can be chased away.

That is why we are here, my friends. That is why he chooses us. We are part of a world-wide movement to enflesh the life of Jesus Christ. We are here to love all the people that Jesus loves. We are here to do the work that Jesus inaugurated. And to every destructive power that threatens God’s children, we say, “Christ is risen! Get you gone!”

In the year 1912, when Mrs. William Gibbons prayed this church into being, when she discerned that God wanted Presbyterian Christians in this town, she began, not with a dozen men, but with a dozen or so women. That is because God’s work is never restricted by who we are; it is only restricted by our unwillingness to do the work. In a church where Simon Peter and Judas Iscariot serve side by side, there is room for all of us.

We don’t have to have faith all figured out in advance. We don’t have to be right about everything. We don’t have to compel everybody else to agree with us. We don’t have to worry about who is on the list and who is not, because it is not our list. It is his list.

So we gather around his Table to sing that Jesus our Lord is at the center of it all. In broken bread, we affirm that his steady work of salvaging the world is the most important work of all. We do this work together, and we do this work with him. It isn’t easy. Crosses will be handed to us. Betrayers will appear from time to time. Faith will be tested. Even strong Simon Peter will have moments when he thinks he is unworthy.

But here we are, “chosen of the Lord and precious.” We are the church that Christ chooses. Look around. We are the kind of people that Jesus loves. We are the ones who bear his love to the world. And if he can love us, he can love everybody.

© William G. Carter. All rights reserved.

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[1] Luke 8:1-3

[2] Compare Mark 3:13-19 with Matthew 10:1-4 and Luke 6:12-16

[3] Mark 1:14-15