Get Behind Me – 13 September 2015 – Lectionary 24/ Proper 19

When the church talks about people being “transformed” by the gospel, the change envisioned is one that, I wager, has to do with this business of carrying a cross. Faith as given by the one who was crucified, died, buried, risen, and ascended is not a safe and comfortable sofa but a bed of turmoil over how best to live.

One’s cross might be the very questions that compel us to a life of steadfast and difficult love for our neighbors. One’s cross might be physical pain and suffering. It could be an insurmountable family relationship. Whatever the crosses we bear or might “take up,” we can be assured that Jesus calls us to take them seriously, to see them as sacred and honorable, and to know we are not alone in this world.

Mark’s Gospel gives us that poignant scene of mutual rebuking between Jesus and Peter that sets the stage for the command to lose our lives to save them. We might see ourselves in Peter’s shoes.

Mark 8:27-38

This passage is both dramatically and structurally the center of Mark's gospel; we are halfway through the story and we are at the story's climax, too. When Jesus asks, “Who do people say that I am?” traditional exegesis suggests that this is a rhetorical question—he knows the answer and is checking up on his students. Since we have just seen Jesus learn from the Syrophoenician woman in Mark 7, I'm not sure that he's not trying to keep learning here. Peter's answer is surely the best answer, but it may not be the full answer. (God has told Jesus that he's Son of God and will say so again in chapter 9.)

. . . Here [Peter] seems to get it but then as soon as Jesus predicts his own passion Peter quickly backs off.

In part Peter is no doubt appropriately concerned for Jesus. But in part we suspect that Peter is concerned for Peter. He knows full well what the consequence of Jesus' martyrdom will be for him, and Jesus picks it up immediately: “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me”(8:34).

I know why the NRSV places this in the plural, to avoid any sense that it's a word for males only, but this is one of those places where the singular does make a difference. Each of us chooses individually for or against the cross; nobody else can do it for us. In a day where churches seem to be increasingly enthralled by the prosperity gospel, we are taken aback by the “austerity” gospel, the sacrifice gospel. Oh, yes, we remember now—the cross. – David Bartlett

Isaiah 50:4-9a

The Revised Common Lectionary gives us as complementary to the Gospel story, the prophet’s song of the suffering servant, showing us that throughout the centuries, the one who hears the word of God does not avoid hardship.

Some have thought that the prophet referred to Israel as God's servant in these songs; some have thought that the prophet refers to himself. Christian exegesis from very early on has seen . . . a foreshadowing of Jesus' own ministry and passion. What is clear in our passage is that the servant does great good and suffers great wrong, and that the doing and the suffering are inextricably intertwined.

The whole passage reminds us that sometimes good news simply raises opposition. It seems odd that words that sustain the weary can annoy the powerful—yet we all can bear testimony that it is true. The servant's ability to keep on learning, teaching, and comforting, rests on one assurance—that God is his helper. – David Bartlett

James 3:1-12

. . .  James uses a number of analogies from nature to give us a warning about human nature. The horse's small bit yet rules the horse, a ship's rudder the ship. . . .

There is a particularly sharp—and more theological—reminder in 3:9. “With [the tongue] we bless the Lord and Father, and with it we curse those who are made in the likeness of God.” . . . For James those who bless God with their tongue and curse their brothers and sisters with the same tongue are hypocrites. – David Bartlett

For this Sunday, as we approach All Saints Day and the celebration of the Reign of Christ, we contemplate our gratitude for all the saints who have led the way and given us a faith to share with them and gratitude for the one who reigns over all creation.

David Bartlett, an ordained American Baptist minister, is Professor Emeritus of New Testament at Columbia Theological Seminary in Decatur, Georgia, and Lantz Professor Emeritus of Christian Communication at Yale Divinity School in New Haven, Connecticut.

Homily Service 39, no.10 (2006): 24-34.

Ecstasy and Execution – 29 March 2015 – Palm/Passion Sunday

Questions: Is this a day for rejoicing while parading around with long green leaves from exotic climates in outrageous joy? Or is it a day for bracing ourselves to hear the story of horrible injustice?

Answer: Both.

Unless we hold the extremes together in our hearts and minds, we cannot get past either our desire for a victorious knight on a white hourse coming to save us or God’s foolish way of showing us ultimate love. True power is in weakness. True power is in dying. 

Today is not simply both because “some people” won’t come to hear the Passion story on Good Friday (a convenient explanation). Rather, we honor two realities at one time at the start of Holy Week so that we can better recognize what we human creatures repeatedly mistake for wisdom. When the rabbi we love rides on a donkey into the city of ultimate power, it is not a moment to breathe a sigh of relief but to hold our breath.

Some believe the triumphal procession of Jesus into Jerusalem is modeled on the Roman triumph, yet the triumphant processional entrance of a king or conqueror to take possession of “his city” is well known to nearly all ancient societies. . . . Julius Caesar enters marked with sacrificial blood, a “god for a day” . . . accompanied by armies, banners, music, and horns.

Jesus’ triumph could hardly be more similar and more different. Jesus is not yet marked with sacrificial blood, but will himself become a sacrificial victim. He is not accompanied by conquering armies, stallions and chariots, but rides a colt. As homilists, we should help our congregations see how Mark has traced a continuous path for Jesus’ triumphal steps: into the city, into the temple, out of the city, and into a tomb. – Jeffrey VanderWilt

Palm – Mark 11:1-11

Passion – Mark 14:1-15:47

Erik Erikson, the theorist who wrote about eight stages of human development, described the first crisis human infants confront: trust versus mistrust. Babies see and feel their caregivers holding, feeding, bathing, and comforting them, and they begin to understand that they can rely on these other beings. It is the caregiver’s touch, smile, and eye-to-eye contact—the caregiver’s face—with which the infant connects most intimately.

. . .  Martin Luther, about whom Erikson wrote a psycho-historical biography, suggested that the best benediction to use at the end of Mass is the Aaronic blessing: “The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make his face shine upon you; the Lord lift up his countenance upon you, and give you peace” (emphasis added). We see—and touch—the face of another, and in so doing learn to trust the other.

When Jesus cries, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” he echoes Psalm 22, but he also expresses the cry of any person who has felt the searing pain of abandonment. There are times when the darkness is unbroken by the kind face of a caregiver.

On the Sunday of the Passion, particularly in the Year of Mark, we behold an abandoned, frightened, and ultimately defeated Jesus. And he beholds us in our own abandonment, our own despair.

. . . We don’t pretend on this day that we don’t know the end of the story. Even in Mark’s gospel, which ends with Jesus’ followers running in fear from the news of the empty grave, we are given the hope of resurrection, the promise of Christ’s face in the darkness. – Stephen Crippen

Isaiah 50:4-9a

The Suffering Servant gives us a stark image of the victim, the one being bullied, the one who has no voice and cannot find justice. It is the image of the crucified one and also the creatures–human and non–who stand little chance of thriving where there is no champion to take their side. This image can help us see how important it is to “contend” alongside the one who is abused.

How we are to stand with those in need is the concern of the epistle to the church in Philippi.

Philippians 2:5-11

The key phrase is “let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus” (2:5). It links the exhortation to good behavior (e.g., v 3, “Do nothing from selfish ambition”) to the nature of Jesus as one who could have been equal to God, but “emptied himself.” The Greek concept is kenosis, or “pouring out,” a reference to a divestment of power, authority, or status. – Jeffrey VanderWilt

Stephen Crippen is a psychotherapist and a deacon in the Episcopal Diocese of Olympia, Washington.   

Jeffery VanderWilt, author of Communion with Non-Catholic Christians (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2003), teaches at Santa Margarita Catholic High school in Southern California.

Homily Service 39, no. 5 (2006): 9-17.