Atonement & Servanthood – 18 October 2015 – Lectionary 29/ Proper 24

If the preacher is up to it, these texts invite us to delve into questions of how exactly Jesus saves by dying. This is not only the issue of what servanthood looks like but also the issue of atonement – a thorny concept often left on the sidelines like an embarrassing relative best ignored or relegated to its interpretation through hymnody.

From the 11^th century we have “Christians, to the paschal victim offer your thankful praises – a lamb the sheep redeeming…” Substitutionary atonement, articulated by Anselm, still serves as a prominent means for us to understand Jesus’ gift of himself. From the 19^th century: “Upon the cross of Jesus, my eye at times can see the very dying form of one who suffered there for me.”

These are beautiful and beloved hymns. Yet, we are in danger of two extremes that obscure the Christian path. One is that an elevated view of servanthood can excuse abuse; the other, that we are all off the hook because Jesus has saved us.

The preacher’s job is to represent the image of Jesus’ love leading to his death as both 1) a love that we cannot emulate and 2) a love that we can and must offer to others. It is through these contradictions that we see best who God is and who God calls us to be in relationship to our neighbors.

Mark 10:35-45

Aaron Couch links these two themes by focusing on this text being the third of Jesus’ passion predictions in Mark’s Gospel (8:27–31; 9:30–31; 10:32–34).

Each passion prediction is followed by a picture of the disciples' complete lack of understanding. In each case this leads Jesus to teach about his way of relinquishment, service and suffering, seeking to help them see that the reign of God is unlike any human domain. The whole collection of stories is framed by two accounts of Jesus giving sight to the blind (8:22–26; 10:46–52).

The request by James and John for positions of special privilege has every appearance of a manipulative power grab. . . . Jesus responds in two ways. First, he asks if they are able to drink the cup he will drink and be baptized with the baptism he will endure. The reference to the cup is likely an image for God's wrath (Isaiah 51:17). βαπτιζoμαι, which carries connotations of being submerged and overwhelmed, may recall being “overcome by many waters,” a frequent image for distress in the book of Psalms. It would seem that Jesus expects that this allusion to the fate awaiting him would be sobering for James and John, but such is not the case. Their affirmative answer becomes tragic in light of their performance at Gethsemane. Jesus' second response is to tell them that the positions they ask for are not his to give, but rather belong to God.

When the other disciples become angry. . . Jesus turns everything upside down with regard to measuring status. Greatness is identified with a life of service. . . . Jesus presents himself as the best example of refusing to grasp for ever-greater status and power. Instead he gives away everything, including finally his own life. . .

Jesus identifies the pursuit of status as a primary source of competition and violence, and for that reason rejects it. Jesus should not be understood as offering a different method of competition (who can be most humble), but as dismissing entirely the sort of competition that serves domination and hierarchy. All such striving is an obstacle to love, and as such is not compatible with life in the reign of God. – Aaron Couch

A culture such as ours, bent on the value of competition and winning, leaves us at a disadvantage with regard to letting go of status.

Isaiah 53:4-12

Here are some questions that grow out of this Isaiah reading to help sort out the issues faced by the preacher:

This text always is connected with the suffering of Jesus as the Anointed One. How do we read this text also as the suffering servant who stands in for a community? Is this call to submit to being wounded a call from God?  ... Do we make scapegoats of people when we should bear communal responsibility?

Isaiah 53:10–11. . . declares it was the will of God to crush this sufferer. How do we understand Jesus' suffering as the will of God? Do we say to people that their suffering is God's will? – Valerie Bridgeman Davis

Grappling with these same questions, Pastor Couch offers a boiled-down version of the theological tough nut these readings pose for the preacher.

As interpreter of scripture, the preacher must decide whether the servant is indeed a sacrificial victim or whether the language of sacrifice is employed to describe the servant's death as a martyr. – Aaron Couch

Hebrews 5:1-10

The Jesus who calls on James and John in the Gospel story to take on his “baptism” here becomes the high priest who also “in the days of his flesh” agonized in his full humanity over his own sacrifice.

Melchizedek, a figure in Genesis 14, is a king who is also a priest. Much more is not known about him. The reference, while strong and apparently meaningful to the recipients of this epistle, primarily asserts for us that God placed upon Jesus the same two honors given to Melchizedek: king and priest. These are the powers to both rule and serve.

Aaron Couch is a co-pastor of First Immanuel Lutheran Church in Portland, Oregon.

Valerie Bridgeman Davis, ordained in the Church of God, has taught homiletics and Old Testament at Memphis Theological Seminary and contributed to publications on Africana Worship.

Homily Service 39, no. 11 (2006): 36-45.

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.