September 16, 2012
Pentecost 16
Proverbs 1:20-33
Mark 8:27-38
(prayer)
I mentioned it a bit last week, but the geography within the gospel of Mark has a great deal to do with the focus on Jesus’ ministry. The early chapters of the gospel had Jesus sticking close to home: in the villages and country-side near Nazareth (his home town), particularly in the region of Lake Capernaum (Sea of Galilee). Naturally, those interested in Jesus all came from his own culture and religion. Then last week in chapter seven, we heard about Jesus’ travels along the Lebanon coast and in the province of Syria. There Jesus crossed the literal and figurative boarders between people: Jesus saw the gentiles (non-Jews) as just as valid recipients of the grace and love and power of God (which flowed through him) as the Galileans. If you look at the story, Jesus took a little convincing but he eventually agreed that people had value in God’s eyes.
Today, our passage serves (as one resource I read this week called it) as the ‘hinge point in Mark’s gospel’ (Seasons of the Spirit). The focus from this point on (geographically and theologically) is on Jerusalem; on the path towards Jesus’ passion, his suffering, death (and eventually resurrection).
Now, while, the people of Galilee and Judea (where Jerusalem was) were all people of Israel, the practice of faith between the northern, rural population was markedly different from the southern, urban people.
In the gospels, Jesus is often challenged by various religious leaders. Three of the most common ‘opponents’ of Jesus are:
1. Pharisees;
2. Sadducees; and
3. Scribes.
Even though, it seems that the text seems to speak all of these in the same breath and can become lumped together in our minds, they do have very different ways of approaching life and faith.
First of all, the last group: the scribes. These were experts in the law. They were responsible for the copying and maintaining of the writings of scripture (our Old Testament was the Hebrew Bible of Jesus’ day). They were very closely aligned with the temple leadership in Jerusalem and tended to interpret the scripture in very fundamentalist and literal ways.
The Pharisees and the Sadducees both had their origins in the second century before Jesus. (BC [before Christ] or BCE [before the common era]). The Sadducees could be described as more conservative than the Pharisees. While the Pharisees saw the whole of scripture as authoritative (the five books of the Torah and the work of the prophets and the other writings, and even the oral traditions that followed these words over the centuries), the Sadducees only accepted the Torah, the (so called) books of Moses as canonical scripture. Only Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy were authoritative and binding. And the Sadducees interpreted these books much more literally than the Pharisees. Because of the focus on the Torah and its strict instructions for worship in the Tabernacle of Moses’ time, the Sadducees were very ‘temple focused’ – the temple had been built as a permanent, stone tabernacle in the time of King Solomon ~900 years before Jesus. As a result, most Sadducees probably resided close to Jerusalem. Pharisees were less tied to the Temple and so they could be found in many outlying areas, including up in Galilee – they taught and worshiped in local synagogues. One could say that they were more ethical in their teaching, while the Sadducees could be described as more theological.
The theology of the levitical purity laws were central to Sadducee life: a person’s free will either had them follow the Torah or not. It was very easy for Sadducees to judge if people were choosing to be faithful or not.
Pharisees held a middle ground position on free will – they would say that it is impossible for free will or the sovereignty of God to cancel out each other. This viewpoint allowed Pharisees to be champions of human equality. God’s overarching loved almost demanded that the vulnerable were cared for.
Pharisees believed in the immortality of the soul, in a life after death and a future for the dead. They believed in a complex hierarchy of angels and demons. The Sadducees rejected these ideas.
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Clearly, from all we can read about Jesus in the New Testament, he was basically a Pharisaic Jew. Certainly, he had way more in common with the Pharisees than he did the Sadducees.
I like to think of Jesus’ run-ins with his opponents this way:
When debating scribes, it is always about an interpretation of scripture: probably a ‘literal’ interpretation on behalf of the scribe and a ‘more than literal’ opinion of Jesus.
When Jesus ran afoul of Sadducees, it was often around Jesus’ use of traditions not directly tied to the Torah or what they saw as improper behaviour according to the law. To them Jesus was often a rebel from the rural north in need of their wisdom from the capital region. When Jesus debated with Sadducees is was like comparing apples and oranges. We would not expect them to see things the same way very often.
When Jesus had differences with the Pharisees, it was more like comparing apples to apples. Jesus was having disagreements within his own ‘denomination’, so to speak.
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In whatever way we look at it, Jesus had a habit of upsetting the officialdom of religion – even those with whom he had a lot in common.
And they had lots of names for Jesus: rebel, blasphemer, naive, just the son of a carpenter, false rabbi.
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In today’s reading, Jesus and his disciples are at Caesarea Philippi. It is near one of the sources of the Jordan River. As it does in 2012, in Jesus’ day, the Jordan ran south from the Sea of Galilee (aka Lake Capernaum) to the Dead Sea (aka the Salt Sea, for obvious reasons). Symbolically, we can envision Jesus at this point in the narrative being at the start of his journey toward Jerusalem: the journey that lead to his suffering and death.
At this time of new beginning, Jesus asks the disciples to think about what has happened so far.
“Who do people say that I am?”
The answers the disciples gave to that questions (John the Baptist [who had been beheaded by King Herod by this time], the ancient prophet Elijah, another prophet) are the same quoted in Mark chapter 6, verse 14-16. Even King Herod, having heard about what Jesus and his disciples were doing even compared Jesus to John the Baptist. Herod must have sighed in disappointment – he thought his troubles with want-to-be prophets were over. Not so. This Jesus was as if John was still alive. (sigh...)
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Jesus’ first question was simply an attempt to hear the rumours that people were spreading. The next question was to hear the disciples opinions: “But, who do you say that I am?”
Some of them had been with Jesus for almost three years. They had seen him perform miraculous healings; they were witnesses to his wise teaching and his compassionate example. What did all of those experiences teach them about who Jesus was?
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It is Simon Peter who proclaims that Jesus is ‘The Messiah’: the anointed one of God. Messiah is a royal image. The coronation ceremony of the ancient kings of Israel was an anointed with oil. We are also familiar with the greek translation of messiah : CristoV – Christ!
By the time of Jesus, within parts of Judaism, there was a broad stream of belief that God would send a new king to redeem and save the people: a new king – in the manner of King David of old. Jesus disciples adhered to these beliefs.
So, when Peter blurts out that Jesus is this new king, anointed by God, it is a statement of deep confidence that Jesus’ authority was unstoppable. Jesus would lead the people as a king: the new David.
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Curiously, Jesus tells his followers that he doesn’t want them engaging in this ‘messiah’ talk.
[Some biblical scholars refer to this curious attitude as the Messianic Secret (a theory first proposed by William Wrede in 1901) – it is a characteristic found several times in the gospel of Mark. Last week after Jesus healed a deaf man, he ordered them to tell no one.]
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Recap:
We know a bit about what some the different opponents of Jesus said about him.
We know about the rumours that others were spreading about him. The ones that Jesus’ disciples and even King Herod had heard.
We even know what at least one of Jesus’ closest disciples said about him.
But who does Jesus say he is?
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The descriptive title that Jesus chooses for himself is “ben ’adam” – the son of man. It is a word used in several places of the Hebrew Bible (aka Old Testament). It literally means ‘son of adam’, or even more basic, ‘son of dirt/earth’.
Originally, it seems to have been an alternative description to the ‘sons of God/heaven’, referring to heavenly servants of God (~angels); the ‘sons of men’ were the sons of the earth, the earthly creatures of God. The sons of God were immortal; the sons of earth, mortal.
The prophet Ezekiel is referred to as a son of man. In that case it means human. The New Revised Standard Version chose to translate ben adam as “Mortal”.
Most of the times we see son of man (ben adam) in the OT it means a mortal human.
But in the book of Daniel, it has a different connotation that gives rise to the New Testament use of the phrase. Daniel is a text about the saving and redemptive power of God in the face of the people being oppressed by an outside leader. The story is set in the time of the Judean exile in Babylon (7th century before Jesus) – it promises that God will triumph over king Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon.
However, because it seems that the book of Daniel did not become part of the common canon of the Hebrew Bible until about 150 years or so before Jesus, it was likely understood to be a metaphor to represent what was the current domination of Judea and Galilee by the Caesar and the Roman Empire. We can think of this as a means of getting a subversive anti-government document past the censors: ‘no, this isn’t about Caesar, it’s just an old story about Babylon’.
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In Daniel, there is a vision that ‘one like the son of man’ coming down from the clouds who would establish an everlasting kingdom.
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In this respect, the phrase son of man has a lot in common with the word messiah.
So when Jesus followed up Peter’s confession (that proclaimed Jesus as the messiah), by speaking about the Son of Man (à la Daniel), Peter thought they were on the same page. But...
Jesus description of what was to happen to the Son of Man shocked the disciple called the Rock: the Son of Man must undergo great suffering [even to death].
Jesus started preaching this openly, so Peter pulled Jesus aside to point out the inconsistency in his message: the son of man doesn’t suffer, Peter must have argued, the son of man ushers in an everlasting kingdom.
Jesus refuses to have this conversation in private, he lets all the disciples in on Peter’s concerns and starts to rebuke Peter for his rebuking of Jesus: he calls Peter, a satan (an accuser) and tells him that he is focusing on human things, not divine things.
To call Peter ‘Satan’ is to say that he is in opposition to God and God’s plan. It is a harsh insult.
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In the end, Jesus is still pointing to an everlasting kingdom, but it is not one exactly comparable to the kingdoms of earth – as Jesus would say later during his trial interviews before governor Pilate, ‘my kingdom is not from this world’ (John 18:36).
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The centre of all of the biblical gospels is Jesus’ final week – his passion – his betrayal, his arrest, his trial and execution: and then his resurrection.
The disciples (especially Peter) cannot imagine that future. They saw the path to the everlasting kingdom as a smooth peaceful transition ushered in by the prince of peace.
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But ‘Who Jesus Is’ is threatening to the established powers of the world – political and religious.
Jesus preached an inclusion that radically upset the necessary societal divisions that kept the powerful in power.
‘Who Jesus Is’ is an afflicter of the comfortable as much as he is a comforter to the afflicted.
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The gospel of Mark uses this conversation between Jesus and Peter as an opportunity to foreshadow the ending of the story (none of the gospel writers are very waiting until the end to tell the end of the story to their readers), so the author inserts, post-easter language her that his post-easter, late first century audience would understand:
· Jesus death would not be the end – he would be raised after three days; and
· the call to follow the hard path of faith, for the followers of Jesus to be willing to risk themselves for the furtherance of the gospel – to figuratively take up the crosses (the challenges, the sufferings) that seek to stop their proclamations of Jesus as the sovereign of an everlasting kingdom.
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So, how can our modern 21st century ears hear what the gospel is saying?
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I guess we can ask, what are the obstacles that stand in our way of proclaiming a hope for Jesus’ peaceable kingdom?
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We don’t face the sword or gun much in our part of the world. We live in an area with relative tolerance for divergent religious and sociological views: especially for the traditionally dominant Christian believers of North America.
However, we must not ignore that this is not the case in some parts of our globe. There is still religious persecution, against Christians and others: often brutal and violent.
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We must oppose the division of people for whatever reason, if we believe that our God is a God of welcome and that Jesus sat in an open circle where divisions were set aside.
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I believe that for North American Christians, the modern crosses to bear are ambivalence and distraction. We live in a world that doesn’t really care about what we believe, so we can’t expect the systems to support it or make it easy.
For example, as many of you know, I coach my son Matthew’s atom football team. Yesterday was our second regular season game and it was the last one I will be able to be on the bench. All of his remaining games start at 10 o’clock on Sunday mornings, when I am otherwise disposed.
Society doesn’t owe me my Lord’s Day. The Capital District Minor Football Association, in particular, doesn’t owe me my Lord’s Day. The rest of life will carry on with Sunday to Saturday, 7 days a week, 365 days a year (okay, society still breaks for the Christian Christmas, but that’s the last bastion of the old Christo-dominant society).
We live in a society much more like that of the first Christians, where the official way of being was not necessarily their way.
The cross I bear is to be able to suffer through the distractions and ambivalence that others might feel about my spiritual beliefs and for me to take time to be holy.
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What is your cross?
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How can you deal with its weight and still find a meaningful spiritual connection to the God of hope and love?
God bless us all on this journey.
Let us pray;
God, give us grace to accept with serenity
the things that cannot be changed,
Courage to change the things
which should be changed,
and the Wisdom to distinguish
the one from the other.
#331VU
“The Church’s One Foundation”
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