May my words and my thoughts be acceptable to you, O Lord, my refuge and my redeemer. (Psalm 19:14)
SEASON: 17 Pentecost
PROPER: 19 B
PLACE: ST. JOHN’S PARISH
DATE: Sept. 14, 1997
TEXT: Mark 8:27-38 - “Who do people say that I am?” And they answered him, “John the Baptist; and others, Elijah; and still others, one of the prophets.” He asked them, “But who do you say that I am? Peter answered him, “You are the Messiah.”
See also: Isaiah 50:4-9 - A Suffering Servant Passage
ISSUE: In middle eastern culture a person’s identity comes from the family or community. Jesus asks his disciples to provide him his identity for community input was very important. Peter, the head disciple, sees him as the Messiah. For us today, we must identify the meaning of Jesus Christ for our lives and our church so that we can present him to the world in terms that express the meaning of his messiahship. Thus, it is important that we grasp the meaning of his messiahship as that of servant. The understanding of Jesus as suffering servant was difficult for Peter as it is often difficult for ourselves. Yet a community acting with Christ as its hub of servant lives out his ministry accordingly.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Today’s reading from Mark is a pretty startling passage, and a very important one for us to appreciate. Carrying on his ministry with his disciples in Caesarea Philippi, pagan-Gentile territory, Jesus asks the disciples: “Who do people say that I am?” And Peter, the spokesman of the twelve replies that people think of Jesus as like “John the Baptist, or Elijah, or one of the prophets.” Thus they see Jesus as a dynamic and honorable character. But then Jesus asks Peter, one who is close to him, and the representative of the twelve disciples, “Who do you say that I am?” Peter replies, “You are the Messiah.” Peter and the disciples see Jesus as more than a dynamic prophet but as a leader of the people who will deliver them to some grandeur.
Now we are inclined to think that Peter has it right. That Jesus was giving Peter a kind of test to see if he was sharp enough to know just who Jesus was and what he was about. Some modern Biblical scholars do not see this as a test question at all. Jesus is actually seeking to know from his community what his identity actually is. In Middle Eastern culture, who you were was determined by your family. People of this period were not individualistic as we are and determiners of their own fate and position. Jesus was seen as Joseph’s son, the carpenter. Peter is son of Jonah. Your self-ness was part of your community or family. To deny yourself meant to not just be penetential and ascetic, it meant to deny or separate yourself from community or family and join another one. John Pilch, a Biblical scholar points out that Francis of Assissi when denying himself gives up his father and his family and attaches himself to the newly founded community of Franciscans, a fictive family with a deep devotion to God and servanthood among the poor.
Jesus in his own ministry had separated himself from his own family. Jesus has already said in Mark 3:31-35, when he is told that his mother, brothers, and sisters were looking for him: “Who is my mother? Who are my brothers?” He looked at the people sitting around him and said, “Look! Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does what God wants him to do is my brother, my sister, my mother.” Jesus denies himself and by virtue of doing that had denied his family and identity as son of Joseph and is forming a new community, a new family of God. His identity and honor status must now come from that community, and Peter speaking for the disciples says, “You are the Messiah.” Peter identifies Jesus and this new community or family as the hope for the world. Jesus’ status and authority to proclaim the The Reign of God which has now begun. It is only as Jesus has this community supporting him that he can truly carry on what God has called him to be and do. He calls men and women everywhere to deny themselves and all that that meant to attach themselves to this mission with loyalty and faith.
Peter and Jesus do get into a servere argument over what shape the Messiahship of Jesus will take. The common understanding of a Messiah at this time, and what was perceived as the need was a Royal Messiah. One who would be king and militant leader to liberate the Israelites from Roman bondage. However there are several passages from Isaiah that are referred to as the Servant or Suffering Servant Passages. Our Old Testament Lesson from Isaiah today is one of them. Isaiah trying to make some sense out of The Exile, the oppression of the Israelites hope for a day when the faithfulness of the nation would be a light of hope for the world. Jesus saw himself and his movement not as a militant regime, but as a community of great faith and trust in God who would suffer indignities but would bring to bear great hope and compassion, mercy and love for the suffering masses in his own adulterous generation. “Adulterous generation” meaning a world unfaithful and without an understanding of the true love of God. Peter greatly resists Jesus’ notion that their movement will know the cross and denial of the world and its status-quo. It is only in losing the life of the past and embracing the faith of God in Christ Jesus that the world will know new hope and appreciate the meaning of God’s love and compassion. This whole scene is an impressive call to new world order and faithfulness. For it is only in embracing Christ, the way of God, that life is truly changed and saved. It was hard for Peter to grasp this, but he did, as did the early Christian community, see Jesus as more than another well meaning prophet they engaged in participating with Christ as a unique servanthood community of hope for the world.
In our own time, the issue of who we say Jesus is has a profound significant effect on our own identity as the Church and Christians in our own “adulterous” or faithless generation. In our very individualistic culture, it is difficult for us to define together who Jesus is for us as community when we operate from our own individualistic agendas. Yet if we see Jesus as Elijah, he is a dynamic charismatic character, indeed. He is healer and a man very dvoted in faith to God. People today like charisma and even charismatic movements. At the same time as dramatic a character as Elijah is, he is a loner. For us that is attractive, but for those who cannot not be dramatic charismatic leaders, it is hard for them to identiffy with that kind of ministry. People like the TV-Evangelists, until their recent demise. But they stand alone.
For those who see Jesus as a kind of John the Baptist, you perceive of Jesus much like a person whose ministry is based entirely on moralism. Repentance and the calling of the crowds “you vipers brood.” This kind of religion is very popular among some groups of people. It calls upon people to be righteous, and while sometimes needed, can degenerate in to self-righteousness, and the looking down on people in a judgmental way.
Jesus perceived as just another prophet makes him merely another religious figure in the midst of many who come and go. This concept too is a popular one in the pluralistic world today. Jesus is just another religious figure in the midst of many. Vitality and deep appreciation of his real work and ministry is diminished. Many people today, I think, and many of us in the Episcopal Church, have this rather casual understanding of Jesus. That all we need to do is do good, like Jesus did, and be kind to one another. It is a kind of casual approach to Jesus. Occasionally we volunteer to do a good deed or two to be somehow likened to good old Jesus. Doing good is fine. Thank God for those who do. But it is often casual, and is based on moods and what we feel like doing. It sometimes degenerates into fickle recreational religion as opposed to a living faith that is constant.
The faith that Peter describes and that is taught and revealed in Jesus’ teaching argument with Peter is a faith and appreciation in Jesus as the servant of God, the suffering servant of God. Jesus had some charisma, and was certainly moral. He did good things. He was a healer. But Jesus also embrace God and had a deep abiding faith and commitment, a trust and constant loyalty. He trusted that whatever he might endure as he carried on his ministry that God would be with him, even if it meant death on the cross. He could leave his worldly family behind and associate himself with a new family of God enriched by a community of people who sought to discern and do God’s will.
We can be a dynamic enthusiastic people filled with charisma. That kind of energy is not always lasting. It can become very self-centered. It can avoid persecution and be very individualistic. But when it’s gone, it’s gone. We can be moralistic and good. But how is that different from any organization. In the Messianic hope of Jesus you find community. You find Jesus working with people, indeed respecting their individuality and talents, but calling them together as community of faith, of people of God. They together as a corporate body all share in embracing God and accepting is redeeming forgiveness. Together as community surrounding Jesus they are like a rim around the everlasting hub of love. He went to love the unloveable, to enter into the suffering of humanity to be there with people. Jesus saw a dysfunctional society, an adulterous and sinful generation. Rather than condemning it, disassociating himself from it, he entered into with great love and affection. It was not ministry of occasion volunteerism. His disciples were not volunteers. They were people whose commitment to God through Christ was their life and their very being. They were not perfect any more than anyone else. Their human frailty became obvious both during the ministry of Jesus and certainly at his crucifixion when they abandoned him. But in community with Jesus as center they carried on. They denied themselves and took up the cross and followed as best they could. Their ministries with Christ were indeed lasting and qualitative lives.
Who do we say Jesus is for the world today in our individualistic, secular, and materialistic society is an important question. How we identify him as a fellowship of people greatly affects our own identities and the identity of the church in the world today. It can be charisma that doesn’t last or that is a style that not all people can grasp. It can be moralistic and judgmental. It can be casual “do gooding” that is like most other humanistic organizations.
Our faith is based upon Jesus as messiah, living Lord, the presence of God among us. It is the trust that the reign of God has come and we are a community that trusts completely that God is with us. We become his disciples as a part of our regular day to day living, knowing that even in our frailty we are God’s and we belong to the unique family of God. We love God and embrace God’s compassion and mercy for ourselves and therefore for others. We cut the ties of the world and bind ourselves to the love of God.
Sunday, September 14, 1997
Sunday, September 7, 1997
16 Pentecost
May my words and my thoughts be acceptable to you, O Lord, my refuge and my redeemer. (Psalm 19:14)
SEASON: 16 Pentecost
PROPER: 18B
PLACE: ST. JOHN’S PARISH
DATE: September 7, 1997
TEXT: Mark 7:31-37 - The Healing of the Deaf and Mute Man - “They brought to him a deaf man who had an impediment in his speech; and they begged hom to lay his hands on him. He took him aside in private, away from the crowd, and put his fingers into his ears, and he spat and touched his tongue. Then looking up to heaven, he sighed and said to him, ‘Ephphatha,” that is, “Be opened.’ And immediately his ears were opened, his tongue was released, and he spoke plainly.
ISSUE: The passage tells of the presence of Christ among the people. The prophecies of Isaiah 35:4-7a are being fulfilled: “Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped; then the lame shall leap like a deer, and the tongue of the speechless sing for joy.” People are becoming aware of the spiritual power of Christ beyond Jewish territory. They bring folk to him for healing. In this case they bring one who is deaf and mute who is healed. We, too, need to bring ourselves and others (especially the children) to receive healing for ears that become deafened by the world’s noise so that we can together as the community of Christ proclaim the love, forgiveness, and hope of God.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Mark tells of the healing of man who is deaf and has a speech impediment. As the story unravels we learn that Jesus is moving beyond a ministry in Jewish territory and his ministry which had centered in synagogues. He now moves to areas with a larger Gentile population. Mark also wants us to know that Jesus’ popularity is growing significantly. People are aware of the uniqueness of his teaching and message and perceive him to be a kind of folk healer. They bring to him a man who is deaf, and who as a result has a speech impediment. Interestingly they “beg” Jesus to lay his hand upon the man who is deaf and mute. That begging may imply a feeling of unworthiness since these are Gentile folk, scorned by the Jewish leadership.
Jesus does, infact, approach the man, and takes him off away from the crowd to a private place. This taking the man away may have some meaning that Mark is intending to convey. Very little in the Mediterranean culture was private. People stayed very close and few things were done privately, and if they were met with suspicion. It was a peculiarity of the culture. But Jesus, who would often go off alone with his disciples, removes the man from the cumberson crowd.
Once away from the crowd, Jesus touches the man, placing his fingers in his ears. Touching , or laying on of hands, was a common method of healing used by folk healers. Jesus then spits on his own hands and touches the man’s tongue with the spittle. This method of healing is hardly considered hygienic to us, but spittle was considered to have curative powers. What’s more, spittle was at the time believed to have the power to deflect evil spirits. Jesus then speaks the curative word of power: “Ephphatha” which means “be opened.” Mark gives us the actual Aramaic word “Ephphatha.” The word itself looses power in translation. So you have Jesus, touch, spitting, and saying the word of power, and the man is healed of this evil spirit or disability that has diminished his place and standing in the community.
Once Jesus returns to the crowd he asks them to tell no one what has happened. The reason for the the silence is that Jesus’ honorable status is increasing. In that day and time it was inappropriate to assume honor beyond that to which you were born. As Jesus’s notoriety and popularity increased so did the opposition. If he were to continue to do his work of healing and teaching among the people of the time, he had to keep a low profile. But, of course, Jesus’ request to keep quiet went unheeded and the astounded crowds proclaim: “He has done everything well; he even makes the deaf to hear and the mute to speak.”
What you also have here in this passage from Mark is one of fulfillment of Hebrew Scripture. What Jesus does is fulfill in this passage the ancient longing of the Prophet Isaiah (35:4-7): “Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped; then the lame shall leap like a deer and the tongue of the speechless sing for joy.” This passage from Isaiah was written at a time when the Israelite nation was in a deep spiritual decline. Isaiah yearned for the time when God would forgive the sin and separation of his people and restore them like a desert that would be watered and come into bloom. They would be a healed people who would both hear and proclaim the glory of God. in the national life. In this passage, we find that hope and expectation being fulfilled.
Now as we try to appreciate what this particular passage means for us today, I think that it is important to be aware that the people who had some contact with Jesus brought this deaf and mute man to him. Out of their own faith, they trusted that being in the proximity of Christ, the alienated man, alienate by his cursed deafness (Lev.21:16-24), could know restoration and hope though the new messianic age. And is this not the mission of the church today to bring the alienated into the community of a loving God with a sense of hope for the healing of broken people. As we begin Sunday School again today, I hope the parents who have had some upbringing and faith in the God through Christ will bring their own childen to appreciate the profound healing and love of God in Christ to touch their children on a regular and ongoing basis. That regularity assures a deeper and broader appreciation of the life and ministry of Christ that effects our lives.
Jesus accepts that man and takes him away from the noise and the commotion of the world and embraces him intimately with the touching and the spitting ritual that his ears may be opened and his tongue unleashed. Notice that Jesus himself, along with his disciples, frequently withdrew to be with God, to pray, and be rejuvenated, restored, and recharged spiritually. They returned with renewed energies to be the channels of grace through which God’s love could continually flow. For this reason our sabbath, or Christian Sunday, is important to our faithfulness. We are here, and in the case of our children, or people we may recruit, to be removed from the noise, clammer, and commotion of the world to be touched intimately by the power of God that is the “still small voice” (I Kings 19:12) that reassures us that we are loved and forgiven, and that calls upon us to be a living faith in the world in what we do. It is a very noisy world, a deafening world. It is a world constantly calling out to us to get our attention. The newspapers, magazines, TV, telephones, boom boxes, extraordinaily loud concerts. advertisements, charities, business, e-mail, and variable popular philosophies, along with family demands, community, even church activity expectations. Getting beyond the noise is not easy. But all of us need the quiet of being able to listen and truly discern what God is saying and calling us really to be and to do. Out of our renewed hearing and listening our lives become meaningful expressions of the power of God speaking through us, so that what we say and do is more than just an additional commotion for the world.
It seems to me appropriate that those of us who claim to be faithful members of the church would regularly observe the sabbath in some meaningful and regular way. We need also to remember to begin all of our meetings and gathers with prayer, scripture, quiet time so that we call listen and have ears that are deafened by the noisyness of the world healed with the words of God and the healing touch of the Savior. And we do believe that Jesus Christ is the Word of God as much as the ancient scriptures are the words of God.
People who cannot hear well cannot speak well. You have to have heard words before you can imitate them. We adopt the very accents of the communities in which we were raised though hearing. We cannot speak the words of God to our children if we ourselves have not heard them. We cannot expect our children to hear them either unless they are brought within the hearing range. None of us can make a presentation of the love and forgiveness of God unless we ourselves have studied, known, and felt it.
We might describe in some ways that our own age is in something of a spiritual decline. Infatuated with materialism and success, struggling with the issues of violence and drugs, and sense that God is not foremost in the human heart, we hear once again this passage from Mark. One who is deaf and mute, unable to hear and to be a messenger is brought to Jesus. In the story, he is embraced and initmately touched by Christ. He is made to hear and whole community cannot be contained. They see this healing as a sign that a new age of hope has dawned. God has come among his people to redeem and heal them. Even the unworthy, the cursed, are restored in the healing of the man who was deaf and mute. May God open the spiritual ears of each one of us that we may discern his Word and speak clearly in a confusing world. Indeed, Christ Jesus was indeed compassionate in his acceptance of the deaf man. Can we expect anything less than the compassionate understanding of Christ in our own lives, who shall heal our indifference and deafness, and send us forth with the ability to be expressive of our Christian faith?
In the 1940 Hymnal (Hymn574), there is a hymn, unfortunately not carried over into the new 1982 Hymnal that went like this:
Lord, speak to me, that I may speak
In living echoes of thy tone;
As thou has sought, so let me seek
Thy erring children lost and lone.
It is a song of being the people of God, who having had its own deafness healed and hearing the Lord speak are seeking to address the world with his same compassion, love, and hope.
SEASON: 16 Pentecost
PROPER: 18B
PLACE: ST. JOHN’S PARISH
DATE: September 7, 1997
TEXT: Mark 7:31-37 - The Healing of the Deaf and Mute Man - “They brought to him a deaf man who had an impediment in his speech; and they begged hom to lay his hands on him. He took him aside in private, away from the crowd, and put his fingers into his ears, and he spat and touched his tongue. Then looking up to heaven, he sighed and said to him, ‘Ephphatha,” that is, “Be opened.’ And immediately his ears were opened, his tongue was released, and he spoke plainly.
ISSUE: The passage tells of the presence of Christ among the people. The prophecies of Isaiah 35:4-7a are being fulfilled: “Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped; then the lame shall leap like a deer, and the tongue of the speechless sing for joy.” People are becoming aware of the spiritual power of Christ beyond Jewish territory. They bring folk to him for healing. In this case they bring one who is deaf and mute who is healed. We, too, need to bring ourselves and others (especially the children) to receive healing for ears that become deafened by the world’s noise so that we can together as the community of Christ proclaim the love, forgiveness, and hope of God.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Mark tells of the healing of man who is deaf and has a speech impediment. As the story unravels we learn that Jesus is moving beyond a ministry in Jewish territory and his ministry which had centered in synagogues. He now moves to areas with a larger Gentile population. Mark also wants us to know that Jesus’ popularity is growing significantly. People are aware of the uniqueness of his teaching and message and perceive him to be a kind of folk healer. They bring to him a man who is deaf, and who as a result has a speech impediment. Interestingly they “beg” Jesus to lay his hand upon the man who is deaf and mute. That begging may imply a feeling of unworthiness since these are Gentile folk, scorned by the Jewish leadership.
Jesus does, infact, approach the man, and takes him off away from the crowd to a private place. This taking the man away may have some meaning that Mark is intending to convey. Very little in the Mediterranean culture was private. People stayed very close and few things were done privately, and if they were met with suspicion. It was a peculiarity of the culture. But Jesus, who would often go off alone with his disciples, removes the man from the cumberson crowd.
Once away from the crowd, Jesus touches the man, placing his fingers in his ears. Touching , or laying on of hands, was a common method of healing used by folk healers. Jesus then spits on his own hands and touches the man’s tongue with the spittle. This method of healing is hardly considered hygienic to us, but spittle was considered to have curative powers. What’s more, spittle was at the time believed to have the power to deflect evil spirits. Jesus then speaks the curative word of power: “Ephphatha” which means “be opened.” Mark gives us the actual Aramaic word “Ephphatha.” The word itself looses power in translation. So you have Jesus, touch, spitting, and saying the word of power, and the man is healed of this evil spirit or disability that has diminished his place and standing in the community.
Once Jesus returns to the crowd he asks them to tell no one what has happened. The reason for the the silence is that Jesus’ honorable status is increasing. In that day and time it was inappropriate to assume honor beyond that to which you were born. As Jesus’s notoriety and popularity increased so did the opposition. If he were to continue to do his work of healing and teaching among the people of the time, he had to keep a low profile. But, of course, Jesus’ request to keep quiet went unheeded and the astounded crowds proclaim: “He has done everything well; he even makes the deaf to hear and the mute to speak.”
What you also have here in this passage from Mark is one of fulfillment of Hebrew Scripture. What Jesus does is fulfill in this passage the ancient longing of the Prophet Isaiah (35:4-7): “Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped; then the lame shall leap like a deer and the tongue of the speechless sing for joy.” This passage from Isaiah was written at a time when the Israelite nation was in a deep spiritual decline. Isaiah yearned for the time when God would forgive the sin and separation of his people and restore them like a desert that would be watered and come into bloom. They would be a healed people who would both hear and proclaim the glory of God. in the national life. In this passage, we find that hope and expectation being fulfilled.
Now as we try to appreciate what this particular passage means for us today, I think that it is important to be aware that the people who had some contact with Jesus brought this deaf and mute man to him. Out of their own faith, they trusted that being in the proximity of Christ, the alienated man, alienate by his cursed deafness (Lev.21:16-24), could know restoration and hope though the new messianic age. And is this not the mission of the church today to bring the alienated into the community of a loving God with a sense of hope for the healing of broken people. As we begin Sunday School again today, I hope the parents who have had some upbringing and faith in the God through Christ will bring their own childen to appreciate the profound healing and love of God in Christ to touch their children on a regular and ongoing basis. That regularity assures a deeper and broader appreciation of the life and ministry of Christ that effects our lives.
Jesus accepts that man and takes him away from the noise and the commotion of the world and embraces him intimately with the touching and the spitting ritual that his ears may be opened and his tongue unleashed. Notice that Jesus himself, along with his disciples, frequently withdrew to be with God, to pray, and be rejuvenated, restored, and recharged spiritually. They returned with renewed energies to be the channels of grace through which God’s love could continually flow. For this reason our sabbath, or Christian Sunday, is important to our faithfulness. We are here, and in the case of our children, or people we may recruit, to be removed from the noise, clammer, and commotion of the world to be touched intimately by the power of God that is the “still small voice” (I Kings 19:12) that reassures us that we are loved and forgiven, and that calls upon us to be a living faith in the world in what we do. It is a very noisy world, a deafening world. It is a world constantly calling out to us to get our attention. The newspapers, magazines, TV, telephones, boom boxes, extraordinaily loud concerts. advertisements, charities, business, e-mail, and variable popular philosophies, along with family demands, community, even church activity expectations. Getting beyond the noise is not easy. But all of us need the quiet of being able to listen and truly discern what God is saying and calling us really to be and to do. Out of our renewed hearing and listening our lives become meaningful expressions of the power of God speaking through us, so that what we say and do is more than just an additional commotion for the world.
It seems to me appropriate that those of us who claim to be faithful members of the church would regularly observe the sabbath in some meaningful and regular way. We need also to remember to begin all of our meetings and gathers with prayer, scripture, quiet time so that we call listen and have ears that are deafened by the noisyness of the world healed with the words of God and the healing touch of the Savior. And we do believe that Jesus Christ is the Word of God as much as the ancient scriptures are the words of God.
People who cannot hear well cannot speak well. You have to have heard words before you can imitate them. We adopt the very accents of the communities in which we were raised though hearing. We cannot speak the words of God to our children if we ourselves have not heard them. We cannot expect our children to hear them either unless they are brought within the hearing range. None of us can make a presentation of the love and forgiveness of God unless we ourselves have studied, known, and felt it.
We might describe in some ways that our own age is in something of a spiritual decline. Infatuated with materialism and success, struggling with the issues of violence and drugs, and sense that God is not foremost in the human heart, we hear once again this passage from Mark. One who is deaf and mute, unable to hear and to be a messenger is brought to Jesus. In the story, he is embraced and initmately touched by Christ. He is made to hear and whole community cannot be contained. They see this healing as a sign that a new age of hope has dawned. God has come among his people to redeem and heal them. Even the unworthy, the cursed, are restored in the healing of the man who was deaf and mute. May God open the spiritual ears of each one of us that we may discern his Word and speak clearly in a confusing world. Indeed, Christ Jesus was indeed compassionate in his acceptance of the deaf man. Can we expect anything less than the compassionate understanding of Christ in our own lives, who shall heal our indifference and deafness, and send us forth with the ability to be expressive of our Christian faith?
In the 1940 Hymnal (Hymn574), there is a hymn, unfortunately not carried over into the new 1982 Hymnal that went like this:
Lord, speak to me, that I may speak
In living echoes of thy tone;
As thou has sought, so let me seek
Thy erring children lost and lone.
It is a song of being the people of God, who having had its own deafness healed and hearing the Lord speak are seeking to address the world with his same compassion, love, and hope.
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