Saint James Blog

Mark 10:13-16. Jesus disciples are sending away/protecting Jesus from children when Jesus discovers it and invites them over. As I spent time with this passage, I have come to wonder about how often we try to limit access to Jesus to others. Who have I decided, have other Christians decided, in a variety of ways are undeserving of Jesus time? The disciples thought they knew who ought to get in and who ought not to get in and Jesus upsets that plan… What is the Jesus-plan for who has access to him and what makes us think we get to override whatever appears to his plan? Just some early/intermediate thoughts on the Bible passage for this week… 

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Mark 9:38-41. I had always heard and even occasionally believed that the only way in was “choosing” in. Frankly, that cuts a lot of people out of the equation. So what are we to make of the saying of Jesus that, “whoever is not against us is for us?”  I always thought that you had to choose “for”, not simply not choose “against.” It’s even got me using double-negatives, which would make my 8th grade English teacher cringe. Yet at Jesus’ word, those who are not against us are for us Jesus-followers. Makes me think about all those people I’ve labeled outsiders…

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Mark 9:30-37. I still remember the first time I heard the line “You’re not the boss of me” coming from my daughter’s mouth. Most of us are really not all that interested in anyone else being our boss; I know I chafe at bosses. The disciples are following Jesus along and we discover their conversation has revolved around who’s going to be the boss (after Jesus of course). Whoever will be first will be last? What’s Jesus talking about because I’ve always heard that whoever is first wins! I’ve been watching football a bit recently (maybe more than a bit) and you never see the team that loses or is in last place celebrating that; in fact, lose a couple of games and people want somebody’s head on a platter (usually the coach’s). Jesus wants us to model a whole other way of living, one that runs counter to everything we are taught and see in our everyday lives. How can we come to terms with this teaching? How can this be what we are supposed to do? Does he just mean last in “religious settings?” Those are the questions pressing on me as I begin conversing with the Bible this week.

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Mark 9:2-13. What the heck is a transfiguration? Jesus starts glowing and then some people from the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible pop up. What are we to make of this? I have to be honest- I have preached about this many times over the years, in the beginning of ministry at Saint James I preached it once a year because there is a whole Sunday set aside for it. Having preached and taught about it over the years doesn’t leave me with any easy answers. The story has the feel of an after resurrection story with Jesus appearing to the disciples but that is not what the story is about. Is it a foretaste of the resurrection? Why are only Peter, James, and John there instead of the whole Jesus crew? Why did Moses and Elijah pop up instead of some other characters? What is this story meant to teach us about Jesus, about faith, about living everyday? Is there ever a time when Peter doesn’t do the “say-whatever-comes-to-mind” thing? Seems I still have more questions than answers. I’ll keep working on it…

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In my last post on Mark 8:34-9:1, I wondered what Jesus was telling us in today’s terms when he tells us to take up the cross. The word “martyr” originally comes from a Greek word that means “witness” and not so much the “dying-for-a-cause” kind of thing. Yet as more Christians died for their faith in the first couple hundred years of the faith, it came to mean witnessing to faith through a willingness to die for it. Of course being willing to die is a far cry from seeking out death as a way to prove faith. Even Jesus (arguably) did not seek out death as a way of proving anything but willingly accepted the way of living that led to death for him. I am convinced that Jesus does not want me to seek out death for him but to seek out living for him.

In the Mark passage and since roughly Mark 8:26/27, Jesus has set a new course and there is a different flavor to his teaching, about sacrifice and giving away life so that others may live. Perhaps it is this very willingness to share my life, to give my life to others, that is a piece of what taking up the cross is all about…

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Mark 8:34-9:1. Following Jesus is not a walk in the park- my translation (loosely) of Jesus words about taking up the cross. As USAmericans trying to practice our faith, most of us will never be asked to choose between life and death for the faith we have. The cross from Mark’s perspective would have been an instrument of death, state-sponsored death. I’ve heard talk about “giving up my life” or “death of the old self” but neither of these really measure up to the idea of facing death for faith. Don’t get me wrong- I know there are many people who face real persecution for their faith over the rest of the world but I have not known of any here in the U.S. in recent history.

The question will then boil down to the relevance of this text for us today, hence the title of this blog entry. How do I take up the cross today? Or is this one of those “that-was-then-this-is-now” sayings my friends tell me about? I feel that I need to take it more seriously than that. This text is reassuring for people who are facing death for their faith; it points to the fact that they have found themselves where Jesus said people of faith are going to be, taking up the cross. Is it taking up the cross to act in a way contrary to what others are doing? By that I mean when I choose a different set of behavior patterns about the way I treat people, whether I am willing to cheat or lie to get ahead. How do I lay my life down in my relatively normal, everyday-kind-of-life?

Another interesting piece of this saying/teaching by Jesus is that he does not reserve it for the already-followers; he calls the crowd over and tells them. The disciples may think of this as another bad PR move- who wants to join up with a group that is marked by self-denial and taking up a cross? Yet it is in the aftermath of the cross, in Jesus’ willingness to give his life away, that we begin to understand the meaning of his life. Can it be as we begin to give our lives away that we find meaning ourselves?

These are some of thoughts I am working with this week as I wrestle with the Bible reading for the weekend.

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What is it behind this confrontation between Jesus and Peter? (see earlier post) Jesus has made plain what he sees in his future and it is not pretty. It is not all that surprising based on everything we have seen to guess that the religious leaders of Jesus’ time were antagonistic toward him and that they would do whatever to silence Jesus. Peter is not ready to face the plain truth or feels Jesus is wrong. He’s got to get Jesus off this wrong track so he pulls Jesus aside for a little “course correction.” Jesus is clear about not needing a course correction and wants the other disciples to know that, hence the rebuke of Peter, not privately but in the presence of the other disciples.

I find myself in the same boat as Peter, not wanting to face the truth. I already know how it’s going to turn out in the story and I don’t like it. I wish it could be different but it is not going to be. Reality checks are rarely comfortable- I’d much rather get a rose-colored depiction of things to come sometimes (maybe more than sometimes). Jesus calls ‘em like he sees ‘em. Maybe we’d all do better not to tiptoe around the truth so much and face it head on…

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Mark 8:31-33. After one brief shining moment of being correct, Peter makes a big mistake. It may not look that way from our perspective but to Jesus, Peter is trying to take the train down the wrong track altogether. What is so wrong with what Peter says? How can that have an effect on us today? Anyone else besides me guilty of being right one minute only to cross over to be wrong almost immediately? Was this a pride thing? These are some of the questions the Bible reading for this week seem to bring. I’ll be writing more as the week goes on and looking for comments if you have them.

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I’ve been continuing to read the Mark passage from Mark 8:27-30 about who people are saying Jesus is. (read my blog from earlier this week) It seems to me that simply saying who Jesus is falls far short of what Jesus might hope for our lives. Sometimes I get the impression that for some people, figuring out who Jesus is ends the journey- knowing who he is and admitting it is some kind of key into eternal life in some ultra-cool country club heavenly place. I just can’t believe Jesus is interested in us paying lip-service to him; he’s hoping that figuring out who he is only the beginning of a long journey. The long journey is about determining how best to reflect who Jesus is in everyday living. If I am going to claim Jesus as “messiah” (literally, “anointed with oil, anointed one”), then what is it going to mean when I am driving on the beltway and get cut off, when I am in the grocery store behind a particularly challenging customer, when I am talking to my spouse or children or friends or strangers. I think Jesus is more interested in how I am going to live with the truth I’ve discovered about him than what I am going to do with the truth when I die.

So I’ve said Jesus is messiah and now I must struggle daily to make messiah real in my living. Jesus is most interested in my life, not my death. How will I shape it? What will I say “yes” to in my daily life and what will I say “no” to? Will love be a word that rolls off my tongue all too easily or will it be an action? Will love be both words and actions? More thought on the passage that is shaping the message this weekend…

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Mark 8:27-30. Is it an accident that our reading through the Bible book of Mark this year has brought us to this question on the weekend when we launch our Saint James -Kingstowne site? I mean, who Jesus is and how he impacts our lives is a central question for us Jesus-followers. Interestingly enough what each follower sees in Jesus has its own nuances and flavors. In the end (I hope I’m not giving too much away of my message/sermon for the weekend) each us has to decide for ourselves. We do not change who Jesus is by deciding for ourselves but we do change the way we respond to his message and sometimes we even change who we are or thought we were.

I am beginning my week of reflection on this passage by trying to figure out who others say Jesus is. In general my experience of both churchy and non-churchy people is that they have a healthy respect for Jesus; sometimes I’ve actually found more respect outside the churchy setting for Jesus because sometimes we churchy people are so sure we know what Jesus is about we don’t stop to consider we could have missed his point altogether. Sometimes we churchy people are so busy selling the following-Jesus-thing that we lose sight of Jesus himself; we re-make him in the image that sells best. Sometimes we churchy people aren’t willing to listen to what anyone else may have to say about Jesus either. I guess it goes to show you that we’ve got the same challenges today as Jesus faced 2000 years ago.

Those are some of my initial thoughts as I read and re-read this Bible passage from Mark this week.

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