Systematically Speaking (John 12:20 - 33)

    

Last week, we saw that in the Gospel of John, the phrase “eternal life” doesn’t mean what we may have grown up thinking it meant.  Rather than being consonant with heaven, that is some place you go after you die, it very much begins in the here and now, even though it does have an eternal aspect or quality.  We say that anyone who is in a state of believing in Christ has eternal life, beginning on this life, right here on good, old Terra Firma.  And what is this “eternal life,” that begins right here on earth?  That we live in God’s hands, in harmony with God’s will or, as Jesus puts it, we “know God.”  And further, he speaks of the judgment of those who aren’t believing in him, and it's that they live in darkness, instead of the light. Thus, far from being judged by God, they are judged by themselves, and their judgment is to live in darkness—i.e., to not know God.

This week, we explore further this idea of judgment, only where last week we looked at individual judgment, today we are talking corporate judgment, the judgment of the “world,” as it’s translated here.  And we get another dose of Jesus’ theology of the cross as interpreted here in John, and we can begin to see just how the cross effects this judgment of the world.  And the first thing to notice is that, like last week, the time of year this happens is Passover, but unlike last week, it’s Jesus’ last one, it’s his final Passover, just hour before his death.  And whereas last week he was talking to a Pharisee, to Nicodemus, who was having the devil’s own time understanding him, here he’s talking to insiders, to Andrew and Philip, to be precise, who have come to him relaying the desire of a couple of Greeks to see him, and although the Greeks apparently don’t get their wish, we—and the disciples—get a lesson in just what is going on.

When Andrew and Philip tell him that the Greeks want to see him, Jesus uses that as an excuse to launch into one of his patented non-answers, which tend to be especially cryptic here in John: “Now it’s time,” he says, “for the Son of Man to be glorified.”  And we know from last week what he means: that the Son of Man be “lifted up” on the cross.   And he launches into an analogy to explain what he means.  You know, it’s like a seed.  If it doesn’t die—and here he’s playing off the ancient belief that when a seed germinates it dies—if it doesn’t die, then it just remains one seed.  But if it dies, then it produces abundant fruit.  That’s how he views his coming glorification, his coming death on the cross: he is a seed who must die to produce fruit.

Now, a seed is a beginning, but of what?  What is the fruit that will come from his death?  Well, it’s related to eternal life, to “knowing Christ”:  “Those who love their life lose it,” he says, “and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life.”  And every time I read this, I say “wait a minute . . . what the heck does that mean?  Are we not supposed to enjoy life?  Is life, as the old hymns go, just a veil of tears, something to be endured?  And we’re supposed to hate it?  Why were we put here if not to enjoy what God has given us?”  Then I take a look at the Greek and it begins to make a little more sense.

First of all, this one verse seems to have three instances of the word “life:” whoever loves their life will lose it, those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life. And every English translation I can get my grubby little hands on translates it like that.  Life, life, life.  But that’s not the way a speaker of Greek would’ve heard it, because the first two instances—where Jesus says “those who love their life lose it and those who hate their life will keep it”—are not the same word as the life in “eternal life.”  The first two “life's” are, in Greek, are psu-ke, from whence we get the word “psyche,” and the last one, the one in “eternal life,” is zo-e, from whence we get the “zo” in “zoology” or “zoo.”  So substituting the Greek, a first-century listener would’ve heard “Those who love their psu-ke lose it, and those who hate their psu-ke in this world will keep it for eternal zo-e.”

Now, stay with me, here: psu-ke can be translated as “life,” but it can also be “soul” or “self.”  So, given that someone hating their own soul doesn’t make a lot of sense, let’s substitute “self” for the first two instance of life:  “Those who love their self lose it, and those who hate their self in this world will keep it for eternal life.”  And this makes more sense, doesn’t it?  Especially if we take “self” to be something like the Freudian “ego” or perhaps, even, “psyche.”

But wait, there’s more!  This translation of “world” is not as it seems.  In Greek, it’s kosmos, and the late New Testament scholar Walter Wink has shown that in the Gospels and the letters of Paul, it doesn’t mean the earth, as we might assume, nor does it mean “all of creation” or “the created order.”  Wink has shown that kosmos refers to the fallen realm that exists in estrangement from God and is organized in opposition to God’s purposes.  It’s a mouthful, so let me repeat it: it refers to the fallen realm that exists in hostility to God and is in opposition to God’s purposes.  Perhaps the best translation of kosmos is “system,” and there is a spirit that drives it that Jesus calls “the ruler of the world.”

So what Jesus seems to be saying is that those who love their self will lose it, but anyone who hates their self in this system, and taking the “in” seriously, we can expand on a little to read “as a part of this system.”  Those who hate their selves as a part of this fallen system that exists in opposition to God’s purposes will keep their selves for eternal life.

Whew!  All that exposition for one, measly verse.  But what does it mean to be “in the system” as Jesus put it?  What does it mean to be a “part of” the system?  I think it's the opposite of being “in Christ,” the antithesis of “abiding in Christ” or “putting on the mind of Christ,” as Paul put it.  And being in Christ means participating in Christ, being a part of Christ’s purposes, as a branch is part of the purpose of the stem, as Jesus puts it elsewhere in John, or for Paul, serving as organs—as hands and feet and livers and lungs—of the body of Christ.  As Jesus says in this passage, where he is, so will we, as his servants, be.

Now, if being in Christ means to serve his purposes, then being in the world, being in the system would mean to serve its purposes, to participate in its actions. And I suspect that if a person were asked “would you like to be a part of a system that is ruled by a spirit that is opposed to God, and to participate in its ways that are the antithesis of the ways of the divine?” she would say “no way, not on your life.”  But as Paul knew, we don’t always have a lot of leeway, and it’s like we’re trapped, bound by the spirits he calls the powers and principalities.  And so, as he put it in Romans, we do not do what we want but do the very things we hate.

What are some of the features of the kosmos, the structures of the system that hold us captive and take us down the path of death? Consumerism comes immediately to mind. How many of us consume and consume, even though we know it’s not giving us life, and that it’s killing others in sweatshops throughout the world? Domination is another way. We live in a kosmos shaped by hierarchies of winners and losers, and it's often nigh onto impossible to think in other categories and metaphors.  And so our lives become nothing more than striving-grounds to get ahead, to be better than our fellow humans, and the hierarchies morph into the structures and institutions that perpetuate racism, sexism, and heterosexism.

And then there’s the violence: the institutions and structures are perpetuated by violence or the threat of it.  The dominance of whites over blacks is the example par excellence.  Shortly after the Civil War, it became enshrined in law, and maintained by the full force of the law, by police in riot gear and attack guards and live ammunition.  And as we’ve seen in Ferguson and New York and Cleveland, inequality is still maintained by the barrel of a gun.  As my old preaching prof Chuck Campbell put it, the means the ruler of this world uses to perpetuate the System are domination, violence and death.

An I can hear you now: what a cheery subject, and indeed, it’s not any fun?  Bit it is, after all, Lent, and here’s the thing: after Lent comes redemption.  After Lent comes hope.  And Jesus speaks of that hope in this passage.  “Now is the judgment of this world,” he says, and once again it’s kosmos, or system.  “Now the ruler of this system will be driven out.”  And how will that be accomplished?  “When I am lifted up from the ground, I will draw all people to myself.”  As we saw last week, being lifted up is Jesus’ euphemism for the crucifixion, and so what he is saying is that the crucifixion will (a) cast out the ruler of this system (almost like an exorcism) and (b) will bring all people to him.

My sister and niece came to Tuscaloosa one year and wanted to see the real South, so we said “all right, you asked for it” and took them down to Selma.  There, gracious ante-bellum homes coexist along side the worst signs of the oppression of African Americans, crowned, of course, by the Edmund Pettis Bridge.  It’s named for a man who led a band of terrorists called the Ku Klux Klan, and as we drove across, I could feel the years of terror and pain embedded in its corroded steel.  On the other side, the side away from the money, there was a crude but loving tribute to that day fifty years age when all the violence of the system was focused on a small band of marchers.

When the “powers-that-be” turned their clubs on the marchers, the images were beamed across the nation, exposing the reality of white racism to a shocked country.  Lyndon Johnson was forced to take action, and the voting rights act was born. Martin Luther King knew exactly what he was doing: “Let them get their dogs,” he shouted, “and let them get the hose, and we will leave them standing before their God and the world spattered with the blood and reeking with the stench of their Negro brothers.” He knew it was necessary “to bring these issues to the surface, to bring them out into the open where everybody can see them.”

King learned that lesson from Jesus Christ, as did Mahatma Gandhi.  As did Nelson Mandela.  Jesus’ whole life was an enactment of the violent myth of the kosmos, refusing to respond in the System’s own violent terms. In his trial before Pilate, he spells it out: “My kingdom is not from this kosmos. If my kingdom were from this kosmos, my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews. But as it is, my kingdom is not from here.”

Brothers and sisters, what happened on the cross was this: Jesus publicly and dramatically judged the System by exposing it for what it is—an opponent of God’s purposes; not the way of life, but the way of death. And by exposing the System in this way, Jesus “casts out” its driving spirit; for once we have seen the System for what it is, we begin to be set free from its ways. We are set free to die to a life shaped by the System, in order to have eternal life, to know God in a life lived fully and freely in the way of Christ.  Amen.

That Pesky Participle (John 3:14 - 21)

      This is an iconic passage . . . it contains arguably the best-known verse in the Gospels – “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that whoever believes in him may not perish but have eternal life.”  We’ve all seen it on billboards and heard it preached countless times,  but my  favorite is in the end-zone seats on televised football games . . . you know, the guy who after every touchdown, when the camera’s glued to some 200-pound running-back’s victory dance, holds up a placard that simply reads “John 3:16?”  I've always wondered how many folks at home rush to their Bibles and look up the verse.

      Anyway, it's such a beloved and well-known verse, that we tend to do what we do with verses that are beloved and well-known, we read over them without really thinking.  Or at least, that’s what I tend to do . . . but John 3:16 is actually part and parcel of a larger storyline, of Jesus' teaching to Nicodemus . . .  you remember Nicodemus, the Pharisee, the temple authority, as John calls him "a leader of the Jews?"  He comes to Jesus at night, and the whole episode revolves around him being in the dark.  First, he – along with a whole lot of evangelicals– misunderstands Jesus when he says you must be “born from above,” and then he can’t figure out what he means when by "the wind blows where it will . . .”

      And now, in the final part of Jesus’ teaching, he no doubt doesn’t understand either . . .  Jesus says “And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up” and it’s another one of the word-plays in John – the Greek for “lifted up” has multiple connotations, multiple “horizons” as one scholar puts it . . . it can mean lifted up, as in the story about Moses hoisting up a snake, but it can also mean “exalted” as in a synonym for “glorified.”  And so, Jesus is saying that the Son of Man –that’s him – the Son of Man must be lifted up, as in on a cross, but he's also saying it's his glorification, his exaltation

      And it's not an accident that John includes this story . . . it's right in line with his theology of the cross – on display throughout his Gospel – where the moment of Jesus’ crucifixion, the moment of his brutal death, the moment that will come less than three weeks from today, is the precise instant of his glorification, his exaltation, his “lifting up,” so to speak.  But why does he associate it with the story from Numbers about snakes in the woods?  Well, you’ll recall that in the wilderness, poisonous serpents were slithering around biting the Israelites, and God told Moses to make a bronze serpent, hoist it up on a pole, and all those Israelites who gazed upon them would live.  In just this way, all those who gaze upon Christ lifted up on the cross shall live  . . . and indeed, in the next breath John spells it out – the Son of Man must be lifted up so that “whoever believes in him will have eternal life.”

      And here's one of those pesky participles . . . our translation has “whoever believes in him” and that’s correct, but I find it helpful to translate the participle more literally – believing, as in “whoever is believing in him,” and the reason I like to do so is that it’s a little easier to see that it’s a state of belief that Jesus is referring to here, it does not imply a beginning or, for that matter, an end . . . another way to say it is that “whoever is in the state of believing may not perish but have eternal life” . . . it doesn’t say anything about who or what initiated that belief, whether it was God – as Calvin and Paul would have it – or whether it was the believer’s choice.

      Another thing to notice is the phrase “eternal life” and you say “what’s so hard about that,” that’s probably the least problematic phrase in the whole passage, it means heaven, it means life after death, it means salvation . . . doesn’t it?  Well . . . not so fast.  We tend to think of eternal life as life without end, and it does have that connotation in John’s Gospel, but to a Jew like John the phrase had an apocalyptic sense, a sense of “life in the age to come,” in the kingdom of God . . . it tends to refer to a quality of life, lived in the presence of God.  In fact, later on in John’s Gospel, Jesus himself defines what he means by the phrase . . . speaking to God, whom he called Father, he says “This is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent”  . . . thus, whatever happens after death – and Jesus doesn't say a whole lot about that in any Gospel, he was a Jew, after all – whatever happens after death, “eternal life” begins before then, and it is defined as “knowing God.”

      Well.  God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world – and here I like the New American Standard Version's translation of "judged" – God didn't send God's Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved . . . and note that Jesus uses "world" four times in two verses:  God so loved the world so that God didn’t send Jesus into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved . . . world, world, world, world . . . this is one of the most inclusive passages in the New Testament.  God loves the whole world, as a friend's bumper sticker reads, no exceptions.  And what is this salvation he gives to the world, what is this eternal life?  It is as Jesus said himself, that we might know God.  And it's important to understand that this is perfectly consistent with what Jesus says elsewhere in John . . . for example, Philip asks him “Lord, show us the Father.” And Jesus says “Do you still not know me?  Whoever has seen me has seen the father.”  As Paul would later say, Jesus is the image of the invisible God.  If you've seen Jesus, if you have looked at him lifted up on the cross, like those Israelites did that golden snake, you will have eternal life, you will know God.

      But wait just a first-century minute . . . if God didn't send Christ into the world to judge the world, to condemn the world, what about Hell?  What about all those souls swimming – as Dante would have it – in lakes of fire?  Well, just as we're not talking just about life after death when we say "eternal life," we're not talking about it when we say "judged," either.  Look at what it says – those who are believing in him, those who are in a state of belief, are not judged, are not condemned, but those who do not believe are judged already . . . and by what?  Themselves, their state of unbelief.  God doesn't condemn people, Jesus is saying, people condemn people . . . they have not believed in the name of the only Son of God, so they do not have eternal life, which is to know God.

      God doesn't have to judge people, they're already judged.  And what is the judgment?   Jesus tells us – “this is the judgment,” he says, “that the light has come into the world” -- and we know who that is, don’t we?  “that the light has come into the world and people loved darkness rather than light.”  The judgment is that people walk in darkness, rather than the light.  They do not know God through God’s son Jesus Christ.  Because they are not in a state of belief, their judgement is to walk in darkness right here on earth.

      The movie Crash follows a collection of L.A. citizens as they give vent to their dark sides.  An otherwise heroic cop molests a woman at a traffic stop . . . a shop-keeper almost kills a little girl . . . a housewife suspects that a workman's  a gang-banger simply because he's Hispanic, while her D.A. husband plays vicious racial politics . . . All these folks have good sides, as well, all are multi-dimensional, but they all are condemned to walk in their own darkness, the darkness that comes from within . . .  As Alexander Solzhenitsyn put it "the line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either—but right through every human heart—and through all human hearts.”   Without belief, we are judged already, we are condemned to walk in the shadows, crashing into one another in the darkness.

      There's a tremendous psychological sophistication here . . . peoples’ worst behaviors are often driven by a need to feel good about themselves.  Many of us feel inadequate, less than successful . . . and as society gets more competitive, as the sense of being only as good as your job, only as good as how much money you make increases . . . as the pressure to succeed by society's very narrow standards builds up, anti-social, even violent, behavior is on the rise.  The need to feel worthwhile, to feel like somebody often results in abuse of the other, of our friends and associates and neighbors, as we seek to build ourselves up at their expense . . .  and people do feel better – at least for a time – after doing this . . . As Jesus said, we seem sometimes to prefer the darkness rather than the light . . . But it doesn't last, and we continue to act out again and again . . . Paul wrestles with this conundrum over in Romans, he says “I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do.”  John would no doubt agree – there is a dark side to everyone, and it’s often expressed whether they like it or not.

      But those believing in Christ – those who are doing what is true – come to the light, they come to Christ, they gaze on him lifted up on the cross like those Israelites looked at that snake on a stick . . . and they have eternal life.  They know God, they are able to live a life more in consonance with the already present kingdom of God.

      But there’s one word that’s used over and over in our passage, and we’ve not talked about it, but maybe we should . . . what does Jesus mean by "belief?"  Well, we know it doesn't mean simply an intellectual assent to a set of propositions, as the theologians put it, we know it not simply acknowledgement in our minds that God exists, or that God is love, or even that Christ came to Earth to save us from our sins . . . we know that it doesn't just mean these things, but that it often includes – in its various New Testament contexts – an element of trust, an element of laying down all your cares, all your insecurities, all your shame at the feet of the cross.  So let’s substitute trust for belief, shall we?  All those who are believing, all those who trust that God has forgiven them, all those who know that God finds them worthwhile, and that God is all that counts, they'll find their worth in their relationship with God, and not in attacking and belittling others. 

      Brothers and sisters, that old hymn ain’t whistling Dixie when it says only trust him now . . . All who understand this, all who know that God loves them so much that God sent his only begotten son will be saved.  All who are in a state of trust that God has forgiven them, that what the world thinks of them doesn't amount to a hill of beans beside the unconditional love of God, all those who are believing will not perish, will not walk in darkness, but they will know God.  They will have eternal life.  Amen.

Temple Talk (John 2:13 - 22)

It was Passover the day Jesus walked onto the Temple grounds, and Jerusalem was packed with humanity of all persuasions: pious Jews from the hinterlands competed for hotel rooms with Gentiles in town to make a buck and, some of them, at least, to check out this God whose name the Jews wouldn’t say aloud.  And every one of those visitors was packed into the courtyard they entered, or that’s what it seemed like: it was the Court of Gentiles, that least exclusive of all the Temple spaces.  Everybody could enter the Court of Gentiles—Temple authorities, priests, Israelite men and women, even Gentiles.  That day, the place was full: the heat radiated off packed bodies, and the stench of human expectation threatened to overpower even that given off by the animals kept nearby.

Straight ahead, in the Eastern Wall, Jesus and his followers could see the Beautiful Gate, the entrance to the walled compound.  To approach the heart of the Temple, one had to go from this outer Court of Gentiles, where all were welcome, through the Court of Women, where only adult Jews were allowed, through the Court of Israel, where only Jewish men were allowed, and into the Court of Priests, where stood the slaughterhouse and altar and where only priests were allowed.  For most people, that was as far as they could go: beyond the Court of Priests lay the Sanctuary, where the Holy of Holies was.  Only the High Priest could go there, and then only once a year.  God lived there on a great stone throne, and God didn’t like company.

But out in the Court of Gentiles, where Jesus stood, anybody was allowed, and at Passover, it had the air of a sweaty three-ringed circus.  There were stalls of the food-sellers, loudly hawking their wares—get your sweet breads here!—and scores of roving priests, giving directions and answering questions.  There were sages—scribes and the like—answering queries of great theological import, and a stall where you could hire a guide for a group tour.  Individual tours were available, but at a sharply increased rate.

After dragging Peter away from a falafel stand, Jesus made a bee-line for the animals, pulled out a whip of cords and started driving away the sheep and calves, for sale to Israelites for propitiary sacrifices.  As the beasts charged joyously off through the open columns surrounding the place, he stalked over to a money-changer’s table and stared straight into the man’s eyes, which were widened in astonishment.  Now, the whole business of money-changing was based on a particular set of circumstances.  Once a year, each Jewish male was required to pay a half-shekel for the atonement of his soul, and this came to be called the Temple Tax.  Because Jews came from all over the Roman Empire, they used a fair number of different kinds of money, perhaps especially Roman coins, which had the picture of the Emperor on them, and were thus anathema. Furthermore, the Israelites were forbidden from minting their own currency.  So for a fee, money-changers exchanged Roman and foreign currency for Tyrian shekels, the only coin the Temple accepted.  This was kind of like a company-store situation, because the Temple made money—either through leasing space to the changers, taking a cut, or employing them directly.  So they collected money from Jewish males both from the Temple tax and the fee they paid to pay the Temple tax.  As my son Mike might say: “Sweet!”

And so Jesus took an extra measure of pleasure from staring those guys straight in the eye and upending their tables, sending coins of all make and model, all currency and nationality, flashing through the air. Finally, he turned to the dove-sellers and said “Get these things outta here!  Stop making my Father’s house a market house.” And his disciples, in good rabbinic style, remembered the passage from the Psalms which said “Zeal for your house will consume me,” although they couldn’t say, exactly, whose zeal it was or, for that matter, who was being consumed.

In one sense, Jesus’ behavior is entirely in line with the Hebrew prophetic tradition: its practitioners generally stayed outside the religious establishment, just as Jesus stayed in the outer Court of Gentiles.  Prophets critiqued the establishment, sometimes with speech, like Isaiah, sometimes with symbolic acts, like Ezekiel, sometimes with both, like John the Baptist and now, Jesus.  That is likely why the Temple authorities didn’t seem overly concerned, or even angry: this is what prophecy was all about.  And really: they all knew that what he said was true.  After all, they weren't monsters, bent on fleecing the people, they were just people themselves, trying to do their best in the service of their God.  Over the centuries, things had just . . . snowballed.  Rules kept getting added to their operating manuals, each one for a very good reason, until there were so many of them that they need professionals, called scribes, who could spend all their time studying and applying them. Their God was an awesome God, who lived and reigned above, but needed a place to stay here on Earth, so he didn’t have to get a motel.  Thus, the Temple was born, and it needed funding, so thus the Temple tax, and thus the money-changers.  But not only was God awesome, but he needed sacrifices to keep him happy— see Rule 37/2.c—and thus the cattle and sheep and doves.

It’s kinda like what has happened to modern Christianity here in the West, isn’t it?  I mean, it’s gotten so complex that you need professional interpreters to help figure it out.  We Protestants call those folks ministers or pastors, and seminaries and divinity schools are needed to train them, as well as provide a place for theologians and other scholars to go so they can make Christianity even more complex and inscrutable.  Meanwhile, we need places for God to visit so groups of people we call “congregations” can go see God, and so pastors can have offices in which to store all the books they need to help them figure out Christianity and convey it to congregations.  And because all of this takes money, it leads to elaborate fund-raising campaigns and continual worry about dwindling membership instead of doing the will of God. Make you wonder what Jesus would overturn if he walked into one of those places, doesn’t it?

Well.  As I said, the religious authorities in Jesus’ day were well aware of all of this, but they lacked the will or wisdom to do anything about it.  So they only asked Jesus, mildly, for a sign that he could do what he just did, some mark of his authority. Jesus said “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” And they scratched their heads and said “This temple has been under construction for forty-six years, and you’re gonna raise it up in three days?”  But though he doesn’t tell them, and as John takes pains to point out, he was talking about the temple of his body.  And in fact, it wasn’t until after his resurrection that the disciples got the punchline.

 Jesus is speaking of his body, and it’s during the season of Lent that we remember the destruction of that temple.  And if we look at the Greek word we translate as “temple,” we see that it’s naos, which means a place where a god or goddess dwells, a house where  resides the divine.  As we’ve seen, that was exactly the meaning it had in the Jerusalem Temple.  As the people entered, beginning in the Court of Gentiles, they went through increasingly restrictive courtyards, shedding inferior classes like a dog sheds hair, until they didn’t get to God.  The Temple served to fence the people off from God, to isolate God from even the majority of priests.

This passage is not just a tale of prophetic crankiness, but one of incarnation as well.  Jesus used the word “temple” referring to his own body.  Therefore, the locus of God, the place wherein God lived, was not in the Holiest of Holies, not inside some concrete bunker destined to keep out the great unclean masses, but inside a human being.  A living, breathing, sweating, talking, loving human being named Jesus of Nazareth.  And moreover, you didn’t have to be a high priest or even a regular priest to approach this God-in-human.  You didn’t have to be a Jewish male or a Jewish anything to walk with, talk with or even touch this God-in-human.  He was there, available for everyone, available to comfort, heal and console.  Available to cry with anybody, sigh with anybody, and even to die like anybody else.

But wait, there’s more: the Gospel of John vacillates between God in Christ, as in the Temple analogy, and Christ being God, as in his poetic prologue “in the beginning.”  But regardless of how it shakes out, Jesus uses—in this same Gospel—multiple metaphors for our unity with him.  Metaphors like Jesus is the vine and we are the branches.  Abide in me as I abide in you.  And just plain old you in me and I in you.  Some folks call it “the God spark,” some (like the Apostle Paul) call it the Holy Spirit, some call it simply “God.”  But no matter what you call it, no matter where else it is, one thing is certain: it is in you and me.

Karl Barth said that our notion of God is incomplete without both immanence and transcendence–and he should know better than me.  And if the divine is both within us and beyond us as well,, we ought to be able to get in touch with at least the part that’s inside, shouldn’t we?  But except for the first few centuries, Christianity in the West has ignored this route to the divine.  And along with many others,  I suspect, that this has more to do with power and control than theology, ‘cause how you gonna keep ‘em down on the farm if God is in each one of them, in addition to (or instead of) the temple, or the denomination, or the priesthood or, or, or . . .

But there has of late been a revival in the West, a rediscovery of pathways to the divine within, and not just within Christianity, either.  Jews like Rami Shapiro and Sufis like Kabir Helminski join Christian teachers and scholars like Cynthia Bourgeault, Richard Rohr and the late Raimon Panikkar.  This Lent, there are more resources to guide us on this journey than ever before.  If you’re interested, let me know, and I can point you to some good ones, and you can find you own way to the God that is in the center of your heart.  Amen.

Identity Crisis (Mark 8:27 - 38)

      In the Greek tragedy Oedipus Rex, the title character – separated from his biological parents at birth – murders his father on the road to Thebes and later marries his own mother Jocasta.  In Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew a destitute tinker is been duped into believing he’s actually a lord, and he watches a play in which major characters – Hortensio and Lucentio and Tranio – disguise themselves to win some maidens fair . . . in North by Northwest, Cary Grant’s character is mistaken for a non-existent government agent, and he’s abducted and victimized and chased across the country by federal agents and criminal masterminds.  Finally, he actually has to take on the identity of the non-existent George Kaplan to get out of his pickle.

      What do these plots have in common?  They’re driven by the theme of mistaken identity.  Oedipus might not have killed his daddy or married his mama if he had recognized them as such; in The Taming of the Shrew, a story of disguise is wrapped in a narrative of mistaken identity; and in North By Northwest, Cary Grant shouldn’t even have gotten up that morning – everything that happens to him hinges on that first misidentification by those first bad guys.  Mistaken identity has been important in the narrative arts – dramatic or otherwise – for thousands of years, and it’s important to our story today.  Only here, although the people have mistaken ideas about Jesus’ ID is, the disciples know exactly who Jesus is. . . or do they?

      Let’s take a look at the set-up – and note here our reading begins before the lectionary– Jesus asks the disciples a question – the million-dollar question – on the way to Caesarea Philippi:  “Who do people say that I am?”  And their answer is a list of all the identities that the people – the folks in the fields, the synagogues, the marketplaces – all the identities the crowds have assigned to him.  And they come up with a list: “Some say John the Baptist; and others, Elijah; and still others, one of the prophets.”   And what’s interesting about this list is that Mark has spent more than a little effort showing his readers – both his original ones, 35 years or so after the crucifixion and us today, two-thousand years later – Mark’s been at some pains to show us that Jesus is in many ways like those guys . . . he preaches a similar message to John’s – repent, for the kingdom of heaven has drawn near.  He makes a little bit of food into a whole lot, like Elijah . . . he heals the sick like Elisha . . .  in fact, Mark has tried to show that Jesus is in the prophetic tradition that began with Moses, continued through Amos and Elijah and Isaiah and ended – according to Mark, anyway – with one John the Baptist.  And so, if you were one of the people, you might be forgiven for thinking Jesus is a prophet reborn – he acts just like them.

      But then Jesus asks the disciples: “Who do you think I am?”  And good old Peter – who Mark uses as a representative, as a stand-in for the twelve – good old Peter chimes in:  “You are the Messiah.”  And immediately, Jesus tells them not to tell anyone, in an example of the so-called  messianic secret  that here serves to create two classes of individuals . . . the people – run-of-the-mill bystander who may have heard Jesus preach or heard about his activity or seen a miracle or two, and the in-crowd, the initiates, who know who Jesus is . . .  or at least they think they do.  The next scene makes you wonder . . .

      Jesus begins to teach them that the Son of Man – note that he doesn’t call himself “Messiah,”—must undergo great suffering, he must be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes – all the religious authorities who control Judaism – he must be rejected by them and killed, and after three days rise again.  And he says all these things “quite openly,” and Peter – again meant to represent all the disciples – Peter takes him aside and rebukes him . . . and the Greek word we translate as “rebuke” is a word of command, the same word Jesus uses to command the winds to be silent, and so Peter is using this sharply hierarchical word, this word that masters uses with slaves or kings use with subjects, he’s using it with Jesus, whose reaction is to say “Get behind me, Satan,” and we usually take it as if Jesus is, well, angry, but if you read it carefully, you can see that it’s strangely . . . deliberate . . . before he speaks, he looks carefully at all the disciples, as if to say “Even though I’m calling out Peter, it applies to you all . . .”

But still, it seems harsh,  and all we can say is . . . whew! Those are mighty strong words, and Peter reacted . . . how?  did he look behind him to see if the devil was back there?  Did he put his hand on his chest with an innocent look and say who me?  Maybe he knew the minute he rebuked his master that he shouldn’t have . . . but Satan?  Seems like an awful nasty thing to say to somebody who’s just talking back to the boss . . . but here’s Jesus’ explanation:  he says Peter’s is “setting his mind not on divine things, but on things that are human,” things of the world . . . and everybody knows that Satan is the ruler of the world, albeit only temporarily . . .

      But what did Jesus mean by it?  In what way was Peter putting his mind on earthly things rather than those of the divine?  Well . . . let’s recap.  He asks them who people say he is, and they think he’s John or maybe Elijah or one of the other prophets, but the disciples – in the person of Peter – know – or think they know – the truth . . . that he’s the Messiah.  And then Jesus launches into a description of what’s going to actually happen to him, and it’s only then that Peter rebukes him and Jesus calls him Satan . . . Peter calls him Messiah, Jesus tells them how he’s going to end up, Peter rebukes him . . . the sequence should tell us something . . . maybe it has to do with this title Messiah or at least Peter’s conception of it . . .

      The word Messiah comes from the Hebrew mashach, which means to anoint.  At their coronation, Israel’s kings were anointed with oil, and the name Messiah means simply “anointed one.”  But to understand what Peter meant by it, we have to know that in the several centuries leading up to Jesus’ birth, Jewish expectations and anticipation for an anointed Messiah were building to a slow boil.  This person would be a king of the Davidic line, of the “everlasting” house of David, and he would restore that line.  In the book of Daniel, this figure is referred to as an “anointed prince,” in Hebrew a “Messiah Nagid.”  In the first century B.C. Psalms of Solomon, there’s the description of a “righteous king, taught by God” who will be the “anointed of the Lord.”  And so Peter’s – and the other disciples’ – view of the Messiah was likely a triumphal figure, who would restore the House of David.  A warrior-king who would kick a little Roman behind and take names.

      And Peter’s all excited and gushes out his answer – “you are the Messiah!” – and then you can almost hear the screeching brakes when Jesus tells them how he will be tortured and executed . . . Peter’s eyes widen, and he looks around to see who might be listening – did he have to say these things in front of God and everybody?  So maybe Peter and the others can be forgiven – I’m sure Jesus forgave him – for taking him aside and saying “Ix-nay on the ucifixion-cray.”

      As Jesus points out, Peter’s is thinking in human, binary categories, that divide the world into us versus not-us.  And in that dualistic conception, the anointed one would certainly be on Israel’s  side, against people who were not-Israel.  That translated into their Messiah being a military genius, a warrior who would put Israel back on top, who’d show those Romans and their Herod toadies who was boss . . . that is thinking in “human” ways, that might makes right, that you walk softly and carry a big stick . . . that’s how countries with the biggest armies operate, if they’re not careful . . . they get to dictate to others how big an army or what weapons they can or can’t have  . . . they get to dictate what kind of government they can or can’t have, or at least they think they can . . . The way human societies operate, might generally makes right, the first shall always be first, and most of the time, the last always stays last.

      But not if you follow the path Jesus followed . . . if you want to become a follower of Jesus, you must deny yourself, take up your cross and follow him.  Deny yourself.  Take up your cross.  And follow Jesus where?  Well, when Jesus took up his cross, he went to Calvary . . . and there he was mocked and spit-on and hung-up to dry.  Those who want to save their life will lose it . . . and those who lose their life for Jesus’ sake will save it.  How against the ways of the world is that?

      In 313, Constantine legalized Christianity in the Roman Empire . . . and in doing so, he undoubtedly saved our faith . . . but it was at a price . . . He recognized that many of the features of Christianity could be usefully employed to keep his far-flung empire in line.  Things like the emerging hierarchy of Bishops and Priests and the insistence of some within the faith that God loved only them could be fused with Roman ideals to keep ‘em down on the farm.  But even then it was recognized that certain things – like conquering hapless countries by force – appeared to be incompatible with Christ’s teachings.  This resulted in some amusing attempts to justify their actions, like Roman soldiers holding their sword arms out of the water at their baptism.

      Nevertheless, in short order Christianity had been made over – with the complicity of many in the Church hierarchy – as something compatible with Roman aims . . . many in the Empire mistook Jesus’ identity as someone for whom Roman rule of conquered countries was just hunky-dory.  Constantine – and emperors after him – had taken Jesus and repackaged him in the mold of the world . . . Jesus the warrior, Jesus the conqueror, Jesus the Messiah with whom Peter would have no beef.  But they aren’t the only ones who do this, of course, we’re all guilty of a little Christ-molding, a little making of-him a God in our own image, from time to time . . . the trick is to see it when we do it, and see through it when others do . . .

      It’s Lent, and at Lent we’re encouraged to be especially clear-eyed, especially honest, about ourselves and our place in the drama of God’s salvation history . . . and today I ask you to examine your hearts and try to discern where we mis-identify Christ.  Where we mold him in our own image, or in the image of our society, our nation – where we use him to justify our own personal agendas or our own country’s projects, rather than those of God.  We might say “Christ would want us to enjoy ourselves,” or he said the poor would always be with us, or he’s a lover of freedom and democracy and free-market capitalism . . . and all these things may be true, but when we use them to justify our own selfish actions – our hoarding of stuff, our indifference to the poor and the inequities of our economic system – we have created a God in our own image.

      Brothers and sisters, Jesus said “if any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves, take up their cross and follow me.”  And at Lent, it behooves us to contemplate what that might look like in our own lives, and in the life of our community of faith.  It’s not an easy task, it can seem like a lot of work, and maybe even down-right dangerous to boot.  But you know what?  Jesus assures us in the same breath in which he admonishes . . . those who want to save their life – those who want to hoard their stuff, live isolated lives, as if they are the only ones on earth – will lose it, but those who lose their life for his sake, will save it, they’ll have an abundant, fulfilling life . . . and that’s the holy paradox folks, what Paul called the foolishness of the cross . . . save your life, lose it, lose your life . . . save it.  These are the words of eternal life.  Amen.