Readings for September 13, 2015
Pentecost 16/Proper 19B (24)

• Isaiah 50:4-9a and Psalm 116:1-9 
• James 3:1-12 
• Mark 8:27-38

Which One?  sermon by Reverend Fred Kinsey
One of my passions growing up was tennis.  I just happened to be from a family that played a lot of tennis; my parents and aunt & uncle taught me, my sister and brother, and three cousins, mostly outside in the summer, starting at an early age, way back when all they had were, wooden rackets!  I was good enough to play doubles on the high school team.  But after high school I never had that much time for it anymore – once or twice a year, maybe.  So I started to get my tennis fix from watching the majors on TV, Australian, French, U.S. Open, and especially, Breakfast at Wimbledon.  Nothing like getting the adrenaline flowing, and a vicarious thrill, almost as if you’re out there playing – all the while enjoying croissants and poached eggs, on the couch! 

 

So, yesterday was the Women’s final at the U.S. Open.  It was an all-Italian final, that nobody saw coming!  Everyone expected #1 player and American Serena Williams to be there, it was her tournament to complete the grand slam, and sweep the majors.  Instead, an unranked player, Roberta Vinci beat her in the semi’s, and Flavia Pennetta, a close friend from Rome, also advanced to the final.  At ages 12 and 13, Vinci and Pennetta were room-mates at their first tennis camp.  Now, 20 years later, no one could have predicted that they’d be together, here in Arthur Ashe Stadium!  After two hard fought sets, Pennetta came out on top, and the two hugged and cried at the net afterward like they were sisters. 

 

The only thing they’ve known, in their adult lives, is tennis, and this was a storybook match for both.  But the real surprise came in the interview afterwards, in front of a packed stadium in New York.  ‘I just want to say one more thing,’ Pennetta said to ABC Host Robin Wright – who was the MC.  ‘One month ago I made a decision,’ she said, searching for the right words, ‘and I just want everyone to know.  This is the way, this is the moment, that I’m leaving tennis, leaving the game.’  She didn’t use the word retire, but that’s what she meant.  She had decided to retire at the U.S. Open, before the tournament had begun, but she had no idea she’d be holding the Women’s trophy, and collecting $3.3M when she announced it. 

 

But, who would she be now?  No longer, a professional tennis player.  Though, no one could take away her championship, here at the U.S. Open, still if she didn’t need to wake up each day, and hit the practice court, or enter the next tournament, what would she do?  Who would she be?  Chrissie Evert asked her that very question, later on, and Pennetta said: ‘I have no idea!  I’m going to have to work at becoming something else.’

 

Jesus asked his disciples, “Who do people say that I am?”  Jesus has been all around Galilee, in the first half of Mark’s gospel, healing, teaching, preaching, calming storms on the Sea of Galilee, feeding 5,000 with five loaves of bread and 2 fish.  He’s confronted the powers in authority, and sided with the poor and marginalized.  ‘So, looking back at where we’ve been and what I’ve done, “Who do people say that I am?”’

 

There’s a seminary teacher, Micah Kiel, at St Ambrose, Davenport, IA, who tells of using his wife’s bible one day, when he couldn’t find his, in his office.  He and his wife had gone to St. John's University in Collegeville, MN, where Micah says that she too was a very good student.  There wasn’t a chapter in the gospel of Mark that she hadn’t highlighted, underlined, or had notes in the margins – except for one, chapter 8, from which we read today!  Here in chapter eight, it was as if she became so mesmerized with the story, she seemed to drop her highlighter.  But there was one little question which stood out, all by itself: “Which one is it?” she had written.  Obviously referring to the many titles being bandied about, when Jesus asked, “Who do people say that I am?”   

 

Some say John the Baptist; and others say, Elijah; but there are still others who say he’s one of the other prophets – like Isaiah, or Amos, or Jeremiah, would be good guesses.  We know that Herod thought, Jesus was the reincarnation of John the Baptist.  Others no doubt were thinking Elijah, because many expected Elijah would return when the kingdom of heaven was to be restored. 

 

And Jesus, no doubt, knew all this, about what the people were saying.  So he asks his disciples, his closest allies, a second question: “But who do you say that I am?”  Peter was the one who answered, “You are the Messiah.”  Apparently, Peter had been paying attention!  For Jesus is the anointed one, the Messiah, as we, the reader know, from all of Mark’s helpful commentary along the way. 

 

But the real surprise is how Jesus interprets who the Messiah is!  Not a king, like David; not a general, like Saul, or one of the daring insurgent Maccabees, but the Messiah, the Christ, is more like what Daniel called, the Son of Man, or Isaiah called the Suffering Servant, one who is renewing God’s covenant as a righteous leader, or a John the Baptist truth teller – who paid with his head, of course – one who is misunderstood and rejected, but who is unafraid of going to trial as an innocent person, recognizing the possible consequences; one who knowingly lays down his own life; trusting that God will raise him up in three days, alive again.  

 

But in the story, the disciples didn’t see that coming at all.  And so Peter pulls Jesus aside, to try and knock some sense into him, rebuking this characterization.  That’s not what we were expecting out of our champion.  Take it back!  But Jesus rebukes Peter, accusing him of being on the side of the worst kind of human temptation, and failing to understand his connection to his divine motherly Father.

 

Which one is he?  Who will Jesus be, if not the new king, enthroned in Jerusalem?  And more to the point, how do we sometimes get in the way of what God wants us to be?  How, and in what way, do we decide to follow Jesus?  Do our expectations in life, sometimes mis-align with God’s?  Do we expect that if we pray every day we will be blessed?  Or if we do a kindness for a friend in need, we will receive a gift in return?  Do we work hard to know how the world works, how to figure out right from wrong, expecting then, that people will treat us with respect, and do right by us because, after all, that’s the rational thing to do?  But why then doesn’t it go our way?  Why is there suffering in the world?  Why am I hurting?

 

So, do you remember, in the original Star Wars trilogy, that the comic relief in the movies comes in the form of a robot, R2-D2, and his android buddy, C-3PO.  And it’s this later one, the one who looks human, and has that, ever-worried demeanor, and who says in his “woe-is-me” British accent: “We [droids] seem to be made to suffer; it’s our lot in life.”  So, C-3PO’s kind of suffering is that he expects it, as his fate for who he is. 

 

This is not the kind of suffering Jesus is talking about though, either for himself, or for us.  Jesus suffers for the sake of the truth, and for standing up for, the outcast and poor, the sick and the excluded.  His suffering and death are purposeful, and not just for his life, but for the sake of the world.  Jesus asks us to take up our own crosses, leveraging the gravitas we have, not to bear suffering as if we had it coming, not to be martyrs or be taken advantage of, but to be followers of Jesus the Christ, the Messiah, to take up the mission of revealing who God is, in the world God created; to open up the way to the freedom of the Promised Land, to release the prisoners, and give sight to the blind, to declare the day of the LORD.

 

If we believe God is active and alive in the world, then the question posed to us is not just whether we confess Jesus as the Messiah.  That’s the relative easy part.  We know what his title is.  The question becomes, what does the title mean for us today?  How can suffering for the sake of the truth set us free, and make our lives, and our church, our families and schools, our artists and writers, our government and elected leaders, our banks and businesses, more cruciform, more cross shaped, to reveal the possibilities of divine love in the world!? 

 

We cannot let our human expectations get in the way, or foul up, the divine covenant.  The question in the margin for us today is:  Which one is he, for us?  Who is Jesus?  Which title for Jesus do we confess, not just with our lips, but with our hearts, and our whole lives?!

Readings for Sept 6, 2015
Proper 18B
Mark 7:24-37

It Takes a Community, Pastor Kinsey
Two stories, on the boundaries of community.  One to the east and one to the west of Galilee.  At first hearing, they may not even seem related.  But looking a bit closer, I think we can find at least one way, in which they are tied together.  But let’s look at the second story first, of the man from the Decapolis, who was deaf, and then compare it to the first story of the Syrophoenician woman. 

 

The region of the Decapolis was east of Galilee, 10 regions or city-states, east of where Jesus and the Disciple’s home territory in Israel was.  It was Gentile territory, that is, non-Jewish, in this case, a loose federation of Greek peoples who had migrated there, some time ago.  Mark isn’t interested in the exact location, but only to remind us that it is outside Galilee.  The people in the story that Jesus and his disciples encounter, are all Gentiles.

 

“They,” bring the man to Jesus, it says.  What is noteworthy here is that a whole group of people, are the ones bringing him to Jesus, and this word bringing, could mean leading him, perhaps even toting, or carrying him.  But why does he need this help?  Why so many?  If he is deaf – his legs and his eyesight are fine.  Why doesn’t he go on his own?  That he cannot speak clearly, only means that he likely lost his hearing at an early age.  But still, the question is, why doesn’t he come on his own?  Why doesn’t he walk up to Jesus himself?

 

The first answer is, that he likely did not feel he would be welcomed, or, he worried about what Jesus would think of him.  All his life, he had been told and made to feel he was unclean and sinful.  That was the universal first-century belief.  Blindness, deafness, speech impediments – any kind of sickness or demon possession, all of it meant it was your fault, or that God did it as punishment for your sin.  The sick, were socially stigmatized, and Jews, especially Priests, were not even supposed to touch unclean people, or they would need to be ritually cleansed. 

 

The second reason, follows directly from the first.  The man who was deaf, would naturally have felt unworthy, less than, as a person, and therefore, not someone able to approach the Rabbi.  Low self-esteem, we might call it today.  Do you know anyone like that?  Many stigma’s, live on today.  For example, refugees blamed for our economic problems, those living with mental illness wrongly criminalized, when they are more often victims of crime, and  our cultural construction of race, which demonizes some, and purifies & privileges others.  And this collective sin, over hundreds of years, has produced every layer of demoralization and separation imaginable, in American society. 

 

And so it also makes sense that it would take a small group of friends to bring the man who was deaf, to Jesus, or maybe just to convince him that Jesus would give him a fair shake.  They may be walking with him, or even cajoling or carrying him.  And it’s his friends who speak for the deaf man who cannot speak clearly, asking Jesus, begging him, to touch him, and lay hands on him.   

 

Jesus did not respond verbally himself.  He takes the man aside, in private, away from the crowd.  He gives him personal attention.  Come into my office! Make yourself comfortable! 

 

Jesus put his fingers into the man’s ears.  (When was the last time you tried that?)  But it is meant to show that Jesus gives him very personal attention.  And then he spits on his fingers, and somehow asks him, maybe pantomimes it – is it ok to touch your tongue with my spittle?  Jesus sighs a little prayer to God then, and says, Ephphatha!  Open up! 

 

You might expect Jesus to say, Be healed; or, Open his ears; free his tongue!  But this is more than a healing, or curing sickness.  Jesus speaks to the whole person directly in front of him.  Pastor Dayton A. Williams, a sign language pastor in our synod says, “He treated him with respect. The effect was to change the man's whole outlook on life.  Now he knows the truth about God and himself, and it is good news.” 

 

It takes the whole community, to make a neighborhood healthy.  The man who was deaf and not able to speak clearly, would not have come to Jesus without his friends, who took the initiative to bring him.  And it takes a God who is big enough to take down the barriers of stigma and racism, and other forms of exclusion and hierarchy, to open up our lives, to the truth that sets us free. 

 

And this, I believe, is the connection to the first story, the story of Jesus and the Syrophoenician woman.  Jesus had gone with his disciples to the region of Tyre, west of Galilee, again, in Gentile territory.  Jesus entered a house there, to get away from the crowds back home.  This was supposed to be some kind of retreat, maybe?  What’s clear, though, is that the woman whose daughter had an unclean spirit was a foreigner, religiously and ethnically other, unclean.  But in the encounter Jesus has with her, something, amazingly, is opened up.

 

Now, in one way, this story is like no other in the gospels.  Because Jesus, in a one-off,  reflects the privilege of 1st century patriarchy, in his first response to her: “It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs,” he says to the woman, “let the children” – that is, the Jewish people – “be fed first.” 

 

But the Syrophoenician woman, is like the friends of the man who was deaf, in that she is advocating on behalf of another person, her daughter, stigmatized by her illness, her demon possession.  She says, “Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.”  And so, undaunted, she stands up for the God of acceptance and openness she expected to meet in Jesus, and challenges Jesus to let go of his prejudice, and channel the God who had anointed and sent him.  “She gets Jesus to admit what, and whom, his ministry is all about. She embarrasses Jesus, a little, for his human remark, and gets Jesus to see God, for what and who God truly is.

 

And so, “The woman tells the truth.  And when the truth gets told, worlds change.  Her world changed.  Same for Jesus – and the rest of his ministry cannot be the same because of her.” (Karoline Lewis, workingpreacher.org)

 

And so, we might ask ourselves: Do we want our world to change?  Are we ready?  Or are we sometimes like Jesus was this time, pulled down by human precepts rooted in division and sin? 

 

It takes a community to bring the truth to light, to call it out, and have the courage to name it.  It takes all of us to remember that our God, is a God open to the truth, and supporting us in breaking down the barriers that divide us up, one from another. 

 

Illness is not a punishment from God!  The deaf man is not evil.  He is just like everyone else. God accepts him, loves him.  That’s the truth, a truth still not completely revealed, perhaps.  But God, is a big-enough-God, who is unafraid to touch the hurting parts of us, the parts stigmatized or looked down upon, the broken parts that are visible, and the woundedness hidden deep inside.  God is our closest friend and advocate, sitting down beside us, who understands all of us, individually and collectively. 

 

It takes the whole community, to make a neighborhood healthy.  We pray O God, with sighs too deep for words, give us faith, and hope, and vision, to love each other – to proclaim, that sickness is not punishment, or evil.  And help us to be friends who carry and accompany our sisters and brothers to Jesus. 

 

After five weeks of lifting up Jesus as the Bread of Life in the Gospel of John, and celebrating how Jesus fed 5,000 with only 5 loaves and 2 fish, we return to the gospel of Mark, in this Year B of the lectionary, only to find ourselves in the midst of – a food fight! 

 

Now, food fights can be fun, don’t get me wrong – who doesn’t like watching John Belushi and Company, in Animal House!  But they can also be costly, it seems to me, like La Tomatina in Spain, the annual tomato fight, which started, over nothing more than an injured ego, 70 years ago.  And now, thousands of gleeful tomato slingers, use something like 160 tons of tomatoes per fight!  That’s a lot of spaghetti dinners down the drain, in my book – but one good thing – they say that afterwards, when they wash all the tomato paste away with fire hoses, the streets are immaculately clean because of the acidity level of tomatoes!

 

Jesus and his disciples were breaking bread and “eating the loaves,” it says – no tomato Bruschetta, as far as we know – when the Church Police show up, and immediately take offense. ‘Don’t you wash your hands before you eat!?’  ‘What kind of Disciples do you have here?!’  ‘And, by the way, when you’re finished, don’t forget to use a non-abrasive sponge when washing the non-stick pans!’ 

 

Being the one who does the dishes at my house, I know, I can get like that sometimes, like some kind of undercover FBI agent, even when others offer to help!  

 

The spies that interrupted dinner-time by the Sea of Galilee, were on the lookout for ways to trip Jesus up.  They traveled halfway across the country, with the sole purpose of digging up some dirt they can use against this Messiah wannabe.  So, if you’re like me, you may cringe a little, when his disciples play right into their hands, eating openly with “defiled hands” – so to speak.  This is going to be too easy, say the church police, grinning to one another!

 

But Jesus remembers how Isaiah prophesied about his own people:

 

'This people honors me with their lips,

                but their hearts are far from me;

…abandoning the commandment of God, and holding to human tradition."

 

And to the whole crowd, Jesus says, ‘It’s not what goes in a person that can defile, but the things that come out, are what defile.’  “For it is from within, from the human heart, that evil intentions come.”  And, in case we miss the point, Mark adds his own editorial comment: “Thus Jesus declared all foods clean.”  Is Mark asking us to believe that Jesus endorses a winner in this food fight?!  But if that’s all it’s about, winners and losers, where’s the gospel message in that?  What’s so bad about washing your hands before dinner, anyway?  Is there not something more we can learn from this food fight – some kind of, third way? 

 

Food, of course, can indeed be a health hazard in the 21st century.  Tainted eggs caused sickness, even death, earlier this year.  Hamburger and bagged lettuce are other notable examples.  Washing our foods, and the surfaces they touch, in preparation for meals, can be all important.  And so, what goes inside us, from the outside, may indeed be harmful. 

 

Those in recovery have some compelling stories to tell about the alcohol and drugs that they have ingested, which over time so controlled their lives, they lost spouses and families, cars and houses, friendships and sometimes all self-respect, before finding help to turn away from substances that they not only abused, but that abused them, their bodies nearly broken – all for that thing outside of them that they took in, which utterly defiled their lives.

 

Others of us have used food or mood-altering substances to self-medicate for what are essentially, spiritual issues – emptiness or loss, boredom or anxiety – which by their very nature cause in us, guilt or shame, and feelings of, self-defilement.

 

“These things do not move cleanly through our psyche’s and intestines,” and out into the sewer, as Jesus says.  “Rather they flatten us, desensitize and anesthetize us,” says Pastor Langknecht, “they skew our perspective and sense of proportion and thereby deform the very “hearts” from which evil intentions come.” (Henry Langknecht, http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=386)

 

This doesn’t negate the point Jesus is making, I don’t think, that evil intentions can come from within.  The list about evil intentions is long, and none of us, I dare say, is immune.  But we might then ask the further question Jesus does: Do we cross the line from acting like your average human caught in hypocrisy, into that of idolatry?  Do we from time to time fall into slothful tomato fights, or are our food fights, fights to the death in our relationships with others, staking out boundary lines, claiming our righteousness over-against those we consider ungodly, self-satisfied in our supposed absolute truth?  Or simply put: has “washing the fruit we buy, become more important than giving fruit to the hungry?” (Langknecht)

 

“But be doers of the word, and not merely hearers who deceive themselves,” said James.  “For if any are hearers of the word and not doers, they are like those who look at themselves in a mirror;  for they look at themselves and, on going away, immediately forget what they were like.  But those who look into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and persevere, being not hearers who forget but doers who act — they will be blessed in their doing.  If any think they are religious, and do not bridle their tongues but deceive their hearts, their religion is worthless.”

 

In a way, it’s all about our relationships.  Do we model our relationships after the rivalries and envies and competitions, all around us in our culture?  Or do we model our relationships after the one, who is One with our motherly Father, one with the perfect law of Liberation?  Do we join in the tomato fight, or, follow the one, who sat down to feed 5,000? 

 

The culture of this world is like gravity itself.  It exists and is self-perpetuating in its relationship between other bodies.  It’s like a forcefield that we fall into it, and it is just there. 

 

Until God enters this world, we have no measurement for the food fights and other conflicts and rivalries we have created.  Without God’s Messiah, we become our own Church Police, making our own laws, that idolize our own self-righteousness.  We are born into this forcefield, called sin.  Or, as our Baptismal liturgy says: “We are born children of a fallen humanity.”  We don’t do it just because Adam and Eve did.  We sin because we fall into the forcefield of humanity’s tangled relationships, and endless food fights, and have not yet ingested the new Messiah, the bread of life.  For when we begin to internalize the one who is One with the motherly Father, the perfect Law of Liberation, we learn a third way; we cross over into the land of milk and honey; we are changed and transformed by our baptism into the death and resurrection of Christ, and become the children of God. 

 

In Christ Jesus, our relationships are built on self-giving love, the “doing” which overcomes all evil, and even can withstand evil intentions in our relationships with one another, and the world. 

 

Let us Not Just Be, washers of the fruit we buy before eating, but be those who faithfully give fruit to those who are hungry, because we have first been cleansed by the love of our motherly Father, the perfect Law of Liberation.