Last evening, I opened up my bible browser to look up the text that Andy had set to preach on… and, after reading through the section in Mark, decided that I wanted to add a bit more to this morning’s passage, through verse 32:
Jesus went on with his disciples to the villages of Caesarea Philippi; and on the way he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that I am?” 28:And they answered him, “John the Baptist; and others, Elijah; and still others, one of the prophets.” 29:He asked them, “But who do you say that I am?” Peter answered him, “You are the Messiah.” 30:And he sternly ordered them not to tell anyone about him. 31:Then he began to teach them that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. 32: He said all this quite openly.
Andy will tell you what he is thinking in regard to this passage next week, but what struck me in a new way yesterday was Jesus’ concern that the disciples understand who he was. That the message fit the mission and that the message would outlive him.
In this part of Mark’s story, the disciples are beginning to have to think very concretely about what they will do once Jesus is no longer physically present to teach and to guide them. This passage serves as the midway “hinge point” in Mark’s gospel. Before this, Jesus traveled across Galilee and into Gentile territories. From here, the geography and theology move toward Jerusalem, to the end of the lived-out story. And, as we move from country to city, the mood of the story also shifts. There has been tension from the very beginning of Mark’s story: at first between Jesus and the local religious leaders, and then an emerging tension with those closest to him. This passage includes the first of the three predictions in Mark that point to Jesus’ suffering and death in Jerusalem. The certainty that is expressed by Jesus about his imminent death is generally seen by Biblical scholars to have been added to the story by the church more than 100 years later, however we can be reasonably sure that Jesus knew that his final acts would lead to his arrest, and he went to Jerusalem carrying that sense of foreboding. Here, in this liminal time before the Jesus took that final move towards the city, he needed to establish some clarity of perspective with his closest followers. I think Jesus recognized that when we are being led into a situation that is risky and full of potential for serious trouble, humans have a desire to know the plan – or in other words, we like to know who it is we are following.
Thus, the question that Jesus asks is asked not only for his own sake, but for the sake of his disciples. Who do you think you’re following? What do others say? What do you say?
Incidentally, the setting of this teaching near Caesarea Philippi is intriguing. One source of the Jordan River flows out of a cave nearby. This specific cave served over time as a shrine of worship for various deities called by different “names” and now, in this story, the disciples offer up different names for Jesus.
A pair of scoldings follow Peter’s declaration of Jesus as the Messiah and Jesus’ ensuing command of silence about his identity. This is probably because the most dominant expectations of a Messiah at this time involved one who would deliver the land from Roman rule. Often this figure was linked to the line of David. Such hopes likely formed the basis for Peter’s chastising of Jesus when Jesus instead said that he identified with the suffering “Son of Man” of the Hebrew prophets, not the military leader, David the king – he was a prophet who taught healing and peace, not the triumphant warrior awaited by many. Jesus wanted to make sure that the message was right, that the expectations were correct. He was no Military Messiah, but a Suffering Servant.
There is this thing we humans do with prophets – we have a tendency to lift them up, high above us, and make them so singular or special that we miss the whole point – that we forget that although we are not them, we can choose to not turn away, to hear their message, and, if the message matches our mission, to choose to continue life-giving work. That was Jesus’ hope of his disciples and I think that tradition of wanting to make sure one’s message and identity was heard correctly was passed down to more contemporary prophets.
Next week, we will take time to celebrate the life of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., to mourn his death, and to face the painful reality that his work is not yet finished (an understatement, to be sure). Rev. Dr. King is a name that immediately comes to mind when someone asks, “Does God still send us prophets?” Indeed, he was a man who will be remembered for his eloquent words, his courageous deeds, and his deep and abiding commitment to non-violence as the ultimate form of resistance in the fight against injustice. King was able to reach and draw out the very best in people. He reached for the incarnation or center of goodness, or whatever it is that you use to describe the calling to be your best self that lives in each one of us, no matter how downtrodden, and transforms the horrors of reality into the hope of victory.
He was a wonderful minister, and a profoundly inspirational and motivational human being – one that provides a much-needed example for those of us who feel a call to continue the sacred work of justice.
The following words are those that Rev. Dr. King wrote about himself. They come from a sermon that he preached on February 4, 1968, exactly 2 months before he was assassinated.
Dr. King wrote…
“If any of you are around when I have to meet my day, I don’t want a long funeral. And if you get somebody to deliver the eulogy, tell them not to talk too long … Tell them not to mention that I have a Nobel Peace Prize, that isn’t important. Tell them not to mention that I have three or four hundred other awards, that’s not important. Tell him not to mention where I went to school.
I’d like for somebody to mention that day, that Martin Luther King, Jr. tried to give his life serving others. I’d like for somebody to say that day that Martin Luther King, Jr. tried to love somebody. I want you to say that day, that I tried to be right on the war question. I want you to be able to say that day, that I did try to feed the hungry.
And I want you to be able to say that day, that I did try in my life to clothe those who were naked. I want you to say, on that day, that I did try, in my life, to visit those who were in prison. I want you to say that I tried to love and serve humanity…
I won’t have any money to leave behind. I won’t have the fine and luxurious things of life to leave behind. But I just want to leave a committed life behind.”
These sound like the words of a prophet, who, standing in a liminal hinge moment of his own, wants to make sure that the message matches the mission, that he had some control over his legacy – just like Jesus asked of his followers. Who will you say I am?
Prophets often stand in a place of tension, a tension between “what is” and “what ought to be.” When one stands in the tension between what is and what ought to be, they have some options. One is to remain silent, to let one’s heartache be a private lament. One quietly bears the burden and agony of having a conscious awareness of another’s pain. Ultimately, despite whatever thoughts one may have to the contrary, passive submission and tacit consent define this option. As the famous quote by Elie Wiesel says:
“Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.” The other option, of course, is the one taken by prophets. That option is to speak and to expose the contrast between the way things are and the ways things must be. The prophet Isaiah chose this option when he declared, “For Zion’s sake, I will not keep silent.” When Ghandi said, “Action expresses priorities,” when Mother Theresa said, “If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other,” as the Qur’an declares, “O ye who believe! Stand out firmly for justice,” and when Jesus taught, “Blessed are the Peace-Makers.” Throughout history, prophets have refused to be silent and still.
As we look ahead, what are the heavy things we are willing to bear?
I am certainly not asking any of you to become suffering servants or military messiahs, nor would I ever want you to be those things. I often still have a hard time with these metaphors, but I do understand that sometimes in order to live into our deepest longings for creation, we are sometimes asked to carry heavy loads, to change our behaviors, and to speak out in times when to be silent is to be complicit. We may not be prophets, but we can be prophetic.
One of my friends from Seminary who spends their nights working alongside and care taking for those experiencing homelessness in the Tenderloin district of San Francisco, and who actually is a Franciscan – wrote this on Social Media:
“If I were preaching this Sunday, I would focus on what it means to take up our cross daily. For me, it is not about being seen in the public square, suffering the slings and arrows for our faith. Rather, it means we all have ongoing, shadow work to do. Spirituality is about looking at ourselves honestly, to be aware of where the outflowing of love and mercy is blocked in ourselves. Taking up our cross daily means a daily, personal inventory of where we need to grow in our various relationships: with self, with others, and with God.”
As a church body and as individuals, we are at the perfect place to take stock of our gifts and passions and to continue to put them to use in meeting the needs of our local and global communities. As I said last week, we are radiant people – those unafraid to recognize the immense, painful, and unmeetable needs of the world and to boldly, unapologetically try and meet them anyway.
We are at a place where we can shout out names that we think define us while continuing to do the heavy shadow work of looking at ourselves honestly, to be sure that the input and outflowing of love and mercy is flowing freely.
We are at a hinge point in our story, a liminal time when we can examine our message and our mission, to name and claim who we are and to dream about the prophetic next chapter of UCG.
Elwood C. Nance, Dean of the Knowles Memorial chapel on the Rollins campus from 1939-1942, wrote a Letter to Dreamers, published on February 2, 1941. I came across this letter in a file marked “history” in the office desk when I was serving as interim dean there and I haven’t been able to let go of it (of the copy of it, anyways) – and I want to share a portion of his letter with you today:
“You dreamers have often created temporary pandemonium in my life. You have knocked over some of my images and idols. But, even when you were wrong, you did me a good deed by making me re-examine my convictions. You have blasted out some of my pet fancies and prejudices, but you never destroyed anything that some of your fellow dreamers have not replaced with something better. You, sons and daughters of the dawn, have dared drive your unshackled imaginations into realms where angels feared to tread. The pivots of our progress are rooted in your many excursions into the impossible. You have slain the little “imp” of impossibility. You brought fire and water together in a holy wedlock and given us steam. I praise you, O blessed dreamers! Dream on – dream on!”
We, at UCG, live the legacy of dreamers. I believe that our message matches our mission and that we are well equipped to do the creative shadow work of examination in store for all of us, individually and collectively. I hope you will add your voice in the weeks to come as we imagine ourselves into the year ahead and into our becoming. I am excited to see where our hinge moment will lead us, but I am certain that there is life and there is legacy, and there is dreaming and becoming, and there is naming and claiming, and above all else, there is UCG – giving us the ability together to perhaps not be prophets, but to be prophetic. UCG, who do you say we are?
