B Lent 2 BFC 2018
Mark 8:31-38
February 25, 2018
Mark 8:31-38
31 Then he began to teach them that the Human One (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. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke
him. 33 But turning and looking at his disciples, he rebuked
Peter and said, “Get behind me, Adversary! For you are setting your mind not on
divine things but on human things.”
34 He called the crowd with his disciples, and said to them, “If any
want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross
and follow me. 35 For those who want to save their life will
lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the
gospel, will save it. 36 For what will it profit them to
gain the whole world and forfeit their life? 37 Indeed, what
can they give in return for their life? 38 Those who are
ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of
them the Human One (Son of Man) will also be ashamed when that one comes in the
glory of the Loving Creator with the holy angels.”
Throughout
this season of Lent, we voluntarily walk out into the stark and extreme
landscape of the wilderness to develop our focus and clarity about who we are
and who we are in relationship. Because
the wilderness can be a dangerous place, almost inhuman, we must discern what
we will leave behind as unnecessary baggage and what will we take with us as
important, valuable. If we walk through
this time intentionally, the wilderness hones our attention. And what we give our attention to,
grows.
In the
current age, we are consistently being inundated by the technologies that
deliver to us our relationships with the outside world through current events,
the interpretation of the news, and fake news.
Our technologies deliver to us our relationships with our far-flung
families, friends, and our values in texts, tweets, and Facebook posts.
The
etymology of technology is found in words like “art,” “skill,” “craft,”, and
“ingenuity.” In effect, our technology
is about “useful art.” But as our
technology becomes more and more strongly tied to our identity, the question is
whether we are using our technology or whether our technology is using us.[1] Are we
using and infusing our technology with our values or is our technology using
and infusing us with other values?
Certainly the news that the Russian government infiltrated media
platforms like Facebook and Twitter reminds us that some systems and structures
are banking on the fact that we can be manipulated and used by our
technologies. What are we paying
attention to?
In the
passage from Mark we have before us today, Jesus says, “If anyone would come
after me, or follow me, let them deny themselves, take up their cross, and
follow me.” That passage is probably
either Jesus quoting Cynic philosophers who had come before him, or were his
contemporaries, or the author of Mark placing a popular Cynic quote on the lips
of Jesus. Cynic philosophers were not
negative in the way we use the word “cynical.”
Rather, Cynic philosophers were asocial and counter-cultural
critics. Many of them would beg and go
unshaven and unbathed. Some would go
without clothes or belongings all to point out how ridiculous the striving
after possessions and wealth was in Roman society.[2] Roman society responded by referring to
Cynics as “dogs.”
Epictetus, a Cynic philosopher, was quoted in the 2nd
Century as saying, “If you want to be crucified, just wait. The cross will come. If
it seems reasonable to comply, and the circumstances are right, then it's to be
carried through, and your integrity maintained.”[3] Within Cynic schools of philosophy in the
first century, suffering sin and death or literally carrying one’s cross for
doing the right or virtuous thing, certified that person as full of integrity,
authentic, a true philosopher.[4] The Roman government maintained its dominance
through horrendous, tortuous executions carried out through crucifixion. The message of Rome was simple, “Submit or
die.” Many believe that the gospel of
Mark was written around year 70 C.E., the time of the Jewish Great Revolt. The historian Josephus believes that
approximately 1.1 million Jews were killed by Rome during the Great Revolt,
many of them crucified, Rome ringing the city of Jerusalem alone with tens of
thousands of crosses.[5] So when Mark includes admonitions to take up
our cross and follow Christ, this is not metaphor or hyperbole. These are real challenges to a costly
discipleship, to recognize that to live out our values might be a test of our
loyalties, even to the point of death.
That
was the original meaning of the Greek word we now translate as faith, pistis.
Pistis meant loyalty or
allegiance. In what basket do you put
your eggs? Historically, we have heard
this passage translated as Jesus admonishing Peter, “Get thee behind me,
Satan.” But the better word for “Satan”
is probably “Adversary”, the great tester of loyalties[6], the one
who wants to know if you are a disciple of Christ or Caesar? Are you a follower of the one who puts their
eggs in the basket of the materially poor, the political prisoner, and the
occupied? Or are you a follower of the
one who puts their eggs in the basket of the materially wealthy, the militarily
powerful, and those who maintain peace through violence and death? Are we setting our minds, our attention, on
divine things or something else?
Cynic philosophers believed
a life lived virtuously, with the expectation of struggle, rose above what the
Romans could do to you with a cross. The
disciples of Christ defined that virtuous life in an even more radical path. We, too often, interpret Jesus’s crucifixion
as a singular experience when, in all reality, hearing the gospel story would
have been a sign of solidarity that Christ too, like you experienced among your
friends and family, was crucified too.
Repeated by or put on the
lips of Jesus, Jesus’ followers had to be aware that the path they had chosen
was a hard path, a path full of struggle.
Suffering and hardship came to Jesus’ followers not just because life
was hard, but also because a virtuous life, a life full of integrity put them
square against a society maintained by violence and torture and death.
Too often this verse has
been interpreted in the common vernacular about having our own individual
crosses to bear, a phrase we still use much too often, as in, “Poor Mike, how
does he stand it when the Illini lose to Michigan State and Purdue like
that. I guess that’s just his cross to
bear.” Rather, this verse is about
entering into struggles and hardships which put us foursquare against systems
of domination and destruction. “If you
take up your cross,” is about choices over and against a hopelessness that says
the world can be any different. Show
your loyalty even in the shadow of the cross.
The radical call of this
Scripture is made even more explicit when Jesus references the Human One[7] (not
once but twice) or what has been traditionally translated as the Son of
Man. The Human One, in Jewish mythology,
is seen coming with the Ancient-of-Days in the prophet Daniel’s dreams to
institute, transform, and rehabilitate society in the values of justice.[8] The Human One also opposes the evil and
wicked empires, characterizing them as carnivorous beasts with their arrogance
and long teeth, devouring and consuming, consuming and devouring. Again, are we aligning ourselves with the
project of the Human One or the carnivorous, violent, consuming, and arrogant
beasts?
We must liberate our
attention in this wilderness of Lent so that we have the tools to live this
difficult, radical life, to maintain our loyalty when it would just be so easy
to assent to the violence and death reasserted in Syria, now practiced in our
schools, and furthered in extractive economies that devour the poor and our
planet. How shall we do this? How do we use our technologies to inform our
faith?
Kevin Kelley, the founder of
Wired magazine and a self-identified
Christian, has a fascination with the Amish and their practices. The Amish are stereotyped as people who
resist change and the wider culture by abandoning technology, electricity, and
any sense of modern fashion. But Kelley
relates that the Amish are changing all the time. They decide what useful art they are going to
employ based on values and practices that inform their values. According to Kelley, the Amish use
discernment questions which reveal their values. Those discernment questions are: 1) Will this technology increase or
strengthen my family? And 2) Will this
technology increase or strengthen my community?
Kelley goes on to say:
So the Amish, their ideal is to have every meal with their children
until they leave. They want to have breakfast, lunch, and dinner every day with
their children. How much time does it bring them and keep them in the
community? So the reason why they have horses instead of cars is because the
horse can only go 15 miles away, so they have to go shopping, go to church, go
to visit, all within 15 miles. That forces them to pay attention, to support
their local neighborhood, their community. And so when they’re looking at new
technology — like, they say, LEDs or whatever — does it help them do that, or
does it not? So they’re not rejecting technology. They’re saying: We want
technology that serves our purposes.
And the way that they do this is
also interesting, is — they don’t think about the technologies. They have Amish
early adopters. And these are guys, usually, in any community, who are eager to
try new things. And they have to get permission from the bishop. And so the
bishop will say, “OK, Ivan, yeah, you can have a cellphone in your truck for
work.” And so, for the next year, they watch — his community watches Ivan to
see how that affects his family, his community, his work, and if they don’t
think that it’s a positive, then he has to give it up. So it’s a community
decision.[9]
Does
our useful art, our technology, reveal our loyalties, reflect what we want to
grow? Or do we end up reflecting the
loyalties of or technology?
Allied Media Projects is an
organization based out of Detroit that is actively seeking to build a world
based on transformative justice through intentional and strategic use of media
technologies. Their mission is to cultivate
media strategies for a more just, creative and collaborative world. They serve
a network of media makers, artists, educators, and technologists working for
social justice. Their definition of
media includes all forms of communication, from videos and websites to theater,
dance, design, and interactive technology.[10] Hear in that mission statement values, not
unlike the Amish, to be purposeful and intentional with their attention to
technology.
Here are some of the principles they
have discerned in their work:
· We are making an honest attempt to solve the most significant
problems of our day.
· We are building a network of people and organizations that are
developing long-term solutions based on the immediate confrontation of our most
pressing problems.
· Wherever there is a problem, there are already people acting on
the problem in some fashion. Understanding those actions is the starting point
for developing effective strategies to resolve the problem, so we focus on the
solutions, not the problems.
· We emphasize our own power and legitimacy.
· We presume our power, not our powerlessness.
· We spend more time building than attacking.
· We focus on strategies rather than issues.
· The strongest solutions happen through the process, not in a
moment at the end of the process.
· The most effective strategies for us are the ones that work in
situations of scarce resources and intersecting systems of oppression because
those solutions tend to be the most holistic and sustainable.
· Place is important. Place helps define context.
· We encourage people to engage with their whole selves, not just
with one part of their identity.
And,
finally, they list in bold:
Imagine a whole community of people who might take up those
spiritual practices as a way of walking through the wilderness and honing their
attention. I hear in those principles
strongly spiritual content coming from a secular setting. More and more, I hear a spiritual consensus
emerging that recognizes we can no longer give our loyalty to the rules of Rome
but must find something more just, more life-giving, more intentional. What of those principles might you take,
individually, as a walking stick which measures your steps? What of those principles might we take, as a
faith community, to sharpen our attention, to continue piecing together our
downtown neighbors and citizens, and living our lives in loyalty to the things
of God and not of Caesar? I think they
have it right. We begin by listening. May it be so.
Amen.
[1] “The universe is a
question: interview with Kevin Kelly,” OnBeing with Krista Tippett, January 18,
2018. https://onbeing.org/programs/kevin-kelly-the-universe-is-a-question-jan2018/.
[2] F. Gerald Downing advances
the comparisons between Jesus and the Cynics more than anyone. The Jesus Seminar has used much of his
material to draw comparisons.
[3] “Historical Commentary on
the Gospel of Mark,” http://users2.ev1.net/~turton/GMark/GMark08.html,
citing Robert Price, Deconstructing Jesus
(Amherst , New York
[4] Ibid, citing David,
Seeley, “Blessings and Boundaries:Interpretations of
Jesus' Death in Q. In Early Christianity, Q and Jesus,” Semeia 55 (ed. John S. Kloppenborg; Atlanta
[5]
James Carroll, Christ Actually: The Son of God for the Secular Age (New
York: Viking, 2014), pp. 46-54.
[6]
Bruce J. Malina and
Richard J. Rohrbaugh, Social Science
Commentary on the Synoptic Gospels (Fortress Press: Minneapolis, 2014), p. 182, n. Honor; Secrecy.
[7]
Literally, “The One
of Fertile Soil” or, as I translate it, “Child of Earth.”
[8] The Bible references this
as tzedakah (righteousness)
[9] “The universe is a
question.”
[10]
https://www.alliedmedia.org/about/story
No comments:
Post a Comment