Embracing Christ

As the sun was setting, all those who had any who were sick with various kinds of diseases brought them to him; and he laid his hands on each of them and cured them. Demons also came out of many, shouting, “You are the Son of God!” But he rebuked them and would not allow them to speak, because they knew that he was the Messiah.

 At daybreak he departed and went into a deserted place. And the crowds were looking for him; and when they reached him, they wanted to prevent him from leaving them. But he said to them, “I must proclaim the good news of the kingdom of God to the other cities also; for I was sent for this purpose.” So he continued proclaiming the message in the synagogues of Judea.    (Luke 4:40-44  NRSV)

It is so understandable why the crowds wanted to prevent Jesus from leaving them.

 He healed their sick;

He drove out all manner of evil;

He not only spoke to them about the Kingdom of God but demonstrated that the power of that Kingdom was available through Himself;

He was a direct conduit to God.

But Jesus does not allow His ministry to be contained by those who want to take hold of Him and keep Him to themselves.   Jesus’ own self understanding is that He came to take His message to ‘others.’   Where He goes people want to take hold of Him and keep them for themselves.   Jesus has no interest in letting this happen.  He did not come to this world just for the Jews, or for the Christian, or for the righteous, or for the healthy, or for the prosperous.   Any of those groups might want to claim Him for themselves and keep all others away from Him.   Jesus says His very purpose in this world is to proclaim the Kingdom of God to others.

We can think about Mary Magdalene in  John 20:17-18 who encounters Jesus returned from the dead:

Jesus said to her, “Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’”  Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord”; and she told them that he had said these things to her.

Mary didn’t want to lose Jesus again, yet Jesus does not allow her to take any comfort in grabbing hold of Him.  Instead He turns her seeking consolation in to mission:  “go to my brothers and say to them…”      Mary in her grief suddenly turned into dismay becomes the first evangelist.    Mary Magdalene thus becomes the model of each Christian.

We live in a world in which we too are often dismayed by events.  We are often suffering serious grief because of death in this world: of loved ones, of innocent ones, of victims, of the defenseless.    Yet our Lord’s words to us are the same as His words to Mary Magdelene:  Go tell others about His kingdom.  Go tell others His teachings and word.  God tell others what you have seen, heard and experienced in and from Christ (1 John 1:1-3).    St. Peter in his First Epistle expresses the same thought in a different way:

“In this you rejoice, even if now for a little while you have had to suffer various trials, so that the genuineness of your faith—being more precious than gold that, though perishable, is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.  Although you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and rejoice with an indescribable and glorious joy, for you are receiving the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls”   (1 Peter 1:6-9 (NRSV).

There is a temptation for each Christian to grab hold of Christ and never let Him go.   Yet our Lord Himself told Mary Magdalene not to take hold of Him but rather to go and tell the others about Him.  In that strange way the New Testament tells us that the way to embrace Christ is not be clutching onto Him and turning away from the world, but rather by going into the world to tell others about Him. 

In our prayer lives we may want to grab onto to Jesus and hold onto Him as if He is the only important thing in the world.   But Jesus tells us to embrace those who are important to Him – those for whom He died and rose again:  the sinners, His brothers and sisters, the sick, the least of His brothers and sisters, the meek, the sorrowful, the poor, the weak, the needy, the children.   We are to go into all the world and proclaim the Gospel – this is the only true way for us to embrace Christ, risen from the dead and enthroned with the Father in heaven.

Christians: Empowered to Carry Christ

Sermon Notes  9/27/09     Gospel Lesson:   Luke 5:1-11

Once while Jesus was standing beside the lake of Gennesaret, and the crowd was pressing in on him to hear the word of God, [2] he saw two boats there at the shore of the lake; the fishermen had gone out of them and were washing their nets. [3] He got into one of the boats, the one belonging to Simon, and asked him to put out a little way from the shore. Then he sat down and taught the crowds from the boat. [4] When he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, “Put out into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch.” [5] Simon answered, “Master, we have worked all night long but have caught nothing. Yet if you say so, I will let down the nets.” [6] When they had done this, they caught so many fish that their nets were beginning to break. [7] So they signaled their partners in the other boat to come and help them. And they came and filled both boats, so that they began to sink. [8] But when Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, “Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!” [9] For he and all who were with him were amazed at the catch of fish that they had taken; [10] and so also were James and John, sons of Zebedee, who were partners with Simon. Then Jesus said to Simon, “Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching people.” [11] When they had brought their boats to shore, they left everything and followed him.

1)      Jesus tells the disciples not to be afraid.   What did they have to fear?   The disciples had a profession – catching fish.   Jesus calls them to “catch people.”   Being called to follow Christ sometimes means being called to do something different than we are used to or comfortable with.   Jesus asks them to leave what they are familiar with, to leave their comfortable zone in order to follow Him.    In the Gospel Lesson He doesn’t ask them to leave their fishing profession just because times are hard or business is bad.  The disciples indeed had a profitless night of fishing –  they worked all night but have nothing to show for it and  they only get paid if they actually catch fish and can sell the fish.   But Jesus first takes them on a fishing expedition which leads to a huge catch of fish.  Jesus asks them to leave their business in a moment of great success behind, not failure.  He showed them He could be a very prosperous fisherman, but He asks them to leave that prosperity behind in order to undertake a new work – catching people instead of catching fish.  No doubt they understood how to catch fish, now they are being called to use their old skills in a new and totally unexpected way.  They have a lot to fear – they are giving up what they know for a totally untested way of life based upon Jesus showing them He knew how to catch fish.  

2)    At the MC meeting last week I listened to Met Jonah lament the fact that he doesn’t like doing desk/office/administrative work and he would rather do other things like read, write, give talks.  But Jesus calls us not only to do what we like, but to follow Him and do what He needs us to do.   He didn’t need the disciples to be fishermen, He needed them to become fishers of men.   Christ does ask us to do some things unfamiliar to us that have no guarantee of prosperity – for examples, loving one another, forgiving one another, calling each other to repentance, being generous in charity.

3)    We all are to become bearers of Christ – Christophers.  Our collective task is to bring Christ to every situation we are in and every place we enter.  Christ is not going to be magically present everywhere – we have to make Him be present, we have to incarnate Him,  we have to bring Him to wherever we are and wherever we assemble:  not just in our homes and places of employment but even in the church building, the parish, the OCA .   That is not someone else’s job, that is the job of each of us and all of us.   Notice Jesus didn’t magically appear on the boat with the disciples – they had to take Him with them when they went out to fish – that in itself was hard labor.   .   To become fishers of men  means to carry Christ where we go.   We must be the people who carry Christ into our homes, jobs and even into our parish.  He is not going to force His way in, He is not going to come in uninvited.  He will rely on us to do the work that He expects us to do and has empowered us to do.  He is not going to do our work for us.   He didn’t catch the fish for the disciples; they worked hard to pull in that miraculously large catch of fish.

4)    We are to make Christ present in order to transfigure and transform the world.   That is our task as part of the priesthood of all believers.   We must transform even administration, parish councils, parish meetings.    That is what it means for us all to be priests of Christ.   We are to be a Kingdom of priests!  (Revelations 1:6; 5:10)   We don’t just incarnate Christ in the Liturgy in Holy Communion.  We are to make Him present in everything we do, at all times.     We can transform and transfigure work, home, pleasure, recreation, business, administration, daily chores, worship, family and parish into a means to encounter God.    That is the transformative power that Christ has bestowed upon us through Pentecost and the Holy Spirit.

On Being a Christian

In Luke 5:11, when Jesus calls the fishermen to come be His disciples, He tells them, “Do not be afraid….”   Christians like all human beings are also subject to many fears – some good and some not so much, some rational and others completely irrational.   Christians are seen to fear God, Satan, Judgment Day, change, science, philosophy, socialism, other religions, apostasy, secularism, and a host of other things.     Evagrios the Solitary offers Christians a simple reminder and rebuke about our fears:

When you stand in prayer before God the Almighty, who created all things and takes thought for all, why are you so foolish as to forget the fear of God and to be scared of mosquitoes and cockroaches? Have you not heard it said, ‘You shall fear the Lord your God’ (Deut. 6:13); or again ‘Fear and dread shall fall upon them’ (Exod. 15:16)?   

 Keeping perspective on all things is essential to the Christian.  Ultimately there is only one we need to fear and that is God who in the end will judge each of us.   St. Mark the Ascetic offered some positive advice about what we ought to be thinking about.   He wrote about what things should guide and guard a Christian:  

He grows in love, is adorned with gentleness, rejoices greatly in spirit, is ruled by the peace of Christ, led by kindness, guarded by goodness, protected by the fear of God, enlightened by understanding and knowledge, illumined by wisdom, guided by humility.                                

The Christian is is grow in virtue, but he or she does not have to go at this alone; for we have the Church as the Christian community to which we belong to help us in our spiritual growth.   Why belong to the church?    Jeremy Begbie in his most interesting book RESOUNDING TRUTH  says leaning to be a Christian is like learning to play piano—there really is something to learn; there are standards, there are right and wrong ways of doing things. We need to learn to submit ourselves to the well established tradition. Just as we can recognize the difference between noise and music, so too we can recognize the difference between determining our own beliefs & ethics and being a real disciple of Christ the Master.

 I decide to play the piano…In other words, I become an apprentice to a  tradition provided by others, a whole set of tried and tested skills, an accumulated knowledge with a very long history. I learn standards or excellence; I submit my choices, preferences, and tastes to standards already held and tested by others. I learn what is considered “musical” and “unmusical,” what counts as good phrasing and poor phrasing, what makes a composer “great” rather than mediocre.

We not only need to come to faith in Christ, we must learn how to be Christians – how to live according to the Gospel teachings we have embraced.  Repentance means change.  We must be willing to learn how to be a Christian by making ourselves disciples of Christ.   If our Christianity is merely a matter of deciding to believe, there will be no evidence of the newness of life to which we are called.   We are called to strive to be Christ’s disciples.  Christianity calls us to a newness of life.  As the Scriptures put it, we are to sing a new song. 

“Sing to the Lord a new song” (Ps. 149:1). In a spiritual sense the coming of the New Testament is a new song; everything that happened then was new—testament (“I shall make a new testament with you,” Scripture says), creation (“If anyone is in Christ,” Scripture says, “There is a new creation”), human being (“Having stripped off the former self,” Scripture says, “and put on the new, renewed in knowledge according to the image of the one creating it”). On account of the new life, then, and everything else, it is called a New Testament, and the inspired author urges us now to sing a new song typical of it.   (St. John Chrysostom)

Thoughts on the Dormition Fast 2009

The  DORMITION fast   is the second of two Lenten seasons which occur in the summer.  It is part of the preparation for the Feast of the Falling Asleep of the Virgin, which also happens to be the second Major Feast of the Church in August.   The fasting “rules” are the same as for any fasting period in Orthodoxy.  It is a time for us to practice our discipleship by following a Christian discipline.   St. John Chrysostom said about fasting:

We have, you see, a gentle and loving Lord who demands nothing of us beyond our capabilities. In other words, it is not arbitrarily that he looks for fasting and abstinence from food to be performed by us, nor simply for the sake of our remaining without food, but rather that we may be detached from things of this life and devote all our spare time to spiritual matters. If we conduct our lives with sober mind, use all our spare time in spiritual matters, eat only for nourishment and spend our whole life in good practices, we would have no need of the help that comes from fasting. But since human nature is lazy and is given rather to indulgence and luxury, the loving Lord accordingly like a kindly father devised for us the healing that comes from fasting so that the effects of luxury might be cut out of us and we might replace worldly concerns with performance of spiritual exercises.                               

There is an “inner” connection between fasting and the Christian life, for Christ taught that “THE KINGDOM OF GOD IS WITH US”  (Luke 17:21).    Fasting is connecting us to our own inner lives, helping us to find our way to that Kingdom which is found within us – not out in the distant cosmic heavens but within our own hearts.   St. Anthony the Great said:

 Fear not goodness as something impossible nor the pursuit of it as something alien, set way off; it hangs only on our own choice. For the sake of Greek learning, men go overseas, but the City of God has its foundations in every place of human habitation. The kingdom of God is within. Goodness is within us and it needs only the human heart.  

Fishers of Men: Called to Feed the World with the Word

Second Sunday after Pentecost  2009

 As he walked by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon who is called Peter and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea; for they were fishermen.  And he said to them, “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.”  Immediately they left their nets and followed him. And going on from there he saw two other brothers, James the son of Zebedee and John his brother, in the boat with Zebedee their father, mending their nets, and he called them.  Immediately they left the boat and their father, and followed him.  And he went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and preaching the gospel of the kingdom.  (Matthew 4:18-23)

Note in the Gospel Lesson that before becoming evangelists, the disciples are first called to follow Jesus. “Come with me,” Christ beckons to those He is newly calling to be disciples.  First we must follow Him and only if we follow Him, travel with Him, learn from Him – in effect become His disciples – can we be made into “fishers of men”  – apostles and evangelists.   In Matthew’s Gospel Jesus starts forming His inner group of disciples from a core group of fishermen – men who work together to cast nets into the sea  to take a haul of  fish (not use rod and reel and hook to catch individual fish).   Important to remember is that the real goal of fishermen is not simply to catch fish; more importantly they feed the world.   They turn the catch into something valuable for all humanity.   They seek out the God given abundance of creation and use it to nourish their fellow humans.   In this sense the fishermen are valuable to the world, and give something valuable to people.  They are not simply those who take from the earth or profit from its riches.   They work hard to harvest the abundant resources which God has bestowed upon the earth in order to provide for the needs of others.    Fishermen thus remind us of the Genesis 3:17-19 injuction to humanity that only by the sweat of the brow will the earth yield its abundance.  

Robert Louis Wilken in his book The Spirit of Early Christian Thought  speaks to the issue of our first becoming disciples, following Jesus and learning from the Master when he describes St. Augustine’s thought

“…that the knowledge acquired by faith is not primarily a matter of gaining information. The acquiring of religious knowledge is akin to learning a skill. It involves practices, attitudes, and dispositions and has to do with ordering one’s loves. This kind of knowledge, the knowledge one lives by, is gained gradually over time. Just as one does not learn to play the piano in a day, so one does not learn to love God in an exuberant moment of delight. If joy does not find words, if it does not exercise the affections and stir the will, if it is not confirmed by actions, it will be as fleeting as the last light out of the black west. The knowledge of God sinks into the mind and heart slowly and hence requires apprentices. That is why, says Augustine, we must become ’servants of wise men.’”

It really is the purpose of the parish, the local Christian community, to be the very locale where we learn to be Christ’s disciples.  Any vision of the parish or strategic plan for the parish has to take into account:  “what does the parish have to do or be in order to disciple its members, to apprentice them, so that they can be true followers of Christ and the future apostles and evangelists of the Church?”   The answer to this question helps us to understand what it is that only the local parish can give to each of us Christians personally and collectively – that which we cannot get anywhere else in the world.    We can have friends and community from other places, we can be entertained and socialized by other organizations, but it is only within the local Christian community that we can be discipled, learn from the example of other disciples and leaders, practice our apprenticeship under the loving guidance of fellow believers.   In Christ telling us to be fishers of men, He was not merely directing us “to draw the world into His net”, He was calling us to nurture and feed the world with the Bread which comes from heaven (John 6:28-41).

Palm Sunday (2002)

Sermon Notes for Palm Sunday  2002

Sunday gives us opportunity to reflect on the paradoxical spiritual world in which we live. On the one hand, in the Church, Great Lent is over, and we come to a Festal Weekend – the celebration of the raising of Lazarus and the entry of our Lord Jesus into Jerusalem. It is that rare moment in which Jesus is given some sort of welcome by the children of God. But this brief respite in Lent is marred by the fact that now we will plunge into Holy Week where we see how our world deals with the Love of God. We see this week that the same crowd which today welcomes Jesus as Messiah, will by Friday demand his death. We see the disciples who today bask in the glory of their Lord, will abandon Him when they realize He is going to have to suffer.

We see this week, Jesus’ hand picked disciples will betray, deny and flee from their Lord.

St. Gregory Nazianzus once mused about why it was that the road to heaven was so much harder to traverse than the road to hell. He concluded with a bit of wit that it is for the same reason that going up a hill is harder than going down a hill.

The Feast of the Entrance of our Lord into Jerusalem offers us a chance to think about what is it we want from Christ?   Many people aren’t really that interested in a God who they must serve. Rather, many are looking for a Genie who will serve them.

Christ offered to people the love of God – a love which reveals itself in humility, in poverty, in suffering, in shame, in crucifixion, in death.

Unfortunately such love is not very attractive to those of us interested only in prosperity and success.

Jesus really did speak about the Kingdom of Heaven, a Kingdom not of this world. But throughout history the Israelites wanted someone to establish the Kingdom of Israel on earth. That too has been the sad interest of Byzantine Orthodoxy.

The Jews lost interest in One who would conquer death, but would not conquer their enemies of the Roman army. The Byzantines wanted a Pantocrator who would destroy the enemies of the Roman Empire. And too often the Church leadership itself became obsessed with power in this world.

It strikes me that exactly such attitudes are the ones which lead people to deny Christ and demand his crucifixion.

As Christians, we should want to serve Christ. As Christians we should want to serve one another. We should want to imitate Christ and wash the feet of others, to be willing to die for others, to live for and love one another.

Palm Sunday is a judgment day for us. Are we only willing to follow Christ if He is willing to smash and destroy all of our enemies? Or are we willing to follow Him in his humble love and embrace the way of the cross?

From the Epistle Reading for Palm Sunday:

(Phil 4:4-9 NRSV) Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. {5} Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near. {6} Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. {7} And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. {8} Finally, beloved,

whatever is true,
whatever is honorable,
whatever is just,
whatever is pure,
whatever is pleasing,
whatever is commendable,
if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise,
think about these things.

Called to Discipleship, Then to the Risen Christ

5^th Sunday of Great Lent     Gospel:  Mark 10:32-45

We know that Great Lent was at one time used as a period of catechism to prepare the new converts to Christianity for baptism.  The Gospel readings through Lent were part of this catechetical process.  We come to the 5^th Sunday of Great Lent and in the Gospel Lesson, Christ is clearly talking about his own coming crucifixion, his own suffering.  He not only foretells but He warns the disciples about the suffering He soon will have to endure. 

So we might ask, at this point in Lent, as the catehcumens were coming to the end of their preparation, why the heavy emphasis on the crucifixion, why is the crucified Christ the center of attention now? 

First of course is that to be baptized into Christ is to be baptized into His death, to be buried with Christ (Romans 6:2-4).   So we are reminded in the catechism of Lent that Christ knew of his impending crucifixion and voluntarily moved toward it.

We also should remember that the original disciples didn’t encounter the risen Christ first as we modern Christians might.   Christ was not risen when the disciples first were called by Him.  The first disciples did not have the resurrection to attract them to Christ or to keep them as disciples.  They first encountered Jesus, what he did, His teachings and His miracles.  Only later did they encounter the crucified Christ, then finally the risen Christ.   The resurrection confirmed their faith and gave totally new meaning to their relationship with and understanding of the Messiah.

In the Lenten catechism we have a similar presentation of Christ given to us.  It’s not the risen Christ we originally encounter in Lent.  We are called to be disciples before we experience the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ – before our own baptisms.  But once we accept Jesus as Christ, we are then initiated into His life, death and resurrection.

We experience the resurrection of Christ in baptism as new creation – being born again. 

Lent becomes for us an experience of being discipled. We experience Christ as the disciples first experienced him.  As the disciples came to the end of their 3 years as disciples, of being discipled by Christ, as their faith in Him was growing, then they were confronted by the full horror of the crucifixion and the threat of crucifixion to themselves.  

We come to realize in the process of becoming Christians that we must confront and come face to face with the crucifixion and its meaning and its threat to us as disciples.

We are being prepared to die with Christ in order to be raised with Him.  Christ said to His followers to take up their own crosses.  In Christ we learn what taking up the cross means for us by knowing what it meant for Christ.   For Christ it meant death, for us it means to die with Christ.  For Christ it meant the way to defeat death, and for us it is the means to be raised with Christ from the dead.

We never pretend in Great Lent or as we are being catechized or as we are being disciple that we don’t know of the resurrection for we know in the Gospel how Lent and how Christ’s life ends.  It ends with the crucifixion which becomes the beginning of new life and a new creation for all.

The Greatest Serves

5th Sunday of Great Lent 2005
Gospel: Mark 10:32-45

Fr. Elchininov once asked rhetorically, “If it were to happen that Satan could somehow be victorious over Christ, would I abandon Christ and serve Satan?”
He answers “no” because He says serving Christ is an act of love: “I don’t follow Christ for what I am going to get from him, I follow Him because I love him and in love choose to serve Him, personal or gain or self-interest has nothing to do with it.”

Today’s Gospel lesson touches upon the issue of self-interest.

The Disciples James and John are intent on asking Jesus a question of self-interest. They all are walking on the road to Jerusalem, and all seem to be aware that something perhaps not good is about to unfold. His disciples are amazed that Jesus is headed to Jerusalem, and some are afraid. And they have reason to be afraid, Jesus’ relationship with the other Jewish rabbis has not been good, but has rather been confrontational. And certainly the disciples recognized a growing hostility among some of the leaders toward Jesus. And Jesus himself is talking more and more about his own death and predicting it will be a horrendous execution.

In the midst of this James and John want Jesus to grant them their request that they be allowed to sit next to Him when He is in His glory. The scene is a bit surreal, Jesus is saying, “In Jerusalem they are going to kill me” and the disciples are waving their hand and saying, “OK, OK, enough about you what about us!”

These disciples are ignoring the lesson that to be with Jesus in His glory is to be with Him on the cross, at His crucifixion. The Greek word for “sin” – hamartia – means “to miss the mark.” The disciples miss it by a long shot this time. It is the perfect example of how reductionist it is to consider sin as simply “breaking the law.” Sin in its depth is failing to be human, failing love God, failing to do God’s will.

And then we get to the heart of this week’s Gospel lesson, a theme I spoke to you about at the beginning of Great Lent and now it appears before us on the last Sunday of Great Lent: we are called to serve others, just as Jesus served us by dying on the cross to save us form our sins and from death. Christian life, Christian spirituality, Christian prayer and Christian fasting are all about loving service of others. They are all about serving others not about serving ourselves. Self service has become a popular way for us to get what we want out of a store without having to wait for others to help us. Christianity is not a self service store. It is about serving others.

Jesus is the Lord of Glory, the Son of God, and he comes to the world not to demonstrate how a Lord can rule over others, not to show us how to be masters and despots and demand others to serve us. Rather Jesus reveals godly lordship as being a life of service to others. Jesus doesn’t treat servants as lower than himself, but rather uplifts the image of servitude. Jesus says, “you are right in calling me Lord and Master” but instead of taking your ideas about Lord and Master from dictators and despots and slave owners, learn the value of being a servant from me. The lifestyle Jesus models for us is that we become servants, and it is Jesus Christ who gives total value to service to others. We become Lords when we become servants, service to others is being a Lord as Jesus is Lord.

James and John came to Jesus with their own self-interest in mind, and Jesus tells them self-interest is how tyrants behave. If you want to be with me, then learn to be servants, because I am a servant, not a tyrant.

And servants need most of all to be attuned to the needs of others. What do the people around me need in order to be saved? What must I do to help those around me attain the Kingdom of God? What must I do to reveal the love of God to my neighbor? How can I help make Christ present to those whom I am with?

Jesus said, “Whoever among us wants to become great, must be a servant.”

So it is service that each of us must seek, not greatness.   To seek greatness is to miss the mark of being followers of Jesus.

The Fearful Face of Apostolic Failure

Sermon notes Mark 9:17-31    4th Sunday of Lent 2009

And one of the crowd answered him, “Teacher, I brought my son to you, for he has a dumb spirit; and wherever it seizes him, it dashes him down; and he foams and grinds his teeth and becomes rigid; and I asked your disciples to cast it out, and they were not able.” And he answered them, “O faithless generation, how long am I to be with you? How long am I to bear with you? Bring him to me.” And they brought the boy to him; and when the spirit saw him, immediately it convulsed the boy, and he fell on the ground and rolled about, foaming at the mouth. And Jesus asked his father, “How long has he had this?” And he said, “From childhood. And it has often cast him into the fire and into the   water, to destroy him; but if you can do anything, have pity on us and help us.” And Jesus said to him, “If you can! All things are possible to him who believes.” Immediately the father of the child cried out and said, “I believe; help my unbelief!” And when Jesus saw that a crowd came running together, he rebuked the unclean spirit, saying to it, “You dumb and deaf spirit, I command you, come out of him, and never enter him again.” And after crying out and convulsing him terribly, it came out, and the boy was like a corpse; so that most of them said, “He is dead.” But Jesus took him by the hand and lifted him up, and he arose. And when he had entered the house, his disciples asked him privately, “Why could we not cast it out?” And he said to them, “This kind cannot be driven out by anything but prayer and fasting.” They went on from there and passed through Galilee. And he would not have any one know it; for he was teaching his disciples, saying to them, “The Son of man will be delivered into the hands of men, and they will kill him; and when he is killed, after three days he will rise.”

This Gospel Lesson of the 4^th Sunday of Great Lent raises the very important yet very troubling issue of what happens when we as Christians fail when trying to do what Christ taught or commanded?  

The disciples in the Gospel lesson could not heal the epileptic boy. It is the boy’s father who brings his son to Christ, not the disciples.   They are not eager to confess their failure to Christ or before the crowd.

Jesus’ reaction to his disciples (he is not speaking to the crowd) is very strongly disapproving:  “O faithless generation, how long am I to be with you? How long am I to bear with you? Bring him to me.”

Lent is a sojourn.  Last Sunday we visited the place of the Cross of Christ which was to strengthen us on our way.  This Sunday we have to deal with the eventuality that we will confront situations where our best efforts at being disciples and Christians will not be good enough and we will fail.  This is a difficult message especially in an American culture which measures everything by success – the prosperity Gospel.  It is possible that at times we Christians will try but will fail to do things that Christ commanded us to do.  How will we react?  How should we react?

In the Gospel lesson the father of the boy confesses his unbelief – and Christ heals his son.  The man confesses his failure, he doesn’t try to hide it, or to blame the disciples for his lack of faith.  He makes his confession, and despite admitting to his failure, Christ heals the boy.

The disciples are puzzled by all of this.  “Why could we not cast it out?”  They ask this question privately.  Are they afraid what Christ might say to them?  Are they embarrassed and don’t want the crowd to hear about their failures?  

It seems as if they are saying, “OK, we understand this man lacked faith, but what about all of us?  Why couldn’t we heal the boy for we are following you!?!

It will happen to each of us at some point that we will try but will fail to do Christ’s will.  Will our concern be what the crowd thinks about us, or will we be concerned about the person to whom we failed to successfully minister? 

We can look at ourselves during Lent:   Christ promises to heal our sins.  All we have to do is confess them: But how reluctant we are to confess our sins.  This is simply opening our lives to Christ and being honest about who we are and what we have done.   And yet so many are reluctant to confess and avoid confession and avoid acknowledging their sins. We fail on such a task and then wonder why we can’t do even greater works than these.    Why can’t we do the greater works Christ told us to do?  It will be very hard if we don’t do the first thing He told us to do – repent!

It is in the midst of their failure, that Christ told the Twelve about his impending crucifixion. Despite their failures, despite our failures, God’s plan for salvation continues on.  Christ goes to the cross and defeats death and accomplishes the salvation of the world.  Sometimes God is unfolding bigger things in the plan of salvation while we are too focused on our small defeats and failures.

So what happens when we fail to accomplish what Christ wills us to do?  Salvation, God’s plan and will, go on.   We like the disbelieving father, must confess our sins, and embrace the discipline of being followers of Christ as we continue our own sojourn toward the Kingdom of God.

Following Christ, What Comes Next?

Sermon Notes Sunday of the Cross    Great Lent 2005     Mark 8:34-9:1

Jesus said, “If any one wants to follow (come after, get behind) me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow (accompany, go my way) me.” (Mark 8:34)

(In the English translation the word “follow” occurs twice, while in the Greek original 2 different words are used. The 1st Greek word is opiso mou while the 2nd is akoloutheito). Jesus seems not so interested in having disciples simply follow behind Him, rather He wants disciples who will accompany Him, even on the cross which is where He both defeats death and is glorified.

Why would anyone want to become a disciple of Chris or to follow Christ?
Mark 8:29 gives us the clue – because we have come to believe, know and confess that Jesus is the Christ/Messiah. We recognize the way to God is through Him, the way to God’s Kingdom is through Him.

The question we need to ask is:  if we choose to follow Him, what then do we need to do?  How do we live? What actually demonstrates that we are His disciples, followers, those who accompany Him?
We deny ourselves and take up our crosses to follow Him.

We come to Church to find our Cross, not to have it taken away. The Great Lenten discipline helps us to find our cross.

How does this help me to be human?

How does it help me to go back into the world and face life?

Great Lent teaches us to forgive, to repent, to pray, to hope, to be charitable, to be expectant – oriented to the future, to be focused on and moving toward the Kingdom of God.

Think about the ways in which Great Lent calls you to

Humility
Love
Being a child of God
Obedience
Obedience
Self-denial
Compassion
Destroy Evil
The Kingdom of God
Defeat Death
The Judgment of God
Being a disciple of Christ
Sexual purity
Patience
Considering the needs of others
Being a servant
Being a brother/sister

Think about how Great Lent calls you to overcome

Temptation
Envy
Poverty
Judging others
Fears
Sin
Despair
Death
Greed
Lust
Self centeredness
Desire to control others
Hopelessness
Pride
Sloth
Gossip