Listen up

a Sermon for the Last Sunday after Epiphany, B
Text: Mark 9:2-9


We’re visual people, aren’t we? We watch TV and movies more than we listen to radio shows. They tell of the famous Lincoln and Douglas debates going on for seven hours—now, it can be like pulling teeth to get people to watch for an hour in their own living room!

They say that my generation is more visually oriented than its predecessor, growing up on the Atari 2600 and Nintendo Entertainment System, and the Millenials are even more so.
Some suggest that if we want to communicate with the emerging generations, we need to think visually.

This morning’s gospel seems tailor-maid for a visual representation—it seems to operate solely on visuals. In the first verse, Jesus picks three disciples and hikes up a mountain to be by themselves. And, while nobody else is watching, Jesus is suddenly transformed in front of their eyes. It is easy to imagine the film adaptation, isn’t it? The quiet leader, names three people to go on this secluded hike with him. “Peter,” he says. “James, John, you’re with me.” Out into the wilderness, they hike. And as their base camp is out of sight, the leader holds up, stopping in the middle of a clearing. The three stop, wondering why they aren’t moving. Suddenly, a bright light shines around their leader, and his clothes change from dust-covered gray to a brilliant white. And the three can tell, they’re not sure how, but they can, that Jesus is different—he’s changed.

The visual examples continue, as Elijah and Moses appear, and they have a conversation with Jesus. Amazed, Peter suggests that they pitch three tents for these three special people.

Then a cloud comes over them and a voice speaks a familiar phrase: “This is my Beloved Son; listen to him!” And without warning—it’s gone. The cloud, the light, Elijah and Moses, everything. And standing there is Jesus.

Jesus then leads them down the mountain, telling them not to speak of this.

In the midst of all of these visuals, it can be pretty easy to get distracted by any of them. Each piece of the story seems to be an allusion to something else.

1. Jesus’s walk up the mountain is reminiscent of Moses’s walk up Mt. Sinai.
2. Elijah and Moses may be a reference to the Prophets and to the Law.
3. The tents that Peter suggests are a reference to Leviticus and protection of holy and sacramental things.
4. The voice in the cloud speaks some of the same words as at Jesus’s baptism.

Other elements have potential symbolic meanings:

1. Selecting 3 disciples parallels the three figures (Jesus, Elijah, Moses).
2. The cloud symbolizes the presence of God.
3. Jesus asking the three to say nothing about it is a recurring motif in Mark.

And some elements add confusion to a concise story:

1. There are 7 characters in it—that’s a lot.
2. Major story elements happen simultaneously
a. Jesus is transfigured
b. Elijah and Moses appear
c. The cloud speaks of Jesus
3. The events end suddenly.

It’s pretty easy for us to get distracted by everything that is going on—all the time. We have to figure out what is going on in scripture, what is going on with our budgets and all of our church stuff, what is going on with our economy, our homes, and our families. There is so much going on that it can be really difficult to cut through it all—to see what’s there.

But in the midst of all of those visual cues—all of this action in this passage—all of the things that could distract us from understanding it, we are given one strange clue.

In Mark’s depiction of Jesus’s baptism, the Spirit, descending like a dove says to Jesus: “You are my Beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.” In this passage, the voice in the cloud says to the disciples “This is my Beloved Son; listen to him.” Listen. Don’t just watch or observe. Listen.

The disciples are just as likely to hear that word and catalog it as patently obvious as we are: “of course we’ll listen to Jesus!” “Makes sense; he says lots of good stuff,” we think. But for a relationship that is born out of observation, imitation, and practice, listening requires different skills. It requires the ability to reflect, and openness to not only understand what is said, but the emotional and personal background that created the words. Listening requires us to shut off that internal editor that is looking for the next appropriate thing to say, and instead, being present to hear what is said.

This statement takes even more importance when placed in its context. In the immediately preceding verses, Jesus tells his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem, undergo suffering and persecution, and then rise again in three days. This is the first of three such pronouncements. And each time, the disciples misunderstand him. The second time, later in chapter nine, it even says: “But they did not understand what he was saying and were afraid to ask him” (9:32).

“This is my Beloved Son; listen to him,” the voice says.

This passage is truly the crux—the transition in Jesus’s ministry when his ministry turns toward Jerusalem. His transfiguration is a physical manifestation of a changing call. But God gives us our instructions: “listen to him” God says.

Some of us act like Peter—willing to defend Jesus, despite his instructions. Some of us act like James and John—asking Jesus to elevate them as most important. And some of us act like all of the disciples—arguing over who is the greatest. We could all work on our listening skills.

But here we are, on the precipice of Lent, on World Missions Sunday, being told to listen to Jesus; perhaps more importantly, listening for Jesus. As we fast, take up new endeavors and teachings, or however each of us chooses to mark the 40 days, we certainly have the opportunity to listen. To shut out the distractions, close our eyes, and open our ears. To listen for what the Spirit has to tell us. To reflect on the needs of those around us and those we cannot see. To reflect on the great hunger of those we have met and those we will never meet. To reflect on the preventable and curable diseases that afflict those nearby and those 6,000 miles away. To hear what some of us are already doing and what each of us can do.

Listen up.

Baptism and the Birth of Story

a Sermon for Epiphany 6B
Text: Mark 1:40-45


I want to talk for a minute about water. Water is many things. We know that our bodies are composed mostly of water. We know that water is the one thing we can’t live without: without shelter, we can perhaps survive months, without food, we can potentially survive a couple of weeks, whereas for water, its days. It is our most essential element.

We are a little landlocked here in the middle of our state, but Michigan survives on water. Its abundance makes it difficult for us to see the value Israelites would have placed on it. Two of the most potent stories for Christians involve a scarcity of water. The first is the Israelites’ departure from Egypt and their ensuing decades in the desert. The second, is our gospel for the first Sunday in Lent in which Jesus goes into the desert to quarantine himself. Of course, we know this as the temptation story based on what Jesus found in the desert, but Jesus’s time in the wilderness was about deprivation, cleansing; he deprived himself of this most necessary resource. Being deprived of water would no doubt lead to a great appreciation of the substance.

It is also an essential element of our spiritual faith and religious tradition, most notably in baptism. We also know of it from its place in Jewish cleansing rituals and in Jesus’s washing of his disciples’ feet. This is our relationship to water.

In our gospel this morning, Jesus cures a man of his leprosy. At the 8:00 service, I spent time talking about the first part—about the relationship between Jesus and this man. Copies of that sermon are in the narthex. Here, I want to take time on the second part. The part in which Jesus gives the man instruction and the man seems to ignore it.

We don’t know much about this guy, right? Let’s look at what we do know.

1. The text refers to him as a “leper”. We know that we shouldn’t call a person a leper any more than we would call someone a cancer or an AIDSer. He is a man, not a disease.
2. We know that he has a skin condition. The disease we know in modern times as leprosy was unknown to them—leprosy in Scripture instead speaks of any skin condition—a rash, chickenpox, for instince—so it is entirely likely that this man’s condition may not have been permanent.
3. He is ritually impure based on his condition. His status as a man with a skin condition put him as an outsider for the time in which he has the condition.
4. As long as this man has a skin condition and does not seek ritual cleansing, he will be considered ritually impure. This means that any contact with him would cause another person to become ritually impure.
5. A cleansing ritual would have included the man’s bathing in water.

That is what we know of him. So this man comes up to Jesus, asks to be cured, and Jesus makes it happen. He then said to the man “See that you say nothing to anyone; but go, show yourself to the priest, and offer for your cleansing what Moses commanded, as a testimony to them.’ Here, Jesus is telling him that the first part is done: the part in which his cause of impurity is removed, but his status as impure remains. As a good Jew, he must go to a spiritual leader who would return him to a right relationship with God. But he doesn’t. He runs around telling people about Jesus.

This passage raises some real questions for us. What of the man’s ritual impurity? What of the man’s defiance of Jesus? And what of Jesus’s own ritual impurity? By curing the man of his condition, he has made himself ritually impure and he didn’t seek the ritual cleansing he commanded the man to receive. At that moment does Jesus believe he possesses the so-called ‘leprosy’ and is now in a permanent state of impurity? I don’t know.

I do know that many of us think that we are impure or that we do something, “wrong” that must be atoned. We come to church or seek out a clergyperson for a ritual cleansing. Some of us no doubt think that we have done something or embody something so “wrong” that we could never atone for that level of sin. We might see ourselves as permanently impure—that no amount of ritual cleansing could wash away that sin. For some, the belief is that we are sinful from birth—that our very flesh is sinful. Some extend this notion to baptism—as the great, permanent ritual cleansing.

But I don’t think this is Jesus’s intention, nor do I think Mark is suggesting anything like this. In last week’s gospel, just two verses before the start of this week’s, in verse 38, Jesus tells his disciples, ‘Let us go on to the neighboring towns, so that I may proclaim the message there also; for that is what I came out to do.’ Jesus’s intentions are proclamation. So what did this man do immediately after he is cured by Jesus? He runs into town and starts blabbing. But he isn’t shouting like some crazy person, right? It said that “he went out and began to proclaim it freely, and to spread the word”. The same word is there: proclaim. And spreading the word is different from gossiping or ranting or whatever. It is more like a prayer chain or some other targeted attempt to get information to many people quickly. This man’s action was the fulfillment of what Jesus just said was what he “came out to do.”

[What is perhaps most intriguing about this gospel lesson for us is that we don’t really know how Jesus responded to this experience, just how we would respond. We would be annoyed because we couldn’t go anywhere without being mobbed; that someone else is doing the job that we were called to do; that people seem to be more interested in the miracles than they are in His proclamations. I’m sure that these would annoy us. I can’t help but think that Jesus was pleased.]

One of the things I take from this is that we are all storytellers. That we have received this wonderful good news that we are entrusted to pass on—not to possess or keep to ourselves—but to spread and share as God’s. That we are capable of such an act as storytelling. Telling our story, Jesus’s story, God’s story.

This is what we will be doing in a few minutes as we gather around this pool of water, inviting our newest member into the family. My wife and I will make vows, witnesses will make vows, and the entire community will make vows to raise this new member as a full and important member of the family. We are called to pray for her and support her. We are called to live, ourselves, as Christians. And we are called to “proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ”. In other words, we are vowing to be storytellers, because we already are storytellers.

In this baptism, within this sacred water, we are all committing to not only look after the spiritual health of this beautiful girl, but to pass on our stories to her; to continue the practices of the church with her. Through our vows and with this water, we are committing our love to her.