Life in the Wilderness: A reflection on Mark 1:9-15

                Have you ever been out in the wilderness? You may have had a topographical map and a compass. But there were no trails? No signposts? My only experience like this was when I was in Boy Scouts. We were learning how to use a compass. We didn’t have a map so much as a set of directions that said, “Go NNE 50 paces. Go SW 100 paces.” If our paces were correct as well as our compass skills we would make it back to camp. If not, well, you were in the woods blaming each other for the predicament you found yourselves in.

                Other than that, perhaps the closest I’ve experienced of wilderness is being lost out in the country and not having a map to direct me. Yes, there once was a time when a phone was just for calling people. You didn’t carry one with you and it did not have things like maps that you could pull up or some computer voice that would tell you where to go.

                At first, it’s a little frustrating. Where is that turn? Did I miss it? And then you start to get a bit worried, especially if you look at your gas gage and you wished you had a little bit more in there. But eventually you surrender to the reality that you are lost. You are just going to have to keep going until you hit some road you know or find a town with a gas station. And when you finally find that familiar road you breathe a big sigh of relief. You know your wandering in the wilderness is over. Home is right around the bend.

                There is another kind of wilderness. In a way our lives are like wandering in a wilderness. We may have a rough map in our heads, a course through life that we have in mind: graduate from college, start a career, get married, buy a house, maybe have kids, earn enough for retirement, purchase a summer home in the mountains. Perhaps we have a compass, a moral guide that helps us make ethical decisions. But other than that, we set out on our life journey and it is a unique one. Nobody has ever lived your life before. Your journey through life truly is your own. You make your own path through the wilderness. Or is it a jungle?

                Jesus got sent out on his journey in the wilderness. In the Scriptures we read that after Jesus was baptized the Holy Spirit propelled him into the wilderness. That’s right, like a cannon ball. The word there in Greek is the same one we get the word “ballistic” from. There is a sense of urgency. That moment of affirmation from his Heavenly Father, “You are my son, the beloved, with whom I am well pleased,” is ended abruptly. Just like that, Jesus is shot into the wilderness to wander around for a long time.

                In that wilderness, we read that Jesus was with the wild beasts. What were those beasts? Hyenas? Lions? Whatever they were, wilderness plus wild beasts equals threat. That first night, as Jesus was trying to go to sleep, he hears the rustling of the grass, the passing of a shadow. What was that? Wild beasts in the wilderness at night can be a little frightening.

                If life is like being in a wilderness, what are the wild beasts that are with us? Perhaps it is the threat of illness. Maybe it is that secret sin, or your temper that is under the surface just waiting to pounce. Maybe it’s that negative talk or self-doubt that locks you up with indecisiveness, fear of failure, of making a fool of yourself, of not measuring up. Maybe it’s the wild beast of decay and death, that beast that stalks all of us. There are all kinds of wild beasts in the shadows of our lives that journey with us through the wilderness.

                But Jesus didn’t have only wild beasts for company. He also had angels waiting on him. If angels are anything, they are messengers. An angel is a messenger of God. I know often when we talk about angels, or call someone an angel, it is because of something they did. The nurse that was so good and kind the days following your surgery was an angel. I have a friend who had a bad car wreck but somehow escaped relatively unharmed and she swears she saw an angel that pushed the car that t-boned her further back so that it didn’t impact the front of the car. But in the Scriptures angels are messengers. So Jesus had messengers with him waiting on him. I wonder what messages they delivered? Perhaps they were messages of encouragement or comfort. When Jesus heard the rustling in the grass and became concerned about what might be creeping up on him, an angel was there to assure him that he was safe, that he would make it through this wilderness experience.

                Who are the angels in your life? Who are those messengers that have come along to share with you a word that was comforting, or that gave you courage in the face of a frightful situation? Perhaps it was a pastor or a friend. Maybe it was that one thing your grandmother used to always say. Maybe it’s an inspirational quote you have framed somewhere. I’ve got one near my desk at home. It is a white framed card with a large black circle. On the circle, written in white is “I am a child of God.” A colleague gave that to me when I left Cincinnati several years ago. Who are those messengers that have come along in your wilderness journey? What messages have they left for you?

                After John was arrested, Jesus went to Galilee to proclaim his message. The time had come. The big moment had arrived. A new day had dawned. The reign of God is at hand. Now is the time to repent, to change your way of thinking about things, and to trust in this good news that God’s reign has come. That’s the message that Jesus came to deliver. All the rulers of this world, political, economic, social, religious, and otherwise, are passing away. But God’s rule is steadfast and sure. So put your ultimate trust in God, for God is with us with the power to save. But save us from what? Sin? Death?

                There’s nothing like walking through a grave yard to remind you of what really matters in life. You will see stones marking the graves of all kinds of people. Maybe it is of an infant who died of small pox. Or it is a man who spent his working life toiling in a coal mine. A few spaces over you see the grave of the man who owned that mine. You see the grave of a scientist, a banker, a president of the United States, a brigadier general. You see the grave of a teacher, a preacher, a pastry chef. In their lives they all made their contribution. Some made greater contributions than others. Some had more money, power and influence. But in the cemetery, the voices are silent, wealth and prestige are irrelevant. All that is left is the marker with the person’s name, date of birth and of death, and maybe an epitaph. “Gone but not forgotten.” “In Loving Memory.” “Loving father and husband.” “Her heart was large enough for all her family.” But even the passing of time slowly wears away the engravings on those stones. Nothing of this world is permanent. Everything passes away, changed back into its elements and shaped into something else. All that we chase after is not lasting. As the preacher of Ecclesiastes put it, “Vanity, all is vanity.” But life in God is not vanity. The steadfast love of God endures forever. Far from being meaningless, life in God does have meaning. Our lives do matter. Our journey through the wilderness of life is not only known by God, but God is invested in how our journey turns out. Our journey in the wilderness with God becomes a guided adventure with a glorious destination. Life under the reign of God makes all the difference.

                Jesus’ time in the wilderness may have come to an end. But we are still in the wilderness. We are still in uncharted territory, making our own way through this wilderness, living lives no one else has lived. We are still making our own path. The good news is that the reign of God is in the wilderness. Here, in the wilderness, where we confront our wild beasts and receive help from the messages angels give us, God is with us. God can be trusted all along the journey through the wilderness of life. So we continue our journey, making our way with confidence that this journey has a destination. Eventually we will make it home, where Jesus and the others who have finished their journey through the wilderness will be waiting.

 

Look and Listen: A Reflection on Mark 9:2-9

          The experience, I don’t know what else to call it, that we read about today in the gospel of Mark is called the transfiguration. It is an experience that is difficult to comprehend. Jesus and the three men in his inner circle, go up a high mountain, of which we don’t know the name. He is transfigured before them, which means his appearance morphed. That’s the Greek there, metamorphosis. Is this what Jesus actually looked like, that a sort of veil was removed for a second? Or maybe it was like when Moses came down from the mountain after getting the Ten Commandments, his face was glowing which was a distraction to the people, so he started wearing a veil until the glow went away. Does Jesus naturally glow and the disciples got to see what he really looks like? Was it a glimpse of what our resurrected bodies look like? And then Moses and Elijah, representing the Law and the Prophets, are having a conversation with Jesus. How did they know it was Moses and Elijah? Were they wearing name tags? Did Jesus address them by their names? Aren’t they dead? Well, maybe not Elijah because he was carried up to heaven in a fiery chariot so he never actually died. Then there’s a cloud, they were terrified, they hear a voice. Then it’s all over. Jesus looks like he did before it all started, and they go back down the mountain with Jesus telling them not to say anything about what they just experienced. I doubt if anyone would believe them, but can you imagine what Peter, James, and John were like for a few days after that? They would be sitting around the dinner table that evening looking at each other with that look of, “What just happened? Who is this Jesus?” It is just a crazy experience on the top of this mountain.

            It’s also interesting where this experience is placed in Mark’s telling of the gospel. The transfiguration experience is at the half way point. It’s also the second of three times when we hear Jesus identified as the Son of God. The first time is at the baptism, when God says to Jesus, “You are my Son.” Then there is this experience, when God says to the disciples, “This is my Son.” And the last time is when Jesus dies, and a Roman centurion says to no one in particular, “Surely this is a son of a god.” So there is a lot to take in and ponder about this amazing experience on the mountain top.
            One way to get a handle on what is happening is to see what happened six days earlier. Jesus and the disciples were together. They were on their way to the Roman town of Caesarea Philippi. And Jesus asked them who people said they thought he was. Some were saying he was John the Baptist, others Elijah, or one of the prophets. And then Jesus asked who the disciples think he is. Peter said, “You are the Messiah.” Then Jesus started talking about how the son of Man will undergo great suffering, be rejected by the elders, chief priests, and scribes, be killed, and then come back to life three days later. The disciples, as was often the case, were befuddled about what Jesus was saying. But Peter had something to say. So the one he just called their Messiah, he starts to rebuke. Not just a gentle, “Jesus, you sure about that?” but a real rebuke. Jesus, who is not meek or mild, yelled right back at Peter, calling him Satan. I bet it was getting pretty warm right about then. After that exchange, Jesus calls a crowd together, and then he tells everyone, “If you want to be one of my followers, you are going to have to deny yourself, take up your cross and follow me. It’s going to cost you, maybe even your life.” And then Jesus said, “Truly, I tell you, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see that the kingdom of God has come with power.”
            And so, six days later, some who were standing there got to see for themselves the kingdom of God with power. They got a glimpse of what is really going on. The Jesus they would later see getting beaten up and nailed to a cross, the one whose last words are actually a loud cry, whose body is then taken to a tomb, is actually full of power. It may not seem like it when he gets crucified, but there’s more to Jesus than what meets the eye. There’s more to his being the messiah than what meets the eye. The kingdom of God was with them, but it was hidden.
            But then there’s something else. As the transfiguration experience unfolds, Peter does what he does best, open his mouth and say the first thing that he can think of. He suggests building three shrines would be a good idea. Does he mean like the shrines others build dedicated to all the different gods and goddesses? I mean, that’s what everyone else does when they experience the divine somewhere. So, why not do that? He didn’t know what else to say, so he fell back to conventional wisdom. Everyone knows if you experience the divine, you build a shrine there so people can go back there and burn some incense, offer a sacrifice, say some prayers, whatever. Yeah, Peter didn’t really think that comment through.
            Then they are overcome with a heavy cloud. I wonder if it was like the white out I witnessed when working on this sermon yesterday. And then they hear this voice from heaven saying, “This is my Son, listen to Him!” Now that’s interesting. In spite of all the mind-blowing, even terrifying sights of this experience, they are not told to look at Jesus, or to see Jesus for who he really is, to make a big deal out of the light show they just experienced. No, they are to listen. That’s probably aimed more at Peter than anyone else. Stop talking, start listening. And Jesus follows it up as they come back down the mountain, telling them not to tell anybody what they just saw until after the son of Man rises from the dead. Don’t say anything, just listen to me.
            So this is very interesting. This experience that later was told after Jesus rose from the dead, may have been helpful in giving the apostles some credibility in what they were saying. The author of 2 Peter says as much, where we read in 1:16-18, “For we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we had been eyewitnesses of his majesty. For he received honor and glory from God the Father when that voice was conveyed to him by the Majestic Glory, saying, ‘This is my Son, my Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.’ We ourselves heard this voice come from heaven, while we were with him on the holy mountain.” So, this experience gave Peter, James, and John authority to talk about Jesus because they got to see and hear things no one else got to hear and see. For those who thought those kinds of stories prove you are an authority, that works.
            But does this story mean anything for us? I don’t think any of us would buy it if someone came to you and said, “Believe everything I tell you because I had this amazing experience on the top of a mountain.” Our first question might be, “So did you use mushrooms, or, what did you do to have this hallucination?” We may need some other way to grant someone authority than them telling a story about something they experienced that no one else saw. We would be skeptical. So, this transfiguration experience perhaps is not useful for us to help us believe that Peter, James, and John have authority because they are the only ones who can attest it happened. So does this amazing story have anything else to offer for us?
            That’s a hard question to answer. Maybe one point we can take away is that the flash, the presentation, the glitz, is less important than what is said. It’s the substance of what Jesus teaches that matters more than the promises or visions of glory. Or maybe what we can get from this experience is that Jesus didn’t stay on the mountain. He put the veil back on and came back down the mountain to continue his mission. He had a job to do. We have jobs to do also. No shrines were built on that mountain top. The challenges, the suffering, the struggles of life had to be faced. By no means did Jesus or the disciples keep running back to the mountain when things got tough. They moved on, they pressed ahead, knowing that they would be heading into tough times. So that could be a lesson for us. Or maybe we can get from this that in good times and bad, during mountain top experiences, the depths of the valley, or the broad plain of daily life, Jesus is walking with us through all of it. Jesus brought the disciples up the mountain and he brought them down. Whatever we go through, Jesus is right there with us, which can be a comforting thought. It’s an affirmation that even if no one else knows what you’re going through, Jesus is with you, that you are never really alone.
            Easter is about two months away. It’s always a glorious time that we anticipate every year. These barren trees will be budding, our lawns will be green and relatively weed free, flowers and the smell of warming earth scenting the air. We’ll see people wearing their Easter best, children running around hunting Easter eggs, churches filled with lilies and hyacinths. But before we get to the sights and smells of Easter, we have to go through Lent, a time of introspection, of an increased emphasis on spiritual disciplines, a time of listening.
            My challenge for us is that as we walk through this season of Lent, as we confront our sin and our mortality, perhaps take on greater discipline and abstinence, that we proceed through these next seven weeks keeping the vision of the beauty of Easter and perhaps the vision of our own resurrection experience, to keep that vision in our minds, even as we live out our lives in the here and now, listening for what life might say to us, especially in our suffering and struggle, assured that Jesus is walking with us through it all, now and for eternity.

Love over knowledge: A reflection on 1 Corinthians 8

               Have you ever been around a smart aleck? I’m not talking about people who are a little cheeky and are just joking around, but people who know they know more than you and make sure you know it too? I’m thinking of people who carry their knowledge on their sleeve, and project a know-it-all attitude. I have been around people like that. I’ve sometimes felt intimidated around them, felt stupid around them, because of their arrogance, believing themselves to be the smartest person in the room. Do you know what kind of person I’m talking about?

                Well, Paul found himself having to deal with some smart alecks in Corinth. To understand the situation in Corinth, I need to fill you in on a few things. An issue that the Corinthians had brought to the attention of Paul was a matter concerning the eating of meat that had been part of an animal sacrifice to some god or goddess. Corinth, like every city throughout the Roman Empire, was filled with temples and shrines dedicated to various deities. You couldn’t hardly turn around without seeing a statue or image dedicated to a god or a goddess. All kinds of sacrifices were offered to these gods, including animal sacrifices. The meat left over would be sold in the meat market of every town. For Jews, this was no problem. They only ate meat sacrificed to God, and which had been appropriately butchered. They didn’t buy meat from the meat market. But for Gentiles, they were accustomed to buying meat from the meat market, and the odds were that the meat they bought came from an animal that had been a sacrificial offering, although one could never be sure. So one of the issues was whether it was o.k. for Christians to buy and consume meat they got at the meat market.

                But there was another issue not directly addressed in this portion of 1 Corinthians but is discussed later in chapter 10. It was the issue of eating meat in a temple, more precisely, in the social hall connected to the temple. You see, just like how churches have social halls that you can rent for banquets and formal dinners, there were temples in Corinth where people could rent space to have social events, parties, and the like. If you went into these social halls, it would be obvious which god or goddess that temple was dedicated to. You would be eating your steak in the shadows of a pagan statue. Was that o.k. for Christians?

                This was a source of contention in the church in Corinth. Paul needed to weigh in on this subject. Chapter 8 begins with the argument that some Christians were making, whom Paul refers to as the “strong” Christians. These are the ones who say, “All of us possess knowledge. We know that there’s only one true God, and food doesn’t bring us closer to God, it’s just meat. So, what’s the big deal?” These are the smart alecks that Paul had to deal with. There were a couple things going on here that Paul had to work with.

                First of all, what these strong Christians were actually doing was trying to get away with something. Like I said, Jews didn’t have to worry about where to hold formal dinners and banquets. They had the ghetto, their enclosed community where they could celebrate weddings and other special occasions. For Gentiles, it was the temple banquet halls. Well-to-do Gentiles needed to have those banquets in order to invite their friends and scratch each other’s backs in order to maintain social status, which was critical in the culture of the time. When these well-to-do Gentiles became Christians, they found themselves in a bit of a bind. If they didn’t go to parties or hold parties, they would slip down the social status rung. This didn’t just affect how people felt about them. This had real economic implications. It was a big deal. So these Christians needed to justify holding parties in the banquet halls of temples. They believed their justification was that they knew what was really true. They had the knowledge that there is only one God and these other gods don’t have any meaning. These temples were just shells, had no purpose other than being a nice place to gather for parties. The strong Christians were certainly willing to utilize the knowledge they had gained in order to justify eating meat sacrificed to idols and to eat that meat in temples. In doing so, they wouldn’t have to sacrifice their social standing.

                The other thing Paul had to deal with was that these strong Christians had an attitude toward fellow Christians who were squeamish about eating this meat in temples. Their attitude was that these Christians needed to wise up. They needed to get over this hang up and not be so uptight. They need to become more sophisticated about the faith, rather than allow their old superstitions to prevent them from living as Christians in society.

                As far as Paul was concerned, these strong Christians didn’t know what they thought they knew. They claimed that they possessed knowledge. That much is true. But something I have come to understand about the gaining of knowledge: the more educated one becomes, the more one realizes how little he or she actually knows about any given subject. There is always more to learn. A new discovery gives birth to ten more questions. Education ought to make a person a bit more humble, recognizing how much is yet to be known, rather than becoming too self-assured. But even more to the heart of the matter, these strong Christians seemed to lack knowing what love is. It appeared to Paul that they lacked knowing how to love God well and how to love others well. They didn’t know enough about what matters most of all.

                We, of course, don’t have to worry about offending someone for eating meat sacrificed to an idol in a temple. But the general principle still holds: love for God and others matters more than knowledge about God and others. We have to be on guard that we don’t allow our knowledge to confuse us or block us from loving God and others fully. We also have to be careful not to use our knowledge in ways to justify actions that otherwise may be unloving. We don’t want our sophisticated knowledge to be an excuse for failing to love.

                I wonder if sometimes we make things too complicated. For example, a few days ago I was listening to Bernie Sanders, a senator from Vermont, who identifies as an independent but is really a pretty liberal democrat. Anyway, he was talking about how to grow America’s economy, and how trickle-down economics over the past 30 years hasn’t worked. He said that to grow the economy really is simple: sell stuff. After all, the personal consumer makes up 70% of the economy. But if these consumers don’t have a lot of disposable income, they aren’t able to buy products and services. The answer is to give them more disposable income so that they can spend it. Then, the job creators will have to expand and hire more workers because of the increased demand. Sounds simple. But then you listen to the economists and the policy wonks and then it becomes confusing. All that economic data and policies seem to prevent what seems to be a pretty straightforward and simple thing: give people more money so they can spend it.

                So there’s that. Knowledge can sometimes make complicated what doesn’t need to be so complicated. Sometimes knowledge prevents us from actually doing what needs to be done. Sometimes knowledge is about knowing peripheral things but lacking knowledge of what matters most, which for Christians is to love God and love others.

                Then there is how Paul put it, “Knowledge puffs up, love builds up.” That term translated “puffed up” is an interesting one. The term is related to the image of a bellows, or of using a bellows to blow out air. It’s metaphorical. “Puffed up” may be too polite an expression. Paul may have been going for the image of someone being full of hot air, or being a gas bag. It reminds me of the old joke that Ph.D. stands for piled higher and deeper.

                Obviously there is nothing wrong with gaining knowledge. Paul himself was a scholar of the Torah. He studied at the feet of Gamaliel, one of the best known and highly regarded rabbis of the day. There is nothing wrong with loving to learn, to be curious, to explore, to be a life-long student. Paul is certainly not an anti-intellectual. It’s just that for Paul it matters less what you know and more that you are known. Did you catch that? Paul said, “Anyone who claims to know something does not yet have the necessary knowledge; but anyone who loves God is known by him.” It’s less what you know but who knows you. Relationships matter more than knowledge.

                This past week, a man who is deeply loved by many in Ohio, particularly among the clergy, passed away; Bill Croy, who suffered from ALS for many years. When the word got out, several of my friends on Facebook, who had the privilege of knowing him, posted incredibly moving eulogies. They wrote of how generous he was with his time, how caring. They wrote of how he was a mentor. They wrote of his deep spirituality and his unwavering integrity. They wrote of how he gave so much of his time to help and encourage, yes, to build up others, even when it took so much of his energy to do so. As I read these eulogies, I didn’t see anyone write about his knowledge. It was all about his love. Because that is what it’s all about.

                Sometimes, people get too smart for their own britches. Knowledge is power. But sometimes that power can go to your head. Ultimately, it’s about living a life of love. We love God by following God’s commandments, not trying to rationalize avoidance of them by means of sophisticated argumentation. We love others by building them up, which includes teaching, sharing what we have learned, but doing so in ways that build up, not cause someone to feel inadequate or stupid. Paul is encouraging us to take care, that we live our lives in ways that lift others up. Let’s all try to focus more of our energies on loving well. Love God, love others, love learning, love this amazing world that we are privileged to live in. Let love, not knowledge, be our north star as we make our way through life.