Sunday, September 12, 2021

Mark 8:27 - 9:1

Who do you say I am?

 I apologize for failing to post last week. Here's what you missed:

Jesus is in a boat with his disciples. They've missed bringing bread to eat. Jesus warns them to beware of the yeast of the Pharisees and the yeast of Herod.

Focused on bread, the disciples think that bread is what Jesus is talking about.

Jesus becomes furious with them. "And still you don't understand?!" Jesus is talking about evil influences that, like yeast in dough, work silently and unseen but have great effect. As Jesus sees it, both the Pharisees and the court of Herod are polluting Israel. 

But his disciples seem only to be worried about lunch.

Mark's story of Jesus could have ended right there. Jesus could have dismissed his disciples and sent them home, and recruited less clueless ones.

Instead, now ashore, Jesus heals a blind man. Get it?

This week, then, Jesus and his disciples are in the vicinity of Caesarea Philippi. It's a decidedly secular area, at least to Jewish perception. The Gentile Roman occupiers and their local collaborators have offices there. It is a good place for Jesus to ask the disciples this question:

Who do people say that I am?

The answers are as divers as one might expect, then or today. But then Jesus asks:

And what about you? Who do you say that I am?

Peter is portrayed in the gospels as impetuous. Like here.

You are the Christ.

 Funny, Peter's answer is both right and wrong.

The very first line of Mark's story of Jesus was

 The beginning of the good news about Jesus Christ, God's Son, (Mk. 1:1 CEB)

So at least we readers know that Peter is correct. And Jesus doesn't tell Peter that he's wrong. Actually Jesus switches the language, calling himself "the Human One" ("the Son of Man" in older translations). And what does he say about the destiny of the Human One? 

The Human One must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, chief priests, and the legal experts, and be killed, and then, after three days, rise from the dead.

Mark then relates something astounding. Mark tells us that Peter took hold of Jesus, scolded him, and began to correct him. Would you do that? Would I? 

Jesus' response is swift and brutal. Turning to look at his disciples (as if they were all complicit) Jesus berates Peter:

Get behind me, Satan. You are not thinking God's thoughts but human thoughts.

And then, to the disciples and to the crowds and to anyone ready to listen:

All who want to come after me must say no to themselves, take up their cross, and follow me. All who want to save their lives will lose them. But all who lose their lives because of me and because of the good news will save them. Why would people gain the whole world but lose their lives? What will people give in exchange for their lives? Whoever is ashamed of me and my words in this unfaithful and sinful generation, the Human One will be ashamed of that person when he comes in the Father's glory with the holy angels.

Several things to notice here. Jesus doesn't carry the cross for us, we carry the cross with him. And being Jesus' follower means giving up absolutely everything else.  That's not what the Street Religion says. Do we say these things to people who come to join our congregations?

You may have some memory that Matthew tells this story differently. Or that Luke does. Actually, they both do. Mark was writing when the Romans, tired of Jewish intransigence, were about to put Jerusalem under siege and tear it down stone by stone, slaughtering the defenders. Jesus' followers in that time had to make decisive choices about what they would do and who they would follow, and how they would follow. Matthew and Luke wrote a generation or so later when the problems were entirely different. 

So. Who do we say Jesus is? Is he the all-conquering Messiah, one we should take up the sword and follow? Or does Messiah mean something entirely different from that? Like denying ourselves and taking up a cross?

This story is the hinge of Mark's larger story of Jesus. Before this story there are teachings and healings and crowds of followers. After it, basically, it is just the disciples and Jesus, as they traverse the road to Jerusalem. And we all know what happens there.