One of the commentaries I read pointed out something that I had never noticed before. What does it mean when Jesus says that the Son of Man “must” do these things? He didn’t say “will” or “should” but “must”. Is he saying that his suffering and death are not a part of God’s plan but instead the way he understood his personal call? Is he saying he’d rather not but God is pretty insistent about it?

In this sense, this isn’t a prediction at all, even though this is commonly referred to as Jesus’ first passion prediction. He’s describing his role, just as he describes ours later: you must take up a cross and follow me. It’s not a prediction but the first part of a commandment. Do as I do. This is how it must be, if you are going to follow me.

“And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him.”

Once again Mark’s sparse prose forces us to wonder why Peter might rebuke Jesus. We are free to read our own follies into Peter’s actions. Many of the commentaries I read suggested that he did it because he loved Jesus so much he couldn’t see past his ultimately selfish desire to preserve the life of one he loves at the expense of God’s mission.

I read this differently. I see Peter as smug and self-righteous. I see him telling Jesus that this isn’t necessary, that surely he (Peter) can think of a better way. I think I read it this way because that’s my temptation. To be the hero, to solve problems, to point out the flaws in others’ plans. I love challenging people to be true to their own mission statement. And this isn’t necessarily a bad thing; I see as a large part of my ministry, as it is for all clergy in the contemporary U.S., to remind churches who it is they have already said they are. But, like Peter, I can so often slip into smugness and (NSFW language warning) assholery. While this tendency may be a gift to ministry, I have to remember that it is only righteous as long as I am doing it in God’s service and not just to be a gadfly, which can be fun. (I love baiting trolls in internet forums, for instance.) I am grateful for Mark’s lack of details, which allows me to see my sin exposed in peter’s actions.

“But turning and looking at his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, ‘Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.’”

This ties in so well with last week’s discussion of temptation. Satan doesn’t present himself as a red monster with horns and a pitchfork. If so, temptation would be too easy to resist. Temptation often presents itself in our closest friends. People we love can be the worst source of temptation. My wife can get me to do anything by saying, “But you’ve been working so hard lately. You deserve a night out.” Sometimes I know that what I really need to do is continue with my work, and my wife seriously is concerned about me and my stress level. But that temptation to blow off sermon prep or a hospital visit is there, and even if it is rooted in my wife’s love, it is still the voice of the satan speaking in my ear.

“He called the crowd with his disciples, and said to them, ‘If any want to become my followers, let them take up their cross and follow me. 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 good news, will save it. For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life? Indeed, what can they give in return for their life? Those who are ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of them the Son of Man will also be ashamed when he comes in glory of his Father with the holy angels.’”

I am most interested in the evangelistic implications of this passage, but I want to make one note about “taking up a cross.” If suffering in itself were the point, Jesus would never have fed the hungry or healed the sick. Instead, this is about sacrifice in the service of God. So many people seem to think of religious life as a trade off, giving up some pleasures now for the ultimate pleasure to come. But that isn’t sacrifice; that’s investing. A desire for a post-earthly reward is selfishness, pure and simple. Selfishness can’t lead us to God. Like Peter, we fail to think of the consequences of our faith for all of creation. We should live as Jesus lived and love as Jesus loved not because we will get good things in return; that’s wanting to save our lives. We should do so because God desires mishpat and shalom, and by taking up a cross and following Jesus we can bring about the kingdom, which will benefit all creation, even if we find ourselves on a cross first.

How many of our churches use this passage as a model for evangelism? At least in the communities I have served, the biggest churches talk about service to God resulting in happiness and prosperity. Life with God means a life with no problems. A Christian is always smiling. Our outreach materials show smiling people delivering meals on wheels, our brochures talk about what this church can do for you, our congregants talk about whether or not a pastors’ sermons help us deal with the problems of every day life.

Jesus tells the crowd just the opposite. If you want to follow him, expect blood and death. Not of your enemies, but your own blood and death. This is the wisdom of God, but it is foolishness to the world. Churches that offer easy answers and happy thoughts grow–no, they increase in number. But people who follow Jesus grow. We grow into the sacrifices God asks of us. Sometimes, we grow into our crosses. But a church that promises anything else has ceased to be the Church of Christ.

“And he told them many things in parables, saying: ‘Listen!’” For the audience who should be (but isn’t) reading this blog, I probably don’t have to explain the difference between an allegory and a parable. If you don’t know, go look it up. Simply put, a parable has one specific point. Aspects of a parable don’t represent other things. The sower isn’t God. The seed isn’t the word of God or the gospel. The ground is not the listeners. Jesus clues us in on this. he tells us to listen. Nowhere in his words is any indication that he means us to interpret the parable. Instead, he tells us just to listen to it.

“‘A sower went out to sow. And, as he sowed, some seeds fell on the path, and the birds came and ate them up. Other seeds fell on rocky ground, where they did not have much soil, and they sprang up quickly, since they had no depth of soil. But when the sun rose, they were scorched; and since they had no root, they withered away. Other seeds fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked them. Other seeds fell on good soil and brought forth grain, some a hundredfold, some sixty, and some thirty.’”

And again Jesus reminds us to listen. “‘Let anyone with ears listen!’” Listen! Don’t interpret, don’t analyze, don’t draw conclusions from Pliny about yields of agriculture in the ancient world. Listen, damn it!

What do we have to listen to? A sower goes out to sow and does a piss-poor job of it. For whatever reason he wastes a lot of seed. But some of it lands on good soil and has a miraculous yield. Anyone with two ears better listen up.

The Kingdom of God will shower the earth with its abundance. No matter how incompetently the word is shared or how closed off to grace the world is, the Kingdom will triumph. Our failures, our hatred, our arrogance and ignorance, none of these will prevent the fulfillment of God’s intentions for creation. Listen! God loves you. There’s nothing you can do about it. Listen! God loves everybody. There’s nothing you can do about that, either. So don’t interpret God’s word as if it gives you permission to hate or exclude. Just listen. Shut up and listen.

But I just can’t buy the idea that God would ask Abraham to sacrifice his son – that God would ask Abraham to commit an immoral act to test his faith.  That seems wrong to me on so many levels it’s not even funny.

Leonard Sweet offers the only interpretation of this text that I can accept. Sweet asks twenty questions of the text, some of which I’ll reprint here.  These come from his excellent book Out of the Question… Into the Mystery.

1. Why didn’t Abraham argue with God about the killing of his innocent son like he did when God told Abraham about God’s intention to kill the Sodomites’ sons and daughters?
2. Why did Abraham keep the planned sacrifice a secret from those closest to him?  Why didn’t he tell Sarah, Eliezer, or Isaac about what God had ordered him to do?
3. Why did God no longer speak to Abraham after the outcome of this test was known?  God delivered the Mount Moriah test in person, but as Abraham was about to carry out the command, an angel intervened and stayed his hand.  Why didn’t God show up to intervene?  And after the conclusion of this episode, God never spoke to Abraham again.  The intimacy of their relationship was over.  Likewise, from that point on, Abraham never “speaks to God” but only “speaks about God.”
4. How did Isaac deal with the fact that his father had to be forcibly restrained from cutting his throat?  What went through Isaac’s mind as he stared at his father with a blade descending?  Abraham may not have wounded Isaac with a knife, but he wounded him nonetheless.
5. What did Abraham and Isaac talk about on their three-day journey home?  In fact, it appears more likely that Abraham returned alone to Beersheba.  Abraham climbed Mount Moriah with his son, but he arrived alone when he returned from the mountain.  And he never spoke to his son again.  Isaac never saw his father alive again – only reuniting with his brother Ishmael to bury their dead father.  Even though God gave Abraham back his son on the altar of sacrifice, Abraham never did get his son back.
6. Is it reading too much into the text to wonder why Isaac grieved for his mother when she died, but the Scriptures say nothing about his grief upon his father’s death?
7. Why did Sarah die at the end of this story?  Remember that Abraham had not previously told her anything about the purpose of his trip with Isaac to the land of Moriah.  So upon her husband’s return, did she die from shock upon hearing that her son had been spared execution?  Was she devastated that her husband would do such a thing?  It takes Rebekah to comfort Isaac after the death of his mother.  There was no sign of Abraham’s even being there to console his son.
8. Does God expect followers to commit immoral acts when commanded to do so by divine voices or holy prophets?

Sweet’s attention to detail in these questions impresses me deeply.  The whole chapter is worth re-reading in preparation for the sermon this week, and the whole book is worth reading anyway.  Sweet argues that there are really two tests taking place here: a faithfulness test (which Abraham passes) and a relationship test (which Abraham fails miserably).  After coming down from the mountain Abraham travels home (most likely alone) and lives in isolation from his most beloved for the rest of his life – including God.

If that’s what you get for passing the test, then I would want to fail.  Srsly.

I have had the experience of asking tough questions of the text during bible study and being told, “it’s like you’re tearing down everything we believe in!”  Some folks just aren’t ready for deconstruction, even when the traditional interpretation (the Absorbed Reading, if you will) seems to demand it.

And (virtually) no text cries out for a radical reinterpretation than this one.

As a pastor I plan to discuss my own struggles with this text from the pulpit.

I don’t think it’s as simple as that.  There are truths that metaphor, narrative and parable communicate far more effectively than historical, biological claims can.  Jesus understood that.  He didn’t expect his listeners to believe that the parable of, say, the wicked vineyard workers was an event that really happened in history – he expected them to hear some truths about God in the narrative.

One of my seminary profs had a great saying.  “All those people who want me to take every word literally ought to read this one – ‘God is love.’ Why can’t they seem to take THAT one literally?”

Here’s one for you.  “Go and learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’  For I have come to call not the righteous but sinners.”

That’s problematic for Christians.  Nearly all of the “acceptable, orthodox (small o)” theology in our churches is centered around sacrifice.  Get yourself washed in the fountain filled with the blood of the lamb who died on the cross because you are bad, as a propitiation for your sins and your sinful nature.  God sacrificed his son for YOU, the least you can do is be a Christian.  Look at them nail-scarred hands.  He suffered for you and because of you.  The sacrifice of the sinless, spotless lamb appeased God who is angry at you to keep you from God’s wrath.

I can’t help but think that Jesus would take one look at our hymnals and say, “What is up with all those blood hymns?  What part of ‘I DESIRE MERCY, NOT SACRIFICE’ do you not understand?”

Yes, I know Paul writes a lot – an awful lot – about the sacrifice of Christ.  But never forget that the most common sermon he preached (three times in Acts alone) was about his encounter with the risen, LIVING Christ.  Not the dead, bloody one.

We have conflated God’s mercy with sacrifice.  Sacrifice is now considered a good thing.  Describing someone as being self-sacrificing or longsuffering is a compliment.  Therefore asking people in churches to engage in mission and ministries is literally asking them to sacrifice.  In order to visit folks in the nursing home they have to sacrifice time with their children or the ballgame or Dancing With the Has-Beens.

But is being merciful really such a sacrifice?  Honestly, yes.  In order to be truly merciful we may have to make sacrifices.  We have to sacrifice our negative attitudes about our neighbors.  Our stereotypes and prejudices.  Our racism, sexism, ageism, etc.  Our preconceived notions about others.  Things that are worth sacrificing.

What if we took Jesus seriously here?  What if it’s not all about the blood and the suffering and the sacrifice?  What if it’s not about appeasing an angry God?  What if God isn’t a monster, but a merciful and loving God?

This is yet another passage in which a failure to realize that “Kingdom of Heaven” doesn’t mean “nice place to go when you die” obscures Jesus’ meaning. I’ve been struggling with ideas of works righteousness and free grace lately. Being a Methodist, I loves me some grace, but if everyone believes that God loves you no matter what and nothing you do can earn grace, you have it regardless, it’s really easy to be lazy.

Of course, Paul struggled with this as well, as have most Christians since. I like the Wesleyan approach that, while it is true that good works are not necessary for grace, you can’t really have experienced grace and not react to the world in love as a result. Knowing equals doing.

Perhaps the important thing here is the question itself, “Did not we [do things] in your name.” As my friend and fellow Metholectionist Will says, his idea of sacramental theology is to say the words and get out of the way. If we see the things we do as our actions in God’s name, rather than God’s actions through us, we engage in a type of self-idolatry, or at least a sort of self-aggrandizement.

“‘Everyone then who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on rock. The rain fell, and the winds blew and beat on the house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not act on them will be like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against the house, and it fell–and great was its fall.’

Not much needs to be said here, really. Sophia begets strong children. The works of the wise will endure, and no one is wiser than God. Humbling oneself before God is, as the proverb says, the beginning of wisdom. When we are grounded in God, then God will act through us. The challenge to us is to take seriously what it means when our church is sinking around us.

“Now when Jesus had finished saying these things, the crowds were astounded at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority, and not as their scribes.”

This works as a wonderful call to humility. This is how Matthew ends the sermon on the mount. After three whole chapters advocating the unification of humanity in humility before a transcendent God, Matthew sows divisiveness by talking about how his teacher is better than their teacher. Like all the evangelists, Matthew had his points of emphasis, and one of his was how Jesus was the greatest Rabbi and the messiah predicted by the scriptures. He let this point overshadow the message of the Rabbi he was trying to honor and proclaim as messiah.

Well, now it’s time for me to figure out what God needs to tell these assholes. In all humility, of course.

My process jones are showing, but it seems here that Luke bases not just the work of the church but the very nature of God in relationship. I believe in an eminent trinity, even though I acknowledge the folly of trying to define God in human terms. I pray and bless in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. I do this because these terms are essentially relational in ways more inclusive phrases like Creator, Redeemer, Sustainer aren’t. To me, Trinity is like an element–it cannot be broken down further and retain its same nature and characteristics. (I know some of this might be more applicable to Trinity Sunday next week, but I’m going to be on vacation then and want to include this in my thinking for this week.)

God, in God’s most basic form, is still in relation with Godself. God without relationship is not God at all. Even without the universe, without life, without anything external to God, God exists in relationship. And this, to Luke, is the basis for the church–to share this relationship. Each part of this passage depicts the disciples moving further in creating relationship with those around them.

They begin hidden away from the world, and with the spirit’s help they move out into it. Then, multitudes of Jews around them from all over the world, who didn’t expect to hear preaching in their native languages, can hear them through the power of the Spirit. From hiding to Hebrew to the whole world in just a few steps. In response to mockery, Peter recites scripture. This ties in to another important theme for Luke, that this is nothing new. Jesus is continuing the work of God begun with creation. However, it is a passage that opens more and more people up to relationship with God, even (sorry, just remember the original context) slaves and women.

This chapter ends with one of my favorite challenges to the church, “And day by day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved.” This is the forming of relationship. Those who are being saved are growing in relationship with God through the work of the church. I am wary of church growth theory and what not, but it does seem to me that if churches aren’t adding to their numbers those who are being saved (even if it’s those who have sat in its pews for decades), then it is not properly bringing people into relationship with God through Jesus Christ. This is a long chapter, to long to be read in its entirety, and the ending was on the lectionary a few weeks ago. However, it would be helpful to place the passage that is read in the context of its placement in Acts. From Creation to creation, the work of the Church is to form relationship, not just because of what the church is, but because of who gave us life and offers us grace.

“Then he spoke to them, ‘These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you–that everything written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms must be fulfilled.’” This is the tricky part. It is ironic that this passage can be so easily taken out of context, when its purpose was not to impart a christological bent to the Hebrew Scriptures but to include Jesus and, by extension, the disciples, in the ongoing work of God, begun in the Torah, and continuing through the prophets and the psalms. In essence, Luke is saying that Jesus may seem radical, but he is really the true message of the servants of God since Adam properly revealed for his time.

“Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures, . . . .” Again, that is an important part of Jesus’ ministry for Luke–not to change the scriptures or to bring new ones but to help us properly understand what has come before. In the beginning of his ministry (Luke 4), Jesus says that he is fulfilling the words of Isaiah. His contemporaries had gotten hung up on issues like hand washing and the technical definitions of working on the sabbath. Just as Isaiah’s contemporaries had gotten too hung up on being a nation blessed by God. Each group had to be reminded that God’s concern is not really with right worship and personal/national glory but “to bring good news to the poor. . . , to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

“. . . and he said to them, ‘Thus it is written, that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, . . . .’” Without making the Old Testament about Jesus, full of types and prophecies, we do have to acknowledge as Christians that our understanding of God, and therefore our understanding of God’s revelation, whether in the world or in the Word, must be shaped by the crucifixion. We are “to preach Christ and him crucified.” It is possible to be strongly, even passionately, Christian, without denying the validity of other religions. That is difficult for liberal Christians, but ultimately we have to believe in something. Where does our faith truly lie? We can be all for pluralism and interfaith dialogue, we can be open and accepting of those who differ from us, but at some point we have to actually be for something. And, at our best, what Christians are for is God as revealed through a peasant dying on a cross because of the faithful way he lived.

“‘. . . and that repentance and forgiveness is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.’” One thing that really struck me this week is how poorly we understand this. Repentance and forgiveness are not the same thing as conversion! We are to present to people a God of love and righteousness who seeks out loving relationship with all God’s children. I think, if properly done, this will lead people to God as revealed through Jesus Christ, but it might make them understand God as revealed through the Prophet Mohammed (PBUH) or nothingness as revealed through the teachings of the Buddha. Either of these outcomes, if they help others find a greater source of joy and love in the universe, are probably positive ones. A friend of mine recently told me they “saved” a four-year-old at a revival. The child told him he wanted to be a Christian so he didn’t go to hell. I regret not saying to this friend, “Congratulations. You just terrified a toddler. Jesus would have been thrilled.” We are tasked not with “winning souls”, as if it were a contest, but with showing God’s love in the preaching of forgiveness and repentance.

“‘You are the witnesses of these things. And see, I am sending upon you what my father promised; so stay here in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high.’” Kairos. I’m sure in all our churches there are those who say we have to do something right now. There are people in my churches who are upset because I refuse to lead a youth group. Aside from all the reasons it’s a bad idea for an itinerant pastor to lead a youth group, (and despite the fact we have no youths,) I am simply not called to youth ministry. When it is time for us to have a youth group, I have faith that God will call up from among the faithful a leader. Until that time, it would be unfaithful of us to have a youth group. This passage is a call to remember that we do things in God’s time, not God on ours.

“Then he lead them out as far as Bethany, and, lifting up his hands, he blessed them. While he was blessing them, he withdrew from them and was carried up into heaven. And they worshiped him, and returned to Jerusalem with great joy; and they were continually in the temple blessing God.” I know this is The Ascension of our Lord and what not, but I always find it difficult to get jazzed about the awesome things Jesus did once upon a time. For me, the significance here is not that Jesus could fly but that this is how Jesus chose to end his ministry. These were Luke’s Jesus’ last words to his faithful, so this should be the core of our faith. In obeying them, I pray that we find the joy of the disciples. If that joy is lacking in our churches, then it calls into question where our faith truly lies. There is nothing in these words about attracting new members or even converting people to Christianity. There is nothing about active fellowship groups, fund raisers, or even weekly worship. What is there? Continual worship. Showing the love of God to others. Finding God revealed through self-sacrifice and faithfulness. Where are these in our faith as we live it?