Mark 8:27-38
Lent 2 - Year B
Proper 19 (24)- Year B
What is the sound of one hand clapping?
What can be given in return for life?
When you have spent enough time with those koans, it will be time to come back to verse 30.
The NRSV phrase "sternly ordered" is connected with exorcisms. This might be read as, "Jesus exorcised them of pride." They were not to tell anyone, to brag about their insight. Their life was to live what they knew, not excuse it by claiming "I AM-ness."
If disciples are to follow they need to deny pride of knowledge or place or rank and to imitate their teacher who did not claim special status as the authorization for action. What is created and gifted from the inside simply needs to come out. This, alone, will push the boundaries and bring an opportunity to demonstrate how far our imitation will go.
To claim exemption from consequences is satanic. So think again about the question, "What can be given in return for life?" Respond to a variant, "What exemption from life will lead to more life?"
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2003/september2003.html
Physiologically, tongues are strong and flexible, made up of sixteen muscle groups. Metaphorically, tongues are also easily bitten and easily biting.
Tongues are equally at home carrying a blessing or a curse. They can cut to the quick or lovingly caress one another. They are a source of encouragement and a keener of despair.
Presume again an original blessing of "It's good." We heard it from our teacher leading us out of chaos, into life. In such an image we honor our teacher by offering a sustaining word tot he weary - those caught in moments and millennia of chaos.
The tongue of a creator becomes a tongue of the nursling. [I have long enjoyed an out-of-print book, The Tongue of the Nursling by P.E. MacAllister - here is a brief bio and an online article by him you might enjoy that could take you far afield of today's reflection (and yet have enough tangents to be instructive).
- - -
we see a forked tongue
and suppose we are
hearing a forked tongue
our senses aren't sensible
we mistake one another for hats
magnify molehills and ignore mountains
we execute desperate thieves
and reward those who contract to steal
missing what's behind the surface
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2007_09_01_archive.html
This longer reading better sets the stage than simply picking things up at verse 31. Beginning even earlier there is a story of a healing of a blind man whose gradual regathering of sight brought him to clarity of vision. Even here Jesus asks that no big deal be made of this event, that the one with new sight should stay out of sight.
Who do people say Jesus is? Well, for sequestering a visionary, crazy might be among the descriptors. Whether this or a prophet or a messiah, Jesus is still proposing anonymity.
In this moment of quiet, with nothing apparent at stake, Jesus teaches about life and life renewed and life eternal. Peter, honoring the quiet takes Jesus aside to, in one form or another, say "no" to some aspect of "life".
Jesus is not willing to honor this Petrine tactic because something, apparently, is at stake – another testing? Peter is seen as a tester, a satan (not necessarily the big Satan [note: this smaller case satan is usually how the U.S. is described, not as the big Satan]) and publicly revealed in that role.
We have all too often experienced that to lose one's life through crucifixion or other collateral means it has been a meaningless loss. We have plenty of experience of folks being gone and it signifying nothing. This taking up one's already lost life is a rallying cry. On what other basis than a larger vision would one risk seeming to be irrelevant? This strange call gives Peter a second chance to go a next step with his Messiah, his strange already lost Messiah. Peter will travel to the Transfiguration (which comes next in Mark, except we covered that two weeks ago – so the scripture that comes after has already come before [shades of Baptizer John's confusing talk about Jesus]) still being a bewildered satan (as aren't we all?).
Will you respond to such a strange rallying cry that calls for your commitment even to the point of being inconsequential? This is a Lenten question worth looking at. Even if we aren't quite up to it in the moment, hang in there with the question, transfiguration, like Brigadoon, can appear out of time and just in the nick of time.
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2009_03_01_archive.html
When we find stories like this it is sometimes helpful to retell it from end to start and see what new emphasis comes into view.
Here we might hear Jesus asking,"Have you glimpsed glory and holy in me?" As with all folks, even our "enemies", we can probably say, "Yes."
Then comes an intriguing question - do you find yourself ashamed in the presence of glory and holy? All too often we are more scared of our strengths than our weaknesses.
To glimpse glory and holy in another and in ourself is to glimpse a fuller life available to both of us and all. It is appropriate to ask, "What wouldn't you give for such a glimpsed possibility?" Whatever it is that would keep you from recognizing a glimpse of fuller life and moving closer to it will be your fear, your stuck place. This is a wonderful diagnostic tool.
Now we can more fruitfully journey together toward glory and holy by picking up our fear and carrying it with us.
Peter identified his stuckness as being three-fold - suffering, death, and new life (each and all together).
Even so, having glimpsed glory and holy in Jesus and thus maybe in himself, he can name a source of a glimpse of glory and holy as Messiah beyond anything else he had experienced.
So, in whom do you see glory and holy? An iconic Jesus, yourself, a loved one, an enemy or other? This helps us avoid the confusion, misunderstanding, or inconsistency of Peter and claim our glimpse of glory and holy. This same claiming helps Jesus in his naming of his journey to deal with suffering, death, and new life in light of his glimpse of glory and holy.
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2009_09_01_archive.html
Taking up one's cross is a good lenten theme of renunciation and loss of one's self. Another way of thinking about this is the market term of investing. Will I daily invest in the life vision of GOD-with-us?
The Christian Community Bible says: It is necessary to lose oneself:
-- To lose oneself like Abraham who, in his old age, went to strange lands.
-- To lose oneself like Moses who agreed to be the leader of an irresponsible people.
-- To lose oneself like Mary who entered a path wherein nobody could understand or help her.
How would this read differently if one were to write about investing oneself in GOD's new creation?
Some of us do respond more quickly to investment in life imagery and some of us do respond more quickly to self-denial cross-bearing imagery. Whichever group you find yourself in, may you not lose your soul.
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2003/march2003.html
Satan = out of touch with larger meaning; in touch with smaller meaning.
To have no choice is satanic. To choose yesterday's meaning or a smaller meaning is satanic.
To have said "Messiah" is not to have said it all. What sort of Messiah are we talking about?
Obviously what Peter meant by his affirmation is not the same thing that Jesus meant by it. For, as Peter lives into his understanding, he finds he got it wrong again. The disciples in Mark really don't do all that well. Even when they are affirmed for getting the external right (the term "Messiah") they find themselves rebuked for missing the internal dynamic of the Jesus expression of Messiahship.
What might be satanic about the unilateral approach in the current time of rumors of war? We hear a lot about, "get behind me, traitor" so we need to ask about what do folks really mean when they say "patriot" or "democracy", for once you've said that, you've not said it all, either.
This is a good reminder to check out meanings.
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2003/march2003.html
So what are we to say or not say about the locus of our faith or life. Apparently we talk differently among ourselves than with others. Though, some folks don't seem to be able to make that distinction and have only one speed or one message. Internally we say extravagant things. Here we speak of Messiah and Satan on a first name basis. Externally we don't get ahead of their experience unless we want to sow destructive seeds.
A frustration is that on the inside of too many congregations we no longer talk the extravagant talk. We are so easily hurt, so spiritually fragile that we dare not talk about the emperor being naked or a text being evocative.
Check out what you talk about and with whom. Where do you press points? Where do you push the boundaries?
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2006/march2006.html
Get behind me, Satan!
Come alongside me, Moses and Elijah!
The disciples refuse to hear of difficulties and get flustered to the point of gibbering. This is the response of the Satan in any religious tradition -- taking statements to the extreme and limiting the glory of clarity. We find this in any imperial, authoritarian, or fascist system.
Getting caught between "civilization and backwardness" is not a new story. You may want to watch this video of Dr. Wafa Sultan. Do you see Jesus in a teaching moment in this clip?
How might we call the great reformers to our side to be willing to "look toward Jerusalem" and say what needs to be said even if it leads to suffering and death? How can we be quiet about the consequences of violent systems without taking on an irrelevant martyr-complex?
Satan, Moses, Elijah, or Jesus -- lets say what needs to be said as clearly as we can. It probably takes more than cryptic little snippets such as these reflections. Where in the world do we speak beyond ourselves?
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2006/march2006.html
Last week the Spirit drove Jesus into the wilderness where he was tempted by Satan. Here, halfway through Mark's Gospel, Jesus again recognizes the presence of Satan in his own inner circle. In the wilderness or at home there is a temptation. Does the Spirit only lead to wilderness temptation without also leading to homeland temptation?
Most starkly put, the temptation is to be what you are not, to be ashamed of what you are not. We can put that off on G*D by claiming G*D is not what G*D ought to be. Again we are ashamed to be in the company of a G*D that doesn't get it.
It doesn't matter what the promise - of enough descendants to fill a starry, starry night, a heart that lives forever, being reckoned "in" by an alternative standard - there are those moments when we agree to get a descendant by any means, when we relinquish the responsibility of feeding the poor, or stumble over hope. Somewhere along the way we do not keep our eye on a prize and we are shamed or we shift that to shaming someone else.
Perhaps a key for us is the openness of Jesus' understanding of himself. It is this open affirmation that keeps shame at bay when it is being misused and turned into blame rather than reformation or transformation.
Sociopaths and saviors seem to not be ashamed. For the rest of us it is a marker that needs to be noted in order for us to join Jesus in living and speaking openly.
- - -
All
Shame
Has
A
Mercy
Ending
Denial
Openness
Penetrates
Entire
Need
Networks
Energizing
Sacred
Seasons
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2007_02_01_archive.html
We have multiple identities, depending on who or what we are relating with. Sometimes we might be even further subdivided into where we are interacting or when or why. If folks were to ask about you, there are a number of responses available regarding who you are by those who know you well.
Hopefully, behind all these ephemeral presentations of yourself, there is a sense of being Anointed, Gifted, Blessed - being Messiah. Some will see that, many will not. Sometimes we see it clearer, and sometimes not.
Basically being messiah is an understanding from which we might interact with the world, whether they understand that as our motivation or not.
Part of the reason for the “secrecy” is not some fancy Marcan messianic secret, but simple humility. To claim messiahship has a tendency to claim privilege and to reject any suffering along the way. Without knowing the difference between hope and fear we get confused and fall into the trap of the Confuser to over-focus on short-term survival.
If any would care to be fellow-travelling Messiahs, they, too, will have to be humble enough to live in the moment as though it were eternity and be willing to lose their privilege for the gift of living congruently, unashamed.
Who do I say you are, Messiah, Anointed, Gifted, Blessed - get on with it without making a fuss about being so.
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2012/02/mark-827-38.html
Can you believe it, Jesus was mugged. Since Judas was keeping the money all they got was Jesus' identity information. Without that what is a person to do in a culture so attuned to place of position.
No wonder Jesus asked, "Where does the culture place me?" and "What do you know of me?"
Peter, of course, pipes up with Messiah talk which an excellent excuse for another mugging, this time by the religious authorities and the state (a noxious mix). And, of course, Jesus says, "Whoa, there big feller!"
This then becomes time to move a bit deeper in, from culture to family/friends to self. Who do I say that I am.
I'm one who gets mugged. Individuals come and go at will through my expression of experience with all of creation. Some come to deny, some to adore. Some stay for awhile and some last more than a life-time. Everyone claims a bit of my identity until there is nothing left.
Peter, still thinking Messiah instead of Jesus having undergone a great suffering - a loss of identity - tells Jesus to get over himself and get back on the track of miracles and crowds and power.
"No", says Jesus, who is beginning to remember his baptism and all that it means to be beloved of creation even while used by everyone else's fantasies.
As you wrestle with your identity - any loss that comes your way - there is a question of where your balancing point is. Is it in victim or beloved? This is not to say a Venn diagram can't be used for overlaps with these perspectives, but which has the more persistent boundary? Pentecost pushes back into life with a new identity beyond lost. Blessings on the next part of your journey.
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2012/09/mark-827-38.html