Message for worship at West Richmond Friends Meeting. 15th of the Ninth Month, 2024
Speaker: Stephanie Crumley-Effinger
The Life of Jesus Mafa
Jesus went on with his disciples to the villages of Caesarea Philippi; and on the way he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that I am?” And they answered him, “John the Baptist; and others, Elijah; and still others, one of the prophets.” He asked them, “But who do you say that I am?” Peter answered him, “You are the Messiah.” And he sternly ordered them not to tell anyone about him.
Then he began to teach them that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. He said all this quite openly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. 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.”
He called the crowd with his disciples, and said to them, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and 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 gospel, 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 of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of them the Son of Man will also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.”
What a powerful set of readings! Maybe even breathtaking, particularly if one thinks about how it might have been for Jesus’ disciples to hear his words.
(Question #1 Mark 8:27-30 - (From Jesus) Who do you say that I am?)
Mark describes these interactions beginning while Jesus and his disciples were walking together, perhaps along a road or maybe across fields. He began by asking, “Who do people say that I am?” and the group reported various things that they heard and, likely, that they were thinking, too. But then his next question was addressed particularly to them – “But who do you say that I am?”
Jesus’ query was akin to the words of George Fox which Kathy read near the start of Meeting, “You will say, Christ saith this, and the apostles say this; but what canst thou say? Art thou a child of Light and hast walked in the Light, and what thou speakest is it inwardly from God?’” (1) Jesus was not content to stop at hearing the disciples’ reports about other people’s conjectures, but wanted to know what they were thinking, how they understood him.
The passage doesn’t record how various disciples might have answered, or even if they did; it moves straight to Peter’s response, “You are the Messiah.” This word Messiah has long roots in Jewish understanding; it means “anointed one.” This refers to a ritual which included placing or pouring olive oil on the head of someone to bless that person for a particular kind of leadership, particularly a king, or a high priest, perhaps even a prophet. This designated a leader as legitimate, someone called by God and confirmed through the ceremony of anointing. (2)
The term “messiah” was often used in reference to King David, and then later in light of the understanding that there would always be a king of David’s lineage on the throne. That ended when Jerusalem was conquered by the Babylonians in the 6th century BCE, and the hopes of the Jewish people turned toward a future king. They would recognize the Messiah because he would come in glory - a king with power and might. He would be sent by God to free the people of Israel from the oppressive rule of the Roman Empire and whatever proxy had been placed over them by the Romans - in Jesus’ time that was Herod Antipas. As described in The New Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible, “The cognitive dissonance caused by the discrepancy between the divine promise and present reality is the root of messianic expectation.” (3)
Jesus’ question, “But who do you say that I am?” was not just for the disciples; it is a question for us each to answer. If you are growing and seeking new understanding in your faith journey, that answer will change over time.
Some of the ways I respond include “You are my Teacher, Friend, Light, and Living Water.” I treasure C. S. Lewis’ description of Aslan, the lion who is the Christ figure in his children’s series The Chronicles of Narnia: “He’s not safe, but he’s good.” (4) That is particularly fitting for this passage.
(Question #2 - Mark 8:31-33 - What scary or disorienting truth do you resist hearing?)
To return to the passage from Mark, can you imagine the shock and dismay of the disciples when, after Peter’s identification of him as the Messiah, Jesus went on to describe what they should expect: his rejection by their religious leaders, suffering, death, and rising from death? It was such a shock that Peter responded in indignation - grabbing Jesus, yanking him away from the others, shouting his rejection of this news. In the word of one source, “Clearly, Peter attached significance to the title ‘Messiah’ that excluded suffering.” (5)
The word translated as “rebuke” is a very strong term, like yelling “shut up!” Jesus’ response to Peter was similarly strong. It included his referring to Peter as Satan, the being working in opposition to God.
One commentator suggests that Jesus was not equating Peter with Satan, but pushing back at the temptation that may have come through Peter‘s words: an inner thought, “you don’t have to go through this, there can be a different way.” But Jesus was determined to remain faithful to God’s, even knowing that it would bring about vengeance by the authorities, as had happened to John the Baptist. Peter’s rebuke could not be allowed to stand as a distraction or a temptation away from the path of faithfulness. (6)
Jesus speaking this very, very hard foretelling of what lay ahead for him and Peter’s reaction may have its parallel for us with difficult things that we are told or come to understand. Like Peter we want to resist painful truth about things which bind us spiritually. We need to be willing to hear and to take in a really unwelcome truth when God is calling us into a deeper form of faithfulness.
This leads to the 2nd question: What scary or disorienting truth do you resist hearing?
As I sat with this query the response which came is embodied in a song from the musical South Pacific, a recording of which, with an introduction by the author, Oscar Hammerstein, I have asked Ben to share with us: “You’ve Got to Be Taught.” (7)
I keep learning more about how people come to believe that those who like me are identified as white are superior to people identified as Black, Brown, or by other racialized terms. Jesus is challenging me to let go of the myth that being formed as racist depends on being taught explicit and overt prejudice while growing up. I was not, except for seeing it on the TV news footage of violent white people’s responses to Civil Rights marches and demonstrations, and to those brave young Black children and teens walking through vicious mobs – including moms and dads - to attend schools formerly designated as being for whites only.
Jesus calls me to acknowledge the scary truth that the insidious reach of implicit bias and systemic racism has formed me to believe in white superiority, occurring beneath my awareness like the air I breathed.
(#3 Mark 8:34-38 - To what do you need to die in order to be a faithful follower of Jesus?)
To return to the passage from Mark 8, in verses 34-38 Jesus went beyond talking about his own future persecution and death, to talk about the potential for those who followed him also to get in deep trouble and even be killed for their faithfulness. That’s a hard hard word to be told, and we can know that those who first heard Mark’s words were experiencing that kind of persecution themselves. (8)
This is not about holding up suffering as a goal. As one commentator noted, “Suffering that results from the ways that God’s kingdom does not comport with human dominion is very different from prescribing suffering for its own sake.” (9) And another, “Fidelity to Jesus brings persecution, because the disciples live in an age that is contrary to God.” (10)
We who are here today are privileged not to face the kind of danger that was present for this early Christian communities. We hear of people in this time and age who do face persecution, imprisonment, and even death for their beliefs, and we certainly hope never to be tested in that way.
But the teaching to die in order to live spiritually is not limited to actual physical life and death. (11) In the ordinary events of our lives the challenge to be willing to die is more likely to be about things of the spirit, our hearts and our allegiances, than about the physical suffering and death faced by Jesus and his disciples. Needing to lose your life in order to save it, and the warning that in trying to save it you will lose it, challenges us to pay attention to that which needs to die in us, or that to which we need to die, so as to be faithful. When faithfulness calls us into some form of suffering, following that will lead to being spiritually alive rather than resisting it and spiritually perishing.
I want to affirm that Jesus did not mean to put up with abusive things that are harming you. When he talked about dying to self, he meant dying to things that are keeping you from becoming the fullness of what God is calling you to be. It can be necessary for the growth hat God is calling you to do. So the third and final question is, to what is God calling you to die for faithfulness to flourish within you?
What rises in me in response to that question is to die to my belief in a kind of false “white innocence.” In discussions of race or interaction with a person of another racial group it means letting go of the belief that if my intention is good, that’s what counts. So if a person of color tells me that what I said or did harmed them, I need to refrain from defensively trying to seek refuge in pointing out my good intention. A positive intention does not neutralize or exempt me from responsibility for any harm that I might have done; it does not take away the impact of something that I said or did which hurt the other person. I’m not sure what it means to die to that fake identity of “good white person”, but I believe that God is calling me to do so.
I am called to die to the illusion of not having been deformed by racism or of not having privilege as a white person. I am called to be responsible for the impact of what I say and do. I am called to die to denial of the power of my being a white person in a world that holds white people as superior. I need to die to taking this power for granted. I need to interrupt the status quo by acknowledging the falseness of this distorted belief, recognizing how it functions, and seeking to confess, repent, and do justice.
In the words of the Serenity Prayer: “God, give us grace to accept with serenity the things that cannot be changed, courage to change the things that should be changed, and the wisdom to distinguish the one from the other.” (12)
As we move into open worship I leave Friends with the three questions:
The question from Jesus: “Who do you say that I am?”
What scary or disorienting truth do you resist hearing?
To what is Jesus calling you to die in order to be a more faithful follower?
Citation sources:
Britain Yearly Meeting Faith & Practice, 19.07
The New Interpreter’s Bible, v. VIII, p. 622
(3) The New Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible, v. 4, Me-R, “Messiah, Jewish (p. 59-60)
(4) C.S. Lewis, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, 1950
(5) The New Interpreter’s Bible, v. VIII, P. 624
(6) The New Interpreter’s Bible, v. VIII, P. 624
(7) Oscar Hammerstein introduces the song "You've Got to be Taught" during Brotherhoo...HD Stock Footage youtube.com
(8) The New Interpreter’s Bible, v. VIII, P. 627
(9) Commentary on Mark 8:27-38 – Micah D. Kiel, Working Preacher, September 13, 2015
(10) The New Interpreter’s Bible, v. VIII, P. 627
(11) The New Interpreter’s Bible, v. VIII, P. 627
(12) Reinhold Niebuhr, The Serenity Prayer (1943) Yale Alumni Magazine: “Who Wrote the Serenity Prayer?” - July/Aug 08
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