St. Mark's Lutheran » Mark

An example of subversiveness of the Gospel according to Mark

Parson Brown — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 21:32:01 +0000

First, I hate adding one of these after our Preschool Teacher Ms. Wahl has put up a post. Please do take a look at the zoo in the post below. My (almost) three year old was following the tracks first thing this morning.

Second, this picks up on a conversation we were having in Sunday Morning Bible study. I had stumbled into explaining why I am the Lutheran I am after I had made a much too flippant remark to end bible study the last week. (Something about getting too old to change.) Also, in reflecting upon the sermon delivered this past week, I mentioned the subversiveness of Mark. Now just mentioning subversive probably either sends off all kinds of alarm bells (if you are of the political right) or warm fuzzies (if you are of the political left).

My basic answer to the Lutheran that I am was that when you start asking the ‘how do I know” type questions, Lutherans very quickly get to Jesus. Catholic and Lutheran alike would both answer how do I know I have grace with: the proclaimed Word and the Sacraments. The promises of God are given in these. Believe the promises of God. When you push that to the next level – how do I know that I have the real word and the real Sacraments? – the catholic answer (grossly simplified) is that you are in the visible church traced back to the foundation of St. Peter. The sacraments rest on the authority of the church. The Lutheran answer is that the sacraments have a power of their own based in the authority and revelation of Jesus. The word and sacraments create the church. The Augsburg Confession article 7 on the church defines the church as the congregation of saints in which the Gospel is purely taught and the sacraments are correctly administered. Word and Sacrament are the means through which the Spirit calls, gathers, enlightens and sanctifies the church. That is not a proof, like holding up an institution. It is a call to faith in Jesus.

But that leads to an emerging church problem. A bunch of spiritual but not religious people gather and baptize and pass out bread and grape juice – are they the church? (And this happens – Kingdom Bound at Darien Lake was the example.) Being a Lutheran allows me to say – yes, but in some incredibly messed up way which in a perfect world wouldn’t happen. Augsburg 14 talks about a rightly order call being the basis of public teaching and administering the sacraments. What that means is that you can’t lock God up, but there is a normal way to receive the sacraments and hear the word. God might work outside of that normal way, just like you might get rich by the beauty of your singing voice through American Idol, but the normal way is something called a church which might not be as flashy as that singing career but a whole lot more solid (and probably more rewarding) like being a teacher.

Now to Mark. Mark 2:1-12. First, where was Jesus. A: In a home. What did he do first? A: Preach. What was the result of that word? A: Faith that he could see (v 5). What is the result of that faith? A: “Your sins are forgiven”. Second, what was the normal place to receive grace in that day? A: Synagogue and Temple – word and sacrifice. Jesus would say as much – he tells the man with leprosy in Mark 1:44 to go show himself to the priest – right before this story. But what are the Pharisees mad at in verse 7? A: Only God forgives sins, (and you find God in the appropriate place, the Temple and the synagogue, not in this house).

Can you see the parallels? Now there is a big problem in that this is Jesus and he had the authority to do this. The traveling evangelist is a much different person. But if you base the effectiveness of the Word and Sacraments on the institution (i.e. the church, Temple) you end up arguing just like the Pharisees. The way of Jesus would appear to be to recognize their validity, but say now go get it regularized. But that is a very subversive statement – because there is no way for us to regulate or police the work of the Spirit. Who knows what the Spirit will bring into our midst? It might be tax collectors and sinners.

But that is a good kind of subversive. It strips away our conceits and fantasies of having a righteousness and authority of our own. The church has no authority of its own, only what it is given by Jesus Christ. Go, baptize and teach (Matt 28:19-20). Do this in remembrance of me. That is the kind of subversive that holds a wonder at what God is doing, but also then gives understanding. “That you might know that the Son of Man has authority, get up and take your mat.” That is the kind of subversive that hold the mirror to the world while saying repent, the Kingdom of God is near.

The Christ Who Can Be Found

Parson Brown — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 17:33:19 +0000

Biblical Text: Mark 1:29-39
Full Draft of Sermon

I slipped into something of a philosophical frame of mind this past week – I suppose I should apologize to the congregation for that. Some of it has to do with events and people. Some of it has to do with this year’s gospel – the gospel of Mark. If you are anything like most Christians your image of Jesus comes primarily from John – the good shepherd, the wise and all powerful Word. And we round out that picture from the Gospel of Matthew with the Sermon on the Mount. We bring in some parables from Luke like the Good Samaritan. Looking at Mark is sometimes like looking at a fun-house mirror. Many of the same stories are there, but they way more subversive. How Mark places them in context give meanings or allusions that are slightly different.

One of the big things about Mark that you notice is that unless you are directly healed by Jesus in the course of the narrative (like Simon’s mother-in-law), you end up way off course. You think you are following Jesus, but then you realize a mile has opened up between you. Mark seems to be a gospel for these post-modern times. Because ultimately it all rests upon Jesus, not an idea but a person. We’d like to stay as close as possible in that discipleship walk, but sometimes it doesn’t happen. Ultimately it is Jesus that crosses that gap between the ideal and where we are at. It is Jesus who came to us – that is why he came, to preach. It is Jesus who has the authority. We might despair of knowing Truth in the way the gospel of John talks truth. We might be hopelessly misguided. But Jesus still has the authority. Jesus still heals and has cast out this worlds demons. The response is ours to figure out. And there are better responses. But the healing is pure grace, and it all rests upon Jesus.

The Powers That Be

Parson Brown — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 16:13:02 +0000

Biblical Text of Sermon: Mark 1:21-28
Full Text of Sermon

So, if you are not from a pentecostal denomination, when was the last time you heard a sermon about powers and principalities or demonology? There is probably a good reason. Denominational pastors are by and large an educated lot (often over-educated) and talking about spiritual forces just seems “icky” and doing so feels like sacrificing any respectability. The educated world is thoroughly materialist in philosophy and to preach on the “powers” means a thorough-going super-naturalist stance depending solely upon revelation (unless the preacher has had a mystical experience and then its still revelation for the hearers and no longer biblical but personal). Add in the fact that popular understanding of the powers is summed up in Halloween and The Exorcist part 18, and you just kinda pick a different text. Or worse you preach on the exorcism text and explain it away through various “they just weren’t that bright” mechanisms.

But the gospel according to Mark just doesn’t allow that. If you are going to preach on Mark, you have to come to terms with the powers that be, because that is who Jesus is to Mark. Jesus is the one who breaks the backs of the powers. Jesus is the one sent to put away that greatest power – death.

And right there I think is the intersection with the modern world. Even though we are materialist in philosophy allowing smaller spiritual forces to hide, death doesn’t hide. We try to hide from him. We do our best to move him out of our sight. And the materialist will try even at funerals to say something like, “death is part of life”. But most people react in horror at that banality. We all have an intuitive reaction that this isn’t right, this isn’t how it was supposed to be. We have nothing to support that – other than revelation.

Jesus came with authority to break the back of the powers – including death. From the very start of his ministry Jesus commanded the spirits. His death and resurrection has disarmed them. In Christ as part of His body the church, we are already part of a resurrection body – something that even death has no power over.

Discipleship: Dropping the nets, Identity and the Reign of God

Parson Brown — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 17:25:07 +0000

Biblical Text: Mark 1:14-20
Full Text of Sermon

I think it is sometimes difficult to relate the call to discipleship we hear in the gospels to our lives. These are men (and women) who literally dropped their nets. How do you proclaim that without completely gutting it or spiritualizing it too much?

The epiphany season’s texts give us some insight. God meets us where we are at. The specific call to discipleship, when God passes by, is different for everybody, but it has a couple of things that are the same for everybody. 1) We are all being made into fishers of men. All disciples are called to be part of the mission of God which is to save sinners. 2) Part of being made into fishers of men is finding our identity not in our nets or our family or our boats or any of the variety of things that define us. The disciple finds their identity in Christ. 3) Finding our identity in Christ means being part of the body of Christ – the church. We are all equally sinners at the foot of the cross. All equally saints washed in the blood. We have the same baptism and eat the same holy food.

Wherever you are at – and God condescends to us where we are at – you can be on that discipleship walk. Dropping the things that now define you is just as radical as dropping the nets.

Fevers

Parson Brown — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 18:40:17 +0000

Sermon Text: Mark 1:4-11
Full Text of Sermon

The flu knocked me out for a considerable amount of time this week. And when you are chilling and sweating some different lines come into you head. And I’m sure I didn’t get to refine this one enough. And I feel like I am way out there on a limb. I doubt you find too many preachers willing to base a sermon on first part of Mark 1:5. Maybe the second part, but not the first. But just the parallels and the humanity of that verse struck me, with deep echoes of Jesus as well – “like sheep without a shepherd” (Mark 6:34). A people straying from the Rock Solid Temple to some hippie in the desert…why?

That hippie in the desert offered them Jesus. Yes the temple rituals were the best and were effective and all the other things. But so much must have been in the way or come between the word of God and those people going out to John. All John did was say wait until you see the next guy. All I’ve got is this water to prepare…but that coming one, he’ll bring the Spirit. And it was enough. Because He gave them Jesus.

Paragraph to Ponder

Parson Brown — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 19:55:12 +0000

From an alternate history meditation by Mark Goodacre, Duke University Theologian…

The prioritizing of Mark’s Gospel is a jewel in the crown of Biblical scholarship. In historical Jesus study, in reconstructing early Christian history, in appreciating its literary genius, Mark is preeminent in the scholar’s canon. It sits alongside source criticism of the Pentateuch, the literary stratification of Isaiah and questioning the authenticity of several Pauline epistles as a celebrated achievement of post-Enlightenment scholarship on the Bible. To imagine a world without Mark is to imagine a world in which one of the key advances has not been made, in which the academic guild is closer to church, and Matthew’s Gospel retains a position of authority for the scholar as well as for the minister.

The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ the Son of God

Parson Brown — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 17:06:29 +0000

Sermon Text Mark 1:1-8
Full Text of Sermon

Mark’s gospel as we have it full of odd turns. He boldly states as his first words the title of this post. But the climax of the story is the cross. The demons and the Roman Centurion crucifying Jesus are the only people in the story who recognize the Son of God. Peter might see the Christ, but not the Son. The last scene is the women running confused from the tomb. A reader might ask how such a story is Good News – a Christ who is defeated, disciples who scatter, proclamation of resurrection that causes fear and flight.

It is good news because of the totality of the story. God has acted. God continues to act. God continues with beginnings. God continues guiding beginnings to proper endings. But Mark knows that those stories are not simple. There are no easy epiphanies. We hear the Christmas angels and wonder what that could mean. We read the prophets and are stupefied at times. We run with those women away from that angel in the tomb. We’ve heard the good news, but we don’t know the good news. Not in our bones. As Origen says that requires the heart, not the head. We prepare our hearts. We keep our paths straight. We live under the cross, to instruct the heart. So that we might one day know the depth of the good news of Jesus Christ – The Son of God. The Son of God who knows our beginnings, our middles and our ends.

Preparing the Way

Parson Brown — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 05:27:04 +0000

Sermon Text: Mark 11:1-10, Isa 64:1,8
Full Text of Sermon

It was the start of advent. The start of the season of preparing the way. With the start of a new church year we also change the gospel that we are reading. We are now reading from Mark in worship. So this sermon in the text part takes a very broad brush view of the gospel to position the action of the actual text.

We all get caught up in the sweep of movements. And there is nothing actually bad about some of the sarcastic examples I use, as long as a person’s identity isn’t based on that object or movement. When you find yourself chasing glory through some object or institution or event, you’ve gone off the path. Jesus has his disciples fetch a donkey. Jesus constantly asks his disciples to do the little things.

That is where you find the beating heart of the Christian life. In the everyday living. In living close to God and your fellow man. That is preparing the way of the Lord. The only true glory is available only by grace and through a cross. Its a narrow way. It can’t be bought, only lived.

Large Stones

Parson Brown — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 15:36:45 +0000

Full Text

Mark 13:1-13

We are contingent creatures. That is a fancy way of saying we depend upon other people and things. Some of those people and things are big foundation stones that if a crack showed up in them, we’d just not know what to do. And that is the problem. When society seems to be falling down around you, when those big foundation stones are crumbling, is your whole life overturned…or are you able to stand in spite of the loss.

In the Holy Spirit we are made to stand. We aren’t promised that our stones won’t be toppled over. In fact if we’ve been listening to Jesus following him probably makes that more likely. What we are promised is one standing with us. Jesus Christ on the throne has poured out his Spirit.

Who gave all? – Mark 12:38-44

Parson Brown — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 15:22:02 +0000

Full Text

Text: Mark 12:38-44

I got to deliver this sermon to two different audiences on the same day – the congregation here at St. Mark and the student mission at RIT. The full copy is the congregational delivery whic some things were modified for the RIT community, but it always amazes me that what preaching and the gospel best talk to is universal. The form of the questions and the searches might appear different, but the core concerns are the same – purpose, guilt, acceptance, love.

We like to ask questions that quantify those things. When we do that, we always end up in the red. We can never find enough of any of them. Instead we need to aks who. Who has has the power and love to accomplish those things we so desperately need. Who have already given all? That man on the cross. That is the Gospel – everything really needful has been supplied in full.