February 26, 2012

Jim White

Lent 1     Mark 1:9-15

Who's there? Nay, answer me: stand, and unfold yourself.

So begins Shakespeare’s, Hamlet.

It is a beginning that brilliantly captures so much of what will “unfold” for us in the mighty and complex play of the Dane.

“Who is there?” And, “stand and unfold yourself” – this question and this command, will set up what is, arguably the theme of the play – a search for honest identity. When one knows the play these opening lines vibrate with dramatic potential.

Likewise, today we kind-of begin again, with the unfolding of the Christian story. In particular we begin again with the unfolding of the identity of Jesus the Christ, the Messiah.

Likewise our little reading, which might be mistaken for nothing more than warm-up scene while we settle into our seats, is dense with meaning and portent for us. If we take the two Divine utterances:

“You are my Son, the beloved…” And, “The Time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe the Good News.” These capture so much of what will lie ahead – the identity of Jesus, he is divinity who humbled himself to share in our humanity, and his central message or teaching - the kingdom of God has come near.

So much of what will follow in Mark’s Gospel can be seen as elaboration on and expansion of these two lines. Indeed, Christian history might be seen as the story of a people trying to plumb the depths and understand what it means to say that Jesus is the Beloved, the Son of God, and what in heaven and on earth it means to proclaim the kingdom of God has come near. When one knows the play these opening lines vibrate with dramatic potential.

Glynn and I had a go at contriving to have Professor Richard Burridge, the Dean of King’s College London, come and preach here in a week or so. Unfortunately it didn’t work out in his programme, which is a shame because I am sure you would have enjoyed him and he could have helped us explore this term ‘kingdom of God.’ Richard rightly claims that the Kingdom of God is at the centre of Jesus teaching. He also right when he says that while there is “much general agreement about the kingdom being the [right] starting point, there is much debate about what it meant.”

The “kingdom of God” serves as a bit of a catchall, a gathering up phrase, which captures many of the political and religious hopes and expectations of God’s covenanted people. It was about the restoration of the nation and true justice (Political), restoration of the temple and true worship (Religious), restoration of all of God’s people, indeed, of the whole of creation (Cosmic).

It seems that Jesus deliberately tapped into these swirling hopes and expectations and he lived his own life with some self-understanding that he was bringing about the fulfilment of those hopes. Jesus tells his disciples that everything must be sacrificed in order to gain the treasure that will be yours in entering the kingdom of God. The kingdom is everything. It everything that demands that you abandon all your riches and, you know, one must enter it like a child.

It is crazy this demandingness – it will have you chop off your hand or put out your eye if it should cause offence and keep you from entering the kingdom.

Christ is King, and Christ invites us with utter urgency to join him in this reign of God where and when shalom – God’s peace, God’s justice, God’s righteousness - will be all and in all. Jesus calls, come follow me, come into this reign, now.

See the kingdom is not so much a place, like a political kingdom, or a world through a wardrobe but a kind of “sphere” where God’s will prevails, which is why speaking about it as a reign rather than an actual kingdom works better.

You know there are endless warnings about who we will find beside us if when we are in kingdom:

•      tax collectors, Matthew, and all kinds of impure folk…

•      well, actually, people like you and me, Gentiles are going ahead of those who were meant to go first. The first are going to be last.

Over and over Jesus is talking and teaching about this reign of God, this kingdom – actually I prefer the reworking of the word to be kin-dom because it avoids some of the worst hierarchical stuff and puts the focus on the divine relationship we will enjoy – kin-dom.

Commonwealth conveys something important too.

The kin-dom is not just out there and in another age or time it is endlessly near to us. So, we are certainly to get ready – the kingdom is real close. It is coming … and it is near … and it is here. The kingdom of God comes near – in healings and in acts of justice – when the hungry are fed and naked are clothed the sick are cared for.

Jesus taught his disciples over and over to work and pray for the coming of kingdom – your kingdom come, your will be done.

This is our daily prayer. I’ll return to this.

And - we could go on because this kin-dom idea is everywhere in the gospels – it is often likened to growing things, like in the parable of the sower, or the parable of Mustard Seed.

So important is this theme that Jesus goes on teaching about the kingdom even after his resurrection. It is at the beginning and the end.

So, the kingdom of God is the absolute centre of Jesus teaching. “The Time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe the Good News.”

To truly understand and to know about Jesus and the kin-dom of God we have to live to do more than study what it means. We have to live a life that imitates Jesus. You see again I think Richard Burridge is on about the right kind of stuff when he is addressing New Testament Ethics being about Imitating Jesus – which is the title of his book Imitating Jesus.

We have to pay attention to Jesus’ life, his example. Thus, Burridge draws our attention to the Rabbinic practice of reporting what a famous Rabbi did – the question is: “what did he do?” because this elucidates verbal teaching or makes up for the lack of teaching in a particular area. So he tells the story of “Rabbi Akiba following his master, Rabbi Joshua, into the toilet to see how he relieved himself. … [When surprise was expressed about this behaviour] Rabbi Akiba explained that ‘it was a matter of Torah, and I needed to learn.’”

“Similarly, Rabbi Kahana was under his master’s bed and was [greatly] impressed with what is euphemistically termed his master’s ‘chatting with is wife, …’ … When his master, somewhat surprised to find the pupil under the marital bed, and told him to get out; Kahan’s reply was “Master, it is matter of Torah and I need to know.” [1] As Burridge rightly concludes: “So the imitation of the master is a way of knowing Torah, and thus becomes an imitation of God.”

So, for us …

Knowing what Jesus DID and imitating the life of Jesus becomes a way of knowing, truly knowing and understanding the teaching of Jesus, and, at one and the same time it becomes an imitation of God.

Actually, imitating another can be an incarnate knowing because one is connected to other in a new way. Thus we hear the phrase – “walk in my shoes, if you really want to know.” It is way of taking in the body knowledge of another. So, in imitating Jesus, the teaching of Jesus becomes distinct and deeper. It is no surprise that we are told take in Jesus body and blood – in order that we may really know.

I should be bringing this to a close by now but let me briefly mention another beginning. In the church’s calendar we are at the First Sunday in Lent. We are at the beginning of the journey towards the Triduum – the great three days the remembrance of the passion and resurrection of Christ, the paschal mystery. Ultimately we want to know what Jesus did in those great three days. Lent helps us approach those days – Lent serves as a warm-up, or a run-up to that big leap. Indeed, there are several and many ways that one can view the Lenten journey- as run-up to the Triduum.

Equally, we know that in the early church it was the time of final preparation of candidates for baptism – thus we can see it as a time reflect on and live into our own baptism more deeply. Easter then becomes the time for the reaffirmation of baptismal vows.

Lent was also a time when those who had become estranged or exiled from the Christian community were reconciled – thus we can see it as a time of reconciliation and forgiveness in the broken body, the church.

Lent was traditionally a time of penance and discipline – it is a time of three disciplines: prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. These practices may appear fusty and old-fashioned belonging to a bygone era and far from the kind of thing that a progressive congregation would consider. However, in closing I want to suggest that in each of these disciplines we become better disciples, we imitate Jesus our rabbi, the Beloved son of God. We become like him.

So, in prayer, we learn what it is to live “thy will be done.” This is not a resignation but a discipline that brings to our consciousness that every prayer can and will be answered only according to the will of God, rather than just our own wants and wishes. We practice this daily that we might become like Jesus who in the passion will say, but not my will but yours. Can you see at this distance from the passion it seems impossible, but if we daily live into ‘thy will be done’ it becomes possible.

In fasting, in going without, we acknowledge our dependence on God for all of life and, momentarily but symbolically, we extract ourselves from endless layers of consumption of food and fuel and power, a consumption that often depends on injustice and almost certainly is not sustainable in terms of the planet earth.

In almsgiving, we acknowledge what we are given is not just meant for ourselves. As Christians we live into a life that has a whole other economy as it were – or rather it is a non-economy, since gifts imply no exchange, just the gift and giver. At its deepest level almsgiving prepares us to make the ultimate gift, a gift where there is not only no desert, but betrayal and offence, I mean the gift of forgiveness – for that is the ultimate gift, to give to one who has betrayed you, who is your enemy. It is the way of life that Jesus lived and we are his disciples learning and living his way by – prayer, fasting, almsgiving. By imitating Jesus, by doing, we come to know what he did.

How does it go?

Who's there? Nay, answer me: stand, and unfold yourself.

[1] Pp. 74- 75 Imitating Jesus, Richard Burridge. As is clear, this sermon depends on Burridge throughout. Especially, Chapter 2.