SERMON
PREACHED at
HOLY
TRINITY, PORT CHALMERS
FIRST SUNDAY IN LENT (21st February) 2021
Readings
Genesis 9: 8-17
Psalm 25: 1-9
1 Peter 3: 18-22
Mark 1: 9-15
Back at the beginning of December we
encountered the opening verses of Mark’s gospel-account. In those eight verses
that we read that day – I don’t expect you to remember! – Mark produces a
couple of quite remarkable stylistic quirks. He was inventing, in many ways, a
whole new form of literature, a theologically weighted slice of life story about
a historical figure, a figure who was known indirectly to the audience.
Mark loads the story with
theological and spiritual meaning, yet paradoxically begins not by speaking of Jesus
– and certainly not speaking of himself. He begins by telling of John the Baptist.
And now, fifteen or so
sentences into his story, he turns to his topic. Sort of. The delay has been a
part of his stylistic quirkiness. The delay is important: he tells us nothing
about himself, unlike post-modern writers, because as far as he is
concerned, he doesn’t matter. He may or may not be the Mark who accompanied Paul
on some of Paul’s journeys, but Mark isn’t interested in that. He agrees with Paul: “It is no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me.”
Mark doesn’t matter except in so far as he radiates Jesus.
He began by writing not about Jesus
but about John. It is easy for us to
forget it, but Cousin John was the bigger name in Mark’s era, much better known than
Jesus. Mark is emphasizing the degree to which normal assessments do not apply
when the Jesus story begins. A crucified Messiah, a revelation of God made
complete in death (though we will add resurrection to that mix): this is never
going to be a story that conforms to expectations. And having emphasized that
the unexpected, the broken, the not neon lit is the place where God’s heart is
revealed, Mark goes on to tell the tale.
Yet even now there is a twist.
Nazareth is not the direction from which your average first century seeker
would expect God to come. I think we can safely assume that Mark is following
historical detail here, so it seems God, too, does not bow to human
expectations. I have got into trouble occasionally when using real places to
illustrate this aspect of the gospel, but perhaps if we were to think of – but not
name – the communities in Otago from which the heart and revelation of God
might be low in our expectations that a god would appear then we will have the idea. Nazareth was, shall we say (to be safe),
a Detroit ghetto, not a New York Central Park penthouse.
And things got more complex
still. The stranger from Nazareth approaches the famous if prickly cult figure
and asks to be baptized by him. My analogies break down. John the Baptist was
well known, popular even in an “ouch that hurts” kind of way that would later
get him beheaded, but if “people from the whole Judean countryside” went out to
hear his message we can be pretty sure he was a headline-hugger. To that extent it might seem uncomplex that Jesus joins the crowds flocking to him. A hobo
from Nazareth could do with a bit of washing and restoration. But John himself
turns the tables on expectation: no, cuzz – not you. And the on-lookers might
have taken a bit of a second look. But Jesus insists, John acquiesces, baptizes
his cousin, and then makes the powerful declaration that is so famous “I
baptize with water, but he will baptize with the Holy Spirit.”
We could spend an entire
morning wondering what that means – but we have other work to do before we can
get home (and I can catch my plane). Perhaps we can paraphrase: “This Jesus will make known and available
to you absolutely everything you need to know and experience of the Creator.”
It’s a big claim, and John’s feisty followers, who may have been sliding into a
bit of what we today might call “virtue signalling,” would have been aghast
when they heard it – either from John at the time or from Mark years later. By
the time Mark was writing, the followers of the Baptizer had a bit of
street-cred: we were baptized by the bloke who Herod beheaded.
The events of Jesus' life were –
surprisingly perhaps to us – less well-known. And once more Mark turns to
strange scenes to narrate them. Jesus begins not with a triumphant success – in
fact the only public triumph of his ministry will quickly turn to custard when
the crowd turns on him in Jerusalem – but with a surreal encounter with darkness
and evil. Mark is telling us something important: the way of Jesus will go to
dark places, will not be revealed in neon lights, will not be trumpeted from
the gold citadels of glamour and success. It will begin and end in darkness, wrestle
with temptations, with apparent failure, and with mortality. Yet temptation,
failure and death will not be the final word. Sixteen chapters later some
frightened women will hear the words “he has been raised,” and they will flee
in terror. Yet the message entrusted to them will reach even to us.
What do we make of this as we
attempt to scan the future of our small parish, congregation, church? What do
we make of this as so much that we once held dear, here in Port Chalmers, but also
across the diocese, across the nation, across the former Christian world, appears
to be crumbling around us? The answer is more complex and yet more simple than
we think. The critical thing, though, is that God in Christ will not be
restricted to our expectations. Jesus will go out to be tempted, to wrestle
with our temptations. fears and doubts. They will not have the final word. He
will go on to cast brokenness out of human lives, to touch us with love and
light and healing. He will and does invite us to go with him, even in our
century, stumbling after him as so much that we thought was important and certain
crumbles around our ears. He invites us to the way of the cross. Later this
morning we will get some glances as to how we might walk in his footsteps. For
now we just need to know and cling to the words he later gave the frightened
women, and which they faithfully stuttered out: “go … tell … he is ahead of
you.”
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