17th Sunday after Pentecost                 

The Gospel of Mark is the earliest of the synoptic gospels, the other two being Matthew and Luke. Scholars believe Mark was used as a source for both Matthew and Luke, because the three gospels are so similar in certain places.

The Gospel of Mark was written around the time of the destruction of the Second Temple, in 70 CE. After the first temple was destroyed in 586 BCE, the Judeans lived in exile for almost 50 years, before they were finally able to return home and rebuild the temple. But, the temple was destroyed again during the First Jewish-Roman War, which ended the Second Temple period.

Most scholars believe that the Gospel of Mark was written for a non-Jewish audience, and that it was not used as a tool for evangelism, but to strengthen the faith of those who already believed. Our gospel reading today delves into the nature of who Jesus is, and the struggle that even the disciples, who walked and talked with Jesus for years, had with understanding that.

Mark 8:27-38

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 wish to come after me, 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 Creator with the holy angels.”

Fully Human

When I was in the third grade, something miraculous happened, I don’t know how or why, but one day, I realized I had become friends with the popular kids. I don’t remember what led up to this happening, but I do remember hanging out with them and feeling very special because of it. Now, of course, being children and hanging out each other all the time, we would share secrets. One of the secrets was that two of the kids in this popular group, Darren and Kristy, were going out with each other. But, the kids in our group were the only ones who knew, and they didn’t want anyone else in the class to know.

I don’t know why I did it. I guess I thought I could impress the others kids by telling them something like that, something kind of scandalous, something secret, something that only I knew. I knew it was wrong, even as I was doing it, but I couldn’t help myself. It was almost like I was having an out-of-body experience, and I was watching myself do this horrible thing. I told their secret. And, it was a thrill as it was happening, and I was cool! I felt cool, while it was happening! But, as you might imagine, I was kicked out of the cool kids group, and I was never able to repair our friendship.

People aren’t perfect, and people change. It’s kind of been an ongoing theme with our lectionary readings from Mark, the last three weeks. We had Jesus eating with people who hadn’t washed their hands, which was a departure from what the Pharisees were used to. Jesus declared all foods clean, another change, another departure. Last week, our gospel reading had Jesus calling a Syrophoenician woman a dog. And, in our gospel reading for today, Jesus “sternly” orders the disciples not to tell anyone about him. I can’t help but picture Jesus as this angry teacher at the front of the classroom, wagging his finger as he “sternly” speaks to his students. And, of course, we have Peter, always acting like Peter, who pulls Jesus aside and “rebukes” him.

All of these illustrations are about identity and a change in identity. So, when you couple all of this with the question, “Who do people say that I am?” it makes you want to take a step back and think.

One of the ideas that is common to most Christian denominations is that Jesus is both fully human and fully divine. It’s one of the mysteries of the church, and it’s confusing for a lot of people. Mathematically, it doesn’t make sense. How can you be 100% one thing and 100% another? That’s 200%, just because of math, not because of hyperbole. But, it’s just one of those theological things that we wrestle with and think about, like the problem of evil, the Trinity, Salvation. For most of my life, I think I really focused on the “fully divine” part of Jesus, and I didn’t think too much about the “fully human” part. I mean, I believed it, I thought it was true, but for some reason, it was really important to me that Jesus was perfect, that he was always perfect, and that he never made any mistakes. Even the scene where he takes a rope and chases the moneychangers out of the temple, I always thought of that as some kind of righteous holy anger, rather than Jesus losing his temper.

But, what if he did lose his temper? What if Jesus wasn’t perfect? It’s something that I’ve only really started to wonder about these last few weeks, as we’ve been confronted with these Mark texts about who Jesus is, and a couple of times where he might not have been as perfect as I want him to be.

What really got the ball rolling for me was actually the gospel reading from last week, when the Syrophoenician woman asks Jesus for help, and he calls her a dog. I have always had trouble with this text, and I still have trouble with it now, because that is not the Jesus that I know and love, and that isn’t who I want Jesus to be. But, that’s about what I want and what I think. And, I feel like I need to ask, what if? What if Jesus really did say that? What would that mean.

I don’t think that today’s text, taken alone, wouldn’t have set off any alarm bells for me, Jesus speaking “sternly” doesn’t seem to be too big a deal, and if you look at some other translations, some Bibles use the words “charged” or “warned” instead of “sternly ordered.” This is why it’s always important to remember that when we read the Bible in English, we are reading it through the eyes of a translator. But, this scene, coming right after the story of the Syrophoenician woman, and in the middle of all of these references to change and Jesus asking who they think he is, it kind of just jumped out at me. Some people say he is “John the Baptist; and others Elijah; and still others, one of the prophets.”

“But, who do you say that I am?”

“You are the Messiah.”

The Messiah, fully human and fully divine, come into the world to love us and save us. But, today’s gospel reading really does seem to be lifting up the human part of Jesus, the author using the title “Son of Man” to describe him, and when Jesus talks about himself, he also uses the title “Son of Man.” I think it scared me to think of Jesus as human, because humans are fallible, and I don’t want my God to be fallible. It felt safer to believe in a God who doesn’t make mistakes. But, people make mistakes. People change and grow, and if Jesus really is fully human, that means he would have to experience everything there is about being human: making mistakes, learning from them, changing, growing, just like all of us. Could he even be human, if he didn’t go through all of that?

I’ve been looking at these passages in a new light, letting go of this idea that Jesus has to be perfect, and performing the mental gymnastics that are required to hold on to that idea while reading the Bible. I think the point of these passages is that Jesus isn’t perfect, that Jesus made mistakes, that he learned from them, and grew, and changed. He refused to help the Syrophoenician woman and called her a dog, but he changed his mind. He praised her and helped her, healing her daughter. Jesus made a mistake, learned from it, grew and changed, just like humans are supposed to. That’s what it means to be human. It’s beautiful, and it’s good, and it doesn’t lessen who Jesus is.

It hurt to be kicked out of my friend group because I made the mistake of sharing a secret that I shouldn’t have. I remember wishing that I could take it back, change things so that it never happened. But, it did happen, and I learned from it, and I know the importance of keeping confidences, now.

We all make mistakes, every single person in this room, every single person on the planet who has ever lived. And, it’s very likely that we are going to make more. Of course, we should try to avoid making mistakes, we shouldn’t do things that are wrong, but when it happens, the important part is that we learn. We learn not to do something like that again, and we grow, and we change. Just like Jesus.

Amen.

~ Rev. Charles Wei