"Who'll Be a Witness?”
A
Meditation on Mark 8:31-38
Sunday,
February 25, 2018
1.
“Who
will be a witness for my Lord?” There’s
a question for you. Who among us this
morning will be a witness for my Lord? This
seems to be the nub of the question Jesus is asking in the text, what many say
is the very heart of Mark’s gospel. What
does it mean to bear witness to your faith?
And more specifically, what does it mean to bear witness to our faith in
Jesus Christ? Jesus says—quite
clearly—that it has something to do with suffering; it has something to do with
acknowledging suffering and bearing suffering and maybe even learning to suffer
together. “Who will be a witness for my
Lord?” Jesus says that it has something
to do with taking up a cross; it has something to do with denying ourselves and
taking up his cross. And that’s a
puzzle. That’s a strange, paradoxical
puzzle. “All who want to save their life
will lose it, and those who lose their life for the sake of the gospel will
save it.” Discipleship, you see, is not
for the faint of heart. Discipleship is
not a quick theological fix.
Discipleship is a paradox, a puzzle, a pilgrimage. “Who will be a witness for my Lord?”
In
a lot of ways, it’s been a weekend of witness here at Peace United Church. Yesterday, Yael and I presided over one of
the longest and most intense memorials I’ve ever seen. It was a memorial for Derek Appleton, a
friend of the church these past several years, Linda’s oldest son, a dear soul
who suffered mightily the last few years of his life. Many of you were here. And I’m so grateful you were. Linda’s so grateful you were. Together we bore witness to Derek’s life—his
beautiful, generous, complicated, broken life.
His friends told stories—long and complicated stories—about his spirit
and his kindness and his struggle. A few
laughed at Derek’s habit of showing up unannounced at holidays, family
reunions, even births. Several struggled
out loud with feelings of regret: that they might have said more, that they
might have loved him better. Derek’s
life was difficult, his death was sudden.
And together we bore witness to all of that: to his mother’s
excruciating pain and Derek’s sweet spirit and our own unimaginable sadness.
Discipleship,
you see, is a paradox, a puzzle, a pilgrimage into the very heart of human
suffering. “Take up your cross,” Jesus
says, “and follow me.”
 |
| Ret. Col. Ann Wright |
And
others of us were here on Friday night for an evening with Retired Colonel Ann
Wright. Ann’s a decorated Army Colonel,
an honored public servant and retired U.S. diplomat. And these days, she’s a bold peacemaker, a
practitioner of nonviolence. And Ann and
dozens of others are organizing yet another flotilla of boats this summer,
sailing across the Mediterranean—in and out of European ports—for Gaza in Palestine. At the heart of her life, at the heart of Ann
Wright’s faith, is a restlessness born of her compassion for children who
suffer in warzones, in occupied territories.
And she’s particularly distressed by her own country’s role—by our
country’s role—in perpetuating that violence and misery. So she’s sailing to Gaza this summer—with
women and men from all over the world—to remind the people of Palestine that
their suffering is seen in the world, that their pain is felt in other lands,
that we are committed to their freedom and their wholeness and their children.
Like
Saturday’s memorial, Friday night was all about witness. “Who among us will be a witness for my
Lord?” In our story this morning, Jesus
insists it’s not as easy as shouting his name.
Jesus insists it’s not as easy as fixing him with a title: Messiah,
Savior, Lord, even Jesus. Following
Jesus has something to do with paying attention, paying attention to the
suffering of children in open-air prisons like Gaza and American high schools
like Stoneman Douglass in Parkland, Florida.
Following Jesus has something to do with celebrating peacemakers like
Ann Wright crossing the Mediterranean and our own Tecaté Team journeying to
Mexico this summer. Following Jesus has
something to do, maybe everything to do, with compassion, our willingness to
acknowledge the suffering of others, and meet that suffering with love.
So
yes, it’s been a weekend of witness here at the church. We haven’t solved any riddles. We haven’t figured Jesus out this weekend. But we’ve taken steps with him. We’ve traveled the road with him. And we have born witness to God’s suffering,
to human pain, to our own compassion.
And this, he says in the story today, is the only way; it’s really the
only way to know Jesus and what he’s all about.
We can shout is name ‘til we’re blue in the face. We can argue the finer points of theology
‘til we’ve got all kinds of fancy degrees.
But until we bear witness, until we ache with God, until we meet human
pain with love, we’ll never really know who Jesus is. Or what he’s about.
2.
You
know, the first believers didn’t really think of themselves as Christians. Not in those first years, those first decades
of the Jesus movement. They called
themselves “People of the Way”—which is pretty interesting. And they also called themselves “Witnesses to
the Resurrection.” Think about
that. “Witnesses to the Resurrection.” Faith isn’t so much about knowing, as it is
about seeing. It’s not so much about
intellectual certainty, intellectual sophistication, as it is about moral
vision, human kindness, a willingness to see and acknowledge one another. “Witnesses to the Resurrection” organize
flotillas and sail nonviolently to break immoral blockades. “Witnesses to the Resurrection” weep for the
violence in Florida and then march with teenagers to speak truth to power in
Tallahassee and Washington and at the steps of the NRA. “Witnesses to the Resurrection” spend Sunday
afternoons making casseroles for homeless guests in our own shelter. And “Witnesses to the Resurrection” spend two
and a half hours—on a glorious Saturday afternoon—listening to Derek Appleton’s
friends, listening to their pain, aching for their unanswered questions,
smiling with their sweet memories.
What
it means to follow Jesus is just this: to bear witness, together, to his
passion; to bear witness, together, to the pain of his people; to bear witness,
together, to the price the planet pays for violence and cruelty and war. In a lot of ways, Jesus isn’t the answer to
the world’s hurt: he’s the question that draws you and me into the world’s
hurt. So that we can see it. So that we can touch it. So that then, we can imagine healing it.
You know, it's interesting that the Greek word for "witness"--the word we find in New Testament Greek--is "mar-tyr-ia." MAR-TYR-IA. And this, of course, is the word that comes down to us, in English, as "martyr." And this has all kinds of grim connotations for us: it's often used in English to describe extreme sacrifice (even life) for the cause. We think of "martyrs" as those rare few who lose their lives (even offer up their lives) for their beliefs, for their convicaitnos. And again, the images are grim.
But the New Testament word is deeper and broader than that. To be a “mar-tyr-ia”—to be a witness—is to see God’s life playing out all around us. To be a “mar-tyr-ia”—to be a witness—is to see God’s sun rising in the morning, and God’s blood-red sky glowing in the evening. To be a “mar-tyr-ia” is to see God’s people in their sweet beauty, wherever they are; and then to know that it’s God who suffers in their suffering, that it’s God who weeps in their weeping, that it’s Jesus who cries out from Gaza’s slums and Tecaté’s fields and the homeless encampments of Santa Cruz. To be a martyr isn’t to die: but it is to go deep, it is to care profoundly, it is to dare to see and meet the suffering of others with love. There’s risk involved in that. We risk something by seeing all that. "Witnesses to the Resurrection!"
But the New Testament word is deeper and broader than that. To be a “mar-tyr-ia”—to be a witness—is to see God’s life playing out all around us. To be a “mar-tyr-ia”—to be a witness—is to see God’s sun rising in the morning, and God’s blood-red sky glowing in the evening. To be a “mar-tyr-ia” is to see God’s people in their sweet beauty, wherever they are; and then to know that it’s God who suffers in their suffering, that it’s God who weeps in their weeping, that it’s Jesus who cries out from Gaza’s slums and Tecaté’s fields and the homeless encampments of Santa Cruz. To be a martyr isn’t to die: but it is to go deep, it is to care profoundly, it is to dare to see and meet the suffering of others with love. There’s risk involved in that. We risk something by seeing all that. "Witnesses to the Resurrection!"
3.
To
be baptized in the life and love of Jesus is to be baptized into the community
of witnesses. That’s really what it is. Jesus isn’t asking you or me to figure him
out. Jesus isn’t asking us to anoint him
king. Jesus isn’t asking us to fix the
world, either.
But
he is asking us to go. He is asking you
and me to go where he goes and love as he loves. He’s inviting us to follow him into the
broken heart of the world, to follow him into Stoneman Douglas High School, to
follow him to Gaza, to Tecaté, to San Lorenzo River, to Juvenile Hall. And he’s insisting that we pay attention to
one another: to the tears wept by a stranger sitting to your left or your
right, to the unimaginable loss of a mother who’s just buried or son, and to
the joy of a friend with Parkinson’s who’s dancing in the aisles, and to the
laughter of a new mother who hasn’t slept in a week. Jesus is insisting that we pay attention.
“Take
up your cross,” he says. “Follow me.”
So
I hope you’ll think about Lent as a period of deepening companionship. With Jesus.
Don’t think of it as grim. Don’t
think of it as dark and difficult. Think
of Lent as period of deepening companionship.
You don’t have to figure Jesus out. You don’t have to get Jesus right. Because Jesus is calling you. It’s that simple. Jesus is calling you. Jesus is inviting you. Jesus is before you, even now, even here, and
the journey itself is discovery and grace.
So,
who’ll be a witness for my Lord? Maybe
you’ll be a witness. And maybe I’ll be
one too. Maybe we’ll all be witnesses
together. I have a hunch that the
journey itself—our journey with Jesus—will be discovery and grace. And that our tears and our laughter will be
something like holy communion.
Amen.
