A Sermon for September 9, 2018
Homecoming Sunday
Mark 14:32-42
1.
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| "Jesus and His Disciples" (Rembrandt) |
The Gospel of Mark is a
story of prophetic courage, clearly, and human suffering, clearly, and the
devastating and then transforming way courage meets suffering at the
cross. But, at its core, in its essence,
the Gospel of Mark is a story about friendship, spiritual friendship, friendship
in the midst of a movement. The radical
energy of the gospel is generated by Jesus’ urgent call to friendship, and then
by the tragic unraveling of those same relationships, and then again by the
almost unimaginable promise of new life and new community and renewed
friendship on the other side of the cross.
I want to suggest this
morning that we can’t seriously grasp Mark’s project—or Jesus’ movement, for
that matter—without grappling with friendship, without exploring friendship in
light of the gospel, without joining the beloved community at this elemental
point. What kind of friends are we? What kind of friends are we prepared to
be? These questions strike at the
political edge of Christian witness, but also at the spiritual, relational,
even liturgical heart of it. What kind
of friends are we prepared to be? Brothers
and sisters, maybe I’m hitting the conclusion too early in the sermon. But here’s what I get out of the story this
morning, the Gethsemane text: the gospel invites us to create a dynamic and
resilient company of friends. And that
kind of friendship is watchful and alert.
And that kind of friendship is spiritually responsive and physically
present. And that kind of friendship is
very, very hard to sustain.
2.
You know the
story. I know you know the story.
You know that Jesus
gathered them—just a short while ago—that he gathered them in a hideout, a
safehouse, a neighborhood he could trust.
And you know that he pulled them close, in the shadows, and remembered
with them the story of Israel’s captivity in Egypt and God’s passion for
liberation and their daring dash to freedom in a promised land. And you know that he prayed with them there, in
that safehouse, that they prayed together for the courage to manifest that same
passion in their own city, in their own context, and to join arms and hearts
and bodies in a new journey to freedom.
Which would be just as revolutionary, and just as disorienting, as the
first one.
And then, you know this
too, and then Jesus offered them his own body.
Maybe it’s more meaningful, more radical, to say that he entrusted them
with his own body. Taking the blessed
bread. Feeling it break in his
hands. Reaching out to each one his
friends. “This is my body. This is my brokenness. This is the way of prophets and lovers and
friends of God.” Oh, the vulnerability,
the raw vulnerability and courage and intimacy of that moment. Jesus and his friends. He’s not interested in doctrinal disputes and
ecclesiastical councils. He’s surely not
weighing in on who gets to eat, and who gets to serve, and whether the whole
thing is a stairway to heaven. This is
about faith, and fear. This is about a
practice shared by friends. A practice
that means something. “This is my
body. Take it. Care for it.
I entrust it to you.”
And again, all of this
is happening in a dangerous environment, a menacing empire of unchecked
violence, a culture of greed that will not accommodate the ancient prophetic
vision of economic justice and neighborliness.
Jesus knows that his faith, his God, his vision necessitates sacrifice, vulnerability,
the very real possibility of pain and even execution. But he also knows he needs his friends: that
his faithfulness has everything to do with the company of friends he’s created
along the way. “This is my body,” he
says to them, a friend among friends. “Take
it. Care for it. I entrust it to you.”
3.
And that was just a
short while ago. A few verses back in
Mark’s story. And now, in the garden, in
the darkness, Jesus asks them, he begs them really, to follow through on their
promise: to stay awake as he prays, to keep watch as he agonizes, even as he
looks for some kind of a way out. I know
you’ve had moments like this. When so
much is at stake and loyalty’s a lifeline.
When a friend asks you to stay close as a doctor comes in with a rough
diagnosis. When a colleague begs you for
companionship because it’s time to stand up and speak truth to power. Jesus has spent several years weaving a
network, investing in relationships. And
now he begs them to keep watch.
And there are a couple
of dimensions to this watchfulness, I think.
He simply and urgently needs his friends to be present with him, right
there, to be alert to his pain, to recognize the agony and know it with
him. Like your friend in the doctor’s
office. But there’s a more practical
dimension, right? Jesus needs them to
look out for the militia, for the police, undoubtedly sent to intimidate him,
probably on their way to arrest him. He
fears for his life. He’s not ready to
let it all go. “I’m very sad,” he says
to his friends, “It’s as if I’m dying.
Stay here and keep alert.”
And he goes off, and he
throws himself to the ground, and he prays.
He prays for a break. He prays
for some easier way. And he prays for
wisdom and discernment and vision: “Not what I want but what you want.” Not what I want but what you want. (By the way, take that one verse, that one
prayer. Begin each day—first thing in the
morning—with just that prayer. “Not what
I want but what you want.” Say, every
day for a month. And go to sleep at
night with just that prayer on your lips.
“Not what I want but what you want.”
See what that does for you. See
how hard it is, how unnerving it is, to live with that prayer. It’s not a long prayer. It’s not a theologically complex prayer. But, seriously? “Not what I want but what you want.” Jesus is serious about his practice. And prophetic practice is spiritually
disciplined. He is deeply, deeply
committed to the struggle, to the process, to the journey of surrender. So: “Not what I want but what you want.”)
But it’s hard—for Peter
and James and John and Mary and Joanna and all the rest of them. It’s hard to keep watch in the Garden. It’s hard to stay awake when the mind and the
heart are so, so, so weary and so, so, so tired. It’s hard to bear Jesus’ agony, to anticipate
his suffering, to watch him waver in prayer, on his knees, this dark night of
his sweet soul. And, of course, he comes
back to them a while later, and he finds them sleeping. All of them.
The bravest and the most sophisticated.
The mystical ones and the most dependable. He finds them all sleeping. Because friendship—the kind of friendship,
the practice of friendship that Jesus needs—is hard.
So I wonder if you and
I might a commitment, even this morning, to praying for one another within this
beloved community—the one we call First Church.
I wonder if we might make a commitment to keeping watch with one another
and bearing one another’s burdens—and if we might understand these very
commitments as essential to the edgy, daring project of the church in our
generation.
Now I’m not talking
about the kind of prayer that pleads simply for divine intervention, that runs
down a list of intercessions, or seeks the random material gain of some over
others. Obviously. I’m talking about prayer as a robust and
disciplined practice of compassion and friendship. I’m talking about prayer as a sustained
spirit of gratitude, delight and support—in which we keep watch with one
another, in which we stay alert to the humanity of one another, in which we
praise God for one another. I’m talking
about taking a risk and praying not only for the sister whose company you
enjoy, but for the brother whose intentions you question. Is that possible? Do we have that kind of prayer in us? I think so.
I’m talking about paying attention in worship, and over coffee, even in
commission meetings, and making a very conscious choice to lift up the brother
whose morale is low, or the sister who’s deep in discernment around a new
direction or calling or matter of conscience.
There was a brother in
our church in California—and he was diagnosed, rather young, with Parkinson’s
Disease. As he began to shuffle a bit—in
and out of worship, in and out of meetings—he asked us (he asked his church) to
pay attention. He took up poetry,
writing thoughtful poems about his journey into illness and uncertainty. And he sent them around, he needed us to read
them and honor them. He came to worship—as
often as he could—and during hymns and other music, he stood in the back and
danced a little. Moved his broken
body. Shuffled to the beat. And he cherished, every time, he cherished knowing that we were watching,
paying attention, bearing witness to his holy, strange and difficult
journey. That’s church, right? That’s what all this is.
So might we stay awake
together? In the gardens and the
shadows of Gethsemane. In the hideouts
and safehouses where everything’s up for grabs.
Might we keep watch and bear witness, to one another’s humanity, to one
another’s integrity, to one another’s sweet sacred soul? At the heart of our mission, you see, at the
core of our witness, if we’re honest, is a robust practice of friendship and
prayer. The two go hand in hand. At least, that’s how I’m reading this
morning’s text. It’s hard. It’s not easy. And let’s face it: we will nod off from time
to time. But as we pray for one another in this way—as
we practice watchfulness and gratitude for one another—I have every confidence
the Spirit will bless and surprise us and build out of this very body a spunky
and soulful alternative to the meanness that warps our culture in so many
ways. After all, it’s this company of
friends—this very one—that God has chosen to bless and heal and mend the world. (Maybe there’s an amen to that, in the room?)
5.
Just this past week I
was invited to a dinner party here in town, by a couple of California friends
who were passing through. These are
longtime organizers, agitators, nonviolent practitioners; and they were so
eager to introduce me to sister conspirators and brother dreamers here in the
district. There were maybe ten of us at
the table that night, in Columbia Heights, talking about farming and land and
mending the earth that way; talking about militarism and torture and nonviolent
resistance; talking about spiritual practice and storytelling and tending our
parched souls. It was all delightful and
progressive and these were folks who believed in something new, something holy
being born even now, even in our time.
My advice: never pass up a dinner party with folks who believe like
that.
And when it was over,
when it was time to head out into the humidity and bid farewell, a young
activist from El Salvador asked to pray for us.
Jessica’s her name. And Jessica
identifies as a Pentecostal Christian and a member of an Assembly of God
congregation in Virginia; and her ministry engages the poor and marginalized in
projects like growing their own food and eating the food they grow and working
out just arrangements and economies of scale.
And I have to tell you
I don’t pray very often with Pentecostals—and maybe I’ll have to work on
that—because Jessica’s prayer that night was fire and grace and glory. It was pulsing with physical energy and urgency. You could feel her prayer in the palms and
the fingers and the hands we were holding.
You could taste it in the air.
Like a holy eucharist.
She prayed God’s
blessing into our lives, into our varied ministries: into the witness of an old
man there who used to work for the CIA but now speaks out on militarism and
torture and protests with his body whenever he gets the chance; into the
witness of a practitioner who brings victims and offenders together for
restorative justice; and into my ministry, too, the ministry of a DC newcomer
in a church of big hearts and restless passion.
Her prayer was rousing and she was grateful, and she invoked the presence
and power of Jesus such that he was clearly and generously there with us. Blessing.
Agitating. And delighting in our
little circle. My friends, prayer can be
a powerful force. A deeply energizing
and stirring practice.
So here’s what I’m
thinking this morning. I’m thinking that
a beloved community that prays for one another begins to look like and sound
like and dream like the kingdom of God. Around
this circle, we’re undoubtedly diverse—in the ways we think, in the ways we
imagine God, certainly in the ways we experience Jesus. But when we pray for one another, we entrust to
one another our bodies, and our fears, and our dreams. When we pray for one another, we invite a
spirit of conversion, almost a Pentecostal spirit, to shape us and awaken us
and embolden us with love and hope.
When we come to the
table, then, let’s come in that spirit and with those expectations. Let’s experiment with that kind of courage
and commitment. Let’s keep watch
together. Let’s pray for one another, as
the sisters and brothers and siblings and friends we truly are. And then let’s see what kind of mischief and
revelry and world-flipping fun we can have together. As the people of God.
Amen.
