Footprints in the Shadow
15th Sunday of Pentecost, Year B
Mark 8:27-38
This week Time Magazine features an article, “Does God Want You to Be Rich?” It is referring to the Prosperity Gospel, which has been around for awhile but is making a comeback in certain, prosperous, very large churches – including a United Methodist church in led by Rev. Kirbyjon Caldwell.
They quote the Bible as much as any of us, and assert that the Bible says God wants us to do well: to have land, to be prosperous. The Gospel does say: “I come that you may have life and have it abundantly.” Although only a small number of Christians say they follow the Prosperity Gospel, 61% of Christians say: “God wants people to be financially prosperous.”
Mother Teresa, on the other hand, says that we are not to strive to “be successful, but to be faithful.” And John Wesley, founder of the United Methodist Church<>, said, “Whenever I get any money I try to get rid of it as soon as possible.”
People have always struggled with this dichotomy – always. What does God want from us? What does Jesus call us to? What kind of life are we to have, what does it mean to follow Jesus? If we follow Jesus, where will our footprints lead?
The Gospel of Mark has three stories that struggle with this tension; today’s story is first. In Mark 8:31-33: Jesus teaches that the Son of Man – Jesus – will suffer and be killed, and then rise again. Peter responds to this by rebuking him. Jesus names this behavior “Satan.”
In Mark 9:30: Jesus tells the disciples not to talk about his being the Messiah, since they don’t seem to understand what it means yet, and again he teaches them about the suffering that is to come, and then he will rise. Then he asks them what they were discussing as they walked to Capernaum, and they did not want to answer, for the were discussing which one of them was the greatest.
Do you see the pattern yet?
Mark 10: 32 begins by telling us that Jesus took them aside and began to teach them again about what will happen to him in Jerusalem, where they are headed – he will be tortured and killed and then rise again. Just after this James and John ask him to place them on his left and right hands in glory.
Do you see the tension there? Jesus speaks of new life that will come after suffering, after death, after what looks like the greatest defeat, and the disciples keep saying no, thinking of their glory. Three times Jesus tells them what he faces, and three times the disciples are caught up in something else.
So when the maid asks Peter in the garden, after Jesus was arrested, if he knew Jesus, he may not have been lying when he said, “No, I do not know this man you are talking about.” He really didn’t know this Jesus who walked directly into suffering and death, not into glory.
In the Gospel of Mark the footprints of Jesus lead relentlessly and directly to the shadow of the cross. What does that mean for us? If we follow this text, the Gospel of Mark, we might discover that when things go wrong in our lives it isn’t that our faith hasn’t been strong enough. We might learn that whatever we go through, Jesus is not afraid to suffer with us. We might come to the conclusion that there is nowhere we can go where God will not go with us – not even death, since we see Jesus walking right up to the shadow of the cross, and then beyond, past the cross, and the tomb, into new life.
Well, there’s the Gospel of Mark. The proponents of the Prosperity Gospel are right, of course – there are a lot of other books in the Bible. So one other possible way to look at it for you today. I heard Huston Smith yesterday morning – one of my favorite professors from college. At the event someone asked him how to tell a true religion from a false one, a true spirituality from a false spirituality, and he said, “You can tell if it is true if it enlarges our hearts. You can tell it is true if it increases our empathy for other people. You can tell it is true if it leads to love.”
Does your Gospel make your heart bigger, or your wallet? And where does your Gospel lead?
Mark 8:27-38
This week Time Magazine features an article, “Does God Want You to Be Rich?” It is referring to the Prosperity Gospel, which has been around for awhile but is making a comeback in certain, prosperous, very large churches – including a United Methodist church in led by Rev. Kirbyjon Caldwell.
They quote the Bible as much as any of us, and assert that the Bible says God wants us to do well: to have land, to be prosperous. The Gospel does say: “I come that you may have life and have it abundantly.” Although only a small number of Christians say they follow the Prosperity Gospel, 61% of Christians say: “God wants people to be financially prosperous.”
Mother Teresa, on the other hand, says that we are not to strive to “be successful, but to be faithful.” And John Wesley, founder of the United Methodist Church<>, said, “Whenever I get any money I try to get rid of it as soon as possible.”
People have always struggled with this dichotomy – always. What does God want from us? What does Jesus call us to? What kind of life are we to have, what does it mean to follow Jesus? If we follow Jesus, where will our footprints lead?
The Gospel of Mark has three stories that struggle with this tension; today’s story is first. In Mark 8:31-33: Jesus teaches that the Son of Man – Jesus – will suffer and be killed, and then rise again. Peter responds to this by rebuking him. Jesus names this behavior “Satan.”
In Mark 9:30: Jesus tells the disciples not to talk about his being the Messiah, since they don’t seem to understand what it means yet, and again he teaches them about the suffering that is to come, and then he will rise. Then he asks them what they were discussing as they walked to Capernaum, and they did not want to answer, for the were discussing which one of them was the greatest.
Do you see the pattern yet?
Mark 10: 32 begins by telling us that Jesus took them aside and began to teach them again about what will happen to him in Jerusalem, where they are headed – he will be tortured and killed and then rise again. Just after this James and John ask him to place them on his left and right hands in glory.
Do you see the tension there? Jesus speaks of new life that will come after suffering, after death, after what looks like the greatest defeat, and the disciples keep saying no, thinking of their glory. Three times Jesus tells them what he faces, and three times the disciples are caught up in something else.
So when the maid asks Peter in the garden, after Jesus was arrested, if he knew Jesus, he may not have been lying when he said, “No, I do not know this man you are talking about.” He really didn’t know this Jesus who walked directly into suffering and death, not into glory.
In the Gospel of Mark the footprints of Jesus lead relentlessly and directly to the shadow of the cross. What does that mean for us? If we follow this text, the Gospel of Mark, we might discover that when things go wrong in our lives it isn’t that our faith hasn’t been strong enough. We might learn that whatever we go through, Jesus is not afraid to suffer with us. We might come to the conclusion that there is nowhere we can go where God will not go with us – not even death, since we see Jesus walking right up to the shadow of the cross, and then beyond, past the cross, and the tomb, into new life.
Well, there’s the Gospel of Mark. The proponents of the Prosperity Gospel are right, of course – there are a lot of other books in the Bible. So one other possible way to look at it for you today. I heard Huston Smith yesterday morning – one of my favorite professors from college. At the event someone asked him how to tell a true religion from a false one, a true spirituality from a false spirituality, and he said, “You can tell if it is true if it enlarges our hearts. You can tell it is true if it increases our empathy for other people. You can tell it is true if it leads to love.”
Does your Gospel make your heart bigger, or your wallet? And where does your Gospel lead?
posted by Michelle at 1:14 PM
1 Comments:
Hello Michele,
Be aware that what I say is intended to make people uncomfortable with the status quo so we can finally forge that long promised new path to the future.
RE: "Does God want you to be rich?"
How about, does the Creator want some people to suffer and starve while some wallow in luxury and ignore the plight of others? What about "serving mammon" (money and materialism) instead of truth, justice, and your fellow souls? How about the rich man and the eye of a needle? Talking about the blind leading the blind...
To take this a step further, what would the Creator say about forming organizations (corporations, religions, governments, political parties, etc.) that accumulate vast wealth and resources while living people and other lifeforms suffer as the direct result? What does this say about the complete hypocrisy of all religions?
Here's some pivotal knowledge (wisdom) so people can stop focusing on symptoms and obfuscatory details and home in like a laser on the root causes of and solutions to humanity's seemingly never-ending struggles.
Money is the lifeblood of the powerful and the chains and key to human enslavement
There is a radical and highly effective solution to all of our economic problems that will dramatically simplify, streamline, and revitalize human civilization. It will eliminate all poverty, debt, and the vast majority of crime, material inequality, deception, and injustice. It will also eliminate the underlying causes of most conflicts, while preventing evil scoundrels and their cabals from deceiving, deluding, and bedeviling humanity, ever again. It will likewise eliminate the primary barriers to solving global warming, pollution, and the many evils that result from corporate greed and their control of natural and societal resources. That solution is to simply eliminate money from the human equation, thereby replacing the current system of greed, exploitation, and institutionalized coercion with freewill cooperation, just laws based on verifiable wisdom, and societal goals targeted at benefiting all, not just a self-chosen and abominably greedy few.
We can now thank millennia of political, monetary, and religious leaders for proving, beyond any shadow of a doubt, that top-down, hierarchical governance is absolute folly and foolishness. Even representative democracy, that great promise of the past, was easily and readily subverted to enslave us all, thanks to money and those that secretly control and deceptively manipulate all currencies and economies. Is there any doubt anymore that entrusting politics and money to solve humanity's problems is delusion of the highest order? Is there any doubt that permitting political and corporate leaders to control the lives of billions has resulted in great evil?
Here's a real hot potato! Eat it up, digest it, and then feed it's bones to the hungry...
Most people have no idea that the common-denominator math of all the world's currencies forms an endless loop that generates debt faster than we can ever generate the value to pay for it. This obscured and purposeful math-logic trap at the center of all banking, currencies, and economies is the root cause of poverty. Those who rule this world through fear and deception strive constantly to hide this fact, while pretending to seek solutions to poverty and human struggle. Any who would scoff at this analysis have simply failed to do the math, even though it is based on a simple common-denominator ratio.
Here is Wisdom
Doctrine of Two Spirits...
Peace...
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