Proper 24B

Thank God for the disciples! Even they on the inner circle manage to come up with some questions that are doozies. Even they, who walked and talked with Jesus, manage to miss the point and ask questions that come out of their limited and all-together too human vantage point. Their questions make me feel a lot better for some of the ones I ask of God.

This section of the gospel of Mark includes Jesus’ trip with the disciples from Cæasarea Philippi in the north to Jerusalem in the south. During this trip, Jesus puts forth a crash course in discipleship and what it means to follow him. This teaching section is introduced by the healing of a blind man who finally sees ‘everything clearly,’ and ends with the second healing of another blind man who ‘regained his sight and followed Jesus on the way.’ Two outsiders receive clear vision while repeatedly the core disciples demonstrate their obtuseness. Again and again, the inner group of Jesus fails to understand what Jesus says and does.

This morning’s gospel contains two sections: first, the request of James and John to figure prominently in the movement and Jesus’ reply and, second, the anger of the other disciples at the audaciousness of their request. We need to remember that James and John were up on top of the mountain with Jesus and saw him transfigured as well as seeing Elijah and Moses alongside him. Their audacity is not totally unfounded.

Apparently James and John didn’t get it when Jesus placed a child in their midst. Nor did they seem to understand when Jesus blessed a group of children (who, in that time, were considered non-entities at worst and convenient nuisances, like animals, at best). Nor did they understand Jesus’ stern teaching with the man in which he told him that he needed to let go of everything. And lastly, they clearly did not grasp at all Jesus’ predictions about the cross that laid ahead for all of them.

Despite the density of James and John, Jesus doesn’t rebuke them. Instead, he flips their question around and tells them they don’t know what they’re asking. It’s almost the same sort of questioning that God engages in when God finally starts peppering Job with questions: Were you there when the earth burst forth from its womb? Where you there when the heavens and seas were created? (Sort of: What do you really know about these matters?)

Here, Jesus asks them, Do you know what it means to take the cup that I will receive? Do you know what it means to be baptised with the same waters in which I have been baptised? Do you have a clue what this all means? What it means is that you will need to walk through the valley of the shadow of death, suffer and die to be born anew. If you are bathed in the waters of baptism and drink from the sometimes bitter cup, then you can find the glory of resurrection.

Jesus puts forth hard demands to live up to!

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What does it mean to take the cup that Jesus takes and share the baptism that he has received? The words to hymn 695 [which the choir sang at the 10.00 HE] offer one glimpse, partial as it is, of what taking the cup from God means.

By gracious powers so wonderfully sheltered,

and confidently waiting come what may,

we know that God is with us night and morning,

and never fails to greet us each new day.

Yet is this heart by its old foe tormented,

still evil days bring burdens hard to bear;

give our frightened souls the sure salvation,

for which, O Lord, you taught us to prepare.

And when this cup you give is filled to brimming

with bitter suffering, hard to understand,

we take it thankfully and without trembling,

out of so good and so beloved a hand.

Yet when again in this same world you give us 

the joy we had, the brightness of your Sun,

we shall remember all the days we lived through,

and our whole life shall then be yours alone.

F. Pratt Green adapted to hymnody this poem that Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote in a letter addressed to his mother for her 70th birthday. The poem reflects on the turning of the years and on the end of one’s life. Bonhoeffer lived with the fear of death and, indeed, within a few months of writing this poem the Nazis executed him. He was hanged at age 39 in the concentration camp at Flossenbürg on April 9, 1945, one of four members of his immediate family to die at the hands of the Nazi regime for their participation in the small Protestant resistance movement that refused to accept the teachings of Aryanism.

What brought Bonhoeffer to death was his theologically rooted opposition to National Socialism. Along with Martin Niemueller and Karl Barth, in the Confessing Church, Bonhoeffer was a leader and outspoken advocate on behalf of the Jews. His efforts to help a group of Jews escape to Switzerland were what first led to his arrest and imprisonment in the spring 1943. (1)

Bonhoeffer’s willingness to take the cup of suffering—suffering that often didn’t make sense and certainly wasn’t merited or deserved—and to turn it to prayer is exemplary. While I object strongly to the notion that God doles out suffering to test us, I do believe that our choices and actions deeply affect our lives and those of others around us. Sometimes the cup of suffering is wrongly handed to us (as it was in the case of Job), sometimes we bring it upon ourselves, and sometimes it is our lot to figure out what to do with it. Regardless how the cup of suffering ends up in our hands—by our own doing or by the doings of others—we have to trust in God’s mercy and presence.

Somehow Bonhoeffer managed to remember God’s graciousness throughout his imprisonment. He held fast to God’s presence. His words echo those of an unknown Jew found in a Cologne, Germany cellar after the Allied Liberation:

I believe in the sun 

even when it’s not shining,

I believe in love

even when feeling it not

I believe in God

even when He is silent.

Even on those days when we hold a bitter cup of suffering and it is hard to find God, we must remember that there is another cup that we hold. And that cup contains the Blood of Christ, the cup of salvation. Every time we gather together for eucharist, we offer up to God our suffering and in return, God gives back to us hope, life and reconciliation. Communion enables us to take the bitter cup and not give up.

In addition, we have the laying on of hands. Today is the feast day of Saint Luke the Physician and Evangelist. The church prays today that it might continue in love and the power to heal. In recognition of the importance of Luke and the power of the laying on of hands, this morning you are invited to come forward after the announcements just before the offertory sentence bringing whatever concerns you might have and offering them to God and to receive laying on of hands as the outward sign of God’s grace working within you.

As Bonhoeffer wrote of God’s mercy, ‘We shall remember all the days we lived through, and our whole life shall then be yours alone’ … as it has always been.

END NOTES
(1) The Hymnal Companion, volume Three B, Raymond Glover, ed. (New York, NY: The Church Hymnal Corporation, 1994), 1299, and from www.dbonhoeffer.org.

About two dozen people came forward at both services for laying on of hands.