Awake -- Sermon on Mark 4:26-34

Awake
Preached at St. James Lutheran
Hanford, California
June 17, 2018

Mark 4:26-34 (NRSV)

26 He also said, “The kingdom of God is as if someone would scatter seed on the ground, 27 and would sleep and rise night and day, and the seed would sprout and grow, he does not know how. 28 The earth produces of itself, first the stalk, then the head, then the full grain in the head. 29 But when the grain is ripe, at once he goes in with his sickle, because the harvest has come.”

30 He also said, “With what can we compare the kingdom of God, or what parable will we use for it? 31 It is like a mustard seed, which, when sown upon the ground, is the smallest of all the seeds on earth; 32 yet when it is sown it grows up and becomes the greatest of all shrubs, and puts forth large branches, so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade.”

33 With many such parables he spoke the word to them, as they were able to hear it; 34 he did not speak to them except in parables, but he explained everything in private to his disciples.

This time last Sunday I was on a plane, finally returning from Luther Seminary – via one plane delayed by thunderstorms in Minneapolis, new flights that could have puddle-jumped me home then delayed by a mechanical issue, an overnight in Dallas and then finally a last smooth flight to Fresno.  We wouldn’t want life to be boring and predictable, right?

The week before that, though – was just incredible.  The Greek professor at Luther, David Fredrickson, is a highly resepcted New Testament scholar – now that I’ve had a couple of classes with him I’ve started noticing his name all over things like the Fortress Commentary and any anthologies of essays on the gospels or on Paul’s letters – he has been amazing in my online courses and I got to spend eight hours a day with him going through the Gospel of Mark last week – Lots of incredible new insights, lots of Greek geek happiness – all that.

But knowing that I got to preach on this text here this week, I was really looking forward to going through the parables with him – and what happens?  “Okay, it’s been great that we’re going into depth, but I’m afraid we’re not going to get to the end, so for now we’re skipping chapter four and going straight to the Gerasnes demons…

I stayed during the break to talk to him – “Dr. Fredrickson, I’m preaching on chapter 4 next week, any new insights?” “Yeah, that section’s really weird.  Let me know what you come up with.”

Welcome, my friends, to the glory of a seminary education…!

Grace and peace to you from God our creator and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, Amen 

Many of us are familiar with the parables in the Gospel of Mark – and we also might be aware that each time Jesus speaks to the crowd in parables he says that he does so “in order that they might see and not perceive and hearing, not understand…”

And though he explains the meaning to his disciples privately on each occasion, sometimes Mark lets us in on that and sometimes he doesn’t.  This is one of the “doesn’t” times, so I get to add a snarky “thanks, Mark!” to the original “gee, thanks, Dr. Fredrickson!”

But what we do have as a reader and not a member of the crowd are these tantalizing little clues embedded in the parables that come up again and again in other parts of the gospel.  And the one that most strikes me here is Jesus’ references to the farmer sleeping, getting up, and sleeping again – all while the “kingdom of God” is arriving right under his drowsy nose, without any help from him.

 

So how is “sleep” important in the Gospel of Mark, and how does sleeping – or wakefulness – relate to how we live as citizens of the kingdom of God? 

It seems to me that in this Gospel, staying spiritually awake means seeing the invisible around us

.

Now when I say “invisible around us” – that could sound like some kind of magical or other-worldly thing, right?  But I don’t mean that, and I don’t think Mark does, either.  When Jesus says to stay awake, he is asking us to notice things that we would rather not see.  People, situations, problems – as humans, we are SO good at not seeing what we don’t want to, aren’t we?

The great 20^th Century theologian Douglas Adams – not really, he was actually a geeky British comic science fiction novel writer – his claim to fame was the “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” series – but even if he wasn’t a theologian, he had some great insights into human nature.  In his science fiction novels, there are products that help people cope and keep things invisible – one is called the Somebody else’s problem field.  Discussing the cost of making something invisible, they discover that…

“The Somebody Else's Problem field is much simpler and more effective, and what's more can be run for over a hundred years on a single flashlight battery. This is because it relies on people's natural disposition not to see anything they don't want to, weren't expecting, or can't explain.”

Gotta love novels like that… you’re going along, things are good, you’re laughing – and then a zinger, straight to the heart.

I’m not exempt from this.  I don’t want to see things that make me uncomfortable and unhappy.  I don’t want to think that I could be one emergency surgery or car accident or whatever away from BEING what makes me uncomfortable and unhappy.  And I’m a pretty decent human – I mean, if one of you were to ask me for a ride to the airport or help moving today I would probably say yes!  I expect most of you would do the same! 

But this Jesus… he asks us for something different.  He asks us to stay awake and see the invisible.  He asks us to see what we don’t want to see.  He asks us to see WHO we don’t want to see. 

And he’s blunt about it.  Do you remember what happens when the disciples try to stop people from bringing children to him? 

It’s in Mark 10, starting with verse 13. 

“And they brought children to him, in the hopes that he would touch them, but the disciples rebuked them – and, having seen this, Jesus became angry and said to them – “let the children come to me, don’t prevent them for they are the kingdom of God.”

THEN he turns it on them, also – and he says, “I speak the truth:  whoever will not receive the kingdom of God as a child, may not enter it.”

What are the first images that enter your mind when you hear this verse?

I’ll tell you mine:  It’s a painting.  A painting of that kind of ethereal Jesus in a white robe and blue sash – and he’s sitting under a tree with a bunch of just adorable kids, and there’s a blonde curly headed beautiful girl in his lap that is staring adoringly up at him.  It is a beautiful scene.  And I want to be that kid, don’t you?  I want to be that sweet, innocent little girl in the pretty dress with the scrubbed face, all fresh and ready to encounter Jesus. 

Of course, I never would have been that kid.  If I had been in that idyllic scene by the tree I would have been the one playing with a stick and finding interesting bugs in the mud puddle left just outside the painting.  But that’s another story. 

How many of you have that image when you hear “receive the kingdom as a little child,” or one like it?

The problem is, that’s not the child Jesus is talking about.  The author of the gospel of Mark alternates between two words when he is talking about receiving children -- “paedion” and “ptoki.” 

That second one – that’s an important word.  Do you hear the “spit” in it – the “pt?”  For 1^st century people, that was the sound of warding off a curse.  A first century “God bless you” that you did for yourself.  (demonstrate)  You’ve seen that, right?  Yiddish grandmothers. 

A “ptoki” is not that cute little blond girl in my memory painting.  21^st century Americans love and idealize children.  Not so in 1^st century Palestine.  A ptoki stinks.  A ptoki carries diseases that will kill an adult.  A ptoki probably has ringworm or some other unpleasant parasite.  A ptoki has the distended ugly belly and the scrawny arms we see in commercials designed to repulse us into guilt and giving money.  A ptoki has little ability to provide for themselves and no way to offer us anything if we take them in and care for them.  In fact, if we do, our friends are probably going to talk behind our backs.  “I wouldn’t mind if she had just given that homeless man money when we were downtown, but she actually sat down with him and talked to him.  It was embarrassing.”  “He’s gotten so political these days – sometimes you just have to chill out and let people enjoy life.”  “Can you believe they took in foster kids?  I mean, it’s nice, but what about their own real kids?  How is that going to affect them?” 

Yet Jesus says these nothings are the kingdom of God.  Jesus says that if we don’t receive the ptoki with hospitality, we will not enter into the kingdom of God.  I have to be honest, that language is harsh.  It makes me uncomfortable and unhappy.  Because I’m not good at it.  The same few people are always at the end of the freeway exit by my house.  Sometimes I give them money.  If I think about it and have stopped, very occasionally I will bring them a hot or cold drink, depending on the season.  But my confession before you and before God is that I have driven by and averted my eyes far more often than I have done either of those things.  And I haven’t parked my car and gone to talk to them.  Not once.  And I think in these passages about the kingdom of God that Jesus is telling me to.  Not to fix them.  Not to get them “off the streets” – just to talk to them and hear their story as if they are a human like me, and not a ptoki. 

Jesus says that the Kingdom of God is growing up around us as we sleep.  The ptoki are growing in numbers, they are edging in, they are branching out.  And then he says the harvest is ripe, go get the kingdom!  It’s so easy – and it’s so incredibly difficult. 

My professor at Luther last week says that the closer we draw to Jesus Christ, the more we will develop a sensitivity for those that He loves.  That the more I intentionally try to connect with Jesus, the harder it will be for me to drive by the people at the bottom of my freeway exit.  And I am finding this to be true.  I may not have acted on it yet, but my heart is getting more and more stirred.  I am beginning to wake up and see the invisible. 

But the good news is that this awakening doesn’t mean despair.  Jesus doesn’t say “SOLVE THE GIANT PROBLEMS AND GO SAVE THE WORLD.” That’s his job, right?  Not ours.  What he says is to be hospitable to the invisible.  Stay awake, be sensitive.  As individuals, we don’t need to solve the problem of homelessness in Visalia or Hanford or Tulare County or the world.  We don’t need to feel responsible that there is a foster system.  We don’t need to solve the whole huge problem of addiction in America.  What Jesus asks us to do is to treat the individual people he puts in our way as though they are the kingdom of God, especially if they are not valued by the world.  And then, if we trust what he says, we believe that when we receive them, we receive Jesus Christ, and the one who sent him.   Who knows the ripples that could go out from that?  Jesus says that something important could come out of something small and inconsequential. 

It’s almost like tiny mustard seeds that branch into huge trees. 

Amen

Prayers for Today -- Stay Awake

God, you have told us that true power comes in weakness and compassion.  And so in times that are heavy with wrong, we come to you not in anger but in anguish.  We feel your passion for those created in your image that are far from you and feel alone, that are sick or hurting, those that are powerless, abused, unjustly imprisoned, and afraid, that are victims of violence both large and small, in body, emotion, or spirit.  And so, God, as circumstances are beyond our power and we come to you in weakness -- we pray today simply that we will stay awake.  That we will not become numb to pain beside us or across the world, but will feel with others as you do through Jesus Christ. 

God of Relationship, awaken us to those who do not know your saving love.  Give us passion for those who need to hear your words of life, forgiveness, and salvation, and we ask for opportunities to speak them.    

God who touched lepers, awaken us to the sick and the hurting in body, mind, or spirit.  Give us passion for those who are powerless due to physical impairment, overwhelming medical bills, or mental illness.  We ask for your healing.  God let the sick not be invisible to us as we seek to bring your life to those around us. 

God of Children, we ask that you would awaken us to these most powerless of those created in your image.  Jesus tells us that we receive him when we receive and protect children, yet instead we abuse, traumatize, separate, and imprison them. God forgive us.  Forgive us our numbness, our voyeurism, our complacency.  We cry out to you in our own powerlessness and ask that we may instead have your passion.   

God of All Nations, we ask that you would awaken us to the plight of your creation.  What you have pronounced good we have corrupted and endangered through sin and greed.  Have mercy on us. Let us see creation with your eyes – not as a resource to be used but as a beauty to preserve.  Give us your passion for all peoples, that clean air, fresh water, and peaceful environments would again be your free gifts to your creation.  Let us not become numb to war and violence, but in your compassion let us share in the pain and grief held by victims of all violence.    

God of the Church, we ask that you would awaken us to the desperate importance of your church in the world.  We ask for your passion for this family of faith, to be a counter-cultural force for love, generosity, forgiveness, justice, and unity.  You tell us and all your people to take up our cross and follow you – you shared the pain of the world on the cross and in this prayer we ask to overcome our numbness and share in that pain as well, confident that as your compassion brings hope to the world, ours through you will do the same. 

We ask these and all things in your name, our Passionate and Com-Passionate Lord and Savior Jesus Christ-- Amen.

The Postmodern Human Condition: Burning Grief, the Abyss, and the Weakness of Love

A Luther Seminary Master's of Divinity Paper
Spring, 2018

The Postmodern Human Condition:
Burning Grief, the Abyss, and the Weakness of Love

            The transition from modernity to postmodernity has been a puzzling and even paralyzing one for academics and pastors alike.  The modern certainty and confidence in reason and ability to understand the world has been replaced by a postmodern pluralism, acknowledgement of radical “otherness,” and paradox.  This transition has confounded many Christian leaders; attempts to reach postmodern individuals through modern thought processes are fruitless, and these failures create despair in those who could help others cope with this new world.

Christian leaders and theologians have an opportunity brought by postmodernism to emerge with a more truthful representation of our faith and of Jesus Christ.  The postmodern condition is one of hopelessness and a lack of foundations; the metaphysical God and subsequent empty discussions of providence and a theology of glory cannot answer to this any more than the culture of pluralism and consumerism can.  In contrast, a theology of the cross includes an acknowledgement of the grief that results from any relationship, particularly the relationships within a triune God.  This theology also acknowledges the chaotic abyss above which we all hover – an abyss ignored and rejected by a theology of glory. A true understanding of the nature of the divine love brought by Jesus Christ to the world can address the postmodern condition and provide hope which is the “spirit, the aspiration, the very respiration of God’s spirit, of God’s insistence… Hope that dares to say ‘come,’ dares to pray, ‘come,’ to what it cannot see coming.  Hope that is hope in the promise of the world.”[1]

GRIEF

            The postmodern experience is punctuated by precariousness and the ever-present specter of grief.  Though once the domain of philosophers, the contemplation of future grief and loss is now a common thought brought about by greater awareness of war, disease, and sudden violence.  Postmodern philosopher Jacques Derrida writes,

To have a friend, to look at him, to follow him with your eyes, to admire him in friendship, is to know in a more intense way, already injured, always insistent, and more and more unforgettable, that one of the two of you will inevitably see the other die.^[2]

This is the condition of grief with which we continually live, and though it is no different today than in modernity, postmodern individuals are more likely to be preoccupied with this knowledge. 

Mark Buchanan, in his recent book “Things Unseen,” extends this idea into longing for God and for the experience of God in eternity:

Isn’t that how you feel much of the time? That what you want the most—and most of the time you’re not even sure what that is—seems always out of reach? That your most robust laughter rings with the echo of your weeping? That your most joyous homecomings are haunted at the edges by unnamable sorrows? That your victories and breakthroughs are mixed with complaint and doubt? That something’s always missing? We were not created for earth alone. We were created for eternity.[3]

Ancient erotic literature addressed this feeling in a way which reason and modernity lost track of.  In descriptions and the experience of the beloved, “Presence itself points to absence,”[4] and “…the ache of longing and grief of remembering contradict the reports of joy when the absent one is imagined to be present.”[5]  This pre-emptive grief for the friend or the beloved is a natural state for postmodern individuals, which continues through actual experiences of loss. 

Jurgen Moltmann describes this experience of sorrow in spiritual terms:

“Sorrow is something deeper, something more intimate and more spiritual than mere pain.  Sorrow often penetrates right into what we call happiness, and even into what is truly happiness – happiness which is not yet sufficient for the person who sorrows, and before which he even trembles.”[6] 

Grief and the subsequent constant state of unrest in the postmodern psyche, take us naturally to the cross.  As Moltmann writes, “To understand what happened between Jesus and his God and Father on the cross, it is necessary to talk in trinitarian terms.  The Son suffers dying, the Father suffers the death of the Son.  The grief of the Father here is just as important as the death of the Son.”[7]

THE ABYSS IN POSTMODERN EXPERIENCE

            Anxiety and the emotional and spiritual experience of looking over a precipice are also characteristics of the postmodern experience.  Modernism put up blocks against this abyss, hoping to fill it with reason, and the theologies of providence and glory were results of these blocks.  Religion presented and perceived as false expressions of happiness, stability, and facades has been rejected by the postmodern soul unable to believe in these falsehoods.  We have feared to acknowledge the abyss in our faith communities and pulpits, afraid that acknowledging our own lack of knowledge and certainty will destabilize our communities.  The postmodern understanding of “radical otherness,” where individuals feel disconnected from others could be met through an acknowledgement of the abyss.  Caputo writes, “In the postmodern world of advanced transportation and information technologies, the multiplex and multicultural diversity of life now comes rushing in upon us, inundating us in waves of differences.  We postmodern people are becoming less and less identical with ourselves, and more rapidly so with each passing day.”^[8]  Elizabeth Jantzen, exploring the work of Medieval mystic Hadewijch, also extends this idea into religion: “Once one has looked into the nihilistic abyss and found the abyss returning the gaze, then the untroubled empirical imagination of Anglo-American philosophy of religion can hardly seem other than naïve.”^[9]

            In contrast to this naive theology of providence that cannot address the postmodern world, the abyss is precisely where God is found.  Our congregations, friends, neighbors and we ourselves are guaranteed to find ourselves in these precipice experiences.  Theology of the cross addresses these experiences honestly and forthrightly.  Gerhard Forde addressed this even without considering the postmodern condition:   

The cross cannot be considered therefore as one option among several in our attempts to see God.  The cross shuts down alternatives.  It destroys the wisdom of the wise.  It blinds the sight of the theologian of glory.  What is revealed is precisely that we don’t know God.[10] 

Though this abyss of the unknowable is frightening, it is real, and it is precisely in embracing this reality that we can reach postmodern individuals who truly have nowhere else to turn.  Caputo writes, “This darker dialogue takes place among communities of faith, communities of those without community practicing an unconditional faith, a faith without protection from doubt.”^[11]

THE WEAKNESS OF LOVE

            Jantzen and Hadewijch find this chaotic, unknowable abyss to be a generative force, one in which we can find the creativity of God.  “Whatever other meanings the abyss carries in Hadewijch, it is fundamentally a womb.  It is the depths of love from which God is brought into the world, first in the incarnation, and then as the soul is born into the divine and the divine brought to birth again in the soul.”[12]  This creativity is ultimately a characteristic of the way God loves the world.  Moltmann contended that “Creative love is ultimately suffering love because it is only through suffering that it acts creatively and redemptively for the freedom of the beloved.”^[13] 

            Because postmodernity is beginning to discover, if not in power systems then in the souls and hearts of individuals, that progress as we have imagined it has only led to empty consumerism, manipulation in marketing, and social fragmentation as well as war and environmental destruction, theology that understands that God’s love and incoming kingdom as the antithesis to these developments can address the lack of satisfaction brought about by them.  In fact, as Caputo asserts, “…the mark of God in Christianity… is systematically found on the side of the “weak” features – of forgiveness, peace, nonviolence, poverty – not of the string or ‘virile’ features.”^[14]

            Ancient erotic poets and other writers understood this “weakness” as a feature of love.  According to David Frederickson, they describe a “wounded heart, tenderness, madness, ecstasy, intoxication – and sweetness!  These erotic motifs from classical literature describe the vulnerability of the lover to the beloved’s welfare and response.”^[15]  In fact, “…eros is love when the beloved is present and pothos is love when the beloved is absent.  They teach us that there is no escape from the vulnerability to loss and grief written inside of love… there is no dichotomy that can insulate love from longing.”^[16]  Finding in the “Christ-Hymn” of Philippians that both human and divine love are characterized by desire for communion and suffering over absence, Frederickson contends that the love of Christ for humanity “…is not love at arms’ length.  Not pity, nor condescending grace… Like the lover of Latin elegy, Christ is defenseless against the power of love.  It conquers him and makes him a prisoner.  The Lord is a slave of love.”^[17] 

This outpoured love, not in subservience but in pure desire, is a love that is desperately needed by the postmodern world.  The perception is that the love of God has conditions, has exceptions, and therefore this indispensable love is rejected.  This is not something for pastors and theologians to shrug off as a symptom of the age. “For the loving God, nothing is a matter of indifference. Before an equivocal, an undecided God, nothing is significant.  For the God who in his love is free, everything is infinitely important.”[18]

Do we have an answer?  Moltmann writes, “If there were no God, the world as it is would be all right.  It is only the desire, the passion, the thirst for God which turns suffering into conscious pain and turns the consciousness of pain into a protest against suffering.”^[19]  He says that this is “…the open wound of life in this world.  It is the real task of faith and theology to make it possible for us to survive, to go on living, with this open wound.”^[20]

For some, this open wound can be described as nihilism, and the terror that accompanies it.  However, John Caputo finds in grace the ultimate nihilism.  He writes that “The nihilism of grace is hidden in plain sight.  It sits silently in the center of cosmic nihilism, waiting to be noticed, according to the logic of being for nothing, living life without why.  The nothing is the purifying fire of the gift, which burns off every why and wherefore.”^[21]  He continues that this grace “…issues in a view of human life that deprivileges the order of possessions, power, property, and prestige, and instead privileges a simplicity and poverty of life that is at odds with the rule of global capitalism and politics.”^[22] 

This grace, this kingdom of God, is more imminently a hope for the world now than ever before.  We hover at the edge of an abyss of deconstruction and despair, searching for satisfaction in materialism and other false gods.  But eventually as we come to face grief and a chaotic future, these things will prove empty.  “But the logos of the cross is not a recipe for impotence and nihilism.  On the contrary, it is the very tissue of hope in life.”[23] 

Moltmann’s conclusion was that

In the crucified God is the basis for a real hope which both embraces and overcomes the world, and the ground for a love which is stronger than death and can sustain death.  It is the ground for living with the terror of history and the end of history, and nevertheless remaining in love and meeting what comes in openness for God’s future.[24]

            Our conclusion can be the same.  Instead of rejecting the postmodern world with either attempts to entrench and shore up modernity or withdrawal, disengagement, and resignation toward a “dying church,” we can engage and embrace it.  Admitting that relationships are fraught with grief, we can uphold the grief inherent in the triune God.  Understanding that the abyss is part of the human condition and not a failure of character or faith, we can show that God is present in the abyss:  creative, generative, and restorative.  Viewing the love of God as weakness and desire instead of sovereignty and obedience, we can demonstrate and share this love with a broken world. 

                                                                                                                                               

---

[1] Caputo, John D. Hoping Against Hope: Confessions of a Postmodern Pilgrim. Fortress Press, Minneapolis, Minnesota: 2015  Pg 199

[2] Derrida, Jacques.  The Work of Mourning.  University of Chicago Press, Chicago: 2001. Pg 107

[3] Buchanan, Mark.  Things Unseen.  Multnomah Publishers, Colorado Springs:  2002.  Pg 44

[4] Frederickson, David E.  Eros and the Christ.  Fortress Press, Minneapolis: 2013.  Pg 48

[5] Frederickson, Pg 26

[6] Moltmann, Jurgen.  The Trinity and the Kingdom.  Harper and Row, San Francisco: 1981. 
Kindle edition, Location 692

[7] Moltmann, Jurgen.  The Crucified God.  Fortress Press, Minneapolis: 1993. Pg. 243

[8] Caputo, Hoping Against Hope, Pg 100

[9] Jantzen, Pg 256

[10] Forde, Gerhard O.  On Being a Theologian of the Cross.  William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, Grand Rapids, Michigan: 1997.  Pg 80

[11] Caputo, Pg 102

[12] Jantzen, Pg 249

[13] Moltmann, Loc 961

[14] Caputo, John D.  “The Weakness of God: A Radical Theology of the Cross” in The Wisdom and Foolishness of God, Christophe Chalamet and Hans-Christoph Askani, Editors.  Fortress Press, Minneapolis: 2015 Pg 32

[15] Frederickson, Pg 40

[16] Frederickson, Pg 151

[17] Frederickson, Pg 69

[18] Moltmann, The Trinity and the Kingdom, Loc 2225

[19] Moltmann, Loc. 796

[20] Moltmann, Loc 813

[21] Caputo, Hoping Against Hope, Pg 172

[22] Caputo, The Weakness of God, Pg 41

[23] Caputo, Pg 58

[24] Moltmann, The Crucified God, Pg 278