I sometimes wonder if people just don’t listen. We’ve known people who have their mind made up before they even ask a question. It’s almost like they just like to hear their own voice. I used to think that would be different when it came to things like the Church, or even better, when it came to things like the disciples who’s consistently misguided questioning of Jesus is recorded for us in the Gospels, specifically Mark. But you don’t have to have been paying much attention to notice that the disciples continue to either ask irrelevant questions at best, or at worse, their motivation in asking seems to be significantly askew.
The disciples were schooled in scripture. Everyone in Palestine was. Learning scripture and even memorizing it were common practices. People knew scripture so well that even quoting the first verse of a Psalm was all that was needed to bring the rest of the Psalm into mind. And so Psalm 119, that we read a portion of this morning, was well known. “Happy are those whose way is blameless, who walk in the way of the LORD,” was not something unheard of by those who either were following Jesus or at least paying attention to what he was saying.
And yet another scene emerges in our Gospel appointed for today that causes me to wonder what they were thinking. This time the Disciples are off the hook because they are not at the middle of the dialogue. It’s the scribes this time.
I am not sure if you have considered why we get all these questions that seem to be rapid fired at Jesus. Jesus gets them from everyone: from his followers, innocent bystanders, the Pharisees and scribes and lawyers, they all ask him, what they felt were important questions. I think we do the story a disservice if we don’t ask ourselves, “why do they care so much?”
We hear that Jesus came to us “in the fullness of time,” which means that all of the things that needed to be written, and all of the events that Israel had to experience had been accomplished in order for the context of the Messiah to be understood. Of course, they didn’t right a way but eventually the Church made sense of things like the suffering servant of Isaiah and the purpose of the law. It didn’t happen immediately but slowly, the church’s understanding of the uniqueness of Jesus emerged. Perhaps you didn’t realize it but the “ancient creed of the church,” the Nicene Creed was not formulated for almost 300 years after the resurrection. In other words, it took awhile to put into words, the uniqueness of Jesus.
But there is something else we need to know. In the first century in Palestine there was an intense, almost acute expectation that the Messiah would come. Things were bad. The Romans were a threat to desecrate the Temple. Allegiances were divided. There had been a steady flow of Messiah-wannabes that emerged. Some were more likely than others but all of them had ended in disappointment.
So it should not surprise us that when this Messiah turns up on the front pages of the papers, or your Netflix was interrupted by another CNN Breaking News broadcast of the newest escapade taking place around Jesus, it caused a growing sense of curiosity about Jesus. Who was he? Where did he gain all of his wisdom? Why was he speaking the say he spoke? Was he the Messiah? How could they be sure? You see, there’s a lot on the line when it comes to claiming you’re the messiah. And when this Messiah-like figure keeps saying things like eat my flesh, drink my blood…. Well what does that even mean?
Oh, there were other questions… what is a “Son of Man?” Should we continue to pay tribute to Caesar? Can the Messiah come from Galilee? And eventually things like “Are you the king of the Jews? What is truth? And finally, when the clock was running out, “Aren’t you the Messiah? Save yourself and us. If you are the Messiah, why don’t you come down from that cross? (Paraphrased from NT Wright) So as NT Wright has said “Layer upon layer it comes, dense and rich within the texts, echo upon echo, allusion and resonance tumbling over one another, so that for those with ears to hear it becomes unmissable, a crescendo of questions to which in the end there can be only one answer. Why are you speaking like this? Are you the one who is to come?”
So even though it seems like we have been listening to an unending string of questions from everyone around Jesus, there was a real desire to know just who he was. Granted, some had already made up their mind and wanted to silence him, but even among some of the Scribes and Pharisees remained curious. Could it be, as some were saying, that the Messiah had come to live and move among us.
Yet, there was not even a consensus on what the Messiah would do when he did come, where he was from or even if he would simply be an angel. It took a long time to unravel that ball of twine. At this point in Mark, we simply have a lot of people asking questions. And that is always a good place to start.
And so today, the scribes, who knew the importance of walking blamelessly before God, decide to see if Jesus is doing that. No better place to find out than right at the middle of their faith. The Law was central to them, so they must have gotten together and decided to find out where Jesus stood when it came to the central tenet of their faith. And so, here came the question: One of the scribes came near and heard them disputing with one another, and seeing that he answered them well, he asked him, “Which commandment is the first of all?”
That breaks down a bit in translation. What they wanted to know wasn’t, “what’s first on the list,” but rather “which is the most important?” Notice that they had been taken with Jesus’ teaching to this point, as Mark points out that they had “seen that he had answered them well,” and because of that decided to ask their question. Fascinatingly enough, they had been taken by the way Jesus had answered the questions of the disciples. So, if you have been to, we have some good allies in the Scribes.
And Jesus answers them. It didn’t take a ten to twelve to fifteen minute sermon either. Just a bold, clear and concise answer: “you are to love the Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and mind, and love your neighbor as yourself. And then the punch line “there is no other commandment greater than these.” That’s it. That’s the summary of the law. The great commandment we call it. With a bit of artistic license, I’d put it this way: it’s all about love. First find the source, then share it. Nothing else is important! And ironically for us, if you have been listening over the last several weeks, those who got the right answers are now numbered as two: the blind man named Bartimaeus and the Scribes. Wrong answers have been provided by a host of disciples.
But don’t get stuck with who’s right and who’s wrong because Jesus reveals to us the importance two principles at work in creation: one is law and the other is grace. The Episcopal priest Paul Zahl writes that these two principles, grace and law are ever present in and around us and seem to be at war with each other. He says that “[t]he story of the Bible is the story of this perpetual war between law and grace. Law comes in, as the apostle Paul puts it (Romans 7:21-23), and human beings become excited by it. They become excited to resist it. The law, which is any form of external command, provokes the opposite reaction from the one it is intended to provoke. Instead of inciting obedience or submission, it incites rebellion. It provokes revolutionary resentment. …. If somebody tells you to do something, you immediately and instinctively desire to do the opposite. Is the law ever a gratifying thing? Does it produce pleasure? No. …. The law kills, the law incites, the law breeds hatred for itself, the law creates suppression. … The law does not enable us – – to do the things it commends … The point is crucial: law tells us the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth about ourselves…. But the law fails to convey the power to correct the maladies it diagnoses. The law is painful, like iodine on a cut, but another agent is required for healing to occur. That agent is grace.” Paul F. M. Zahl. Grace in Practice: A Theology of Everyday Life (Kindle Locations 40-46). Kindle Edition.
And that’s what Jesus is telling us. Grace is the power to change and grace is experienced fully when it is shared fully. It has nothing to do with figuring it out, indeed, perhaps it is shared best when one realizes that so much of our faith resides in doubt. I think Paul Tillich was on to something when he wrote: “Doubt isn’t the opposite of faith; it is an element of faith.… Sometimes I think it is my mission to bring faith to the faithless, and doubt to the faithful.”
I have thought a lot about this…. You see, I have experienced loss, in a traumatic way. I lost my son. I didn’t expect to… I made a lot of bargains with God… you know, I gave you my life; I served the church. Certainly I don’t expect much but at least save my son. What happened, in his death, was I traveled that corridor with the windows of doubt wide open.[at this point, I went off script and shared my experience. To hear what I said, please go to either the Church’s webpage or the Facebook page of the Church to hear exactly what I said].
You see, I think Jesus is speaking as much to us as he was to the scribes, pharisees and disciples mentioned in the Gospel. Brian McLaren boldly asserts that “somewhere in the journey of our lives, the faith we inherited often stops working. We go through a transition period, a period of letting go of many things and holding on to a precious few.” For me it stopped working when I thought everything always turned out well…. Just like it was supposed to. It was a law of sorts. Remember:
“Happy are those whose way is blameless, who walk in the law of the LORD. Happy are those who keep his decrees, who seek him with their whole heart, who also do no wrong, but walk in his ways. You have commanded your precepts to be kept diligently. O that my ways may be steadfast in keeping your statutes! Then I shall not be put to shame, having my eyes fixed on all your commandments. I will praise you with an upright heart, when I learn your righteous ordinances. I will observe your statutes; do not utterly forsake me.” Do you see how that becomes a law? If I do this, I get that.
But what if things don’t turn out like you hoped? Like you prayed?
If you have never considered this, I pose to you this morning the possibility that there is a deeper level of faith that might surprise you. What if, in the midst of all of the struggles, disappointments, failures in life, we come face to face with doubt. By doubt that our faith is not some formula to follow or a law to obey. What if the crisis we face introduces us to a truth that Jesus is giving us. Love is the door through which we must pass in order to experience God more fully. But down that hallway leading to that door, we find many a window of doubt opened and blowing freely through our lives. Do we run from that? Or do we embrace it as an aspect of a more mature faith, a faith that is more alive?
I was reading a couple of weeks ago that “Sixty-five million adults alive in the United States today have already dropped out of active religious attendance, and that number grows by about 2.7 million more every year. Their reasons for dropping out are complex. Some leave because they begin to doubt God or the Bible or some of the doctrines and practices required by their churches. Many leave because they begin to doubt the church or synagogue or mosque itself as an institution worthy of their trust and support. Whatever the focus of their doubts, at this very moment, hundreds of thousands of people are watching their doubts grow and their religious identity weaken.” McLaren, Brian D. (2021-01-04T22:58:59). Faith After Doubt . St. Martin’s Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
It may seem strange to hear me say this, but I don’t think that is bad news. Someone once said that we are still waiting for Christianity to arrive on the shores of America. Maybe this is a sign that it is coming. Maybe what we need is some good and faithful doubt to replace all of our certainty. Because without the honest struggling of faith, our religion is nothing more than platitudes that carry no life.
When we travel through that corridor of faith, filled with windows of doubt, we begin to see more clearly the love which makes all the difference. You see certainty can deflate us when life just doesn’t turn out the way we thought it would. But doubt allows for true religion to emerge and remind us that we are indeed, despite it all, participating in a movement that is very good. It has nothing to do with observing, affirming, moralism or simply being part of something. Doubt allows us entry into this mystery where we find God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit engaged in the eternal dance that is God. And in that dance, inside the very presence of God, is love. Beckoning us to let go of all that would limit us and enter that very dance. Our call is to love as we have been loved. There is no better way to live.
In Jesus name.