October 20, 2024 – Twenty-Second Sunday After Pentecost
Rev. Gary Percesepe
Jesus predicts his suffering and death three times in Mark’s gospel. Each time his disciples miss the message of the cross. The first time, Peter strongly objects and rebukes Jesus. The second time, the disciples rather comically launch a discussion about who among them is the greatest. And today you’ve heard the reaction to the third prediction: comedy deepens into a bad sitcom with canned laughter— the absurdity of James and John begging Jesus to sit on his left and right hand when he enters his glory. They miss what we know: that the site of Jesus’ glory will be Golgotha– criminals will “sit” on his right and left as they hang from a cross.
Let’s go deeper: In Mark 10: 32 we discover the real reason why Jesus’ disciples failed to face up to unpleasant realities: “Those who followed Jesus were afraid.”
They had reason to be afraid. James and John and the others were afraid to face up to the truth of the cross in an age of empire. The cross is not a bad back or a difficult to get along with relative; the cross is the predictable suffering, rejection, and maybe even death that could come your way because you’re following the Jesus way. We create a theology of glory to evade the theology of the cross.
Those who followed Jesus were afraid.”If anything, the world has become more frightening. Terrorism, gun violence, and viral contagions that may prove worse than coronavirus. Rising sea levels and increasingly violent climate events signal an apocalypse, a world lit on fire. For others, there is genuine fear about the outcome of the November election, and this is felt on both sides of the divide.
There’s also widespread fear of the mainline church’s future. Some doubt its survival, which lead to all kinds of efforts to secure ourselves. When I met with the Keawala’i search committee on Zoom, I vividly remember someone talking with genuine emotion about the importance of “protecting our little church.”
We live in an age of anxiety. Anxiety is fear in search of an object. Meaning, “I’m afraid of something, but I can’t tell you right now what exactly I’m afraid of.”
Congregations have lots of anxiety that’s just free-floating. It’s just there. Part of the reason is that churches are voluntary organizations, loosely organized. In churches, there’s lots of ambiguity about roles and responsibilities. Where there is ambiguity, anxiety grows.
When churches start to decline, when finances decline, when our bodies age and decline, all of that raises church anxiety, which is a collective force. That’s why it’s important for churches to know their mission, their true north. Where there is clarity about mission, anxiety is reduced. Mission churches produce good leaders. We want our leaders to be the least anxious people in the room, to help guide us through the anxiety.
Anxiety circulating in our culture gets absorbed into the church. We watch a presidential debate or read the news or doom scroll on our phones. We’re swimming in a pool of anxiety, and some of us may feel that we’re drowning.
Recognizing our fear, naming it, helping people face it squarely– not evading it but finding clarity through it — these are all things that leaders must do in an age of anxiety. We long for security.
But where can we find true security?
We may be tempted to answer, in the liturgy of the church! And that is not a bad or a wrong answer. It may bring us comfort to know that some things in the world do not change. We may expend enormous energy to ensure that not one jot or tittle of the order of worship is altered.
Fundamentalism finds security in believing that the bible is perfect and inerrant in the original manuscripts and in a literalistic interpretation of scripture. But finding security in liturgy or literalism ultimately fails to banish fear. Why is this? Because this confuses the telescope with the stars. A telescope merely points to the stars, it is merely an instrument, not the stars themselves. Liturgy and the bible point us to God, but they are not God. Fundamentalism ultimately makes a fetish of the bible, an idol. We don’t worship the church bulletin, and we don’t worship the bible. Liturgy, tradition, experience and scripture are not themselves God, they point us to an encounter with the living God who alone provides true security.
Ultimately, the cross is God’s antidote to fear. In the cross we see that the worst has already happened, and that God has overcome the Dominations Systems of this world. “The Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.” Notice that Jesus uses the word give. He will give his life; it will not be taken from him. Jesus freely giving his life on the cross is his way of loving us and liberating us from our fears. Perfect aloha, perfect love. Perfect love casts out fear. Amene.