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November 27, 2011 -   Advent 1

Mark 1:1, 12; 11:1-10

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Mark’s Challenge

Happy New Year to you all!  No, I am not confused, nor do I have a bogus calendar.  Today is the launching of a new church year as we usher in the season of Advent. 

With the new church year comes a new set of biblical readings for worship.  The vast majority of congregations across mainline Christianity in North America follow, what is called, the Revised Common Lectionary of readings based on the liturgical year.  This lectionary was put together in the early 1990’s by an ecumenical group.  The lectionary is a three-year-cycle of readings.  In each year a particular gospel is hi-lighted, and this is the Year of Mark.    

Mark begins his gospel by stating the obvious, "The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God."  A few verses later Mark writes, “Jesus came into Galilee proclaiming the gospel of God, and saying, “The time is fulfilled, the kingdom of God is at hand…”   But there is more to this line than first appears.  Actually Mark borrowed the phrase translated “good news” or “gospel” from the Romans, and he borrowed it intentionally to make a radical and subversive declaration.  It is important to note that the word euangelion, meaning "gospel" or "good news", was a significant part of the lexicon of Roman propaganda.  The Romans used the phrase "gospel" or “good news” to formally announce an emperor's birth; or an emperor's accession to the throne;  or to announce a great Roman military victory or some other imperial achievement credited to Caesar. These imperial announcements would begin:  “The good news of Caesar, the son of God…(followed by the announcement)”   We must never forget that Caesar was considered to be divine and bore numerous divine designations including “son of God, and “prince of peace”, and “Lord” – all   designations eventually given to Jesus by his early followers. 

By adopting this Roman imperial phrase and applying it to Jesus, Mark is ingeniously challenging oppressive Roman power and the divine status of Caesar.  Mark knows that the gospel of Jesus is about a clash of two great realities:  the Kingdom of God and the Kingdom of Rome.  For Mark, the two cannot co-exist comfortably – one cannot accommodate the other without losing its identity. So Mark, right from the very first verse is challenging his community of faith to make a clear choice; to declare their allegiance; either to the Kingdom of Caesar or the Kingdom of God. This challenge is the overriding theme that frames Mark’s gospel. 

Today’s gospel reading also includes Mark 11, the ever so familiar Palm Sunday story when Jesus road into Jerusalem at the beginning of that last week when he was crucified.   As he rode and processed through town, people lined the streets and spread their cloaks and leafy branches on the road and the people shouted their “hosannas.”       

So why are we reading this text on this first Sunday of Advent?  It is not Lent or Good Friday and Easter! 

It is read today to make a point about Mark’s overriding theme – Mark’s challenge.  You may not be aware that two processions entered Jerusalem on that day, that week of Passover, so long ago.   Of course there was this familiar one involving Jesus.   From the east Jesus rode a donkey down the Mount of Olives cheered on by his admirers who were mostly peasants and people of the poorer social and economic classes.

But on the opposite side of the city, from the west, originating from the Mediterranean seaport Caesarea Maritima, there was another procession. Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor of Judea, entered Jerusalem leading an impressive procession of imperial cavalry and soldiers and a display of weaponry.  It was the standard practice for Roman governors of Judea to arrive in Jerusalem for major Jewish festivals, not out of reverence for the customs of their Jewish subjects, but for a show of military might to discourage uprisings and insurgencies; especially at Passover, the Jewish  commemoration of liberation from an earlier oppressive empire.

When we understand there were two processions, it enhances the meaning of Jesus' procession.  Jesus’ procession was a deliberate contrast to what was happening on the other side of the city. Pilate’s procession embodied the power, intimidation, and violence of the empire that ruled the world.  Jesus’ procession embodied an alternative paradigm - the Kingdom of God.

Jesus’ procession resembles a planned political demonstration.  Mark tells us Jesus arranged the details of the whole thing.   Its symbolic meaning is further provided by the Old Testament prophet Zechariah.  Zechariah wrote that a king was expected to arrive in Jerusalem “humble, and riding on a colt, the foal of a donkey.” (9:9)  Zechariah says that this king will bring an end to war and weapons of war and establish peace and justice in the land.

What’s intriguing is that both of these kingdoms advance the idea of peace. The difference is how that peace is to be attained and maintained.  For Rome and Caesar, peace was to be attained and maintained through force and coercive power: military, economic, political and ideological power; to rule the world through intimidation, fear, violence and brute strength.

For Jesus and the Kingdom of God, it was a peace to be attained and maintained through the pursuit of social justice for all people:

Ø  a kingdom in which the least and the last would, not be ignored, pushed aside and exploited, but would be first and moved to the head of the line;

Ø  a kingdom in which the proud would not strut their stuff in the world’s face, but be humbled and the unnoticed and unvoiced be lifted up and given voice;

Ø  a kingdom where enemies would not be hunted and destroyed, but prayed for and paradoxically loved;

Ø  a kingdom where the unclean would not be quarantined and dehumanized, but embraced;

Ø  a kingdom attained and maintained not through military violence, economic exploitation, or political coercion but through non-violence and compassion.

This is the great contrast between kingdoms that Mark alluded to in the first verse of his gospel, when he had the audacity to borrow a Roman phrase, took Caesar’s name out and put Jesus’ name in its place!  The good news is not Caesar and his empire, but Jesus and the Kingdom of God that he brings and embodies.

At Christmas we eventually get around to singing that great carol, “Joy to the World.”   Have you ever paid close attention to the words of the first line?   “Joy to the world, the Lord is come.”  Notice the word “is.”  It is not, “Joy to the world the Lord did come,” (past tense); or not even “Joy to the world the Lord has come,” (present-perfect tense); or not “Joy to the world the Lord will come,” (future tense).  No, it is “Joy to the world, the Lord is come.”   That is significant.  It is the present-progressive tense which describes a present reality that carries into the future and becomes a present reality in the future.

To me, that's the essential meaning of Advent and how Mark’s faith community experienced Jesus, God taking shape in our lives right now - bringing the past and future into the present – transforming “did come” and “has come” and “will come” into “is come” – a present reality that remains. 

Mark’s gospel reveals that is how his community experienced Jesus – not as a past reality – or dead hero or martyr in the past tense.  But they continued to experience him as a present reality who brought into their midst an alternative paradigm by which to live life and shape their community life; an alternative way to the imperial paradigm of Rome that dominated their world. 

Do you dream?  I don’t dream in my sleep very often that I remember. Experts tell us we dream all the time, and I am sure I do, but I seldom remember it.  But every once in while I have a whopper of a dream – a dream so vivid I remember it for a long time, perhaps for the rest of my life.  It happens about once a decade, and I had one of those whopper dreams Wednesday night last. 

I dreamt I was on the side of mountain over-looking a vast endless valley.  The valley was so huge it was filled with millions of people.  I was too far away to see any distinctions and differences between the people.  From my vantage point everybody looked pretty much the same, and I was removed from them.   

Suddenly I was transported down into the valley and placed in the midst of this teeming humanity, and I saw the people close up.  There were all sorts of different people: races, cultures, ideologies, religions, ethnicities, national origins, social and economic class, age, etc.   At first I was afraid for I saw people and situations that caused me great anxiety.   I was overwhelmed.  It was too much to process, and I wanted to run and hide but there was nowhere to run – just endless humanity – and I began to panic.  Suddenly a figure of a man stood before me. For reasons unknown, I was drawn to him.  He gestured for me to follow and, and I felt compelled to follow him.  I could not make out the details of his face. 

As he made his way through the teeming masses with me following close behind, he suddenly stopped.  He stopped before a mother and her child who were sitting in the dirt.  He gestured with his hand as if he wanted me to notice them.  They were obviously poor, hungry and not well – life was hard.  The woman was holding the child tenderly in a comforting manner as if the child were ill or dying.  A distance further away I saw another family – a man, woman and a child only they looked happy and healthy, well-fed and well dressed and they were sitting in lawn chairs drinking Kool-Aid on what looked like a beach. 

Then a most amazing thing happened!   The figure of the man took my left hand and put it in the hand of the poor child.  He then took my right hand and moved it toward the other family sitting in the chairs on the beach, but they were too far away for my arm to reach. No matter - my arm suddenly became elastic, like rubber,  and it stretched out all the way to the other family as he pulled upon my arm. My arm stretched hundreds of feet  until it reached them and they grasped my hand.  And then I woke up!

I laid awake reflecting upon my dream.  I realized that, in my dream, I intuitively knew what the figure wanted me to do.  And in the depths of my being, even though I could not see his face, I knew who he was.  He was challenging me to come off the mountainsides that I spend way too much time upon that I mistake for real life: my mountainside of indifference; my mountainside of self-indulgence; my mountainside of safety from people and situations that cause me anxiety; my mountainside of rationalizations.  He was challenging me to be a peacemaker; to be a connecting and reconciling bridge between contrasting humanities who are often kept far apart in an imperial-like world.  There is no Roman Empire anymore, but the world is still very much imperial.  There is no Caesar, but even so, we can often think and act like Caesar when we dehumanize people by placing them in categories; or when the powerful think only of themselves and use their power to give themselves even more advantages; and a million other imperial like attitudes 

That dream is a now embedded in my being.  As I laid in bed and reflected upon it early Thursday morning, I found myself actually getting a little angry about it – that I even dreamed it at all!  For I know that it will come back to haunt me and hound me and challenge me especially when I want to live my life on some mountainside of self-indulgence, safety and comfort rather than follow Jesus into the muck and mire and misery of the world and experience his presence there.   

 “Joy to the world the Lord is come.”  I believe that is how the early communities that formed around Jesus experienced him – as a present reality who embodied the Kingdom of God.   Mark challenged his community to choose to live their lives by this alternative reality and to not accommodate themselves to the imperial world around them – to be different in all the ways that Jesus was different, especially when it came to compassion, grace, social justice and peace-making. 

“Joy to the world the Lord is come.” (a present reality that carries into our future)  Mark’s challenge renews itself in this worship experience today, and he calls upon us to choose which reality we will live by today: some version of Caesar’s imperial reality or Jesus’ Kingdom of God?   Which will it be?