Change

Good morning One River,

This has been a week. You ever feel like God is presenting you with so many options you don’t know which way is up?

We are living at a unique time in history. There seem to be a lot of things in a state of flux around us, in our immediate area, in our city, in our nation and around the world right now. I think I’ve said before that sometimes I write a message because I’m working something out and speaking to myself. I may have heard similar things form other clergy over the years. Well, today is one of those days. I hope this speaks to you all as well.

We live in an almost constant state of change, yet we seem to spend an inordinate amount of time trying to prevent things from changing.

We are born, we grow old and eventually we pass on. Hopefully, on this journey we’re able to create a meaningful relationship with Yahweh. It sometimes feels like a strange state of things, that we are constantly changing, yet we worship an unchanging god.

We stand before the throne of Yahweh, our cosmic father who exists in a state of perfection, but we come in a state that, hopefully, is never settled.

We are children on a journey. That journey can take many forms, but hopefully we grow in our love for one another and for Jesus.

As a church, we’re called into a communion with each other, but also with the outside world. Things change over time, and we’ve been put in a unique place, I believe, where we have the opportunity to grow in our impact, both with the church in Rwanda and hopefully in the lives of these kids coming out of foster care.

We’re small in our numbers, but Jesus changed the world with twelve boys who lived in a perpetual state of change and confusion.

I want to look at a few passages in chapter 8 of Mark. We can see that when push came to shove, the disciples grew in some incredible ways, and still failed in others.

In Mark 8, we see huge growth for the disciples. They go from worrying about where they will get their next meal to proclaiming that Jesus is God. If you read quickly through the chapter, you may not think critically about all the changes that take place. But I think this is an important step for us to take today.

JESUS FEEDS THE FOUR THOUSAND

MARK 8:1-10

During those days another large crowd gathered. Since they had nothing to eat, Jesus called his disciples to him and said, “I have compassion for these people; they have already been with me three days and have nothing to eat. If I send them home hungry, they will collapse on the way, because some of them have come a long distance.”

His disciples answered, “But where in this remote place can anyone get enough bread to feed them?”

“How many loaves do you have?” Jesus asked.

“Seven,” they replied.

He told the crowd to sit down on the ground. When he had taken the seven loaves and given thanks, he broke them and gave them to his disciples to distribute to the people, and they did so. They had a few small fish as well; he gave thanks for them also and told the disciples to distribute them. The people ate and were satisfied.

Afterward the disciples picked up seven basketfuls of broken pieces that were left over. About four thousand were present. After he had sent them away, he got into the boat with his disciples and went to the region of Dalmanutha.

As we read this, we can almost feel the exasperation of Jesus. “Do you not understand the symbolism here?” You’ve already seen me perform this same miracle. I did it for our Jewish brethren in Chapter 6. Now that we’re in front of a Gentile population, you again seem totally stunned. The numerology here signifying perfection is a nice touch as well. Mark is trying to explain to us as readers that Jesus is the perfect food. Yet the disciples, who have been with him for some time now, still fail to see the change.

THE PHARISEES DEMAND A SIGN

Meanwhile, the Pharisees continue in their hardhearted judgment of Jesus, and he continues to thunder down condemnation on their stubbornness.

MARK 8:11-13

The Pharisees came and began to argue with him, seeking from him a sign from heaven to test him. And he sighed deeply in his spirit and said, “Why does this generation seek a sign? Truly, I say to you, no sign will be given to this generation.” And he left them, got into the boat again, and went to the other side.

This shows his exasperation with the religious class. Literally taking place on the heels of a miracle that could be called a sign, they ask for yet another. We have often come to read through scripture and become disillusioned with the Pharisees and the Sadducees. We’ve come to know when we see them make an appearance that they are going to fail somehow. They are going to miss the point, or do something outright evil.

Yet we somehow have divorced ourselves from this reality that we can just as easily be the Pharisees and Sadducees. We are the modern religious cast. It’s important for us to look at the spirituality if front of us, and recognize the works of Yahweh in our presence. This is not a personal attack. I’m not referencing anyone in particular, other than what I see in myself. But we must remember that a key component of our faith is growth, and with growth comes change.

THE LEAVEN OF PHARISEES AND HEROD

MARK 8:14-21

Now they had forgotten to bring bread, and they had only one loaf with them in the boat. And he cautioned them, saying, “Watch out; beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod.”

And they began discussing with one another the fact that they had no bread. And Jesus, aware of this, said to them, “Why are you discussing the fact that you have no bread? Do you not yet perceive or understand? Are your hearts hardened? Having eyes do you not see, and having ears do you not hear? And do you not remember? When I broke the five loaves for the five thousand, how many baskets full of broken pieces did you take up?”

They said to him, “Twelve.”

“And the seven for the four thousand, how many baskets full of broken pieces did you take up?”

And they said to him, “Seven.”

And he said to them, “Do you not yet understand?”

This is not reassuring. The boys are clearly lost here. They are once again, missing the point. The theme of the disciples’ spiritual dullness reaches a new height here, and Jesus seems genuinely disheartened. Even after seeing him feed nine thousand people on a lunchbox’s worth of food, they are worried about where they are going to find bread. Even worse, when Jesus makes a spiritual lesson of the situation, they are completely dim to it.

I often read these passages and see the face of my parents in Jesus’ response. I wasn’t until we had children that I truly realized how much of the point I missed in my younger years. Jesus, like a parent, is trying to prepare them here for life after his death. “Beware of the Pharisees”, they don’t need this warning while Jesus is there to protect them, while he’s there to take the brunt of the assault. But things are beginning to change.

JESUS HEALS A BLIND MAN AT BETHSAIDA

MARK 8:22-26

And they came to Bethsaida. And some people brought to him a blind man and begged him to touch him. And he took the blind man by the hand and led him out of the village, and when he had spit on his eyes and laid his hands on him, he asked him, “Do you see anything?”

And he looked up and said, “I see people, but they look like trees, walking.”

Then Jesus laid his hands on his eyes again; and he opened his eyes, his sight was restored, and he saw everything clearly. And he sent him to his home, saying, “Do not even enter the village.”

If you’re at all like me, this one has probably confused you before. Was Jesus not capable of healing this man in one shot? What’s the point here, what am I missing? Well, the two-stage healing of this blind man is not an instance of Jesus making a mistake (as if he failed at first to heal the man). It is an enacted parable of the disciples (especially Peters) coming to see and understand Jesus.

This is more about the boys than it is about the blind man. He gets his sight back. But it’s here we see the change in the disciples come about. It’s a slower process than we’d like to admit. Even with the guidance of Jesus the Christ himself, it still takes a bit to see all the moving pieces. This is a parable, not just about the disciples, but about us. Every time I think I’ve got my head and mind wrapped around the greatness of God. I realize there’s still mud in my eye.

PETER CONFESSES JESUS AS THE CHRIST

MARK 8:27-30

And Jesus went on with his disciples to the villages of Caesarea Philippi. And on the way he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that I am?”

And they told him, “John the Baptist; and others say, Elijah; and others, one of the prophets.”

And he asked them, “But who do you say that I am?”

Peter answered him, “You are the Christ.” And he strictly charged them to tell no one about him.

Peter’s understanding of Jesus’ identity is real but still blurry. He understands that Jesus is the Christ (that is, the King); he even understands, as Matthew tells us, that Jesus is the divine Son of God, but he’s still missing the full picture. We’ve talked before about the fact that no one of this day understood the assignment of the Messiah. They were all looking for a military conqueror.

JESUS FORETELLS HIS DEATH AND RESURRECTION

MARK 8:31-33

And he began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes and be killed, and after three days rise again. And he said this plainly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. But turning and seeing his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, “Get behind me, Satan! For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.”

Peter has just gotten the atta boy from Jesus. He’s truly begun to see Jesus for who he is. And in the very next story, Jesus calls him Satan (the adversary) and says get behind me. There’s clearly still mud in his eye. Change is coming and Peter is not in a position to deal with it. He’s completely missed the signs, even though he’s walking with the sign giver.

MARK 8:34-38

And calling the crowd to him with his disciples, he said to them, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it. For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul? For what can a man give in return for his soul? For whoever is ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him will the Son of Man also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.”

This is the meaning of Jesus’ phrase here that a disciple must “take up his cross” (vs 34). He is not referring to a regrettable circumstance in one’s life or even to sickness or hardship. He is promising that the world will always be intractably, furiously, and even lethally opposed to Christians, with this moral turpitude sometimes even coming from the church itself.

Jesus is trying to prepare his boys for what comes next. What comes after he’s resurrected.

fI we can see through this reading of Mark 8, that they boys were able to change and grow while moving with Jesus. They never arrived at the destination, but they were able to move and grow with him, and after he left.

We must live a different way. We must live in a state of love and service to others. We have opportunities before us now, to help those truly less fortunate than we are.

The world is in a state of change, much of which we can do little about. There are two horrible, and well published, wars going on in the world. Either, or both, have the potential to make earth shaping changes as we know them. There is virtually nothing, beyond prayer, which I hope you all are doing, that we can do to affect what’s going on in either location.

God help us, we’re headed into an election cycle, again, which I fear will whip up hate and fury across the country again. There is little, beyond prayer, we can actually do about that.

On the positive side of things, so it doesn’t sound like I’m preaching the apocalypse. We’re entering into the time of Advent. We’re entering into a time of symbolic, blessed anticipation for the arrival of the Holy One. Something we have seen before, but hope, genuinely, to see again.

Our lives are in a constant state of change. Control is an illusion. But that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Part of positively accepting change is believing that Yahweh is in control and that Change for us, is a part of His process.

Most of us will walk this earth in a constant state of having ‘mud in our eye’. But as we remove it piece by piece Jesus gives us the opportunity to change and become more like him. Jesus was flexible and transient.

His life changed greatly over the last few years, as he walked the earth, and so did life for the boys. Once he died, nothing would ever be settled again for any of them. I hope that as we wrap this us, we can all open ourselves to the idea of helping those in need and being open to the idea that we’re not always in control. Life with Jesus is a journey, and journeys require movement, they require change.