Category Archives: sermons

But what about you?

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Imagine you have stumbled onto a ceremony–a young man stands before a prophet, a priest. The holy man raises his flask above the young man’s head and pours out rich oil over him.

Anointed. The king.

Religion is unnecessarily complicated. Jesus is not. He is or he isn’t. There are no in-betweens.

So when he asks–

Mark 8:29 (NIV)
“But what about you?” he asked. “Who do you say I am?” Peter answered, “You are the Christ. ”

The question is as surgically incisive as the answer. You are the chosen king. Peter says it. But will he trust? Will you? Do you know Jesus well enough to know…he is the King?

Literal Jesus

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I take God very literally. I do this out of long years of watching Him pull stuff off that no one else can–like trees and sunsets.

He is the Master.

So when Mark quotes him–

Mark 8:26 (NIV)
Jesus sent him home, saying, “Don’t go into the village. ”

I kinda wanna know why and I kinda wanna know what next?

He doesn’t tell me specifically. He says, what do you know about Me? How do I operate?

I know these things:

Jesus loves
And because he loves he sacrifices
And protects

Jesus wants to be with us
So he finds lovely and extravagant ways to insert himself into our stories

Jesus is faithful
He never wanders off
Never gets distracted
Never loses interest.

Jesus sees the whole story.

Sometimes the terseness of God can be vexing–whatcha mean, don’t go to the village?

He means

Trust me. I am the way , the truth, and the light.

Hm. Light indeed. Light for the blind man. Good stuff.

Men like trees, walking…

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Mark 8:23-25 (NIV)
He took the blind man by the hand and led him outside the village. When he had spit on the man’s eyes and put his hands on him, Jesus asked, “Do you see anything?” [24] He looked up and said, “I see people; they look like trees walking around.” [25] Once more Jesus put his hands on the man’s eyes. Then his eyes were opened, his sight was restored, and he saw everything clearly.

His sight restored.
There are modern stories about people born blind who, when they are restored to sight, struggle with the relationship between the words for things in the dark and the words for things in the light.

What I mean of course, is that an apple you smell and feel and eat is not always recognizable as a red or yellow fruit with a smooth skin and a core.

These modern folk have had to strive to revise their scope of the world and it has felt dangerously unsteady. Sometimes a “safe” blindness can feel more familiar than a vertiginously new world of sight.

Jesus heals this man in two stages–he first restores the physical mechanism of sight, then he gives him the language to go with his new world.

I think that heaven will be like that–our senses broadened and restored. In fact, the Sermon on the Mount is the primer for the language of heaven.

Do you want the language and culture of paradise? Then by all means abide with the world’s only native speaker–

Jesus. The Word made flesh.

Bethsaida

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Everything in the Bible is connected–all water leads to other water, all bread leads to other bread.

The symbols are intertwined and all meaning is the purvey of God. God uses the Bible and its narrative voices to call out to us.

Hello! I’m here! I love you.

So when Jesus tells the man not to go back to the village I wondered why?

Sometimes people who want to follow Jesus are commanded by him to return to their communities. Some are enjoined not to. This man is in the latter group. Why?

bethsaida is a city with some history. It means house of fish. Hometown to several disciples, it was also a Geshurite city. Absalom’s mother Maacah was a Geshurite princess.

Jesus fed the four thousand near Bethsaida. But he also rebuked them. The religious leaders were resistant to him and did not trust him.

Why should they? He was a dangerous man. An iconoclast. Don’t go back, he says. I trust him but still long to know these two things–

why? and…
what next?

What next, Lord?

Bread, just bread…

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Do you ever want to just give up? Does life feel hard? People menacing? A consistent positive narrative too elusive?

Me too.

So when I read,

Mark 8:14-16 (NIV)
The disciples had forgotten to bring bread, except for one loaf they had with them in the boat. [15] “Be careful,” Jesus warned them. “Watch out for the yeast of the Pharisees and that of Herod.” [16] They discussed this with one another and said, “It is because we have no bread.”

…I feel a little better.

Because the disciples were clueless.
Because God has a sense of humor.
Because not all bread is the same.

The Bread of Life says, don’t muddle your values like the Pharisees, and the disciples say, huh? We need more grub?

They didn’t get it. He was the Bread.
He was the treasure. No matter what.

Asking for Signs

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Mark 8:5,9-13 (NIV)
“How many loaves do you have?” Jesus asked. “Seven,” they replied. [9] About four thousand were present. After he had sent them away, [10] he got into the boat with his disciples and went to the region of Dalmanutha. [11] The Pharisees came and began to question Jesus. To test him, they asked him for a sign from heaven. [12] He sighed deeply and said, “Why does this generation ask for a sign? Truly I tell you, no sign will be given to it.” [13] Then he left them, got back into the boat and crossed to the other side.

Tonight the moon is amazing, just as the fierce wind that blew all day was equally amazing. You will forgive me for seeing signs of Love in them, after years with Him I do.

Jesus was the sign. They ask for a sign from Logos. They want to control him and cannot surrender to his love.

We are all that way–wrongly fearing the one who loves us best of all…because we are afraid. For some this life will be a love story–long and full. For others it will be a near miss–we will avoid him until the end is close, only to regret the wasted years.

And for some there will be an unrequited love, always waiting, always in love with them, while they willfully test the only God who saves us.

No sign indeed.

Breaking Bread

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Mark 8:4-9 (NIV)
His disciples answered, “But where in this remote place can anyone get enough bread to feed them?” [5] “How many loaves do you have?” Jesus asked. “Seven,” they replied. [6] 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 set before the people, and they did so. [7] They had a few small fish as well; he gave thanks for them also and told the disciples to distribute them. [8] The people ate and were satisfied. Afterward the disciples picked up seven basketfuls of broken pieces that were left over. [9] About four thousand men were present. And having sent them away,

They go from stomach-gripping hunger to some bread, then some small fish, to a meal for a crowd of tens of thousands (4000 men plus women and children). They had leftovers.

People can be cagey about God. Understandably–He gets misrepresented a lot. The truth is He provides–air, water, food, sure. Not just those things. He wants to show us love.

Get close to Jesus and you will see some amazing things. Forget all that. The real miracle is the love of a person who knows us deeply and still abides with us.

He provides life; he provides blessing, but ultimately these things are just the incidental elements of the feast of God.

The real gift, the real nourishment is him.

Deja vu dining

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Mark 8:1-4 (NIV)
During those days another large crowd gathered. Since they had nothing to eat, Jesus called his disciples to him and said, [2] “I have compassion for these people; they have already been with me three days and have nothing to eat. [3] If I send them home hungry, they will collapse on the way, because some of them have come a long distance.” [4] His disciples answered, “But where in this remote place can anyone get enough bread to feed them?”

Alright. Some questions.

Why wait 3 days to feed them?

Didn’t we already do this miracle? Wouldn’t you think the disciples would have rubbed their hands together in anticipation and said, ok, whose got some snacks? Jesus is gonna break some bread!!

People are sheep, and sheep have a short attention span. We are credulous about Ponzi schemes and time shares, but cagey when we come to miracles.

Back in chapter 6 when we experienced the first feast of shared bread, Mark commented that the disciples did not understand the feast or for that matter, the power of Jesus.

So is this second miracle a reminder? A way of raising the expectation of divine providence?

I don’t know. I don’t know why I don’t believe faster, worry less, ask for bigger things, or trumpet God’s power more vociferously.

Ok, I do know.

I have been pushed down and discouraged by the power of darkness. Everything we humans do is threaded with discord, lust, and greed. We stink.

And sometimes our stink can distract us from his fragrance. We miss the myrrh in the stable because the dung is too deep.

Which is why, I think, he lets them wait three days for the meal, the feast, the splendor.

We have to be hungry, desperate, broken, before we will submit to the celebration of God.

He has done everything well

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Mark 7:36-37 (NIV)
Jesus commanded them not to tell anyone. But the more he did so, the more they kept talking about it. [37] People were overwhelmed with amazement. “He has done everything well,” they said. “He even makes the deaf hear and the mute speak.”

I don’t expect people to believe in Jesus. It is a crazy story. I know that. But the people who knew Jesus up close, first century, in the flesh, told the story with no hint of irony.

We know they believed in Jesus because they died for his crazy story.

So take this story for what it is–the guy does an impossible thing and then says, don’t mention it.

But they can’t help themselves. He does all things well. They express their amazement at his power, his miracles.

I express mine as well–

His sovereign power demands my awe. His sacrifice of love changes my story.

Forever.

Be Open

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Mark 7:31-35 (NIV)
Then Jesus left the vicinity of Tyre and went through Sidon, down to the Sea of Galilee and into the region of the Decapolis. [32] There some people brought to him a man who was deaf and could hardly talk, and they begged him to place his hand on the man. [33] After he took him aside, away from the crowd, Jesus put his fingers into the man’s ears. Then he spit and touched the man’s tongue. [34] He looked up to heaven and with a deep sigh said to him, “Ephphatha!” (which means, “Be opened!”). [35] At this, the man’s ears were opened, his tongue was loosened and he began to speak plainly.

The man’s disability was hindering his integration into community. His community responded the way it should (at least in the context of this story). They begged God for help.

Who needs help in your community? Too often our communities silence and marginalize the different, not recognizing we are all different, we all need healing.

We all need a voice.

Many, many people suffer because they have been deprived of a voice.

One summer years ago I took ASL. Part of our class assignment was to go to Union Station and pretend to be deaf and mute. It was a valuable exercise. To see how servers responded to my verbal powerlessness…who was kind? Who was impatient?

Jesus heals the man in a very visceral way–he puts his fingers in his ears, spits and touches the man’s tongue and then sighs deeply as he commands the healing.

Why?

He could raise the dead from a distance, why such raw physicality?

Because Jesus speaks the language of each human heart. His physical actions are a form of sign language the man can understand.

Nobody talks like this guy. He is the Word made flesh.

He sets the captive free.