Experiential Love
“Experiential Love”
Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost, Year B September 16, 2018
James 3:1-12 Mark 8:27-38
First Presbyterian Church of Sandpoint, Idaho
Pastor Andy Kennaly
Let’s do a close reading of some of Mark’s Gospel. Looking line by line, gradually tying threads together, we see this passage starting out saying, “Jesus went on with his disciples to the villages of Caesarea Philippi,” which is another way of saying they were out of their element, a long way from the Sea of Galilee, and in a place influenced by worship of pagan gods and the practice of fertility cults, such as going to temples to visit prostitutes. The disciples were likely wide-eyed and uncomfortable. But it’s the perfect place for a lesson on identity and self-awareness.
On his way, “to the villages of Caesarea Philippi, Jesus asked his disciples, ‘Who do people say that I am?’ And they answered him, ‘John the Baptist; and others, Elijah; and still others, one of the prophets.’” Apparently they don’t have a problem with reincarnation, or the spirit of someone previous getting channeled through the life of someone current. John the Baptizer was dead, yet people said Jesus was John back in the flesh. Jesus doesn’t argue this, doesn’t say, “Oh, that’s ridiculous! He’s long gone!” Instead, he just asks another question: “He asked them, ‘But who do you say that I am?’” The first question was about what other people are saying, the larger crowds, the word on the street, the world at large. The second question was to the disciples, the closer followers of Jesus, directly to them. It’s one thing to have general ideas floating around society, but it’s another to recognize our own thoughts and assumptions, and how they shape our lives. Jesus is asking the disciples directly, and “Peter answered him, ‘You are the Messiah.’ And he sternly ordered them not to tell anyone about him.”
That’s the kind of verse Presbyterians resonate with, especially if you remember that joke which says, “What do you get when you mix a Jehovah Witness with a Presbyterian? Someone who goes door to door knocking on doors, but has no idea what to say!” The Frozen Chosen are not known for verbal confessions of who Jesus is in their lives, but are more comfortable letting their daily living show by example who they are and what they believe. Peter puts it right out there: “You are the Messiah.” And then that command to keep quiet. The Messianic Secret.
I have an old journal at home with a hard cover like a piece of wood on the front. This cover has lots of words on it, printed artistically in different angles, fonts, some capital, some small. They all hint at descriptions of Jesus, or titles, such as “Prince of Peace, Alpha and Omega, Resurrection & Life, LORD of ALL, GREAT I AM, Morning Star, Lord of Lords, Truth, God, Emmanuel. Up in the top corner there is that word mentioned by Peter, Messiah. This word means Christ, or anointed One. Messiah. On that journal cover, right underneath Messiah, in big letters is another word, SAVIOR. We often jump from Messiah to Savior. This is often how the traditional church defines Messiah, as Savior.
Also on that cover, just above Messiah, on the very corner of the journal, in words written vertically, right next to Morning Star and above Messiah it says, THE WAY. So on one side of Messiah we have Savior and on the other we have The WAY. Both of these words interrelate with Messiah. Both of these have to do with Jesus’ question, “But who do you say that I am?”
Messiah, what does it mean? Christianity has two main branches, both of them have billions of people as adherents. In 1054 there was the great schism and the Christian church, for various reasons, split into these two branches, eastern and western. Presbyterian roots can be traced back to the Western understanding of Soteriology, of viewing Messiah as Savior. This also mixed with a hierarchical and patriarchal approach to structuring church authority. The Eastern Church is more comfortable with Sophiology, or the Wisdom Tradition, where Messiah can also be Jesus as an Enlightened One. This involves more emphasis on the Path of Christ, the Way of Messiah, of Jesus showing us how to live into the fullness of God’s image.
This description is oversimplified, lacks lots of details, and I don’t even understand all the technicalities that go into church history and the Great Schism. But what I do understand and we need to be aware of as we hear Peter’s answer, is that the word, Messiah, is, like most biblical references, open to interpretation. Jesus asking, “But who do you say I am” is an invitation to self-awareness and reflection on who we are, how we have come to this identity, and what is it that contributes to the process of how we know what we know. This is called epistemology. Epistemology is the study of how you know what you know.
As the story continues, we see the importance of epistemology because Jesus hears what Peter says, but as the conversation continues, it’s very apparent that Messiah from Peter’s viewpoint is very different from Jesus’ viewpoint. No wonder Jesus tells them to keep quiet. He doesn’t want misinformation spread about him.
“Then he began to teach them that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. He said all this quite openly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him.”
Peter does not like this view of Messiah, of rejection ending in death. Peter doesn’t want these powerful people like scribes, elders, and chief priests to kill the very one Peter is investing himself in. Perhaps Peter has the traditional understanding of Messiah as the one who liberates the Jews from these oppressive forces, kicking out the Romans, and becoming the political savior of the Jewish nation, putting it on top instead? It doesn’t say what Peter thought, but it does say Peter took Jesus aside and began to rebuke him.
What a dynamic, of isolating Jesus and challenging his approach to teaching, bringing into question the deep wisdom and relational base that Jesus has with God; trying to get Jesus to second-guess himself and give in to the more cultural understanding that includes power, control, and domination. It echoes the temptation in the wilderness, where the devil tests Jesus in isolation. But Jesus overcomes temptation, tells the devil to flee, and Jesus connects with wild animals and angels who wait on him. Again here says, it says, “But turning and looking at his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, ‘Get behind me Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things. He called the crowd with his disciples, and said to them,…”
Notice the movement, from isolation into relationship, then into the larger world. It’s while looking at the disciples that Jesus rebukes Peter. It’s while focusing on the group, that Jesus critiques Peter’s isolating, individual opinion. Jesus asked them, as a group; Peter answers, as an individual, but this is too limiting.
Paul Smith, in his book, Integral Christianity, The Spirit’s Call to Evolve, talks about Christianity as a process of growth that goes through stages of development. He says,
“The next worldwide step in spiritual evolution is the move from individual higher consciousness to shared higher consciousness in community. The self does not evolve in isolation, but with others on the same journey. Genuine spirituality has to have a collective experience. The day of the mystic alone in his cave is over. Contemporary consciousness movements are waning in their attempts to continue to evolve by merely reading books and attending occasional talks and retreats by the latest guru. They are beginning to see that one can only go so far alone. Church people do get together regularly but, unfortunately, they don’t know what to do except have traditional church services. That must change.
“Jesus was not a loner. When Jesus wanted to change the world, the first thing he did was get a group of people together who wanted to follow him. […] He called a small group together to work it all out as a little community of spiritual explorers. […] In our narcissistic culture where individualism reigns, who will move us into the next stage, the ‘together’ level? What a great opportunity for real church!” (Paul R. Smith, Integral Christianity, the Spirit’s Call to Evolve, Paragon House Pub., St. Paul, MN, 2011, pp. 306-308).
Also notice that Jesus doesn’t limit real church to that small group, but he’s in dialogue with his disciples even as he welcomes the world. In that strange place, Caesarea Philippi, Jesus takes a missional approach as he invites the crowd to gather round “with his disciples, and said to them, ‘If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it. For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life? Indeed, what can they give in return for their life?”
The Wisdom Tradition talks about this in terms of letting go. The Greek word, Kenosis, is what Jesus seems to share here, talking about losing life to find it. He is showing the Way, sharing as the blueprint the larger pattern of all creation. Everything alive today depends upon and is built on everything that has come before. Something dies so another may live. It’s the pattern of creation.
Kenosis also has to do with the Divine becoming flesh, of Christ embodying, of eternal glory becoming specific. This process involves renunciation, a letting go. Jesus is teaching about letting go. Jesus is teaching about life. These teaching are rooted in a love that calls us to break through, to awaken, to claim our deep, True identity as Imago Dei, the image of God, as we participate as followers of Jesus in this pattern of love through letting go.
“Those who are ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of them the Son of Man will also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.”
In other words, if you don’t do your spiritual work, no one is going to do it for you. Even God is not going to do it for you. Christianity as an archetypal religion involves the path of descent, a path of suffering, but transformed suffering; it involves the Way of Jesus. There is movement, growth, development, humbling, action, and contemplation.
Interesting he uses the words, “adulterous and sinful.” Adultery involves cheating on someone; having a primary relationship but substituting a secondary relationship, which confuses and clouds intimacy. Sinful brings to mind Peter pulling Jesus aside to rebuke him; we prefer or tend towards isolation from God, promoting separation. We limit God by our actions, attitudes, assumptions, and selfishness. But it is not God who is separate. It is not God who lacks in relationship. Indeed, neither is true. Sin is the illusion of separation, and we wander from our first Love. But Jesus tells the world who we really are, and shows us the Way to find life, and love, and this is good news!
As we deal with large forces of change, everything from catastrophic global climate disruption, and the sixth great extinction, tension in politics, and ongoing war, to the current great Spiritual Awakening that involves changes to the church as we know it so God’s next thing can be born, we face a lot of pressures. We can come alongside Peter, telling Jesus how we think we’d rather have things go. But this simply puts on display our deep fears, our mistrust, our weariness as individualism weakens us, and Jesus sees right through this. As we follow Jesus on the Way, we’re called to a new way of being, in community, whatever that may look like as God’s Spirit shapes us and teaches us self-awareness, wrestling with our shadows, dealing with temptations, and trusting at the core of our being the Living Christ.
Thank God Jesus went to Caesarea Philippi to teach the people the Kenotic path of surrender and humility, so we may claim our primary relationship and discover our True Self in Christ, and as a community, to share life and love with the world. As we trust God more deeply, may God be glorified, NOW, even as forever. Amen.