Mark
1:9-15
What if
God was one of us? In a few breathtaking verses, Mark brings us right there.
Jesus is baptized, the Spirit descends on him as a dove, and a voice from
heaven proclaims him the Son of God. But then that same Spirit does something
remarkable: She drives him out into the wilderness where Jesus has to be human
and vulnerable. He battles with temptations; experiences fear and terror — he’s
with the “wild beasts” as Mark describes it. And he is out there for a long
time, no doubt feeling lonely, certainly struggling with the relentless tedium
of difficult days without any distractions, getting just what he needs to
survive. And then, when that ordeal is over, he begins his public ministry right
as John the Baptist is arrested, soon to be executed on a whim from Herod.
Having faced his own human nature, Jesus goes out into a dangerous world where
human beings both suffer and cause suffering. And it is to human beings in that
broken world that Jesus proclaims the message: The kingdom of God has come
near; repent and believe in the good news.
Jesus
doesn’t float above the ground, preaching only in the rarefied precincts of the
Temple to respectable and outwardly perfect people. He hangs out with whores
and traitors, spends time with disreputable women, touches lepers, embraces
outcasts, and eats and drinks with anyone because the Kingdom he proclaims has
come near to everyone, and breaks into all situations and circumstances. “What
if God was one of us? Just a slob like one of us. Just a stranger on the bus
tryin’ to make his way home.” (from "One of Us" by Joan Osborne) That’s the whole point: God has become one of us,
and there is no human condition alien to God. And that message needs to
penetrate into every corner of creation: into doctor’s offices where people
learn they have cancer, into twelve step meetings where people struggle with
addiction, into Parkland, Florida where they are reeling from a senseless
slaughter, into the midst of racial discord and glaring inequalities, into the
grind of our daily lives, and into the fear and loneliness of sleepless nights.
It’s right where we most need God to be that God wants to come.
So the
question is not whether God is present: the real question is will we accept
that God is present, no matter what? Which leads to the great exhortation on
this first Sunday in Lent: Repent. But that doesn’t mean “feel bad about the
wrong things you have done.” The Greek verb is metanoiete, which means,
literally, “change your mind.” How? Accept that God loves you and holds you
close as you are, in all your flawed and wonderful humanity. Let that love in,
so that you can be forgiven and renewed and set free to love in return.
No other
message will do. If the Church says to the world, “You better shape up! You
better behave! If you do, then maybe God will love you and bless you, and if
not, go to hell.” There’s no good news in that, and it’s not the message of
Jesus, who constantly shows broken and sinful people that God’s love is close,
that the Kingdom of God, where that love is fully realized, is being revealed all
the time. And we can be part of it. God wants us to be part of it, and there is
no barrier other our willingness. People cannot be coerced into the Kingdom.
They cannot be scared into the Kingdom. They will not be guilted into the
Kingdom. People can only be loved into the Kingdom. That is the Gospel of Jesus
Christ.
But that
Gospel can only be authentically proclaimed by people actually living it. I can
preach the love of God until I am blue in the face, but if you don’t see God’s
love at work in my very imperfect life, why would you listen to me? We as a
church can talk all we want about sharing Christ’s love with the world, but if
the world looks at us and doesn’t see God’s love at work in our very imperfect
community, then our message is empty: it means nothing.
So, I
urge all of us to follow Jesus this Lent and change our minds. Let’s confess
our sins so we can know God’s forgiveness and accept God’s love for us as we
are, without having to earn it or deserve it. And then let’s go out and live it
and share it, each one of us, in the particular circumstances of our lives.
That’s what the world needs: to see people who know the love of God is coming
into the world all the time and who show that in their own lives. In a world
where people sing songs wishing God was one of us, they can look at you and me
and all who believe in the Good News, see Christ, and realize God is one of us
and God is with us. Always and everywhere.
No comments:
Post a Comment