Calvary Episcopal Church
Memphis, Tennessee
September 14, 2003
The Fourteenth Sunday After Pentecost

Power of Hope
The Rev. George S. Yandell

Gospel:Mark 9:30-37
(This sermon is also available in audio.)

Open the Gospel of Mark, and smack dab in the center is our gospel today. This is the Gospel writer’s design--it is the hinge point in this gospel, the earliest canonical written record of the Good News of Jesus. Peter, speaking for all, says to Jesus, “You are the Messiah, the One anointed by God to save humanity.”

Immediately, Jesus says: “The Son of Man must suffer many things, be rejected by the power people, be killed and after 3 days rise again.” Peter then became righteously indignant, angry even. He took Jesus aside and lectured him that it could not be so. Jesus turned to all those in the company, and in anger said, “Get behind me, Satan. You are setting your mind not on divine things, but on human things. If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their crossbeam and follow me. 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 good news will save it.” Whew. So how do we Christians save our lives if we carry our crosses to certain death?

Dominic Crossan says that as many as 10,000 Judeans were crucified in the years before and after Jesus’ death. (The Birth of Christianity: Discovering What Happened in the Years Immediately after the Execution of Jesus, p. 541-542.) 10,000 souls walked the Via Dolorosa, the Way of Sorrows, to public humiliation, in naked torment along the main road leading out of Jerusalem. Then they died in slow, unimaginable suffering. When the followers of Jesus told one another about Jesus saying, “Take up your own crossbeam and follow me,” they were describing something that happened almost weekly right in front of them. The families of the crucified were stigmatized as well as grief stricken. The crucified were often left on the cross for days after death as deterrents to anyone who got sideways with the Roman officials. The road stank of death.

Why was Jesus so confrontational, so angry? I hear Mark telling us that Peter had hitched his wagon to an entirely different Messiah-ship from what Peter expected. Peter got upset when Jesus prophesied a suffering Son of God. Jesus in turn was upset because, smack dab in the center of the gospel, he said, “THIS is what it means for you to follow the Messiah. I will not be a transcendent Hero. I will be humbled, spat on, dragged through the streets and killed. And you might, too. You have to confront this reality head on.”

All of us have anniversary stories of sorrow. They hang onto us, their power emerges unbidden from our unconscious memory. Our church grieves annually, publicly, over big and small saints in our calendar. Our biggest observances are in Holy Week, culminating in Good Friday and Easter. Considering death, daily, is what our Lord instructs his followers to do. Why? Because he really is the One God gave to save us.

In the weeks following the huge windstorm in July, we learned first of the deaths from the storm. Then almost every day the newscasts talked of all those who were having power restored, and those who still waited for the crews to come down their streets.

Citizens of Memphis were bumfuzzled over why their neighbors got power back on, but they didn’t. Overall, we were most civil, I think. We learned we really could sleep, maybe poorly, in 85-degree heat.

When the power crew finally turned onto our street on day eleven, it was late afternoon. All the trucks blocked the lane and the men started to work. They were from Rossville, GA, just south of Chattanooga. I asked the crew chief something that had been bugging me for eleven days. “Is there a pattern you guys follow in restoring power? The papers think this thing is hit or miss.” He looked at me strangely, like I was a dingbat, and said, “Sure. We start at the local power substation and work our way out. It’s the only way to do it.” Elegant. Smart. Simple. Jesus told his disciples the same thing. You have to start with facing your own cross, then work your way out. Out into the whole world.

Jesus preached first the stark reality of destruction. But as he preached, he healed, embraced, and gave hope to all the folks who came to him. It was not a way of death, but way of living toward death so that we love everyone with us. Everyone walks on the Way of Sorrows. Everyone has pain, everyone needs to be loved. Everyone is facing death.

This is the essence of faith, says Tom Ehrich. (From: "On a Journey", Wednesday, September 10, 2003) Faith goes beyond acceptance of a well-proclaimed transcendence. Faith starts within, in a need to live despite mounting evidence of death, in a need to trust despite betrayal, in a need to think one's day worth taking seriously, one's skills worth developing, one's tomorrow worth awaiting, one's chance companions worth honoring.

Faith walks out of tragedy and into a new situation and decides to see not strangers, but friends with substance. Faith finds not unredeemable untouchables, but souls who need second chances. Faith applauds first and then looks for evidence. Faith is an implied willingness to be disappointed.

Those followers of Jesus were awarding him their highest honor without knowing
much about the real mission. Peter didn’t know how far off the mark he was. He hadn't examined the evidence and come to a wrong conclusion. He just hadn’t gone far enough. They were needy. They were leading with hope. Their hope just wasn’t founded deeply enough. So that’s what Jesus offered, hope that walks beside death, in order for hope’s power to come full on. This turning point was for them the knowledge they would have to walk this road after him. And they would have power to do so.

The Way of Jesus is first, the Way of Sorrows. Then it is the Way of Life: about the power of humans being transformed now, into Resurrection life. Hope is the appropriate attitude, even in grief, sorrow, and torment. Hope is the attitude of power, being restored. This is the Way of Jesus, and it is the Way of Life. Your power is being restored, right now, from your center out, in this holy place where Memphians have offered their sorrows and witnessed one another’s hope nourished for 171 years and counting. Walk the Way of Life. Your power is coming back on.

Copyright 2003 Calvary Episcopal Church

Gospel: Mark 9:30-37
30 They went on from there and passed through Galilee. He did not want anyone to know it; 31 for he was teaching his disciples, saying to them, "The Son of Man is to be betrayed into human hands, and they will kill him, and three days after being killed, he will rise again." 32 But they did not understand what he was saying and were afraid to ask him. 33 Then they came to Capernaum; and when he was in the house he asked them, "What were you arguing about on the way?" 34 But they were silent, for on the way they had argued with one another who was the greatest. 35 He sat down, called the twelve, and said to them, "Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all." 36 Then he took a little child and put it among them; and taking it in his arms, he said to them, 37 "Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me." NRSV

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