Sunday, September 13, 2015

Sometimes I preach: Wrestling with God (9/13/15)

I think it is a core part of our faith though that there are four, because it shows that one telling of Jesus is not enough. One story cannot fully grasp who is he, he bursts out of the margins and cannot be contained by one version. It forces to recognize the bigness The four gospels each highlight a different aspect of the character of Jesus. With each telling, a different piece of him comes into focus.

In John, we see the divine Jesus. He is all-knowing and in control. He is the Light and the Way and the Shepherd. And the claim that he is the Son of God can never be doubted for a second.

In Matthew, we see the Jesus who was forged out of the stories of his Jewish ancestors. He is a teacher. He is committed to the correct understanding of how to live out God’s law.

In Luke, we see Jesus the prophet, committed to welcoming all, the social outcast, the woman, the foreigner. He is like the prophets of old, but also somehow so much more.

But then we have Mark, which is where our Scripture passage is from today. And Mark is the strangest of the 4 gospels. Most official biblical scholars don’t like Mark too much. His grammar is bad. His sentence structure is awkward. And his Jesus is often...

a little..well, the fancy scholarly word is enigmatic? But the regular word is probably just a little crazy.

He is wild and says strange things and does strange things. Everything happens “suddenly” And Mark’s Jesus feels things, we get insight into Jesus’s emotions. Mark frequently tells us that Jesus is moved to compassion by the people and situations he encounters. He tells us that Jesus feels the compassion all the way into his splaghkna, (the Greek word for guts). Mark’s Jesus has this purpose, but its confusing and people don’t get it and people don’t listen. And Jesus, he just keeps on doing his own thing. This Jesus is wild and loving and determined and if the claim that Jesus looks the most divine in John is true, then it is also true that Jesus looks the most human in Mark.

Listen to the rest here: http://ssumc.org/visitors/recent-sermons/

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