Known As The Lord's

February 25, 2018

Second Sunday in Lent

My soul shall live for him; my descendants shall serve him; they shall be known as the Lord’s forever.

The former Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, tells a story associated with a great Eastern European Rabbi who died in 1609. Often known within Jewish circles just as the Maharal, on the basis of a Hebrew mnemonic, Rabbi Yehuda ben Bezalel was one of the most significant and learned rabbis of his age, and if any faith leader felt entitled to take pride in his accomplishments, Rabbi Yehuda would certainly qualify for such a feeling.

But, so Archbishop Williams recounts, it is said that one night, Rabbi Yehuda had a dream: he dreamt that he had died and was brought before the throne. And the angel who stands before the throne said to him, 'Who are you!' 'I am Rabbi Yehuda of Prague,' he replied. 'Tell me, my lord, if my name is written in the book of the names of those who will have a share in the kingdom.'' Wait here,' said the angel, 'I shall read the names of all those who have died today that are written in the book.' And he read the names, thousands of them, strange names to the ears of Rabbi Yehuda; and as the angel read, the rabbi saw the spirits of those whose names had been called fly into the glory that sat above the throne. At last, he finished reading, and Rabbi Yehuda's name had not been called, and he wept bitterly and cried out against the angel.

And, as we journey through our Lenten wilderness, one could be forgiven for thinking that if there were no hope for such a devout, committed and significant member of the community of the First Covenant, what hope could there possibly be for us. If the great Rabbi Yehuda’s name is not written in the book of the names of those who will have a share in the kingdom, could there be any hope for ordinary folk like me or you…? Could there be any hope for us or our forebears or our descendants…?

For one of the messages of this morning’s very hard gospel reading is that it is remarkably easy to fall short of the Kingdom of God – a fact that was apparent from those seven very hard verses that come pretty much at the midpoint of Mark’s gospel.  And that, in itself, is quite startling, when you consider where we were just one week ago.

For as I am sure you recall, this time last week, we were reflecting on Jesus’ very first appearance in Chapter One of Mark. His appearance from nowhere, swept up by the ministry of John the Baptist, joining the crowds coming to the waters of repentance, and, by the love and power of the Holy Spirit, being led into the Wilderness. But this morning we have jumped seven chapters of action-packed narrative, to find ourselves at what is, really, the turning-point of this punchy and powerful gospel.

But – very frustratingly – those who designed our lectionary, chose to give us only half a turning-point, which is just slightly irksome. So before I say anything more, let me just remind you of the context, indeed I think the motive, of why it is that Jesus began to teach his disciples that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering…

For Jesus and his disciples have gone on a day trip. They have gone on an excursion to a city associated with a power and authority that is not about the Kingdom of God but about something very, very different. For they have rolled up at Caesarea Philippi, a city dedicated to the emperor – the emperor of the occupying power in the land in which they live – and a city also associated with the worship of pagan gods, especially the god Pan. And they have had – very literally – the ultimate ‘Come to Jesus’ meeting, with Jesus asking them, Who do people say that I am…[and] who do you say that I am…??

And Peter – that most dogmatic and outspoken of disciples – is very quick and clear in his reply, as you will, for sure, remember: You are the Messiah. Well done, Peter…. well done… but not well enough… it sounds so good, he might even be within reach of getting the cigar. Indeed, if you read this story in Matthew he does get the cigar, with a great ‘well done’ as Jesus tells him that he is going to be the rock on which the church will be built, and he will hold the keys of the kingdom, and be able to bind and loose sins. Uniquely, Matthew gives Peter this great prize.

But not today. Today there is no prize of that glittering kind on offer. For neither Luke nor Mark have a prize that sounds remotely worth having at this point in this story of Good News. For in Mark, Jesus is not concerned with building the church, I’m afraid. Mark is concerned with the kind of sacrificial life that will build not the church, but the Kingdom. And that is a life and a vocation that is extremely costly, both for Jesus himself and for any that are going to seek to follow him.

The Son of Man will undergo great suffering, rejection and be killed – and that’s pretty much the role model for those who will follow him. Which is where Peter blows it and, for this moment in time, forfeits any kind of prize. For the kind of Messiahship that Peter evidently has in mind has more in common with the high status of people like the emperor whose city his feet are standing in at that moment – Peter is more interested, so he is told very bluntly, on human things, and not on divine things.

So today we find just how far away from being given any kind of prize the wretched apostle now is, for his newly acquired name of Peter is suddenly forfeit, to be replaced by Satan. And the confident certainty of his quick reply that Jesus was ‘the Messiah’ comes crashing down around his ears, as Jesus pricks the empty bubble of a very human form of messianic craving that is all that is in poor Peter’s misplaced mind.

For humans are not instinctively hard-wired to deny themselves and take up a cross; we are not automatically programmed to desire to lose our life rather than save it. And, as a result, at this testing moment in the living out of the Good News of Jesus Christ the Son of God, we see Peter losing his name and his identity, as his hot-headed rebuke of Jesus’ core message turns him, for now, into Satan.

And that’s the theme of what is going on this morning. For we are being offered examples – both good examples and bad examples – of what it means to live out your God-given vocation and lose your life.

For there is Abram – ninety-nine years old – suddenly told that he, too, is going to have to take a God-shaped walk. And make no mistake, this is a summons that is just the equivalent of ‘taking up the cross and following’. For God is telling Abram very clearly just how he is going to lose his life to save it. This aged man is going to lose his racial identity – he is going to have stay in the strange land to which God has brought him. What is alien for him will now have to be ‘home’.

And he is going to lose what you might call his lifestyle – not content with giving him an illegitimate son when he was a youthful 86, he is now going to father a child with his 90-year old wife.

And – without the benefit of modern-day surgical procedures or anesthesia – he (and all the males who will come after him) he is going to lose an intimate body part.

And he – and his long-suffering wife – are going to lose their identity: no longer shall your name be Abram…as for your wife…you shall not call her Sarai but Sarah…

But while Abram-turned-Abraham was incredulous, unlike Peter, he did not rebuke God. And thus, as we were reminded in the letter to the Romans, not only was this reckoned to Abraham as righteousness – not only was his relationship with God put on a good and acceptable footing – but his example stands – and stands in contrast to the wretched Peter of Mark Chapter Eight – his example stands to us as a lived out version of losing one’s life to gain it.

And it wasn’t just Abraham. For look who it is who makes this fine theological example for us. None other than someone else who lost his identity, his lifestyle and his name – Saul of Tarsus, the Christ-and-Christian-hating Pharisee, turned Paul the Apostle of the risen Christ. Saul, the ultimate rebuke of the Good News – the man who rejoiced in ‘kicking against the goads’ (as Jesus himself says to him in Acts 26) – Saul takes up his particular cross and follows Christ with such remarkable energy that he traversed the known world around him without ceasing to draw breath until he finally comes to a very enforced stop when he is placed arrest in the ultimate city of the Emperor – Rome itself. And then, as was the case also for the restored and beloved Peter – the taking up of a cross ceased to be a metaphor and became reality.

And so, as the Holy Spirit leads us through the Lenten wilderness, we are challenged. We are challenged about whether we truly understand the nature of Messiahship, and thus the nature of God whom we are blessed to see incarnate in the life of Jesus. And we are challenged about our response to follow this extraordinary Messiah whose focus is ever and only on divine things and not human things.

For it is very easy to be belligerent and over-confident (and be assured that I preach first and foremost to myself) whether about faith, or politics, or anything and everything else; it is very easy to think we know more about how to live our life than God does (which is what sin is); it is very easy to cling to being a Simon Peter or a Saul – or even a Satan (which is what you get called when you rebuke God and do the very opposite of what God wishes – and we don’t have to look very far to find examples of this around us in the world today). It is very easy to hold on to a life that is not really life and to forget just who God is really calling us to be. And that – as the great rabbi discovered – is truly the ultimate nightmare…

At last the angel finished reading, and Rabbi Yehuda's name had not been called, and he wept bitterly and cried out against the angel.

But the angel said, 'I have called your name.’ Rabbi Yehuda said, 'I did not hear it.' And the angel said, 'In the book are written the names of all men and women who have ever lived on the earth, for every soul is an inheritor of the kingdom. But many come here who have never heard their true names on the lips of humans or angel. They have lived believing that they know their names; and so when they are called to their share in the kingdom, they do not hear their names as their own. So they must wait here until they hear their names and know them. Perhaps in their lifetime one man or woman has once called them by their right name: here they shall stay until they have remembered. Perhaps no one has ever called them by their right name: here they shall stay till they are silent enough to hear the King of the Universe himself calling them.

Rabbi Yehuda woke and, rising from his bed he lay prostrate on the ground, and prayed, 'Master of the Universe! Grant me once before I die to hear my own true name on the lips of my brothers and sisters.

Truly, names are strange and powerful things. Some of you know me as Dominic; some of you prefer to know me as Dean; a few of you chose to know me as ‘Father’, and downstairs there are two young boys who know me as Daddy. God – who is the only one who truly knows us – I sometimes think that God plays with how we are known in this world, and maybe it teaches us a lesson when we focus too much on the human but not the divine. But ultimately, it was the psalmist who got it right this morning. For, as Rabbi Yehuda realized in his dream, and eventually so did Abraham, Paul, and Peter – all that will truly matter is that they can say of us, "they shall be known as the Lord’s forever." Amen.