​Mark 8:31–38 Jesus Foretells His Death and Resurrection

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. 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, ‘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? 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.’

​     Shame is powerful. In 1990, when the Americans with Disabilities Act was not yet law, hundreds of disability rights activists went to Washington DC to work for the bill’s passing. They used all the levers of democracy at their disposal, including direct action protest. On March 12th of that year, dozens of protesters gathered at the bottom of the steps that lead up to the West Entrance of the Capitol building. They then began a slow ascent up the steps, leaving behind all their mobility aids. Some ascended on their own, some with the help of family and friends. The protest would come to be known as the Capitol Crawl.
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    I found this quote from Michael Winter, former Executive Director of the Berkeley Center for Independent Living in an article about the Capitol Crawl. He said, “Some people may have thought it was undignified for people in wheelchairs to crawl in that manner, but I felt that it was necessary to show the country what kinds of things people with disabilities have to face on a day-to-day basis. We had to be willing to fight for what we believed in.” What these wise organizers were counting on was the power of shame.

     They were counting on the lawmakers feeling ashamed of having driven their constituents, some of whom were children, to such a vulnerable and painful act just to get their attention. The organizers also knew that plenty of other citizens would see the protest and be appalled that the protestors had been driven to such direct action by the inaction of legislators. Those citizens would call on the lawmakers to draft legislation to make actions like the Capitol Crawl unnecessary. Ultimately, the legislators did act. The Americans With Disabilities act was signed into law on June 26th, 1990.

     Shame is powerful in Christian circles.  It is both a tactic we use to compel people to behave in a certain way and an emotion that arises within us as a result of theologies and ethics we are taught in Christian circles. I cannot tell you how many times I have heard of teenage girls being pulled aside and scolded for wearing shorts or tank tops. They are shamed for wearing certain types of clothes and tempting the boys and grown men around them to sin. In these cases, men and boys are rarely held accountable for managing their desires. Many women continue to carry that shame in their hearts, even if they leave the Christian communities that harm them this way, making it difficult to feel comfortable in their own bodies and making it challenging to form healthy relationships with other people, especially men. It can take a lot of years to disentangle religious shame from our hearts.

     Shame is powerful and that’s why Jesus addresses it in today’s reading. He has been teaching for a while at this point. This chapter also includes one of the most wide-reaching miracles, a feeding of four-thousand people, as well as an individual healing story where Jesus has to take two tries to heal a blind man’s vision. After all of this he asks his disciples, “Who do people say that I am?” They offer a couple responses that they’ve heard people say: John the Baptist, Elijah, or maybe one of the other prophets. Richard Horsley, in his notes on this text, says that all of those responses make sense given what and how Jesus had been teaching. Then, in the verses just before today’s reading, Jesus asks, “who do you say that I am?” and Peter replies, “You are the Messiah.” Then, Jesus does that thing he does in Mark where he tells his disciples not to tell anyone about him. Jesus also tells them than in the coming days, it will be necessary that he suffer. He says he is going to be rejected. And, that he will be killed, though, after three days, he will rise. Peter is appalled when he hears this.

     Remember: Shame is powerful. In her commentary on the text, Marilyn Salmon reminds us that the rejection and suffering that Jesus will experience would have been viewed as deeply shameful in the era in which he lived. There is a certain amount of shame that comes with following a leader that respected members of the community rejected. That is an embarrassment akin to routing for the losing team. The suffering that Jesus was speaking about was more than that. For those of us raised with an understanding of the empty cross as a symbol of Jesus’ loving power, it is easy to forget that crucifixion was intended to be a humiliating death. Salmon reminds us that the public, messy, and agonizingly slow nature of death by crucifixion was intended to shame the victim and shame all the people who cared about them.

     Jesus doesn’t mention crucifixion in this scripture, but it was written after his death and would have been on the author’s mind. Also, I think there is a subtext in this scripture that the “would be killed” means “would be killed by powerful people, like John was.” The Messiah was supposed to save the nation, not be murdered. But Jesus knew that following his mission put him in conflict with powerful people. And, powerful people will use their power to harm their enemies. He knew what the risks were and wanted to make sure his disciples did, too.

     I kind of wonder if Paul was trying to avoid feeling the shame associated with following a leader who has been rejected, and that’s why he rebuked Jesus. “Jesus, come on. You’re bumming the disciples out. Don’t talk like that. You are the Messiah! People will believe you! Surely, everyone will see that, right?” Jesus rebuked Peter right back. He didn’t need disciples who are surprised into inaction by the poor reception his message invoked in powerful people. He needed disciples who would be willing to be seen as undignified, embarrassing, and disreputable in service to the Gospel. He needed disciples who understood that being shamed by powerful people will be hard. They must be able to build up enough spiritual fortitude to resist the shame that unjust leaders and community members heap on them. He wanted to warn them that the shame was coming so they could develop a commitment to love that is stronger than shame.

     Have you ever heard the saying, “Tell the truth and shame the devil?” This week, I saw a video of someone telling the truth and shaming the devil. Sean Cummings, a city council member of The Village, which is a suburb of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, took the state’s Board of Education to task. The board, dominated by hateful transphobes and homophobes who are also Christian Nationalists, has been tormenting LGBTQ kids and families for years now. This week, a 16-year-old student named Nex Benedict, whose family is Choctaw and who was non-binary and used they/them pronouns, was severely beaten by three other students at school. Nex died the next day.

     While many details around Nex’s death are not yet clear, it is quite clear that the culture of hatred fomented by adults in political leadership contributed to their death. Sean Cummings showed up at the school board meeting and made sure the board knew that truth. Cummings said, “Three older girls don’t just jump a 16-year-old in a bathroom for no apparent reason, especially when they’re from the alphabet community, who you personally have attacked ever since you ran for office.” He even went so far as to say that the public school superintendent and a nationally known transphobic social media influencer whom he has allowed to be an advisor to the school board, despite her not living in Oklahoma, “have blood on their hands.”

     Councilor Cummings, who has worked hard to protect his LGBTQ constituents, has been targeted by that influencer in the past, garnering scores of death threats when she has directed her followers to attack him. He even told the board that he anticipated more death threats to follow the meeting where he told them off. Even knowing that these powerful transphobes will incite their followers to threaten him again, he still went to the meeting in hopes of holding the powerful accountable. He told a local reporter that “he often felt like a lone voice standing up for LGBTQ rights in such a ‘red state.’” And, yet, he has the spiritual fortitude to speak up. He said, “I’m a dad, I have a dog at home. I don’t have anyone at home. If anybody wants to come after me, they can come after me.”

​      I don’t know anything about Council Cummings’ religious beliefs. I will say that he seems to be a clear example of someone who has a commitment to love that is strong enough to risk the ire of the powerful. He has a commitment to love that has overcome the shame that some Christians will heap on him for standing alongside his trans neighbors. It is clear to me who is acting like Jesus wants his disciples to act. May we be this unashamed to follow Christ into love, especially when following him is a risk.
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Resources consulted while writing this sermon:
Marilyn Salmon: https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/second-sunday-in-lent-2/commentary-on-mark-831-38
Capitol Crawl: https://www.zinnedproject.org/news/tdih/capitol-crawl-for-ADA/
Richard A. Horsley’s notes on Mark in The New Oxford Annotated Bible: The New Revised Standard Version with Apocryphya, ed. Michael Coogan (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001)
An article about Sean Cummings: https://news.yahoo.com/lawmaker-accuses-education-board-libs-214726178.html

     I grew up in a place where most people didn’t celebrate Lent. My school, which is quite a bit bigger than most of the local high schools here, had no other Lutheran students and probably less than five Catholic and Episcopal students combined. The Methodists, of which there were many, seemed to know about it, but also didn’t seem to talk about it as much as my church did. And, I remember driving by a Methodist church not far from my school with my grandfather and they had the wrong liturgical color sash on the cross out front. He said derisively, “They should know better.” Though he had not grown up with Lent, when he married a Lutheran, he adopted some very clear ideas about what was appropriate in the season.
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     In the church of my youth, it also seemed clear that Lent was about one thing: suffering. If you wanted to do Lent right, you had to give up something that would make you suffer. Ideally, you had to give up something that was super hard to give up, like smoking or eating chocolate, so that you suffered extra hard. I was told that it was only by making ourselves suffer that we could begin to understand Jesus’ suffering. As a serious, well-behaved teenager, it seemed very righteous and also a little dramatic to think about what I could give up to make myself suffer the right amount. As an adult, I’ve come to see Lent as something more useful than a “who can suffer more” contest, thank goodness.

     It’s not that I don’t find fasting to be useful, because I do think it can be. Over the years, though, I’ve come to value Lent not as a time to force suffering but as a time to be intentional and reflective. Rev. Dr. Cheryl Lindsay, in her introduction to the “Saying No” theme we’ll be exploring this Lent, speaks of Christians making use of Lenten practices, “such as fasting and other spiritual disciplines to draw disciples not only closer to Christ but also to the way of sacrificial living modeled by Jesus.” I think there’s a helpful distinction between suffering and sacrifice in her description. A life that is oriented to Christ will require sacrifice. But that sacrifice is an offering given as an investment in the well-being of our neighbors and creation. The goal is not to suffer for suffering’s sake, but to be willing to be less comfortable, to have less wealth, maybe even to have less of a good reputation in order to feed the hungry, visit the imprisoned, and tend to those who mourn.

     Catherine Doherty describes the sacrifices of Lent this way: “Lent is a time of going very deeply into ourselves…What is it that stands between us and God? Between us and our brothers and sisters? Between us and life, the life of the Spirit? Whatever it is, let us relentlessly tear it out, without a moment’s hesitation.”  I agree. That sounds kind of intense. You may not know what that is if you had to name it right now. This is a place where Lent can be useful. You can experiment with fasting from something and/or adding a practice to your life. You can take these forty days to pay attention in a way that is different from your norm.

     Perhaps you say, I will make coffee at home and donate the money I usually spend on the coffee I buy every day. If you were to treat this like a worthy sacrifice, you might need to slow down and pay attention to the changes you will have to make in even such a simple act. How does the process of getting up earlier to make coffee, of learning to make a latte like the barista does, and then figuring out where to donate the money you saved teach you something about yourself and about God. You might be tempted to just make the coffee and walk out the door. And, maybe some days, you’ll need to do that. But, I will invite you to resist the temptation to rush through the season. Carve out some time to prayerfully consider what you have given up or added in this time. What is this fast or practice showing you about God and yourself?
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     In this season, you will undoubtedly have to deal with temptation. You may be tempted to wonder if, in a world in the kind of upheaval that our world is in right now, how can I even make space for the season of Lent. To be fair, if you feel like adding a lot to your plate this Lent is more suffering than sacrifice, I think it’s ok to just get through. If you do decide to have a Lenten practice, you may be tempted to forego whatever fast or practice you’ve adopted. Or, you may find that giving up something means you want it all the more. Rev. Dr. Lindsay shares in her commentary on today’s scripture, “I know of people who have given up something they only marginally cared about because they think it will be easy only to discover that the process of self-denial can make something nominally interesting become almost irresistibly appealing. That’s the power of temptation.”

     Sometimes I wish Mark told us a little more about the temptation that Jesus dealt with out in the wilderness. Verse 13 of today’s reading tells us that “he was in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan; and he was with the wild beasts; and the angels waited on him.” But, as Dr. Lindsay points out, Mark does not take the time to spell out those temptations. Other Gospel writers do. They are temptations to use power to help curb his own suffering and also to take short-cuts in doing what he is called to do. In those versions of this stories, we can come to understand Jesus’ divinity in seeing him say no to temptation.

     Dr. Lindsay invites to consider that in being tempted, Jesus is also showing his radical commitment to humanity. She says that while other Gospels show Jesus “enter[ing] into the human condition through birth,” Mark, which has no birth narrative, shows him doing so through the communal act of baptism and through the fact that he is tempted, as we are tempted. She refers to Jesus’ temptation as “proof of his human nature.” Jesus is God right here with us, especially in the messy parts, fully participating in humanity.
In her invitation to consider “saying no” as a Lenten spiritual practice, Dr. Lindsay shared this quote by Robin S. Baker:

     “To end certain cycles in your life, you will need to say no to things you’ve once said yes to in the past. You have grown much wiser and you know better now. So dissimilar decisions will have to be made this time around. It’s time to extract expired people, energies, and situations.”

     Perhaps your work this season can be learning to say no to the temptation to continue actions that are a part of the cycle that draws you away from God and neighbor. Fortunately, in saying no to some things, you will say yes to others. I pray that you can say new yeses this season, as well. Yes to worthwhile sacrifice.
Yes to compassionate advocacy. Yes to loving your wonderfully imperfect neighbors.

     There will always be something there to tempt us into separation and destruction. May the Holy Spirit help you say no to the temptations that will destroy you. And, lead you to the yes that follows Jesus into that Kindom of God that has drawn near.

Resources consulted while writing this sermon:
Cheryl Lindsay:

• This is Rev. Dr. Lindsay’s commentary on the scripture: https://www.ucc.org/sermon-seeds/sermon-seeds-temptation/​
• This is Rev. Dr. Lindsay’s introduction to the “Saying No” theme, which includes the Catherine Doherty quote and the Robin S. Baker quote: https://www.ucc.org/sermon-seeds/say-no-2024-lenten-sermon-seeds-series/​

.     Does anyone here know who Elmo the monster is? Yes, he is a small, fuzzy monster on Sesame Street. He is 3 and half years old. Did you know that Elmo has social media accounts? He does! One of the grown-ups who takes care of him must help him manage it. If you’ve ever watched Sesame Street, you know that Elmo tries to be a good friend. This week, on January 29th, Elmo and whomever help run his account on the site that used to be called Twitter, decided to ask a question that a friend might ask. He made a post that said, “Elmo is just checking in! How is everybody doing?” Well, lots of people responded. Probably more than Elmo and his grown-ups imagined. And lots of people are having a hard time.

     Someone who goes by the name Marsroseo replied: “Elmo we are tired.” The account for the video game called Among Us replied with one word: “suffering.” The actor Rainn Wilson said: “I’m kind of a crossroads and frankly could use a little support.” People replied talking about arguments in their family, problems at work, and about football games where their favorite teams lost. While not everyone said they were having a bad time, and some of the people were obviously making jokes, it was clear that many people needed someone to talk to, even if the someone was a muppet on a TV show they watched when they were little kids.

     Whoever helps with Elmo’s social media didn’t try to answer everyone, which is good. There were tens of thousands of replies. But, the next day, Elmo posted: “Wow! Elmo is glad he asked! Elmo learned that it is important to ask a friend how they are doing. Elmo will check in again soon, friends! Elmo loves you. Heart emoji #emotionalwellbeing.” Also, because monsters who are only three and half years old shouldn’t have to try to take care of other people on their own, the adults who run the main Sesame Street account shared Elmo’s post about being glad he asked, and added, “Thank you, Elmo, for checking in with a reminder for us to pause and take a mindful moment to focus on how we’re feeling.” They also shared resources to help adults and kids take care of their mental health. It was a good example of people knowing that they have resources to share to help someone and then making the choice to help.

     The Bible stories we’re reading together right now come from the beginning of Jesus’ ministry. We’ve seen him prepare for his ministry by asking to be baptized. We’ve seen him make it through the harrowing time of temptation in the wilderness and call his first co-workers. And, then, last week, we heard about the first time he did two of the things that will be the hallmarks of his ministry: teaching and healing. He would continue those two activities in today’s reading. The first thing he does is help someone when he finds out that she is not doing ok.

     The first part of the scripture is a story that is in Matthew and Luke, as well as Mark, but is told slightly differently in each Gospel. The people who compiled stories about Jesus into the books of the Gospel each tell a story shaped by what they think is important for the listener to learn about Jesus. Dr. Wil Gafney notes that while Matthew has Jesus seeing the Peter’s mother-in-law sick and choosing to help her and Luke has the disciples ask about what might be wrong with her and Jesus healing her with only his words, in Mark, the disciples tell Jesus about her fever as soon as he got in the house. I guess when they saw how he healed in the person with the demon in the previous story, they thought he could help Simon Peter’s mom. Jesus seemed to know that he could help her. So, he uses his holy resources and makes the choice to help her. He takes her by the hand and lifts her up. In the time it takes to move from lying down to standing up, her fever disappears.

     The last part of her story is interesting. In Greek, it says, “καὶ διηκόνει αὐτοῖς.” You might know an English word that came from one of those Greek words. Has anyone ever heard the word “deacon” before? Excellent. Has anyone who is here today ever been a deacon before? What are some things that deacons do? (help set up worship, check in on people when they need help, serve communion) The word deacon comes from the Greek word διακονέω, which can mean both “to serve” and “to minister.” The scripture you heard read today says that she got up and began to serve them. This could mean serves them dinner or offers them hospitality in her home.

     Dr. Gafney has a translation of this passage that reads: “she ministered to them.” This could lots of things: She helped prepare them for the next part of her journey, she preached to them about her experience of healing, or even offered them a blessing as they had blessed her. Whether she fed them dinner or fed their spirits, I like to think that, like Jesus, she knew that now that she was well, she would have the resources to help these men, two of whom were family, prepare for the ministry that was ahead of them. If she had resources to share, she realized that this was the time to share them.

     It is good that she offered them some manner of care, because the very evening, Jesus and the disciples would begin their healing ministry in earnest. People of all manner of illness were brought to Jesus, so many that it seemed like the whole city was at the door. He healed many people. He also kept any demons floating around from telling people who he was. That’s an odd tidbit in this story, right? Dr. Osvaldo Vena thinks it was because Jesus was trying to avoid become popular through gossip or wild stories, with the assumption that the demon-possessed people would tell wild stories about him. He wanted people to believe in him because they saw him and experience healing through him.

     The last thing Jesus does in this story is to go to a deserted place to pray. Chandra Taylor Smith notes in her commentary that Jesus’ approach to healing and just love is to love himself enough to take time to replenish his own spirit. There will be multiple times that he does this in Mark. Dr. Smith said that it’s a model for us to have a devotional practice that sustains us in challenging work, too. He came to the realization that it was time to go to the next place to teach and heal there, too, “for that is what I came out to do.” He would leave the deserted place, and begin his ministry in earnest.

     Now, I don’t know if you’re feeling like you need to tell Elmo the monster that you’re stressed out or if you could use Jesus to lift you up so that you can serve the ones who have come to your home. What I do know that is that Jesus has clearly equipped us to take care of one another as an extension of the love he has for us. Be it through prayers in the wilderness, a meal served to strangers and family alike, or through a note of compassion over social media, may you feel renewed by Jesus’ spirit of love and justice in this time and this place. And, may you share that renewal with those who need it. This ministry is just starting. We’ll need all the sustenance we can find to continue it.

Resources consulted while writing this sermon:

Chandra Taylor Smith: "Fifth Sunday after the Epiphany," Preaching God's Transforming Justice: A Lectionary Commentary, Year B Featuring 22 New Holy Days for Justice, Ronald J. Allen, Dale P. Andrews, and Dawn Ottoni- Wilhelm, eds. (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2011)

Elmo asks a kind question: https://twitter.com/elmo/status/1751995117366296904?t=_VQmvVR1JUHJZeDWzHhMBg&s=19

• Marsroseo: https://x.com/marsroseo/status/1752006155360973157?s=20
• Among Us: https://x.com/AmongUsGame/status/1752133394597814383?s=20
• Rainn Wilson: https://x.com/rainnwilson/status/1752730588732408194?s=20
• Elmo's response: https://x.com/elmo/status/1752378693446508842?s=20

 
Sesame Street's follow-up: https://x.com/sesamestreet/status/1752069858160758885?s=20
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Osvaldo Vena: https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/fifth-sunday-after-epiphany-2/commentary-on-mark-129-39-5

​Wil Gafney, "Advent III," A Women's Lectionary, Women's Lectionary for the Whole Church, Year B (New York: Church Publishing Incorporated, 2023)

This page has the Greek version of the text: https://biblehub.com/text/mark/1-31.htm
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