Sunday, February 25, 2024

From the Lectionary for 25 February 2024 (Lent 2B)

Mark 8:31-38 (NRSV)

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.”

~

"Vv. 35-37, “life” is a translation of psychÄ“, which can be translated as “soul” or “self,” but is translated as “life” in all four instances in these verses. How do these verses relate to Matthew 10:28: “Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell”? What if we used “self” in translating these verses?

“For those who want to save their self will lose it, and those who lose their self 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 self? Indeed, what can they give in return for their self?”

"I am reminded of a scene near the beginning of the movie Gandhi, where Gandhi is trying to help others understand nonviolent resistance:

“I am asking you to fight. To fight against their anger, not to provoke it. We will not strike a blow. But we will receive them. And through our pain we will make them see their injustice. And it will hurt, as all fighting hurts. But we cannot lose. We cannot. They may torture my body, break my bones, even kill me. Then, they have my dead body. Not my obedience.”"

- Paul Nuechterlein, Exegetical Note from the Girardian Lectionary page (link below)

~

"Peter, like most of Christendom after him, refuses to accept this clear revisioning of the meaning of Messiah. . . . The problem is that Peter remains loyal to the traditional Messianic script that affirms the “myth of redemptive violence,” in which the hero prevails over the enemy through superior and “righteous” force. With this oldest lie Satan rules history, as nations and peoples invoke God while they destroy their enemies through “just wars” and crusades. Against this is pitted the Human One’s strategy of nonviolence, which understands that the enemy is violence itself.

...

"The cross was not a religious icon in first-century Palestine, nor was “taking up the cross” a metaphor for personal anguish. Crucifixion had only one connotation: It was the vicious form of capital punishment reserved by imperial Rome for political dissidents. Crosses were a common sight when Mark wrote, since there was a Jewish insurrection under way. In contrast to Judean nationalists who were recruiting patriots to “take up the sword” against Rome, Mark’s Jesus invited disciples to “take up the cross.”

"The rhetoric of “self-denial,” in turn, should be understood not in terms of private asceticism but in the context of a political trial. Under interrogation by state security forces, admitting allegiance to “Yahweh’s sovereignty” would result in charges of subversion in a world where Caesar alone claimed lordship. Self-denial is about costly political choices."

- Ched Myers, with Marie Dennis, Joseph Nangle, Cynthia Moe-Lobeda, and Stuart Taylor; “Say to This Mountain”: Mark’s Story of Discipleship, pp. 101-2

~

"This is a powerful congregation. We have power by virtue of our education, our relative wealth in the world, our privilege in society, our voice. It can be very tempting - all too tempting - to seek nothing more than charity. Charity is a start, but it can take us to a dangerous place in which we release some portion of our resources in order to get more power. We maintain a death grip on the unjust privilege that makes us wealthy, that gives us the illusion of control, and then we give away just enough to feel generous without seriously compromising our privilege.

"The way of the Cross - Jesus’ way of life - calls us to let go of that. Jesus’ way calls us to be honest about the power we have - both the worldly power we’ve got because of our skin color, our gender, our social class, our education, our birth in the most powerful nation in the world, and the spiritual power we have as a community upon which God has breathed the Spirit - and then to let all of that pour out - “let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream” (Amos 5:24) - to empower the poor.

"We are called not only to make sure that the most marginalized have a place at the table, but also to recognize whose table it is. The table around which we gather belongs to Jesus the Christ, who saw, as Peter in this Sunday’s gospel did not, that true power is made perfect in self-giving love, that the way of abundant life leads to the Cross. And the symbol of humanity’s brokenness, of power corrupted to become domination, becomes a sign of peace, and freedom, and life."

- Sarah Dylan Breuer, from a sermon for Lent 2B (https://www.sarahlaughed.net/lectionary/2006/03/second_sunday_i.html)

~

"[This is] the central point where the shape of discipleship finally becomes clear [in Mark's Gospel], and what we're going to see from now on is Jesus will now turn his face back to Jerusalem and start heading there. The second half of the Gospel is this long way of the cross, which is designed to teach and prepare the group of disciples to bear witness to how Jesus did it so that they, after the resurrection, would be able to bear witness to us and enable us to enter into that following."

- James Alison, from video "Homily for Sunday 24th in Ordinary Time 2021 Year B" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yPJb8x4PU8Q)


[Source of Paul Nuechterlein and Ched Myers quotes and link to Sarah Dylan Breuer blog, and for discussion and reflections on all of this week's lectionary texts, see: https://girardianlectionary.net/reflections/year-b/lent2b/]

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