Text Study for Mark 15:1-39 (Pt. 4); November 21, 2021

Mocking the Mockery

I have examined at length the relationship between the Markan account of the crucifixion and contemporary reflections on the nature and significance of torture. Jesus as the victim of torture is celebrated this Sunday as the Messiah (Christ) and Son of God, in spite of his shame-filled and torturous death. What does this mean for us and how do we proclaim this reality in a way that can make any sense?

Joel Marcus offers an informative and provocative article describing crucifixion as “parodic exaltation.” Marcus is one of the most reliable commentators on the Markan composition as a literary product, and I’m always interested in what he has to say. He knows and notes that irony is one of the Markan composer’s favorite tools, whether the output is oral or written. Nowhere is that irony more evident or more pronounced than in the composer’s testimony to Jesus’ death by crucifixion.

This irony is hardly limited to the Markan composition. “The central irony in the passion narratives of the Gospels,” he writes, “is that Jesus’ crucifixion turns out to be his elevation to kingship” (page 73). Perhaps it is a sign that we no longer hear the passion narratives in their fullness that this irony is lost on us and that we have to work so hard in preaching and teaching to recover that irony.

Marcus notes the particular way that the Markan composition expresses this irony. The composer does not refer once to Jesus as “king” until chapter 15. Then the composer refers to Jesus as “king” six times. Five of those six references come from the lips of Jesus’ opponents, and one is found on the titulus attached to the cross. None of these references is a serious attempt to identify Jesus’ status. All are part of the process of humiliation so integral to Jesus’ torture. That only increases the Markan irony.

Marcus notes additional ironic mockery in the text. The torturers dress him in “royal” clothes. They kneel before him in mock obeisance. “Jesus’ executioners also mock his pretensions to royalty,” Marcus writes, “by crucifying him between two other ‘brigands,’ thus parodying a king’s retinue” (pages 73-74). Of course, I would add, we listeners know that in fact these are the ones who have been somehow destined by God to “sit at the right and left hands in the kingdom.” The words in the Markan script make this conclusion certain.

In spite of the cruel ignorance of the torturers, “the reader understands that these characters’ actions and words point toward a truth unknown to them,” Marcus writes, “royal garments and crowns rightfully do belong to Jesus, who will show his kingship precisely by not saving himself by dying on the cross. Although the degrading slave’s death of crucifixion seems to the mockers to be a decisive contradiction of the claim that Jesus is a king,” Marcus concludes, “the reader knows the opposite is true” (page 74).

This ironic presentation is not exclusive to Mark. We know that it is expanded and enhanced most fully in John’s presentation of the gospel account. We may be convinced, however, that this ironic understanding of crucifixion is limited to Christian circles. Marcus argues that, in fact, there is a cultural history and context in the ancient Mediterranean that helps this ironic presentation make sense to ancient audiences.

A number of pagan and secular sources connect crucifixion to some sort of elevation. Marcus observes that first-century Mediterranean culture was extremely hierarchical and that this hierarchical was often described using metaphors of height to describe one’s place in the hierarchy. “It is striking and unexpected,” Marcus notes, “that in such a hierarchical context, the favorite mode of execution outside the arena would be one that placed the victim on a higher plane than his executioners and the onlookers whom his torture and death were meant to impress” (page 78).

The elevation made the victim more of a public spectacle, to be sure. “but in the ancient Greco-Roman context,” Marcus argues, “the idea of bringing a person down by raising him up must still have struck people as incongruous, and presumably those responsible for the practice would have been cognizant of this irony” (page 78).

Marcus wants to suggest that this irony was precisely the intended effect. He notes that those executed in this manner were often people who have somehow “gotten above themselves.” Being raised up on a cross was a way to mock this self-elevation. So, rebellious slaves, revolutionaries, brigands, and traitors were raised up in order to be brought down.

“Crucifixion was intended to unmask,” Marcus writes, “in a deliberately grotesque manner, the pretentions and arrogance of those who had exalted themselves beyond their station” (page 78). It was punishment designed to lower those who had somehow gotten “above their raising.” It was, like so many penalties in the ancient world, a punishment designed to fit the crime.

In fact, Marcus notes, the very height of the cross “was often proportional to the insolence that the authorities ascribed to the victim” (page 79). He writes in summary, “crucifixion warns against the over-weening presumption that dares to fly too high, mocking the victim’s effrontery by raising and fixing him in a torturously elevated state until he expires – a form of death that drives the last nail, so to speak, into his lofty pretensions” (page 80). Marcus notes that this parodic dimension of Roman punishment was standard practice in many crimes and punishments and made perfect sense to those who witnessed Jesus’ execution.

Therefore, the connection between execution by exaltation and the ritual of mock enthronement is fairly straightforward in the first-century context. Marcus notes that Jesus does not claim the title, “King of the Jews,” for himself. It is assigned to him by his mocking torturers and the contemptuous crowd. The titulus “was meant not only to indicate the charge against Jesus,” Marcus suggests, “but also to continue the mockery that was intrinsic to the process of crucifixion” (page 83).

But what happens, Marcus asks, if the mockery itself is mocked? “And what happened,” he wonders, “if the prisoner mocked by crucifixion as a person of high status or a presumptive monarch responded to his torture with unaccountable dignity?” (pages 86-87). This may best account, for example, for the response from the centurion in Mark 15:39 – “Truly, this man was a son of God.”

“At such moments,” Marcus writes, “the ‘hidden transcript’ of resistance bursts into the open with electrifying power, so that mockery is reversed and the derided victim demands to be taken seriously.” Marcus notes that this can help us make sense of the tone early in chapter 15. It may be that Pilate looks at the tortured body of Jesus and says, “Are you the King of the Jews?” He suggests that Jesus responds with “the equally derisive rejoinder, ‘You say so’” (page 87).

Pilate, by his sneering reply, declares Jesus to be King. “Here the mockery that has transformed kingship into a joke encounters a sharper mockery that unmasks it,” Marcus concludes, “so that the derision of kingship is itself derided, and true royalty emerges through negation of the negation. For many early Christians,” he continues, “this reversal of a reversal, which turned penal mockery on its head, was probably the inner meaning of Jesus’ crucifixion” (page 87). In other words, the Romans intended to degrade Jesus by elevating him. Instead, they raised him up by lowering him down.

I would observe that this is the “Theology of the Cross” as Martin Luther intended to describe it. Too often, that “thin tradition” (as Douglas John Hall names it) has been used to glorify suffering and to valorize victimhood. That is a superficial and ultimately inaccurate reading of Luther’s meaning. Instead, the true theology of the cross asserts that God’s action is hidden under the form of its opposite. The cross reveals Jesus as King and unmasks the powers of this world as miserable failures.

It is the very visibility of the cross and the dignity of the sufferer that bring about this unmasking. I can’t help but think about the televised images and video, for example, of the Civil Rights protests of the 1960s. It was the combination of Bull Connors’ cruelty and the nonviolent dignity of the protesters that filled our small screens. It was that combination which provoked the nationwide outrage that led to the signing of the Civil Rights Act and related legislation.

It is not that suffering as a victim is good in itself. However, bearing up under the weight of punishment with faith, hope, and love has the power to convert those who are watching – some of whom had previously been in the company of the mockers. Suddenly the joke was on them…us. And many of us were challenged to repent and convert.

This is perhaps why autocrats go after the comedians early on in their regimes. “Revolutions are serious business,” write Popovic and Joksic. “Just recall the grumpy faces of 20th-century revolutionaries like Lenin, Mao, Fidel, and Che. They could barely crack a smile. But fast-forward to the protests of the 21st century, and you see a new form of activism at work. The ominous scowls of revolutions past are replaced by humor and satire,” they continue. “Today’s non-violent activists are inciting a global shift in protest tactics away from anger, resentment, and rage towards a new, more incisive form of activism rooted in fun: ‘Laughtivism.’”

While the cross is not a example of “Laughtivism,” it is an invitation to advocacy by irony. What if our sermons were more like Saturday Night Live and less like Sunday Morning Dead? I’m not skilled at that technique, but we live in a world filled with models. Maybe this week I’ll give it a try. How about you?

References and Resources

Alexamenos graffito: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexamenos_graffito.

Burton, Oliver Vernon, and Defner, Armand. Justice Deferred: Race and the Supreme Court. Cambridge, MA.: The Belknap Press, 2021.

Chan, Michael J. https://www.workingpreacher.org/dear-working-preacher/not-without-gods-power.

Diggers, Ira Brent. https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/sunday-of-the-passion-palm-sunday-2/commentary-on-mark-151-47.

Equal Justice Initiative. Lynching in America (Third Edition). https://lynchinginamerica.eji.org/report/.

Marcus, Joel. “Crucifixion as Parodic Exaltation.” Journal of Biblical Literature, vol. 125, no. 1, Society of Biblical Literature, 2006, pp. 73–87, https://doi.org/10.2307/27638347.

Menéndez-Antuña, Luis. (2021). “The Book of Torture. The Gospel of Mark, Crucifixion, and Trauma” (forthcoming in Journal of the American Academy of Religion). Journal of the American Academy of Religion. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/353804044_The_Book_of_Torture_The_Gospel_of_Mark_Crucifixion_and_Trauma_forthcoming_in_Journal_of_the_American_Academy_of_Religion.

Popovic, Srdja, and Joksic, Mladen. “Why Dictators Don’t Like Jokes.” https://foreignpolicy.com/2013/04/05/why-dictators-dont-like-jokes/.

Serwer, Adam. “The Cruelty is the Point.” https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/10/the-cruelty-is-the-point/572104/.

Text Study for Mark 15:1-39 (Pt. 1); November 21, 2021

Why Mark 15?

Why do I want to study Mark 15 rather than the lectionary-appointed verses from John 18?

The only other time this section of the Markan composition appears in the Revised Common Lectionary is on the Sunday of the Passion in Year B. On that Sunday in many congregations, the message is omitted in favor of a comprehensive reading of the Passion account.

I support that practice wholeheartedly on that Sunday. Since many of our Lutheran tribe these days focus on the individual dimension of Holy Communion on Maundy Thursday and skip Good Friday worship altogether, Passion Sunday is likely the only time during the year when they might hear the entire Passion account. Dramatic readings of the text, especially with close attention to the orality/aurality of the Markan composition will be more effective than any sermon could be on that day.

The downside of Passion Sunday reading practice is that we get very little chance to interpret and proclaim the cross-shaped Reign of Christ as portrayed in the Markan composition. If preaching is included in the worship on Passion/Palm Sunday, it is more likely to focus on the Triumphal Entry than on the broad sweep of the Passion story or the brutality of the crucifixion. I did that, in fact, in my blog post for Passion Sunday, 2021, and would like to address the deficiency I created.

The Johannine lection and our reading from the Markan composition have many things in common, so the study of one text can assist in the interpretation of the other. However, that lection is truncated to the point of distortion. At the very least, it should include Pilate’s question in verse 38. I am wary of the anti-Jewish potential in that text (a problem in every Passion week text, of course), the potential for this text to lead to “other-worldly” interpretations of the Reign of Christ, and the potential for this text to be interpreted exclusively rather than inclusively.

I’m not suggesting that the Markan composition has fewer issues in regard to the previous paragraph. In fact, Mark 15 has those issues in common with John 18 and requires the same cautious attention. If that is the case, then we might as well stick with the gospel account for the year and rely on some of the work we’ve done in the past weeks to build some firewalls against these errors.

I want to digress for a moment. I have often wondered why we are saddled with a three-year lectionary in the traditions that follow such a schedule of readings. I know the historical reasons for this practice, but those reasons are no longer regarded as valid. The Markan composition is not an abbreviated or defective account of the Good News of Jesus Christ, the Son of God (no matter what some of the early Church fathers might have thought).

The Markan composition is shorter but has no lack of depth or complexity. I would rather give the Gospel of John its own year rather than shortchange both Mark and John to sustain a three-year schedule.

That being said, we should not miss the opportunity to reflect on the Cross in some depth outside of the bounds and discipline of Holy Week. We have more than enough tendency to skip over the Passion story and get to Easter as quickly as possible. I want to take this opportunity for reflection and proclamation in the absence of that pressure to get to the happy ending immediately. And I want to give the Markan composition as much airtime as possible.

The question above is related to but not the same as another homiletical issue for those of us in liturgical, church year, traditions. Do I preach the “day” or the “text”? My inclination, which is a matter purely of personal preference, is to preach the text. Opportunities to describe the day will present themselves in the text. They also appear in the Propers of a liturgical tradition in the prayers and eucharistic liturgy. Therefore, I think that the “day” can take care of itself for the most part.

Last week, we performed and interpreted Mark’s Apocalyptic Discourse. That discourse was Jesus’ final teaching to the disciples. In it he “uncovered” for them what was really happening underneath the surface events of his life and upcoming death. Now that uncovering continues in the Markan passion account.

Michael Chan notes in his workingpreacher.org commentary that “the suffering of Jesus was revelatory in several ways.” His suffering, Chan suggests, revealed that his disciples and friends abandoned him in his time of trial. They did not, I would observe, live out the words of the Apocalyptic Discourse, that the one who patiently endures to the end will be saved. “His suffering,” Chan writes, “revealed the fragility of his friends’ loyalty and courage.”

His death revealed the “profound cruelty” of the Imperial system and those religious leaders who supported or at least accommodated that system. “In Jesus’ suffering we can see the dangerous synergy that can occur between corrupt state power and ‘mob’ justice,” Chan continues. “The trial of Jesus exposed how the legal system of the time could be manipulated to serve corrupt interests.”

I cannot avoid the intersections with and similarities between Jesus’ trial and crucifixion and the treatment of Black Americans both past and present. There has certainly been a “synergy…between corrupt state power and ‘mob’ justice” in that history and in the present. You might want to read Richard Rothstein’s The Color of Law, Brian Stevenson’s Just Mercy, or Sherrilyn Ifill’s On the Courthouse Lawn. I will probably refer to all of these books in the posts this week.

Right now, however, I am working my way through Burton and Defner’s new book, Justice Deferred: Race and the Supreme Court. Allow me to quote from their introduction.

“Americans recognize [the Supreme Court] as the institution that ended segregation, guarantees fair trials, and protects free speech and the right to vote. But the reality is more complicated, especially in the area of race and civil rights. In this area, those accomplishments date from a short period in history, from the 1930s to the early 1970s. Before that time, the Supreme Court spent much of its history ignoring or suppressing those rights, and in the half century since the early 1970s the Court’s record on civil rights has retreated far more than it has advanced” (page 1).

Crucifixion, in whatever guise, reveals the collaboration of systems and structures to keep the privileged in power and the oppressed in their place. This was true in first-century Judea. It was true in the United States following the failure of Reconstruction. And it is true in the ways the system is undergirding White Christian Nationalism today. One has only to follow, for example, the trials of Kyle Rittenhouse and the three men who murdered Ahmaud Arbery to see these systems and structures in operation.

The structural and systemic response is not inevitable, however. I think Mark 15 can be read chiastically, as has been the case with other texts in the Markan composition. The purpose of this analysis is to identify the “center” of the section in the account. Here’s my rough and ready analysis of Mark 15.

Markan Text	Theme	Main players
1-5	Jerusalem authorities and Pilate	Authorities
6-15	Barabbas	The crowd
16-20	Hail, King of the Jews	Soldiers
21-24	Pick up your cross	Simon of Cyrene
25-39	Hail, King of the Jews	Centurion
40-41	The deposition	The Women
42-47	The Burial	Joseph of Arimathea

The center of this scene is the moment when Simon of Cyrene (the “other Simon” who does not abandon Jesus) picks up Jesus’ cross. When that happens, people begin to change, at least in the Markan composition. The centurion declares, or wonders if, “this man was the Son of God.” The women follow Jesus not only to the cross but to the tomb. And Joseph of Arimathea, a member of the council who was waiting for the coming Reign of God, arranges for proper burial.

All of the skills and strategies of the Markan composer are on display here. In addition to the chiastic structure, we have another “minor character,” Simon of Cyrene, who embodies authentic discipleship. His act is surrounded by the witness and serving of the women, most of whom remain nameless, although Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Joses are named at the end of the text. The male disciples have fled, but the women have endured steadfastly to the end.

Yet another “minor character” makes the announcement that brings us back to the first verses of the Markan account. This account is the beginning of the Good News of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. “Jesus’ messianic identity only became apparent at the moment of his death and to the most unlikely of people,” Michael Chan writes, “It is humbling to realize that most of Jesus’ contemporaries were unable to comprehend his messianic mission, even when Jesus stated his messianic identity explicitly (14:62).”

The text is filled with irony as the true nature of Jesus’ royal rule is uncovered and revealed. Jesus is, indeed, the “King of the Jews.” Pilate becomes a prophet and is astonished by this strange character in front of him. Barabbas, (the name means “son of the father”) is released and the Beloved Son suffers and dies.

The soldiers return his clothes and then take them away. The two who occupy seats in the Kingdom are now at Jesus’ right and left on their own crosses. The temple is invaded, and the centurion sees the truth. The stone that the builders rejected is laid to rest in a tomb hewn out of rock. I am sure you can find more items for this inventory.

The One who came not to be served but to serve has given his life as a ransom for many. That’s how the Markan composer urges us to experience Christ the King.

References and Resources

Alexamenos graffito: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexamenos_graffito.

Burton, Oliver Vernon, and Defner, Armand. Justice Deferred: Race and the Supreme Court. Cambridge, MA.: The Belknap Press, 2021.

Chan, Michael J. https://www.workingpreacher.org/dear-working-preacher/not-without-gods-power.

Diggers, Ira Brent. https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/sunday-of-the-passion-palm-sunday-2/commentary-on-mark-151-47.

What I Want to Hear on Sunday

Where do we find God? We love to find God in “the rocks and trees, the skies and seas,” as Alli Rogers wrote in “This is My Father’s World.” We long to find God in the beauties of nature, the awesome scope of Creation, the giggles of an infant in the crib, or during other Hallmark moments. There certainly is room for that in the Christian gospel – especially in Matthew. Jesus calls us to look at the lilies of the field and the birds of the air as examples of worry-resilient faith.

But for every stunning sunset there is a terrifying tornado. The purple mountains’ majesty can contain a violent volcano. The majestic roar of the tiger often comes after the beast has made a fresh kill. Even the gurgling infant can soon grow into a troubled adult. Looking for God is a confusing and challenging exercise that rarely results in clarity of vision. We hear that confusion in the words of the “sheep” and the “goats” in the Parable of the Great Judgement.

Neither group realizes who they have met as they went about their daily lives. David Lose writes, “they are surprised by where the Son of Man hangs out. No one, that is, expects to see Jesus in the face of the disadvantaged, the poor, the imprisoned, and all those who are in manifest need.”

“Lord, when did we see you?” each group asks. The word “see” can have the sense of “notice” or “pay attention to,” Perhaps the point is not so much that each group was equally blind in some way, but that they didn’t notice the deeper import of what they were doing. In that way the sheep and the goats are the same. But they differ in their attention to the hungry and thirsty, the stranger and the naked, the sick and imprisoned. The sheep noticed the needy. The goats did not.

“The afflicted have no need of anything else in this world,” wrote Simone Weil, “except someone capable of paying attention to them.” Weil believed that attention is the profoundest expression of love for the neighbor. “The fullness of love for neighbor, she wrote, “is simply the capacity to ask the question, ‘What is your agony?’” The sheep appear to have asked that question and responded to the answer. The goats appear not to have asked.

Lord, make me a sheep.

The sheep feed those who are hungry. The sheep give drink to those who are thirsty. The sheep welcome those who are the strangers. The sheep clothe those who are naked. The sheep take care of those who are sick. The sheep visit those who are imprisoned. The sheep may not have seen Jesus in the vulnerable, but they saw the vulnerable. The goats saw neither.

This text can become the most burdensome expression of the Law if that is our only focus. As preachers we sometimes must fill in the good news context to be faithful to a text. In The Freedom of a Christian Luther describes his version of the “Golden Rule.” That rule, in short, is “Do to your neighbor as Christ has done to you.” The good news is that we are on the receiving end of this unconditional love first. Christ is present in us in faith so we can be present to our neighbor in love.

“Therefore,” Luther writes, “I will give myself as a kind of Christ to my neighbor, just as Christ offered himself to me. I will do nothing in this life except what I see will be necessary, advantageous, and salutary for my neighbor, because through faith I am overflowing with all good things in Christ.” (my emphasis). Our loving response to the neighbor is rooted in, energized by and reflective of the work of Christ for us and the presence of Christ in us.

Our works of love are a joyous outflow of the love which the Holy Spirit has placed in our hearts through Christ. “Without a doubt we are named after Christ – not absent from us but dwelling in us,” Luther writes, “in other words: provided that we believe in him and that, in turn and mutually, we are a second Christ to one another, doing for our neighbors as Christ does for us.”

Who can do those things? Generally it’s not those who struggle with hunger and thirst, who are lost and naked, those who sick and imprisoned. The ones who can do all this good work are those who are better off! The behavior the Lord commends here is the work of solidarity with the vulnerable. The behavior the Lord condemns is the failure to do that work.

Lord, make me a sheep.

We live in a representative democracy. We can certainly respond to those who are hungry and thirsty, those who are lost and naked, those who are sick and imprisoned on our own. Personal acts of lovingkindness are part of the discipleship life. We, however, have far more power than that. We can work together for policies and practices that put in place public responses to the needs of the vulnerable.

There is no discussion in the parable of whether the vulnerable are worthy or unworthy. For Jesus followers that is not part of the conversation. We know that theologically if we understand the grace of God in Christ. No one is worthy — not even one. If worthiness were part of the equation, we’d all be screwed.

If that’s God’s standard for us, why should we apply a different standard to those God loves? Look, serving with the vulnerable is going to draw us into policies and politics whether we like it or not. Only the privileged oblivious get to avoid such concerns.

I’ve worked with those in prison. It took me about ten minutes of that work to start wondering about our corrections policies and practices. If you’ve volunteered to feed the hungry, it’s probably taken you about that long to wonder about our food policies. If you’ve had chronically ill friends or family, you’ve struggled to understand our medical system and health insurance practices.

In my experience, trying to live as one of the “sheep” has always pulled me into politics and policy issues. The only way to stay out of those issues is to look the other way. But that is “goat” behavior.

Friends, this is not just about “those people over there.” This is about us. Most of us are about one medical catastrophe from bankruptcy. Most of us are about one lay-off from disaster. Most of us are only a couple of paychecks from going hungry. During the pandemic, the number of Americans who worry about food has gone from 40 million to 80 million. Chances are that one in every four people you know is worried about whether they will run out of food before they run out of month. Maybe you are one of those folks. And many of those folks wonder if they will have a roof over their heads at the end of that month.

So this Sunday (and every Sunday) I want to hear politics from the pulpit. When we keep politics out of the pulpit, we’ve made a political decision. We’ve decided to support the people who benefit from the way things are. Those folks generally are not among the hungry and thirsty, the naked and strangers, the sick and imprisoned. Those folks are generally not much like you and me.

These days the truth is that a disproportionate number of the vulnerable are black and brown people in the United States. Race and racial conflict are tools used to keep people in their economic and social places. But lots of white people are among the vulnerable as well. Advocating for the least of these is a form of multi-racial politics that will make life better for all of us. When we are Christ to the neighbor, race, class, ethnicity, gender — they are all real, but they are not barriers to loving community.

Christ is with us always – in us through faith and in our neighbors through love. The Holy Spirit equips us to pay attention to our neighbor in need because we have no need to pay attention to ourselves. “Therefore, we conclude that Christian individuals do not live in themselves but in Christ and their neighbor,” Luther writes, “or else they are not Christian. They live in Christ through faith and in the neighbor through love.”

Lord, make me a sheep. Amen.

Sample Sermon — Ephesians 1:15-23

This week I’m sharing a sermon on this text I preached a few years ago. It’s dated, but you deserve to see some of my own work sometimes. I have taken out the specifics of the situation in which it was originally preached and updated some references and implications.

No Powerless Christians

The late, great Jimi Hendrix said it well. “When the power of love overcomes the love of power, then the world will know peace.” Today that sounds like just another hippy-dippy sixties bumper sticker slogan. In our time the love of power is the order of the day. The pursuit of power overwhelms all other projects.

Power is a major topic in Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians. The overall theme of Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians is that God pulls it all together in Jesus. In worship God pulls us to the center of all life, Jesus, our Lord and Savior. God does that by sending us the power of the Holy Spirit of Jesus. Today let’s talk about how that power works in our Christian journey.

Love of power was a way of life in ancient Ephesus. In Paul’s time, Ephesus was second only to Rome as a seat of imperial power. Ephesus was home to a rich and entitled elite who controlled the government, manipulated the markets, and ran the religious life of the city. When it came to power, the Ephesian Christians were on the outside looking in.

Many of us feel like little people in big systems. It’s easy to feel helpless and hopeless when all the power rests in the hands of others. Carried along by impersonal politics, mindless markets, faceless social forces—we know powerless.

So, it’s jarring to hear Paul’s prayer today. “I pray that…you may know,” Paul writes, “what is the immeasurable greatness of [God’s] power for us who believe, according to the working of [God’s] great power.” Paul is so intent to make his point that he uses three different Greek terms for power in the space of fourteen words. There are no powerless Christians.

Paul longs that the Ephesians will know that this power is available to them for their daily use. The Holy Spirit longs for us to know this as well. There are no powerless Christians.

Paul draws it all together in verses twenty through twenty-three. Let’s take those verses step by step.

Step One: All Christian power is Resurrection Power. That’s where Paul begins, and where we must always begin. “God put this power to work in Christ,” Paul tells us, “when [God] raised [the Messiah] from the dead…” God’s love looks like a cross. And God’s power looks like resurrection.

Step Two: Jesus is now the rightful Ruler of all things in heaven and on earth. God “seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the age to come. Jesus the Messiah is Lord of heaven and earth, right now.

Step Three: Jesus exercises that rule in part through the Church. God “has put all things under his feet and has made him the head over all things for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.” The Spirit empowers us for loving service in Jesus’ name.

There are no powerless Christians.

Of course, there is power…and then there is power. There is “power over.” From this perspective, power is a scarce commodity available only to the privileged few. Power over is maintained by fear and violence. Power over treats everyone other than me as a means to my ends. Power over believes that power over is the primary goal of human existence.

And then there is power with/to/within. This power sees itself as multiplied when applied and is the property of everyone. It relies on connection rather than coercion. This power treats everyone other than me as ends in themselves. And this power believes that power is a means to an end. That end is human flourishing.

Photo by Andrea Piacquadio on Pexels.com

Brene Brown offers a good one-page summary that analyzes power in terms of how it is used. You can download that summary here: https://brenebrown.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Brene-Brown-on-Power-and-Leadership-10-26-20.pdf.

The witness of the gospels, and of the whole New Testament, is that the power of the Spirit is power with/to/within. Power with/to/within is the power of vulnerable love. “The Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve,” Jesus says in Mark 10:45, “and to give his life, a ransom for many.” The Incarnate Christ did not consider equality with God a thing to be grasped and hoarded but rather emptied himself for the sake of obedient service, including death on a cross — as we read in Philippians 2. The power of the Spirit is power with/to/within. If we exercise power over, that’s not Jesus power.

The parable of the Sheep and the Goats in Matthew 25 can be framed in these terms. The question posed by the Lord is, “How did you use your power?” Did you use it to serve the least, the lost and the lonely without thought for yourself? Or did you use your power to pad your privilege? Do we use our power for others or for self? It’s not more complicated than that. If we use our power for others, that’s a sign that Christ lives in us and that we are responding to Christ in the other (see my post on Matthew 25).

Speaking of Matthew 25 — I was reminded by a podcast yesterday of Dolly Parton’s song, “Would you know him if you saw him?” Lyrics here: https://genius.com/Dolly-parton-would-you-know-him-if-you-saw-him-lyrics.

How do I use my political power in this representative democracy? How do I use my power to choose whether or not to mask up? How do I use my power to purchase ethically-sourced and cruelty free goods and services? How do I use my power to resist housing segregation and educational inequality when I think about buying a home? How do I use my power to be kind to my next door neighbors, no matter how irritating their Christmas lights are at two in the morning? How do I use my capacity to influence others in my life when it comes to issues of race, class, gender, sexuality, etc.?

How many of us does it take to make real change in a system or culture? The research is still developing. But it may be that it takes as little as 3.5% of a population to bring about systemic change, especially if that 3.5% chooses to be visible. See https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20190513-it-only-takes-35-of-people-to-change-the-world. The other end of the research spectrum says 25%. In any event, change does not require a majority. It takes brave people who use their power for the sake of others.

For fun and inspiration, listen to how Dolly Parton uses her power as power with/to/within. Brene Brown interviewed her on the most recent edition of “Unlocking Us.” It’s definitely worth the time. https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5tZWdhcGhvbmUuZm0vdW5sb2NraW5nLXVz/episode/NDdjMjFjOWMtZmViNi0xMWVhLWIxZWYtZWI3ZjM5OTY5Njdk?hl=en&ved=2ahUKEwi22K7m347tAhXFF80KHaYPDQcQieUEegQIJRAF&ep=6

Church people use their power to feed the hungry, cloth the naked, visit the sick, advocate for the imprisoned and defend the persecuted. This is worth cheers and hallelujahs. This runs against cultural currents flowing in the opposite direction. This is the power of the Spirit at work among us to put all the powers of sin, death, and the devil under the feet of Jesus the Messiah. This is Jesus, the strong man, binding Satan and plundering his household. This is real power.

Church people also use their power to defend their privilege, sustain racism, concentrate wealth, maintain abusive systems and hide from the realities of the world. We need to call out such abuses of power over in our own faith communities and in the conduct of other believers.

There are no powerless Christians. The power of the Spirit is power with/to/within. With Paul I pray that “with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance among the saints…” This is the hope to which God has called us—to make the power of love conquer the love of power. This is the work of the Holy Spirit among us and in us and through us. This is how God is pulling it all together in Jesus.

The world cannot see this power among us. The world is blinded by the love of power. That’s why it takes the vision of an enlightened heart. That’s why this is about the hope to which God has called us.

There are no powerless Christians. Of course, there is no power unless you plug in. The Spirit equips us to see where the power is. It is in God’s Word of law and gospel. It is in our worship. It is in our welcoming and loving community. Let’s pray…

For a list of refences and resources for this week’s texts, please see my November 16 post.

Text Study for Matthew 25:31-46

My study of the gospel text for this Sunday is fairly long on its own. So, I think I will publish it today and put out more text study materials in the next few days. But first, a couple of related notes.

November is the 500th anniversary of Luther’s publication of The Freedom of the Christian. 1520 is such a central year for Luther’s theology and writing. I’m disappointed we haven’t celebrated his publications from that year a bit more (although we’ve had a few other small concerns to address this year). I reference this document several times below and encourage you to consider reading (and re-reading) Luther’s text in its entirety.

This is also fundraising time for our friends at workingpreacher.org. I plan to contribute to their work and I hope you will as well. They do a great service for preachers across the church, and that work should be supported by those of us who use it.

The Beatitudes in Matthew 5 and the Great Judgment in Matthew 25 serve as bookends for Matthew’s pre-passion narrative. But Matthew 28 serves as the capstone of the Gospel and ties the bookends to the larger narrative.

Most important for our text today, Jesus says in Matthew 28:19, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit…” The call is to disciple the “nations.” The Son of Man uses the same word in the Great Judgment in Matthew 25. Matthew assumes that the church has been engaged in that mission during the time between the Resurrection and the Last Judgment. The sheep and the goats are not completely in the dark, Matthew assumes, about the good news of Jesus.

A major theme of that good news in Matthew is that God is “with us” in Jesus. Jesus is named “Immanuel” (God with us) early in the gospel. The last words of the gospel, and of the Lord in Matthew’s account, are “And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” So, we should not be surprised when we run into Jesus here, there, and everywhere. And yet, we are routinely surprised by the presence of the Lord in what we think are odd places.

Today’s gospel reading suggests that we are looking for God in all the wrong places. If you hear echoes of the Beatitudes from a few weeks ago, then your ears are tuned properly. We look for saints in all the wrong places because we look for God in all the wrong places. We expect to find Christ adorned with a crown. We resist seeing him hanging “in glory” on the cross.

Neither group realizes who they have met as they went about their daily lives. “Rather, they are surprised by their failure to recognize the Son of Man,” writes David Lose (2014). “Or, more to the point, they are surprised by where the Son of Man hangs out. No one, that is, expects to see Jesus in the face of the disadvantaged, the poor, the imprisoned, and all those who are in manifest need.”

This text can become the most burdensome expression of the Law if that is our only focus. As preachers we sometimes must fill in the good news context to be faithful to a text. In The Freedom of a Christian (and several other places) Luther describes his version of the “Golden Rule.” That rule, in short, is “Do to your neighbor as Christ has done to you.”

In Freedom, he writes, “Therefore, I will give myself as a kind of Christ to my neighbor, just as Christ offered himself to me. I will do nothing in this life except what I see will be necessary, advantageous, and salutary for my neighbor, because through faith I am overflowing with all good things in Christ.” (Freedom of the Christian, page 524, my emphasis). Our loving response to the neighbor is rooted in, energized by and reflective of the work of Christ for us and the presence of Christ in us.

Our works of love are a joyous outflow of the love which the Holy Spirit has placed in our hearts through Christ. Luther says we are called “Christians” because Christ lives in us and works through us for the good of our neighbor. “Without a doubt we are named after Christ – not absent from us but dwelling in us, Luther writes, “in other words: provided that we believe in him and that, in turn and mutually, we are a second Christ to one another, doing for our neighbors as Christ does for us.” (Freedom of a Christian, page 525).

I think it is important to emphasize how works “work” in the life of the Christian so that this text does not become a burden but is rather a joy. Tuomo Mannermaa writes, “When Christ lives in Christians through faith, love begins to ‘live’ in them as well, as Luther expresses it in the Heidelberg Disputation.” (Two Kinds of Love, Kindle Locations 1029-1030). Christ present in faith frees and equips us to see Jesus in the places we would not look on our own.

“The afflicted have no need of anything else in this world, except someone capable of paying attention to them.” Loving the neighbor as Jesus loves me (us) happens through a particular way of seeing. “To those who desire to know God truly, Luther says, turn from what appears to be beautiful—all that is saturated in glory—toward that which is avoided and despised by the world, the cross and suffering,” writes Phil Ruge-Jones. “God is hidden in the cross of Christ and also in the crosses of those who suffer.” (Cross in Tensions, Kindle Location 2181)

Luther connects our way of seeing to our theological orientation. When we look for God in all the powerful places, we practice the theology of glory. When we do that, we will miss seeing God at all. Martin Luther gives voice to this conundrum in his theses for the Heidelberg Disputation of 1518. It is useful to look especially at theses 19 through 22.

19. That person does not deserve to be called a theologian who looks upon the invisible things of God as though they were clearly perceptible in those things which have actually happened [Rom. 1.20].

20. He deserves to be called a theologian, however, who comprehends the visible and manifest things of God seen through suffering and the cross.

21. A theologian of glory calls evil good and good evil. A theologian of the cross calls the things what it actually is.

22. That wisdom which sees the invisible things of God in works as perceived by man is completely puffed up, blinded, and hardened.

In Luther’s theology of the cross, God is always hidden under the form of the opposite. “The theologian of the cross in action must be the reverse of the theologian of glory,” writes Ruge-Jones, “preferring sufferings to works, cross to glory, the weak to the powerful, the fools to the wise, and universally that which is taken by the world as evil over that which the world lauds and pursues as good.” (Cross in Tensions, Kindle Location 3912).

What are we to make of the “unconscious” (or perhaps “un-self-conscious”) responses of the sheep and the goats? The sheep did not act out of some sort of self-interest. Since they did not recognize Jesus, they did not act in order to impress him. There is no discussion or debate about whether those in need are somehow worthy or unworthy.

The sheep paid attention to the need and responded without extended reflection or calculation. Their faith informed and their love formed their actions. The goats did not respond accordingly. “Or to put it even more precisely,” writes Capon, “they [the sheep] are praised at his final parousia for what they did in his parousia throughout their lives, namely, for trusting him to have had a relationship with them all along.” (Robert Farrar Capon. Kingdom, Grace, Judgment: Paradox, Outrage, and Vindication in the Parables of Jesus, Kindle Locations 6635-6636).

This love by attention continues to be our vocation. “The victory of Jesus over the evil in the world is not simply a fait accompli which could be disproved by the continuance of evil to this day,” notes N. T. Wright. “It is a victory waiting to be implemented through his followers.” (Following Jesus, Kindle Location 1186-1187).

You may leave your listeners with several points to ponder this week. Who is “being Christ” to you this week? Who needs your loving attention this week? In what unexpected places and ways is Jesus showing up in your life this week? Where can you respond to those in need beyond your immediate daily activities?

Now for the “surgeon general’s warning” on this line of thinking. We could lead people to think we are affirming:

Co-dependent caretaking at the expense of myself – no, that’s not it.
White savior complex because we (white, male, European-educated, upper middle class) have all the answers to the world’s problems – no, that’s not it.
Colonization by evangelization – no, that’s not it (see the previous bullet point)
Power over the “needy” – no, that’s not it. Jesus power is always power with, to, and for the other.

It’s important to remember that the presence of Christ in us by faith produces the death of ourselves first (see Galatians 2). If serving in love makes us powerful in worldly terms, we are embodying the theology of glory and deluding ourselves.

Resources

Robert Farrar Capon. Kingdom, Grace, Judgment: Paradox, Outrage, and Vindication in the Parables of Jesus (Kindle Locations 6366-6368). Kindle Edition.

Online text of the theses for the Heidelberg Disputation — https://mbird.com/wp-content/uploads/sermons/HeidelbergDisputation.pdf.

Lose, David. “Christ the King A: The Unexpected God.” http://www.davidlose.net/2014/11/christ-the-king-a/

Wengert, Timothy. The Freedom of a Christian: The Annotated Luther Study Edition. Minneapolis, MN.: Fortress Press, 2016.

N.T. Wright. Following Jesus: Biblical Reflections on Discipleship (Kindle Locations 1186-1187). Kindle Edition.

Tuomo Mannermaa. Two Kinds of Love: Martin Luther’s Religious World (Kindle Locations 966-967). Kindle Edition.

Ruge-Jones, Philip. Cross in Tensions: Luther’s Theology of the Cross as Theologico-social Critique (Princeton Theological Monograph Series Book 91) . Pickwick Publications, an Imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers. Kindle Edition

Weil, Simone. Awaiting God. Fresh Wind Press.

Odell, Margaret. https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/christ-the-king/commentary-on-ezekiel-3411-16-20-24

Limburg, James. https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/christ-the-king/commentary-on-ezekiel-3411-16-20-24-2

Sharp, Carolyn J. https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/christ-the-king/commentary-on-ezekiel-3411-16-20-24-4