September Sermon
Sep 24, 2009
Rt. Rev. Dena Harrison
A sermon by the Rt. Rev. Dena Harrison, Bishop Suffragan of Texas and member of the Class of 1987, given on September 24, 2009, in Christ Chapel
Mark 9:30-37
As we know, St Mark is fascinated with geography. We are always informed about the setting of the action, to such an extent that it is always important to the message at hand.
Jesus and the disciples were in the borderlands when he first shared his strange news with them, that the Messiah would die and rise again. Now they are back on familiar home ground, going through Galilee to Capernaum. It is in home territory that he tells them a second time that the Son of Man will die and rise again.
When they were in Caesarea Phillipi, they were in a border country where things were very different than at home. Have you ever noticed that away from home, the same information can seem very different? Away from home, there is dislocation, a greater uncertainty, a certain sense of adventure, and an ambiguity born of difference. Things we hear and think there have a different flavor than the home routine.
Have you ever enthusiastically bought some odd local object while on vacation, then taken it home and tried to find a place for it? If so, you understand that we think differently away from home!
And so it was one thing for Jesus to talk about dying and rising in an exotic location, but bringing it up again at home was very different. The disciples can no longer imagine that this teaching is simply part of adaptation to a different place.
But much of Jesus' teaching is mysterious, and the disciples have no category for this new model he keeps talking about-and they also do not want to think much about it because it frightens them. They hope he will get over it, and in the meantime, when there is confusion and anxiety, they begin to look out for No.1.
When we are uncertain, or fearful, or both, what just seems to come naturally is to protect our own position. When in doubt, we look for the high ground, the best vantage point, the superior location, the place where we can be most in control.
Somehow, at home, we can believe more easily that we are in control of our own circumstances, and at home we can arrange things pretty well to assure our maximum comfort.
In response to their arguments about greatness, Jesus displays the most vulnerable member of society and says that this is who must be served if there is to be greatness.
Jesus wasn't confused in teaching that serving others is the foundation of kingdom life and leadership. Conceptually, we all understand it, and I think that we all believe it with great sincerity. Anyone who brings themselves into the seminary enterprise, whether to teach, to learn, or to facilitate those activities, has received this call and has devoted themselves to living a life of service in the name of Jesus.
What is confusing, and what keeps us all praying mightily, is exactly how this dying and rising is supposed to give shape to our preparation as leaders and our exercise of leadership on behalf of the church.
Our recent review by the Association of Theological Schools has produced some fun new language that your board of trustees is enjoying as we engage our work.
Our reviewers talked about being both prudent and bold in our operation of the seminary, and apparently they saw no irony at all in the comment.
While I probably wouldn't have put it just this way, I do think that the reviewers are pointing us to something very important, very scriptural, and extremely pertinent to Mark's point.
The simultaneous and fearless exercise of prudence and boldness is a skill that Jesus displays and models. He uses these qualities in the service of those who are vulnerable, including the disciples themselves. The fact that we find it humorous only points to the anxiety it creates in us when we are faced with a challenge to our accountability.
The disciples, and all of us, will have to grow into a leadership identity which includes intentional and prudent strategic planning and action, service to the vulnerable, and the bold proclamation of the kingdom.
Jesus does not mince words with the disciples about the true cost of this leadership.
Neither can we afford to be less than brutally honest in our own day if God is to be served.
We have a big job on our hands. Our culture is no less difficult than the first century in terms of both its indifference to Jesus and its desperate need of him.
We are just as clueless as the disciples, and we have to be willing to let the Spirit change everything we think we know if we are to be of service.
The nature of our servanthood is not to be confused with passivity or with an unreflected acceptance of our comfort at home. We are called to be servants of a gospel that is radical and life giving. It is also demanding, and difficult, and deathly. That is not all it is, but it is at least that. And Jesus sees no irony in this either.
In the face of such a call, we will need every bit of bold we can muster to make a difference-and Jesus guarantees that it will be costly.
Please allow me to tell you some things you may not know about the church we call home. Since 1965, The Episcopal Church has lost 33% of its membership. Baptisms have declined 64%. Church school attendance is down 71%. And here is the clinker: During the same period of time, the number of clergy has Increased by 75%.
My brothers and sisters, this is an indictment of theological education. It is an indictment of those of us who are members of the clergy. Instead of building up the body, we have apparently been busily tearing it down. None of us set out to do it, yet all of us together have failed in our boldness to the point that our witness has had a negative effect.
At this point in the sermon, I'm sorely tempted to let us off the hook. I could point to the obviously faithful work of thousands of clergy. I could praise the work of the church's many institutions in serving the vulnerable. It's all true -- but it also stands alongside this appalling truth that the church diminishes daily. This cannot be of God, and we must face ourselves in the mirror of our decline.
The question is always before us: Is there any hope for us: the ones who want to be the greatest, the best, the most? Jesus calls us to servanthood, but just what is the pattern of that servanthood supposed to look like? We have to be honest enough to say that as leaders, we have to do things very differently in the future than we have done them in the past.
Our hope has to lie in the clear teaching of Jesus that we must be continually converted from the temptation to be comfortable with our security, from the human drive to exercise power over others, and from the inertia that allows the mission of Christ to languish untended.
The Good News is that Jesus promises to be with us. The disciples failed, and failed again, and Jesus did not desert them. We have failed, and Jesus is still our Lord and still our devoted companion. Can we turn to him and allow him to renew us in ways which are sure to make us anxious because we've never done it that way before?
Your Dean and I are both spending a lot of time these days asking a lot of people for a lot of money. We share with these people why we believe that the Seminary of the Southwest deserves their support. They are not interested in business as usual. They are not blind and deaf, and they know the enormous challenges before the church. They are hoping against hope that God can do a new thing among us.
What we are able to say to them is that we are convinced that the Spirit of God is at work in this very place-this very home- with a message of hope for the church and the world.
We witness to what we see and experience in the life of the community, and we try to help them catch a glimpse with us of the shape of the gift that we believe we can become for the Church and the world.
Make no mistake about it: that shape is cruciform. New life rises out of death. If we would be creatures of the resurrection, we must become vulnerable to the death of all our certainty. Let us not be afraid, unlike the disciples, to ask the Lord to show us anew the meaning of dying and rising, right here at home. It is only as we are able to join him in his death that we have the hope of rising with him as a renewed Church.
The disciples continued to follow Jesus at home and abroad even when they didn't understand him. I like to think that people who hang out around seminaries know why they did that. When Jesus has called, the only thing that will ever satisfy is the path down which he leads. That path will turn us into servants who carry crosses and yet occupy the kingdom present among us.
The geography of dying and rising takes us far from home and yet leads us back again. In the face of the great need of our church and our world for the renewing power of God, let us pray that we might be strong to embrace the Cross.
Please pray with me, "May it be so."
May it be so.
Amen.