Monday Morning in the Preacher’s Study
First thoughts about next Sunday’s sermon
(16th Sunday after Pentecost, Sept. 13, 2015)
Maylanne Maybee, deacon
Living our Baptismal Promise in Word and Action
Do you renounce the evil powers of this world which
corrupt and destroy the creatures of God?
Will you proclaim by word and example the Good News of
God in Christ?
Today’s readings
invite us to ponder the relationship of word and action. Peter confesses with his lips that Jesus is
the Messiah, but cannot accept that the Messiah must suffer and die. He rebukes Jesus, tries to put him in the
place he thinks should be occupied by the Messiah – a place of political
leadership where power and domination and even violence are justified. Jesus will have none of it, and rebukes Peter
in turn, just as he did Satan in the wilderness. Jesus uses their confrontation as a teaching
moment for others: “If any want to become my followers, they must take up their
cross and follow me.”
There are all
sorts of ways this passage has been interpreted, but I like Reginald Fuller’s
suggestion that here “the cross” refers to the sign of the tau (T) or chi (X),
the sign of ownership with which cattle were branded, just as we were “branded”
as Christ’s own at baptism. The call to be followers of Christ is a solemn
reminder that the road to fullness of life may require risking life itself in
order to resist the deadly agenda of empire.
The teaching is
hard to apply to our daily life as North Americans. Most of us don’t live in a world where good
and evil are in stark contrast, where choices are clear, or where danger to
life and limb is imminent.
Which is why I
find the readings from Proverbs, the Psalm and the Epistle of James an
important complement to the passage from Mark.
Jesus’ invitation to LIFE may lead to far less dramatic choices than
risking bodily death.
In Proverbs Wisdom
is personified as one who stands in the streets and entrances of our
cities. She is there in the midst of
daily life to be seen and heard. Those
who are branded as God’s own will open their ears and hearts to the Spirit of
Wisdom.
Likewise, Psalm 19
is an invitation to learn “the law of the Lord”, the ways of the heart that
make our eyes clear and satisfy our desires more deeply than the shallow
enticements of our age.
And the Epistle of
James echoes the Wisdom tradition, focusing today on wise speech. If we are to use our ears to hear and our
minds to learn, let us also use our mouths and tongues to teach and speak as
ones who are “perfect”, whose faith has been made complete by our actions. Yet how can we heed the voice of Wisdom in
the midst of the barrage of words and propaganda that assault us in our daily
exposure to the Internet and other media?
How can we tame our words, not only the ones we speak, but especially
those we write and text and blog and email?
I understand our diakonia to be the way of these daily,
ordinary choices – whether we use our voice and words for good or for ill,
whether we choose the path of integrity or the lesser path of self interest,
whether we strive to align our heart and our mind and our actions with “the
fear of the Lord.”
As a preacher
today, I would ask how we can become communities of the baptized who choose the
way of life, a way that is paradoxically signified by the cross. How do our small choices in community lead us
to become life-giving signs of peace and justice and integrity over and against
the death-dealing values of empire that surround us?
Maylanne Maybee, a member of APLM Council, is a deacon serving in the
Diocese of Rupert’s Land (Anglican Church of Canada). She is Principal of
the Centre for Christian Studies, a national theological school based in
Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada.
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