17th Sunday in
Pentecost – Year B
Mark
9:30-37
Afraid
to Ask
Note: As the children are coming forward for their
time, ask the congregation to recall a question they asked during the past week. It would be helpful if they could write it
down. Any question. They could even confer with the person
sitting beside them – since what comes next in the liturgy isn’t aimed at them
anyway.
We you able to remember a
question you asked during the past week?
What are some examples – quickly….
All questions share some things
in common, but there are also great differences among the questions we
ask. Some questions are asked with the
expectation that a simple, clear answer will be given. An example of that (taken from my own life
this week) was when Jenna Washburn asked me where she would go in the town of
Shelby, NC, to register to vote. Having
been to the Cleveland County Courthouse on a number of occasions, I could
answer her question with a clear, precise piece of information. This is one example of questions intended to obtain
a simple piece of information.
Other questions differ. Jenna’s question arose out of our LCM Program
on Wednesday night. Dr. Laura Olsen,
Political Science Professor at Clemson, was our guest presenter. During her talk, Dr. Olsen was asked a number
of questions. One of them went something
along the lines of “Do you think the Political Parties avoid reaching out to
college age voters because their voting records are so predictable?” This question, unlike the one asked by Jenna,
had no expectation of a clear, precise answer.
There might have been a bit of a challenge to her presentation, included
in the question. This question was more
of an invitation to discussion and dialogue.
Last week’s appointed Gospel text
included questions of both types. Do you
remember last Sunday’s Gospel? It began
with Jesus asking the disciples, “Who do people say that I am?” That is a question which can be answered with
clear, precise pieces of information.
But the second question Jesus asks them is different. He asks them, “But who do you say that I
am?” There are simple answers to
that question, but there is nothing simple about the answer. It is the type of question which opens a
whole new world of discussion and discovery.
Good questions; great
questions. Today’s Gospel lesson exposes
yet a third type of question. If you
still have your pencils and your bulletins, maybe you could underline or circle
it. We come across it in the
thirty-second verse. See it? There are
questions with clear, precise answers; there are questions which invite us to
discussion and dialogue; and, there are questions which we are afraid to ask.
Mark 9:32 tells us, “They did
not understand what he was saying and were afraid to ask him.”
It is difficult to understand
context (and context is so important) when all you have on a Sunday morning is
the few verses printed on the back of the bulletin. If you have a bible on your smart phone, I
won’t accuse you of checking your email if you want to pull it out and follow
along as we talk about this verse of scripture and those which surround it.
This morning we are reading from
Mark, chapter 9. Most of this chapter
has been given over to the story of Jesus’ transfiguration. The transfiguration occurs on the top of a
mountain. Jesus takes a few of his
disciples up there and as they are praying, Jesus’ appearance is changed. He no longer reflects light, light projects
from him. We read that portion of Mark’s
Gospel the last Sunday before Lent. We
always read the Transfiguration story the last week before Lent. So, our appointed lessons for Sunday morning have
skipped over most of Mark, chapter 9.
That means that last Sunday’s Gospel reading was from the eighth chapter
of Mark. Last Sunday, we read together
the portion of Mark where Jesus asks his questions about “Who do you say that I
am?”
If you remember last week’s
reading, you will recall that Peter finally provides the answer that Jesus was
hoping for. Peter answers by saying, “You
are the Messiah.”
In Mark there is very little in
way of celebration that this information has been shared. Jesus moves immediately from this
acknowledgement to tell the disciples that “the Son of Man must undergo
great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the
scribes, and be killed.” It isn’t
all horrible news. He also tells them
the Son of Man will, “rise again.”
Verse thirty-two of the eighth chapter (isn’t that an interesting coincidence)
tells us that “(Jesus) said all this quite openly.”
So, our context is that for a
second week in a row, the portion of the Gospel we will read together and
consider, is all about Jesus laying out for his followers how the trip to
Jerusalem will end. He will be killed.
What differs in this second
telling is the inclusion of one piece of information left out of the earlier
news bulletin. This time Jesus tells
them that all of this will occur after an act of betrayal. It is that second sentence of the
thirty-first verse where Jesus says, “The Son of Man is to be betrayed into
human hands, and they will kill him.”
The question, left unanswered, is
who will betray him. Unlike Mark 8 where
the elders, or chief priests, or scribes who are readily identified as the
obstructionist actors, the question of “Who?” is left unaddressed. Betrayal is by definition something that can
only happen by one who has been trusted.
Isn’t it? The elders and chief
priests and scribes were most often identified as the enemy. We are not betrayed by the enemy; betrayal is
at the hand of one whom we have come to trust.
“They did not understand what he
was saying.” They could not even begin to imagine that
among those whom Jesus had embraced with his care, compassion, and vision of
unity that there would be someone capable of betrayal. “Who could do this?” And then, of course, they begin to consider
whether they might be the one. They did
not understand – and they were afraid to ask him. They were not sure they were prepared for the
answer. Here we have the type of
question where the answer is so feared that the question remains unasked.
The question of whether we are
the one who betrays is but one of the threatening questions which often goes
unasked. Because the answer has such
potential to change the way we see ourselves or to disrupt the cocoon we have
built around our spiritual lives we develop the horrific tendency to shy away
from the really, really tough questions.
One of the indicators that we shy
away from such questions is the type of questions we do ask, publicly. Here I want to take you back to my opening
attempts to speak of questions asked with the expectation that you can receive
a simple, direct, irrefutable answer – as contrasted with questions which
mostly tend to generate more questions.
When you came through those doors
this morning, where you looking for “The Answer”? Did you think, or where you hoping, that
somehow you would be told what to do or what to believe or how to think?
Or did you come here anticipating
that these sixty minutes (or seventy-five minutes) would encourage the rest of
your week to be a time of discovery? It
is not an either<->or question; and the answer is likely to vary from one
week to the next.
And, truth be told, this is one
of the reasons we prefer one preacher to another, or this congregation over
that one, or align ourselves with a particular denomination and find ways to be
critical of others. Some of Jesus’
followers want to be told, clearly and precisely, “This is the answer.” Others remain in a constant state of asking.
Among all of Jesus’ followers,
there remain fears that when Jesus speaks of betrayal he might not be talking
about Judas or the elders, or the Pharisees but that he may be speaking about
us. Some followers would never want to
entertain such a thought, so they remain “afraid to ask him.”
Jesus tells us, quite openly, who
he is, how he wants his followers to live their lives, what following him will
mean. The vision he sets forth is a
glorious one. There is nothing which can
compare to the opportunity he gives us.
But all of this comes by way of passing through Jerusalem and through
the cross. How tempting it is to look
for an alternative path. And as we find
what we think might be such a path, we tend not to ask too many questions – out
of fear that the actual words of Jesus might contradict our decision.
What types of questions are you
asking? Of God? Of scripture?
Of the Church? And more
importantly – what are the questions you are afraid of asking?
Do you still have your scraps of
paper? Where you wrote your first
question? Depending on how long Danielle
decides to let us sit in silence, before moving on to the rest of the liturgy,
maybe you will have opportunity to write down a few of your questions. And maybe you could share them with me – or
with the person sitting next to you.
Here is an idea: talk about your
questions as you are waiting for the line to make its way out the sanctuary
doors. Or share them over the lunch
table. Listen to the questions of your
children – and be courageous enough to share with them your own.
Notice that when the disciples
became fearful of asking their questions, they started bickering among
themselves. That is what happens,
right? Look at verse thirty-three –
Jesus asks them what they were arguing about.
When we shut ourselves off to the new discovery of what God is doing in
our lives we tend to dispute with one another what conclusions are to be drawn
from what Jesus has said to us in the past.
What are your questions? Please, lose the fear associated with asking
them.
Amen.
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