Saturday, March 31, 2012
Friday, March 30, 2012
Becoming an Innovative Church!
We believe that Pasadena Presbyterian Church is in a season of dreaming. Who are we? Where have we been together, and how are we called to move forward now? How is God stirring our hearts and minds?Thursday, March 29, 2012
Maundy Thursday: A Transformative Experience
Wednesday, March 28, 2012
Tuesday, March 27, 2012
Letter to the Congregation from Dr. Mark Smutny
Dear Friends,
Monday, March 26, 2012
Young Adults in the News!
Sunday, March 25, 2012
Poem: Bits and Pieces
Bits and pieces, bits and pieces.
Saturday, March 24, 2012
Friday, March 23, 2012
Becoming an Innovative Church!
We believe that Pasadena Presbyterian Church is in a season of dreaming. Who are we? Where have we been together, and how are we called to move forward now? How is God stirring our hearts and minds?Thursday, March 22, 2012
Poem: To Laugh Often
Wednesday, March 21, 2012
Spiritually Hungry, Institutionally Suspicious. . .
We're starting new groups on the campuses of Pasadena City College and Caltech! Flyers are now up. Here's what they say:Tuesday, March 20, 2012
Monday, March 19, 2012
Young Adults in the News!
Sunday, March 18, 2012
Sermon: For God So Loved the Neighborhood. . .
John 3:14-21
Sermon preached by Renee Roederer
Sunday, March 18, 2012
Pasadena Presbyterian Church
John 3:14-21
And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.
‘For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.
‘Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Those who believe in him are not condemned; but those who do not believe are condemned already, because they have not believed in the name of the only Son of God. And this is the judgement, that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. For all who do evil hate the light and do not come to the light, so that their deeds may not be exposed. But those who do what is true come to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been done in God.’
We’ve heard these words before.
Many of us have heard these words more times than we can count. They’re so familiar to us that perhaps they seem a bit like the soundtrack of our faith – like constant, background music that’s shaping who we are, and. . . if we’re honest. . . like a wall of background noise that we can easily tune out when this passage is read once again.
It’s just that familiar.
Some of you had an experience that mirrors one like mine, and this passage has been a part of your life for a very long time. I was a five year old, pigtailed little girl who memorized this passage in the heat of an Indiana summer during Vacation Bible School. The first church I attended as a very young child is in one sense, locked in distant memory. And yet, aspects of it are so vivid to me. During a week of dipping cookies in Dixie cups of lemonade, I memorized these words: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.”
Now there were things I didn’t understand. Perish? Begotten? What are those words? They weren’t in my five year old vocabulary, and maybe that’s a good thing. But there were some things I did seem to understand. “Wow, God must really, really love me. . .” I made a profession of faith that summer and was baptized the next April, which was quite young I might add for a little Southern Baptist!
Maybe you had an experience like that one. You memorized these words at an early age, and they’ve been the soundtrack of faith in the background for a very long time.
But maybe you didn’t grow up in the church or in any sort of religious environment. And your encounters with this text were a bit different. You came to be intrigued (or maybe annoyed) with all those signs at sports games on ESPN: John 3:16! John 3:16! There are those strange numbers again. . .What’s that about, and why do Christians need to put those numbers all over t-shirts and billboards? The depth and the beauty of these words started to sound rather trite and well. . . kind of weird.
So we have a few paradoxes here.
We have a text that makes large, expansive claims. “For God so loved the world!” The original Greek text literally says, “For God so loved the cosmos!” God loves all that is. What a beautiful conviction. . .
And how difficult it is to wrap our minds around it. . .When we see the clear night sky away from the city, when we view the band of stars above our heads that we call the Milky Way, when we see far-away places we can’t comprehend, we can know that God has created this cosmos and these people under one sky for love. That’s beautiful.
But this claim isn’t only large and expansive. It’s somehow particular. We’ve experienced it in the specific contexts of our lives. I was found by the love expressed in this text when I was a kindergartener in the midst of summer Bible lessons and games. And you’ve had specific experiences with this love too. It’s expansive and specific. . .That’s a paradox in our experience of this text.
And here’s another one: For some of us, we have a text that has been a soundtrack of our lives as we’ve grown up as insiders within the church. This language has become so saturated and repetitive that we insiders sometimes lose the beauty of its expansive claims, and we tune it out when we hear it again. We’ve been insiders, and this has been part of our language. But for others of us – and certainly people who would never step foot in a church or faith community – this language has been experienced as slogan, a trite set of numbers with a colon in the middle. I have no doubt that some of those signs and t-shirts are displayed with great intentions and a lot of love, but for many people on the outside of the Christian faith, I think that this reduction of a beautiful claim to a set of weird numbers is likely experienced as a way of marking those who are insiders within a certain type of Christian culture and those who are outsiders beyond it.
And perhaps paradoxical experiences with this text are appropriate when we look at its original context. Nicodemus was an insider and an outsider at the same time. Earlier in this chapter, we learn that Nicodemus is a Pharisee, one of the religious insiders of 1st century Judaism. He was curious to learn from Jesus, but his fellow religious authorities were quite suspicious of who Jesus was and what he was teaching. So Nicodemus came to converse with Jesus during the night when he wouldn’t be seen. This insider had to come to Jesus as an outsider in a roundabout way.
Nicodemus has questions of Jesus too. Jesus begins their conversation with intriguing language, that those who see the Kingdom of God must be born from above. They must be born again. But Nicodemus wants to reduce the beauty of this language to something tangible and literal. “How can anyone be born after having grown old?” he asks. “Can one enter a second time into the Mother’s womb and be born?” Rather than reducing his words, Jesus expands them again, and a few verses later, our text emerges. “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”
Expansive and specific. . . insiders and outsiders. . . I wonder if these paradoxical experiences of this text have something to say to us today. . .
We do have a soundtrack of our faith. We do have depth and beauty and an experience of God’s love. Perhaps some of these scriptural words could be a part of our Greatest Hits Album: “For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all of creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 8:37-38)
“God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them. Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness on the day of judgment, because as he is, so also are we in this world. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out all fear.” (1 John 4:16-18)
“Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away. And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “See, the home of God is among mortals. God will dwell with them, and they will be his peoples. And God himself will be with them; he will wipe every tear from their eyes.” (Rev. 21:1-4)
Our soundtrack of faith is large and expansive, but it’s also specific, because this love has swept us up in its depth and beauty in particular ways. It has transformed us as individuals and as a community. I wonder what would happen if we took this soundtrack, the convictions behind these words, and our experiences of God’s love, and we offered them as a treasure trove toward our neighborhood? What would happen?
We’d probably have a few choices ahead of us. Sure, in a well-intentioned effort to get people sitting in pews on a Sunday morning, we could reduce this treasure trove into a formula. I like to call this the Field of Dreams Plan. “If you do such and such, they will come. . .” Churches do this all the time. They think a certain type of music style or a certain type of program or hiring a certain type of personality will be that magic fix. Well. . . maybe the treasure trove doesn’t need fixing or a marketing plan. Maybe it needs practicing.
So rather than creating a formula or a strategy to get people inside a church – which for some people, seems like a fortress - the church is called to go outward, isn’t it?
“See, the home of God is among the people. God will dwell with them. . .” How might God be dreaming to dwell in our neighborhood in and through our presence? It won’t be about a formula. It won’t simply be about getting outsiders into pews. It will involve us dwelling in our own treasure trove – our own soundtrack of faith – so that we begin to create doors within this church. Doors all over the place! So that we will begin to create portals that get us outside, practicing our faith among the people in particular ways in love, and providing spaces where outsiders can come in, be loved, and become insiders in our midst.
These days, we’re dreaming about ministries that can become doors, faith practices that can become portals – so that loving, sacred space can be the only thing standing between insiders and outsiders, rather than barriers or marketing strategies.
I want to give you a few images and then invite you do so some dreaming yourselves:
In 2007, when I was a seminary student, I took an incredible trip to Germany and Switzerland to see sights from the Protestant Reformation. Our first stop was in the town of Wittenberg, made famous when the disaffected monk Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses of theological grievances on the door of the cathedral. That church is obviously the most famous one in the town. But the other famous church is the smaller building where Martin Luther was himself a pastor. When my friends and I walked into that building, I was shocked, surprised, and intrigued by the paintings that fill that church. They are the work of Lucas Cranach, a contemporary of Martin Luther, and the town artist. They’re filled with pictures of scriptural scenes – scenes like the last Supper of Christ – but instead of creating imagined renditions of Jesus’ disciples, the people in these paintings are actual people from Wittenberg. They’re real individuals. We know many of their names. Lucas Cranach made the neighborhood into the disciples of Christ. The church is filled with pictures like that. And 1500 years from Christ to Wittenberg are somehow united. Incredible.
I wonder how Christ’s disciples – insiders and outsiders alike – are experiencing love today in the Pasadena Playhouse District?
I want to close by doing something very different and outside the box. There’s an insert in your bulletin. I want to invite each of you to make these expansive, loving claims specific today. How are you called in this moment to build those doors – those portals that get us outside in our neighborhood, that become space where outsiders can become insiders? What are you going to do – you, specific disciple, you? You, who may be the only one to make a specific dream happen?
I’m going to give us two minutes of silence to answer these questions, and I invite you to place them in the offering plate in a few minutes. I’ll read them and be prayerful for you as you consider how God is calling you. If you’re joining us through our television broadcast, I’ll tell you what this insert says so you can think about it too. . .
It starts with a great quote from Frederick Buechner. It says, "The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world's deep hunger meet." [Buechner, Wishful Thinking: A Theological ABC]
And here are the questions:
What gives you joy and gladness?
What is one need you see around you - in our church or in our neighborhood?
What will you do to bring your deep joy and gladness into the need you see? What tangible action will you take to intersect gladness with that need?
Saturday, March 17, 2012
Friday, March 16, 2012
Being an Innovative Church!
We believe that Pasadena Presbyterian Church is in a season of dreaming. Who are we? Where have we been together, and how are we called to move forward now? How is God stirring our hearts and minds?An Online Church: We're Starting a New Presbyterian Church
God's Church is Not a Building
Why Church Doesn't Fit Most People
Creating Space for Something New to Be Born: Westminster Woods and Its Unfolding Calling
Thursday, March 15, 2012
Sermon: Keep It Holy
Psalm 46 – John 2:13-22
Sermon preached by Dr. Mark Smutny
Sunday, March 11, 2012
Pasadena Presbyterian Church
Psalm 46
God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. 2 Therefore we will not fear, though the earth should change, though the mountains shake in the heart of the sea; 3 though its waters roar and foam, though the mountains tremble with its tumult. 4 There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy habitation of the Most High. 5 God is in the midst of the city; it shall not be moved; God will help it when the morning dawns. 6 The nations are in an uproar, the kingdoms totter; he utters his voice, the earth melts. 7 The LORD of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge. Come, behold the works of the LORD; see what desolations he has brought on the earth. 9 He makes wars cease to the end of the earth; he breaks the bow, and shatters the spear; he burns the shields with fire. 10 “Be still, and know that I am God! I am exalted among the nations, I am exalted in the earth.” 11 The LORD of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge.
John 2:13-22
13 The Passover of the Jews was near, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. 14 In the temple he found people selling cattle, sheep, and doves, and the money changers seated at their tables. 15 Making a whip of cords, he drove all of them out of the temple, both the sheep and the cattle. He also poured out the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. 16 He told those who were selling the doves, “Take these things out of here! Stop making my Father’s house a marketplace!” 17 His disciples remembered that it was written, “Zeal for your house will consume me.” 18 The Jews then said to him, “What sign can you show us for doing this?” 19 Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” 20 The Jews then said, “This temple has been under construction for forty-six years, and will you raise it up in three days?” 21 But he was speaking of the temple of his body. 22 After he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this; and they believed the scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken.
What Jesus saw was an outrage! Moving through the Jerusalem central market to the temple with a whip, he created holy havoc. No tables did he leave unturned. No one was left untouched. Imagine the scene: tables over turned, coins rolling across the floors, sheep bleating, cows bellowing, the sound of dove wings flapping in the temple timbers! “The man’s going crazy,” some thought. However, if you looked in his eyes, he was pure strength. “Take these things out of here! Stop making my Father’s house a marketplace!” That’s what he said and you could hear him everywhere. The Bible says he cried it out. No P.A. system back then. His strong voice was so loud it penetrated every corner of temple. It was God’s temple, God’s holy temple, his Father’s house.
It was a house with a history:
long before the day when Jesus drove through his Father’s house, cleansing it a whip of cords, long before the day when the Jerusalem holy house was turned day by day into a market place instead of house of prayer, long before the day when that holy house, the temple in Jerusalem had been built, Jesus’ people, the Hebrews, his ancestors, had promised one day before God and one another that they would keep one day sacred. They promised to keep the Sabbath day holy. They would keep the Sabbath day holy.
The key idea behind keeping a day holy was a commitment to honor God for what God had done for them. God had liberated the Hebrew people from bondage and brought them freedom. This activity of God they were never to forget. To keep the Sabbath day holy was a way to honor God for what God had done; for what God continues to do which is to free, liberate and save them. This is why they were to be keep the Sabbath day holy. God was a liberating, freeing, saving God. Likewise when they built the temple, the holy house, Jesus’ Father’s house, it was to be kept holy. They were to keep God’s house holy.
This practice of keeping the Sabbath holy is especially highlighted in the Ten Commandments. Quoting from Exodus, the 20th chapter it says, “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery, you shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make yourself and idol. You shall not bow down to them. You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the Lord your God. And hear this especially, “Remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy.”
“Keep it holy.” This idea, this practice, this habit of the heart of keeping holiness is at the very center of what drives Jesus to cleanse the temple in the account from John’s Gospel. Jesus comes to Jerusalem because it is a time that is pregnant with possibilities. The Passover draws near. The most significant religious festival season in all of Judaism, the Passover, the celebration of the Hebrews deliverance from slavery is about to begin. The Hebrew people are never to forget their beginnings, their founding story of liberation, freedom and salvation. And what does Jesus encounter? Does he encounter a people honoring God, consecrating a day, a Sabbath day to the God who saved them?
No! He sees his Father’s house piled high with garbage! Money-changers, bleating sheep, bellowing cows, braying donkeys! Alongside the scrolls of the holy Torah the rabbis are hawking bingo tickets. There’s a pile of camel dung while the choir is rehearsing for next week’s concert. The stewardship committee is planning next fall’s capital campaign and the argument is over the size of the lead gifts. If you want to come into to pray you’re out of luck the church calendar is too crowded. It’s a busy place. That’s a good thing. However, if you need to pray to get close, to find your center, to thank, to forgive, to confess, to believe for the first time, to find, to get still, you’re out of luck. Keep it holy? His Father’s house had been turned into Grand Central Station or LAX at rush hour. There was no room for holiness.
The ways of the world where we forget what God has done for us to free us, to save us, invade our lives gradually, subtly, never intentionally. Our intentions are always good. We go along making choices to commit to one thing after another. We do one more thing: one more meeting, one more task, one more decision and we discover that we’ve packed our lives so full that we barely have room for God. I do this with my life and I’m supposed to be a professional holy man. I discover I’ve made no space for God. I crowd God from my life.
Then I remember Jesus clearing the temple with a whip of cords and I ask God to clear my temple with a whip of cords. I ask God to help me find space for grace, for God, for holiness, for a way clear. I hear his firm yet gentle voice, “Mark, keep it holy; keep it holy.” That strong inner voice speaks and clears a pathway for prayer and Sabbath. My Sabbath day doesn’t always happen easily on Sundays. I work on Sundays and it can be difficult to make room except when I listen to our Kirk Choir and make room to receive. Sundays may be your Sabbath day. My Sabbath happens mostly during my early morning walks when I take my doggies for a good hike and I commune with nature and with God. I discover a deep seated grace, a peace and a grounding that comes only from keeping life holy, by cultivating a nearness to God who frees and liberates. I hear an inner voice that says, “Be still Mark. Be still.” To be still, is a big deal for me. I am a doer, a goer, a hurrier. To be still with God enables me to be a far more effective pastor of this large complicated congregation, what I like to call affectionately a multicultural, three-ring circus.
What prevents you from keeping it holy? What blocks you from making space for grace, for making space for God in your life? If you are like me I imagine many of you allow the world gradually to invade your life, not intentionally, but incrementally with the best of intentions. If you are like me, it’s subtle. You go along making ordinary choices to fill your life and you discover there is no room or the world just overwhelms you. You forget to set aside time each day to pray.
Or maybe you simply aren’t practiced in the art of walking intentionally with God. You allow other priorities and distractions to get in the way of one of the most important practices of people of faith: to keep it holy, to keep Sabbath. Soon you allow all the noise and craziness, all the metaphorical animals and material things to pull you away, to pull you away from God just like all the bleating sheep and bellowing cattle in Jesus’ day. You get lost in the confusion.
Then you need to hear his voice. Hear his strong voice. It has authority. It’s not angry. It’s firm. His voice can penetrate every corner of any temple, any sanctuary, any hidden place, any lost or confused or overburdened soul. He can cut through the noise, the pressure, the smell, the pain. He reached me. He still reaches me. He can reach you.
His voice says, “I will find you. I will seek you out. I will welcome you. I will bring you home. I will feed you. I will give you a new heart. I will raise you up. I will never let you go.”
My friends, here we are in the middle of Lent, preparing in a few weeks to celebrate the glorious feast of Easter, preparing our hearts and our lives to get right, to get ready, preparing to get ready for the cross, by recognizing that our Savior lived and died for our sake.
Prepare this day and in the days to come. Invite God to cleanse your temple. Clear away everything that keeps you from God: all the noise, the bleating sheep, the bellowing cattle, the flapping wings, the pressures, the distractions, the junk, the burdens that fill you up and push you away and that can keep you from God. Invite God to make a temple for you, a sanctuary, a holy place in your heart, a time of prayer, a place for Sabbath, a way to walk with God, a time to be still, a time to be still. Honor what God has done for you and keeps doing for you. God has liberated you, freed you and saved you. God continues to liberate you, free you, save you. Therefore, keep it holy. Keep it holy. Thanks be to God. Amen.
Wednesday, March 14, 2012
Pipe Organs Inspire: Concert This Saturday!
Three Extraordinary Organists
Three Unique Pipe Organ Recitals
Ae-Kyong Kim
David K. Wolfe
Timothy Howard
Please join us this Saturday evening, March 17th at 7:30 P.M. for the first concert at First United Methodist Church.
Tuesday, March 13, 2012
Easter: Holy Week at Pasadena Presbyterian Church
We expect Holy Week at Pasadena Presbyterian Church to be reflective, meaningful, and celebratory. We invite you to join us for our services:Palm/Passion Sunday - Sunday, April 1
10 a.m. in the Sanctuary
Festival worship begins with the Procession of Palms celebration, but by the end of worship, our eyes are turning to the upcoming events of Holy Week. Dr. Mark Smutny will preach. We will also receive the One Great Hour of Sharing offering during worship.
Maundy Thursday - Thursday, April 5
In Fellowship Hall
6:00 p.m. dinner
7:00 p.m. worship
A simple supper followed by a service commemorating the night of Jesus' last supper with his disciples. Please join us for this Taize style worship service with beautiful music and prayer.
Good Friday Devotional Concert - Friday, April 6
7:30 p.m. in the Sanctuary
Pre-concert lecture at 7:00 p.m.
PPC's 15th annual Good Friday Devotional Concert will feature The Kirk Choir, singers from the community, soloists and orchestra who will perform John Rutter's Requiem and music by Pablo Casals, Bob Chilcott and John Taverner.
FREE ADMISSION - Invite your friends.
Easter Sunday - Sunday, April 8
10:00 a.m. in the Sanctuary
Celebrate the holiest day of the church year in a festival worship service with glorious music and the celebration of Holy Communion. Dr. J. Barrie Shepherd will preach. Dr. Shepherd was former pastor (now retired) of First Presbyterian Church in the City of New York and is a noted author and poet. Dr. Shepherd will sign copies of is new book following worship.
Monday, March 12, 2012
Thinking About Student Debt. . .
These days in the United States, many people are anxious about the struggling economy. Students are especially concerned as they consider higher education and the debt they are amassing during their time at colleges and universities.How can we be mindful of the particular gifts that students bring and the challenges they are currently facing?
How are issues of education important to the life of faith?
How can we support students who have debt?
How can we support graduates who are struggling to find jobs?
These questions are on our minds. Today we offer links to news stories concerning student debt and organizations that are thinking critically about this issue:
Student Debt: Pictures, Videos, Breaking News
College Student Debt Grows. Is it Worth It?
Student Debt: The Next Financial Crisis?
The Project on Student Debt
Sunday, March 11, 2012
Remembering Japan's Earthquake and Tsunami. . .
Today marks the one year anniversary of the devastating 9.0 earthquake and tsunami that took place in Japan. Our thoughts and prayers are with the people of Japan as they remember this day, mourn, and continue to work toward healing from this tragedy.We include some stories to remember the importance of this day. We also highlight some events that are taking place in the Los Angeles Area on this anniversary.
News:
Japan Earthquake Anniversary: Tsunami Survivors Tell Their Stories
A Nation Stands Still: Japan Mourns One Year On From Earthquake Which Devastated Country and Caused Nuclear Meltdown
Japan Remembers Earthquake, Tsunami with Silence, Rallies
Los Angeles Area:
Little Tokyo To Mark Anniversary of Japan Earthquake and Tsunami
Los Angeles Reflects on First Anniversary of Japanese Earthquake and Tsunami
Saturday, March 10, 2012
Friday, March 9, 2012
Sermon: Day 20
This sermon was preached on Sunday, February 26 by Rev. Ben Johnston-Krase, pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Racine, WI.Mark 1:9-15
In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. And just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him. And a voice came from heaven, 'You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased."
And the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. He was in the wilderness for forty days, tempted by Satan; and he was with the wild beasts; and the angels waited on him.
Now after John was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God, and saying, 'The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.'
I majored in English education at the University of Illinois. In high school, I had the good fortune of having a couple really talented English teachers who helped me develop my skills as a thinker and a writer, and so by the ripe old age of 19, I was sure that this was a real strength of mine.
One of my first courses at U of I was Survey of British Literature I. Our textbook for that class was so thick and the pages so tissue-paper thin, I had trouble believing that there was going to be a Survey of British Literature II that spring. Our professor loved each and every page of that book and from day one it was clear that she was going to push us. “No problem,” I thought. True, a “C” in Plant Biology might come as a gift from God, but this is English! I can handle this!
Confidently, I tackled my first writing assignment for the class—a five or six page paper on something like the image of the “hero” in Beowulf. I got right to work and proudly submitted my first ever college paper. Seven pages! I can’t be sure, but I have a feeling that as I strode forward after class that day, my face wore a certain smug satisfaction that this, indeed, was going to be a gem for my professor, that she would read it once or twice and then gather her family around the hearth that night and bedazzle them with the insights of one of her new freshmen students—this Ben Krase—who so brilliantly and succinctly identified the complexities of Beowulf’s heroic persona, as no other student during her long tenure had been able to do.
When I got the paper back the following week, there was nothing on the first page. No marks, no scribbles, no notes in the margin. Nothing. Hmmm. Interesting, I thought. I opened it to the second page. Nothing. And the third. Nothing! No comments, no corrections, no double-underlined phrases, no stars indicating what an insightful author I was. I turned to the fourth page and there I found a red line drawn horizontally across the middle of the page. Next to the line, my professor wrote these two words: “Start here.” In other words: “Skip the flowery language. Nix the repetitive mumbo-jumbo. Ditch the breathless on-and-on about how you’re going to make a point and just do it. Cut to the chase! Tell me what your thesis is and get on with it!” My pride wounded, my choice of major slightly in question, I started over.
I bring this up to draw a contrast to Mark’s gospel. Mark does not wait three pages to finally make a point. Instead, he begins chapter one, verse one and hits the ground running. Unlike Matthew and Luke, Mark doesn’t say a word about Jesus’ birth in his gospel. It’s almost like there’s no time—he can’t wait to get into the big story. But once he’s there, it’s full speed ahead!
- Snapshots and images flash from the get-go.
- Jesus’ baptism is just 3 verses in Mark’s gospel.
- His wilderness temptation for 40 days and nights – just 2 verses.
- Jesus calling his first disciples—just 5 verses.
By the twenty-first verse of Mark, Jesus is already hard at work, teaching, preaching, and healing. Indeed, Mark’s first chapter plays like a trailer for an action film—rapid fire, image after image, no time to lose. [1]
12And the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. 13He was in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan; and he was with the wild beasts; and the angels waited on him.
If we could take the gospel writer Mark and imagine him as a college freshman, turning in chapter one for a grade, we can well imagine what kind of comments he’d get in the margins...
- Who is this character, “Spirit” and what is his or her motivation?
- It’s not enough to say Jesus is in the wilderness. You have to describe the wilderness. Make us as readers feel like we’re there.
- “He was in the wilderness”? Use action verbs, active voice! (He languished in the wilderness. He persevered in the wilderness.)
- Who is this “Satan” person? Develop your characters more!
- What kind of wild beasts?
- How did the angels wait on Jesus?
- Don’t tell me. Show me!
Sometimes I think Mark assumes that we already know the details—that when he says, “tempted in the wilderness for forty days,” his readers respond, “Oh, well, we all know what that’s like. Sure, a month or so out in the wild, with nothing to eat, wild animals roaming around… we all get that.” The problem is, of course, that we’re usually not quick to make that connection. If I were Mark’s professor, my comment in the margin of his gospel might be, “Mark, your readers want and need to connect with you, but to do that, you’re going to have to invite them in a bit more.”
So, perhaps on Mark’s behalf, I’ve started to wonder about day twenty. Jesus was in the wilderness for forty days, says Mark. That’s a long time. It’s a whole month, plus ten days. A long time to be away. A long time to be alone. A long time to feel tempted. Forty days.
The way the gospel reads, I suppose it’s easy to imagine Jesus, after his baptism, trekking off into the wilderness, winding his way around bushes and boulders, looking for a good spot to sleep for the night. It’s relatively easy to imagine him setting off, and I suppose it’s kind of easy to picture Jesus at the end, coming back into town, ready to begin his ministry. He looks tired and hungry, sure, but the ordeal is over, and especially in Mark’s gospel, there’s so much to do next that we don’t dwell on the forty days.
So I wonder about day twenty. Almost three weeks in. By this time for Jesus, the novelty of being out in the wild is long gone. If there’d been some aspect of wilderness temptation that seemed thrilling or exotic to begin with, it’s worn off. Twenty days anywhere can start to feel like forever. And at day twenty, there’s still twenty days to go. No immediate end in sight. The worst might not be over! Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness may only take up two verses in Mark’s gospel, but in truth, on day twenty, it feels like an eternity.
Now it’s worth remembering something about Jesus here, and it’s something that I’ve said many times before. Jesus was human. He was really human. True, we understand Jesus as God, too, but Jesus was also human. And this means that he felt pain, felt temptation, felt isolation, felt fear… Jesus was not God in a human costume, wandering around the earth, pretending to know what it feels like to be human. Jesus in the wilderness was not God masquerading in human form, pretending to know what it’s like to come to day twenty—to be so far in that you forgot what life was like before day one and to be so far gone that you can’t imagine making it to day forty.
Ultimately, for Jesus’ life and death to mean anything, Jesus had to be human, and human he was, which means that his temptation in the wilderness was really a temptation. The trial was really a trial. The long lonely nights wondering if he’d wake up in time to wave a torch at a wolf looking for an easy meal were really long, lonely nights. Jesus’ day twenty was really a day twenty—a real human day lost to fear, hunger, and loneliness. Mark is so brief in his description, but from the beginning of the gospel, it’s there—that Jesus has been through a day twenty. Just like the rest of us.
Xernona Clayton was a good friend of Martin Luther King Jr. She tells a story about Dr. King’s day twenty during the Civil Rights Movement—about the only time he ever said he was afraid. The movement was at its peak, and King and others were preparing to march in Selma. On March 7, 1965, marchers there had been beaten severely by the police, and King and others were scheduled to show up for a march on the 9th in response. He called home to talk with his wife, Coretta, but Xernona was there, and she picked up the phone. “I think this is one time I’m afraid,” he said. “I don’t think I’m going to come back from Selma, so please promise me you’ll take care of Coretta and the kids… but don’t tell her.” [2]
That’s a “day 20 conversation.” Too far in to remember what life was like before the trial, before there was no going back, but too far away from the end to imagine that it’ll be over any time soon.
And we’ve been there. Day twenty is a day in the middle of your battle with cancer. When you can’t much imagine the days before day one—when it’s hard to remember “life before cancer,” when you had other worries that seem so small now that you’re fighting for your life. And day forty seems so far away—so long to go before hope, before remission, before a cure…
Day twenty is a day in the middle of separation and divorce. When you can’t remember what all led to this. When you can’t recall a time when there was a hope of keeping it all together, working things out. Day twenty is a day of lawyers and accusations and trying to imagine life on your own, but oh, day forty is still so far away.
Day twenty is a day, oh, about a month after the funeral. The pictures are still up but the cards have stopped coming in. Life around you is picking up the pace, getting back to normal, but you can’t remember what normal is anymore, because he’s gone. She’s gone. And on your day twenty after the funeral, day forty is nowhere in sight because you can’t imagine that the grief will ever subside.
Day twenty falls somewhere during the fifth or sixth year of caring for an aging parent—somewhere after the 50th doctor visit and the sixth or seventh tour of an assisted living home. Day twenty comes when you best memories of your mom or dad feel completely overshadowed by the daily battle with Alzheimer’s. And day forty? Well, is there hope for a day forty?
Day twenty is a day in the midst of depression.
Day twenty is a day of questioning in a season of doubt.
Day twenty is a day of day of dealing with a past that haunts you.
Day twenty is a day of addiction, a day of pain, a day of self-judgment…
Haven’t you ever had a day twenty? A day of endless trial? A day of just surviving?
Maybe your day twenty is just another day in a life that’s so busy, you never have time to stop, to plan, to get your life in front of you and think about what’s next—another day in the car—another day of keep-your-nose-to-the-grindstone? And maybe you’ve got a second to wonder, “What did day one look like? How did I get into this mess? How did the life I wanted to live slip away so suddenly?”
Friends, today is the first Sunday of Lent. We’re not at “Day Twenty” quite yet, but the season of Lent reminds us that Jesus has lived in the darkest corners of our own lives—that Jesus was really Emmanuel—God With Us, living with us in our full humanity.
The Good News of the Lenten journey is news that God will never abandon us—that God promises to accompany us through the valley —that God will always be there with us on our Day Twenty.
This is, by the way, the Good News of Jesus Christ: That in God’s love for us, God will not and cannot abandon us… That God suffers and dies with us, and through it all, EVEN ON DAY 20, God announces hope and victory. Amen.
1. This insight was gleaned from the sermon, “Transgressive Healer,” preached by Renee Roederer at Pasadena Presbyterian Church on February 12, 2012. You can find it here: http://www.ppcyoungadults.blogspot.com/2012/02/sermon-transgressive-healer.html
2. As heard on the Tavis Smiley show, “Memories of the Movement, Part 2.” February 25, 2012