18th Sunday after Pentecost

Mark 9:30-37

In today’s gospel, Jesus is with his disciples and he’s telling them again that the Son of Man is going to be killed and then will rise again. And Mark tells us, they don’t understand him but they are afraid to ask him what he means.

Seven different times in his gospel, Mark tell us the people around Jesus are afraid.

Sometimes when they’re afraid it’s because Jesus is performing miraculous acts of healing and mercy:
they were afraid when he stilled the storm;
they were afraid when he exorcised the legion of demons;
and they were afraid when he walked on water.

Other times, like this one, they’re afraid because they don’t understand him:
they were frightened by Jesus’ prediction of how he would be killed and would rise again;
they were frightened by his instruction describing discipleship as servant leadership where the first will be last and the last will be first;
and, ultimately, they were frightened when they found the tomb empty and realized Jesus had been speaking truth.

And their fear silenced them. They chose to live in fearful un-knowing than ask questions of
the teacher whom they had been following;
the mentor who had been teaching them;
the leader who had been walking faithfully before them.

That is the power of fear.
Fear tells us that questions are not ok.
Fear tells us that the people we have known and lived with — the very same people whom we love and who love us — will mock us or ridicule us.

We think everyone around us knows the answers to all the questions, but if we could see their hearts, we’d discover that each one of us is just as afraid as the next person.

But there is no reason to fear. Proverbs tells us, “The human spirit is the lamp of the LORD, searching every inmost part.” (Proverbs 20:27) and the Psalmist says, God formed our inward parts and knit us together in our mothers’ wombs. (Psalm 139:13) There is no part of us that is unknown or unseen by God, not even our questions.

When we denounce fear as something that separates us from knowing God and from following Jesus, then we are free to ask Jesus the questions we have been afraid to ask.

Sometimes these are BIG questions of theodicy, wondering where God is when tragedy strikes, or why we have disasters like wildfires, typhoons and hurricanes.

And sometimes, there won’t be satisfactory answers but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t ask!

One of the questions I carry is “Why are we so good at hurting each other?” I believe each one of us is created and loved by God and God grieves our brokenness and our capacity to do real harm, physically and emotionally. And while I hold onto God’s capacity to heal us and our brokenness, I wonder, “Why?”

Often the questions that take us out of relationship with God and distract us from following Jesus are everyday questions. They are the questions that begin with

“A good Christian would know this but….”
“This probably makes me a heretic, but….”
“God won’t love me if I wonder about….”

They are the questions that happen when faith and life collide. 

And it is in those very questions where we meet Jesus who came into the world as God’s own Son, fully human and fully divine, and lived among us that we would know God is a God of relationship, one with understanding of our inmost parts and our questions.

So let’s ask our questions.
Let’s have holy conversations where we wonder what God is up to and see where miracles are happening.
Let’s look at what discipleship really means when it means following a Messiah who died on the cross to bring us life.

Let us pray…
Holy God,
Thank you for your Son who shows us how to live fully as Your children, even with our questions;
Teach us to ask and to listen; to have confidence in your promises and your merciful love;
By your Spirit, give us wisdom and understanding to live as your disciples.
We pray in the name of your Son Jesus, our Lord and Savior.
Amen.