{"id":3618,"date":"2024-02-18T11:00:24","date_gmt":"2024-02-18T16:00:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/?p=3618"},"modified":"2024-03-07T21:43:55","modified_gmt":"2024-03-08T02:43:55","slug":"the-bach-experience-34","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/2024\/02\/18\/the-bach-experience-34\/","title":{"rendered":"The Bach Experience"},"content":{"rendered":"

Click here to hear the full service<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Click here to watch the full service<\/a><\/p>\n

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<\/span>Mark 1:9\u201315<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Click here to hear just the sermon<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The Bach Experience<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

February 18, 2024<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Throughout the Gospel of Mark, Jesus heals and then prays at some length. Including today in the wilderness.\u00a0 <\/span>Lent begins in the wilderness. What did Jesus pray? And how? And for how long? Was his prayer attendant upon his healings? Or caught up only with his pending decision to itinerate? Where was this that he went? What did he wear? Did he kneel? Is this history or theology in Mark 1?<\/p>\n

There is a strong argument to be made that we really know very little about Jesus, including about how he prayed, how he struggled in the wilderness. James Sanders once gave us a list of 8 things we could know about Jesus, one of which was that he died on a cross, and the others of which were not much more startling. \u00a0Norman Perrin said, \u201cThis material had a long history of transmission, use and interpretation in the early Christian communities, and when it reached the hand of Mark any element of historical reminiscence had long been lost\u2026The Gospel of Mark is narrative proclamation.\u201d Yet this scholarly sobriety hardly slakes our curious spiritual thirst.\u00a0 <\/span>We long to see Him more clearly, love Him more dearly, follow Him more nearly.\u00a0 <\/span>Day by Day.\u00a0 <\/span>So, we want to know\u2026<\/p>\n

We want to know about Jesus, as much as we can. When you love someone, you want to know them, root and branch, hook, line and sinker. Every Christian at every time has known this desire. We listen for, and to Him, today.\u00a0 We listen for his word, to his word, today.\u00a0 <\/span>His is a saving word, even in the hands of very human, very fallible preachers, congregations, churches, denominations and religions.<\/p>\n

As one great scholar and dear friend has carefully argued (T. Weeden, Mark: Traditions in Conflict<\/em>), Mark\u2014not Jesus now, nor the early church now, but Mark\u2014has an axe to grind. \u00a0<\/span>Ted, my predecessor in our Rochester church, his 17 years preceding our 11, died this year.\u00a0 <\/span>How we shall miss him.\u00a0 <\/span>His work remains, carries on, though.\u00a0 <\/span>Here it is. Jesus was powerful but crucified. Christian life will involve glory\u2013but also pain. Jesus was not only a wonder worker whom demons could celebrate or denigrate. \u00a0He also became a Messiah who disappointed, disappointed<\/em>, his disciples, to the point of their, to the point of Peter\u2019s, choosing betrayal. Jesus died on a cross, toward which he chooses to itinerate. Like all humans, Christians suffer, at least to some degree. Mark may want firmly to teach his generation that hurt is, tragically, a part of the walk of faith. Nero\u2019s persecution may lie in the background. The Jewish war may lie in the foreground. A strongly competitive version of a glory gospel may lie in the background. Regardless, this gospel is about resolute discipleship. To be a Christian means to know how, and why, when you must, to pull up our socks.\u00a0 To be resolute.<\/p>\n

For this, this morning, we have some good news. We have ancient, good company in Mark. The writer\u2019s community finds themselves at the beginning of the eighth decade AD faced with a crisis of faith. Forty years have passed since Easter morning. The eschatological age has not dawned\u2026the joys of the kingdom are still only dreams\u2026Mark\u2019s church is beset by suffering\u2026The focus of his spiritual reflection is the on the struggling, even suffering life of Jesus (Weeden, Mark: Traditions in Conflict, 159).<\/p>\n

Some by example show us this. There have been some heroes and heroines among us, making the case for resolute discipleship, in what they say and how they live. One such, who comes to mind come February, who comes to mind come February, and come Lent, is Marian Wright Edelman, now 84 years old.\u00a0 She must pray. She must. Otherwise, how would she have the discipline to stay on the trail for children for so many years, so many decades? She wrote once to and for her students:<\/p>\n

\u201cI want to convey a vision to you today, as you (move) into an ethically polluted nation in a world where instant sex without responsibility, instant gratification without effort, instant solutions without sacrifice, getting rather than giving, and hoarding rather than sharing are the frequent messages and signals of our mass media popular culture and political life.\u201d<\/p>\n

In other words, this particular walk, in faith, your personal walk of faith, means that you will not always be appreciated. This walk means that you will be required to be kind to those who do not afford you the same courtesy. This walk means that you will daily get nametags thrust upon you that are misspellings. You may die a hero\u2019s death and have your name misspelled in the paper. Jesus\u2019 in Mark 1 begins in the wilderness, and his beginning has one single outcome: a resolve to take a hard path.<\/p>\n

Cantata (Scott)<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Speaking of February and speaking of Lent, We remember our own Howard Thurman this month, who said, \u2018Jesus rejected hatred.\u00a0 It was not because he lacked the vitality or the strength.\u00a0 It was not because he lacked the incentive.\u00a0 Jesus rejected hatred because he saw that hatred meant death to the mind, death to the spirit, death to communion with his Father.\u00a0 He affirmed life, and hatred was the great denial\u2019 (JATD, 88)<\/em><\/p>\n

\u2018There is something more to be said about the inner equipment growing out of the great affirmation of Jesus that a man is a child of God.\u00a0 If a man\u2019s ego has been stabilized, resulting in a sure grounding of his sense of personal worth and dignity, then he is in a position to appraise his own intrinsic powers, gifts, talents and abilities.\u00a0 He no longer views his equipment through the darkened lenses of those who are largely responsible for his social position\u2019 (JATD, 53).<\/em><\/p>\n

The basic fact is that Christianity, as it was born in the mind of this Jewish teacher and thinker, appears as a technique of survival for the oppressed\u2026In him was life, and the life was the light of all people\u2026Wherever this spirit appears, the oppressed gather fresh courage; for he announced good news that fear, hypocrisy, and hatred, the three hounds of hell that track the trail of the disinherited, need have no dominion over them. (JATD, 99)<\/em><\/p>\n

Beloved, as the music and its beauty this day overtake us, how will you live out the deep river truths?\u00a0How will you combat daily, hourly, the remaining even growing desocialization flowing out of Covid still?\u00a0 <\/span>People became desocialized during Covid.\u00a0 <\/span>Nor is the church, nor are church people exempt here. How will you live down life\u2019s opposition, however you understand it?\u00a0 Have you truly intuited the brevity of life?\u00a0 Have you really absorbed the capacity we have as humans to harm others?\u00a0 Have you faced the dualism of decision that is the marrow of every Sunday, every prayer, every sermon, every service?\u00a0 Are you ready to make a break for it?\u00a0 Are you ready to discover freedom in disappointment and grace in dislocation and love in departure?\u00a0 Are you set to place one hand in that of The Spirit and the other in that of the Presence?<\/p>\n

May it be so, and so, we pray, a wilderness prayer:<\/p>\n

God of our weary years,
\nGod of our silent tears,
\nThou who hast brought us thus far on the way;
\nThou who has by Thy might
\nLed us into the light,
\nKeep us forever in the path, we pray.
\nLest, our feet stray from the places, our God, where we met Thee,
\nLest, our hearts, drunk with the wine of the world, we forget Thee,
\nShadowed beneath Thy hand, may we forever stand,
\nTrue to our God, true to our native land.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Click here to hear the full service Click here to watch the full service Mark 1:9\u201315 Click here to hear just the sermon   The Bach Experience February 18, 2024 Throughout the Gospel of Mark, Jesus heals and then prays at some length. Including today in the wilderness.\u00a0 Lent begins in the wilderness. What did […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2679,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[25,36,22],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3618"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2679"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3618"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3618\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3623,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3618\/revisions\/3623"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3618"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3618"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3618"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}