I talk quite frequently with a 16-year old boy who lives in Harlem. Mpiana is a refugee from Congo who lives with many hardships that are different from most teenagers. Through it all he is a remarkably resilient student-athlete determined to succeed.
Mpiana goes to a Baptist church with his little brother and, impressively, can recall passages from the Bible. He once told me he believes God does not test us beyond our ability to be tested; that God does not leave us alone; that God helps us deal with the tests that come our way. (1 Cor 10:13) Mpiana is nourished by God’s promises.
Mark’s gospel today (Mk 1:12-15) asks us to pay attention to “Biblical precedents where God does test people to play a significant role in the story of salvation.” [1] Think of Abraham being tested to sacrifice his son Isaac. But this gospel is not just about Jesus being tested. (The Greek word also means temptation. One could say all temptations are tests.)
The gospel also tells us how Jesus was called to ministry when his cousin John baptised him. According to the story, during that event God broke through the world order with an earth-shattering, roaring voice, accompanied by thunder and lightning. Jesus was being called out loud by God to a life of service that would engage him in a conflict with world powers.
David Schnasa Jacobsen, biblical scholar at Boston University, noted that Mark’s narrative pointed out the urgency of the gospel. “In doing so, we’ll understand Jesus’s temptation as the first skirmish of his vocation and a harbinger of the apocalyptic battles to come.” [2] Those are the struggles that confront us today.
In so many words, Jacobsen wrote that Jesus’ baptism in Mark is portrayed as an act of apocalyptic, cosmic, holy disruption that will usher in God’s plan for the coming kingdom. It will be a time that includes healings, liberations from bondage caused by evil, announcements of forgiveness, and calls to social transformation.
But the devil and evil are still at large. How do we respond to the tests that often can lead to a change of heart? The reading from Genesis (Gn 9:8-15) is a good reminder of the covenants God created with us. A covenant is an ancient formula wherein two parties promise to do something or not do something. Some of them are worth remembering. In the covenant with Noah God promised no more floods. It was a sign of God’s faith in people but the people did not return the favor. The psalmist (Ps 25:4-9) today reminds us God’s ways are love and truth for those who do keep God’s covenants.
So God tried again. The covenant with Abraham and Sarah prompted loyal relationships with God. What is our bond with a God who wants to be our friend? The covenant with Moses at Mt. Sinai included a code of conduct (the 10 commandments) to help us live together in harmony. Are we abiding by those moral barometers?
The covenant with David included the promise of a messiah who would save people from all oppression. And, the new and everlasting covenant embodied by Jesus assures us that God forgives sins and restores communion with all of God’s people. (1 Peter 3:18-22)
So, how do we keep our part of our covenant with God today? Can we set complacency aside? Advocate for justice? Can we disrupt the work of evil doers? Or, are we being tested beyond our abilities to handle the test? These are urgent questions for us as we begin our march toward Easter.
Lawlessness is rampant; lying is normal; negotiated diplomacy doesn’t seem to matter; covenants rooted in love are broken, civility is trumped by rudeness, distinctions between classes are distorted and the rights of marginalized persons are minimized. These challenges require a “moral reinforcement in [our] collective beliefs.” [3]
Of course, Lent can be an intense period of prayer, reconciliation, initiation and even fasting. More urgently, however, it is a time to confront those forces that alienate us from God, one another and ourselves. Can we figure out “what we are willing to sacrifice for a more important good.” [4] Our task is to balance competing interests that can cause anxiety, even sickness.
On Ash Wednesday Pope Francis said Lent is about rediscovering our call "to love the brothers and sisters all around us, to be considerate to others, to feel compassion, to show mercy, to share all that we are and all that we have with those in need.”
Yes, Lent calls you and me to renew the values that Jesus invites us to embrace — loyalty, commitment, solidarity. It is a time to cause a holy disruption that will bring about the kingdom of God here on earth. Getting into “good trouble” [6] is grounded in our longing for God to set things right. If Mpiana, that young teenager from Harlem, were here he would say: “Hey, Bro, don’t you know with God on our side anything is possible.” (Mk 10:27)
____
1. Byrne, Brendan. A Costly Freedom: A Theological Reading of Mark’s Gospel. Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press) 2008, 33.
2. David Schnasa Jacobsen. <https://www.workingpreacher.
No comments:
Post a Comment