(Note: This blog entry is based on the text for “Good News/Bad News”, originally shared on October 7, 2021. It was the 155th video for our YouTube Channel, Streams of Living Water (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCB7KnYS1bpHKaL2OseQWCnw), co-produced with my wife, Rev. Sally Welch.)
Should good behavior be
rewarded, and bad behavior be punished? Sure. How do we know the difference?
What are the standards for knowing what is good and what is bad? Would we
recognize good news, or bad news, when we see it? Today, we’re going to find out
how.
We got some rain this
week, and more is coming. Not enough to bring torrents, but something. I saw on
the news that a couple from upstate New York was visiting their son. He had
told them that it never rains here, but it did. They were involved in a collision
on the freeway.
The first rain of the season is always good news in Southern California.
Except if you’re driving. The oils that have sunk into the road over the summer
rise and mix with the water to form a slippery mess. That’s the bad news.
We get some good news/bad news in today’s section of next Sunday’s
Gospel reading, Mark 10, starting with the 28th verse,
“Peter began to say to him, “Look, we
have left everything and followed you.”
Was Peter boasting? Or was he feeling frustrated and angry, saying that
the disciples deserved to get a reward because they were exhibiting good
behavior?
Either way, you know, St. Peter was a little explosive.
That’s the same Peter, one of the 12 disciples of Jesus, who was the
first to say what the others were thinking but that no one would say out loud,
that Jesus was the Messiah, in Matthew 16:15-18,
15 He [Jesus] said to them, “But who do you say that
I am?” 16 Simon Peter answered, “You are the
Messiah, the Son of the living God.” 17 And
Jesus answered him, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah! For flesh and blood
has not revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven. 18 And
I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and
the gates of Hades will not prevail against it.
This is the passage that separates Protestants and Catholicism, at least
on this point, with Catholics saying that the rock (petra in the Greek language
of the New Testament) that Jesus was founding the Church on was Peter (petros
in Greek) himself and that therefore he was the first Pope, and Protestants
saying that the Church was founded on Peter’s faith and therefore the authority
is given to the Church, not to Peter.
Jesus offers Peter good news and bad news
The good news is that Jesus is the Messiah, that God has revealed this
bold statement to Peter, some of the greatest words of praise in all history: “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah! For flesh
and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven. 18 And
I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church”.
Then, a couple verses later, the bad news happens, in Matthew
16:21-23,
21 From that time on, Jesus began to show his
disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and undergo great suffering at the hands
of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third
day be raised. 22 And Peter took him aside and began to
rebuke him, saying, “God forbid it, Lord! This must never happen to you.” 23 But
he turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block
to me; for you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”
Well, that escalated quickly! The bad news is that Jesus is going to be
killed (and be raised on the third day). Peter explodes at what seems to him as
bad news. He rebukes Jesus. And then Peter is rebuked with must
be the most stinging rebuke of all time: “Get behind me, Satan! You are a
stumbling block to me; for you are setting your mind not on divine things but
on human things.”
When Roman soldiers and police from the chief priests and Pharisees came
to arrest Jesus the night that he was betrayed, what did Peter do and how does
Jesus respond? In John 18: 10-11, we see,
10 Then Simon Peter, who had a sword, drew it,
struck the high priest’s slave, and cut off his right ear. The slave’s name was
Malchus. 11 Jesus said to Peter, “Put your sword
back into its sheath. Am I not to drink the cup that the Father has given me?”
Peter acts in a way that he thought was good behavior, a courageous defense
of Jesus. Jesus said he didn’t need defending and Peter was again rebuked.
Good news/bad news.
We get the same formula in today’s reading from next Sunday’s Gospel
text, continuing with Mark 10:29-30, in response to Peter’s pointed, if
exaggerated, reminder to Jesus that he and the other disciples had left
everything to follow Jesus.
29 Jesus said, “Truly I tell you, there is no one who has left house
or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields, for my sake
and for the sake of the good news, 30 who will not
receive a hundredfold now in this age—houses, brothers and sisters, mothers and
children, and fields, with persecutions—and in the age to come eternal
life.
That’s some good news
about getting lots of good stuff until, wait!, did he say something about “with
persecutions”?
The early church, at about the time the Gospels were written, had begun
to experience everything that Jesus said would happen.
They had become a community. Those whose families had rejected them had
found a new family in the Christian community. Those who had their possessions
taken away, found a Christian community in which Christians took care of one
another.
Their relationship with God had found its expression in their
relationship with one another, a relationship that would begin now and would
endure in eternal life.
In addition to the rejection by family and friends, many had been
rejected by their government, the Roman Empire.
Christians experienced persecutions, but they were not persecuted for
their faith. The Romans Empire could care less about what people in their
conquered territories believed, as long as they believed that their beliefs
were just as valid as everybody else’s beliefs.
They expected everybody to get along, for the sake of peace within the
Empire, so that their soldiers could wage war, and not police the populace, to
expand the Empire.
When Christians and Jews said that there was only one God, while the
Romans and all of the rest of their Empire said that there were many gods,
persecution broke out and it ran warm and hot over the early centuries of the
Church.
Christians could not get into the army, which was the only path to highly
desirable civil service jobs. They were
sometimes, jailed, imprisoned, tortured, or killed. Sometimes they were killed
for entertainment, or for sport, or in a show of power, and sometimes just to
issue a warning.
Maybe that’s what Jesus means when he says, at the close of this text,
in Mark 10:31
31 But many who are first will be
last, and the last will be first.”
Power is not what is seems. Wealth is not what it seems. What people
honor in this life will not necessarily be honored in the life to come; and
what people shame in this life will not necessarily be shamed in the life to
come.
I remember hearing a story about a rich man who hoarded gold and prayed
that he would be able to carry his pile into heaven. To his surprise, his
request was granted, and when he arrived at the pearly gates, St. Peter greeted
him with a look of astonishment.
“What’s that?”, Peter asked.
“Oh, I worked hard to accumulate this, and I got special permission to
bring it with me.”
Peter looked at the man in deep surprise and said, “Pavement?”
We in the Christian community are different. We are in this world, but
we are not of it. We love our country but live under the reign of God.
We know right from wrong, good from bad, in the only way that they can
be known, from God. Otherwise, we’re just making up our own rules and passing
the tests we’ve written for ourselves.
We are a new Creation, born again, children of God, God’s own people. A
people set apart.
We know these things from our hearts, formed and shaped by God. We
cannot buy, for any amount of money, what God gives us for free: eternal life.
Eternal life for all who believe and are baptized.
There is bad news for Christians in this fallen and Sinful world. But
there is also very good news. Jesus said, in John
16:33,
33 I have said this to you, so that in me you may
have peace. In the world you face persecution. But take courage; I have
conquered the world!”
Jesus is calling you. He is calling you to live a real life. A true
life. A redeemed life.
There is only one way to live it. Follow him.
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