“Lessons from Mark”

Preached by John DeBevoise
At Palma Ceia Presbyterian Church
 On September 3, 2000

Jesus went on with his disciples to the villages of Caesarea Philippi;  and on the way he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that I am?”  And they answered him, “John the Baptist; and others, Elijah;  and still others, one of the prophets.”  He asked them, “But who do you say that I am?”  Peter answered him, “You are the Messiah.”  And he sternly ordered them not to tell anyone about him.

    Mark 8:27-30

It’s Labor Day weekend.  There’s a congregational meeting right after this service.  The Bucs play at one o’clock.  Thus, the work of preaching.

But you know something about work, don’t you?  At least most of you do.  In some way or another, we all are about the business about trying to do the work that comes to us in our lives.  Sometimes that work is drudgery.  Sometimes that work may be unfulfilling.  Sometimes the work may be very rewarding and very gratifying.  But work is certainly a part of our lives.

In the Christian faith, through the scriptures, we have been taught to understand that work is the opportunity, that work can be, while it not necessarily always is, but it can be and is, as a part of God’s intentions, meant to be blessing to us.  The means by which we can join God in the partnership of creation and seek to find our own gifts, and as Frederick Boechner has said, to find that place where our deep delight meets the world’s deep needs.  Work can be like that.

This morning I want to use the word “work” not simply in terms of our labor or our efforts, but in terms of something we are working on.  The accomplishment of our work.  The way a craftsman might talk about a cedar chest that he is building as his work.  Or the way a painter refers to his work, meaning the product that they are seeking to create.

We’ve got the gospel of Mark, which is a great work.  Someone wrote this gospel, and they have done a wonderful job with it.  In terms of workmanship, this may arguably be the greatest piece of literature in all of history.  You might argue about that, but certainly Mark would be one of the pieces of literature on the table in that discussion.  It would be a contender for that title.  This is a great piece of work.  It’s the shortest of the gospels.  It’s the quickest read of the gospels.  It contains fewer words than any of the other three.  And yet it reflects the writer’s intentionality.  The writer’s careful design.  The effort of the writer to achieve a certain impact or effect on the reader.

What is the gospel of Mark at work about in your life?  We know about the gospel of Mark that it is connected to the life of Peter.  In some ways, it might better be entitled The Gospel of Peter.  At least our best scholarship seems to indicate that the writer was someone who was very close to Peter and has taken many of Peter’s memories and stories and designed them in such a way as to give us this gospel. 

We know that there is much in the life of Jesus that isn’t in the gospel of Mark.  There is so much more in Luke that Mark decided not to use, or in Matthew that Mark didn’t use, and certainly much more in John.  Mark doesn’t use all of the stories or pictures out of the life of Jesus, but just some, to achieve a certain end, a certain effect.

What is Mark’s intention?  What is Mark at work about in your life? 

In this gospel, the author doesn’t have any of the infancy stories.  You don’t hear Mark read at Christmas very often, like you do Luke.  Rather, it starts right in with the adult Jesus coming forward for his ministry.  And Mark speaks of Jesus as “healer” and “teacher”, telling the wonderful stories of Jesus’ curing of the sick, and how the people brought to him those who were lame and diseased and possessed with demons.  And how the people taught the people through miracles and through his own words. 

The whole of the gospel builds up with these quick vignettes of the life of Jesus to the eighth chapter, which is very much like the passage that Bill read as the first lesson, each of them asking the question, “Who is this person Jesus?”  We think that that’s what Mark is up to, that he is trying to get the reader to have to struggle with that question again and again.  “Who is this?”

So at the end of Jesus’ stilling of the storms and of the meeting of the waves, the disciples are left wondering Who is this person?  In the eighth chapter, Jesus turns to Peter and says, “Who do the people say that I am?”  The disciples say, “Some say you’re Elijah;  and some say you’re one of the prophets, and others say you’re John the Baptist come back from the dead.”  And Jesus says to them, as Mark tells this story, “But who do you say that I am?”  In Mark, Peter says, “You are the Messiah.” 

In this short book, suddenly, it changes from there on, and now until the end of the gospel, Jesus begins to teach the disciples that he must suffer, that the Son of man must come into the world to suffer on behalf of others.  The disciples don’t want to hear it, and Peter even comes to Jesus to try and correct him for talking this way. 

It’s in Mark that Jesus is first found saying to Peter, “You have to get behind me.  You’re like Satan when you talk this way.  I must be prepared to go forward into what God is calling me to.”  Mark remembers how Jesus entered Jerusalem, and how the crowds hollered Hosanna!  And then Mark remembers there, at the Upper Room, how Jesus took the bread and broke it and offered it up to heaven, in his familiar blessing.  And then Mark remembers how Jesus went out into the garden and got on his knees and worked at prayer until they were like drops of blood, saying, “Abba, Father, if it’s possible for this cup to pass away, then let it be.” 

Mark remembers how they came and arrested Jesus and took him before the high priest, who also said to him, “Who are you?”

Then, it is the gospel of Mark that has, as the one who finally understands.  Not the disciples, but the centurion, in his only appearance, at the foot of the cross, who says, after Jesus had breathed his last.  Not “Who are you?” but rather “Truly, this was the Son of God.”

Even the resurrection, in the gospel of Mark, in the earliest versions, is a very short account, containing not appearances of Jesus, but just the story of the empty tomb.  And some scholars have said, Is this a mistake?  Others have said, No.  Mark is a very careful writer and this is on purpose, because it forces the reader, once again, to have to answer the question, ‘What do you think?  Who was this man?’

Mark is a wonderful piece of work.  The story is told of a teacher and a student who went to a gallery to look at a famous painting, perhaps the Mona Lisa.  The student was quickly bored with it, and as they walked away, he said to the teacher, “Well, I didn’t think that was such a great work of art.”  The teacher turned to the student and said, “It was not the painting that was being judged.”  Some works, like some paintings, achieve a status and a power that it comes to the viewing of them that it’s not the painting that’s being judged, it’s not the work that’s being judged, but rather, the student.  Or the hearer.  Or the reader.

So it is with the questions from the gospel of Mark.  God’s chief question, as Mark gives it to us, is this:  Who do you say Jesus is?  You must decide. Is Jesus the Son of God?  Or is he a prophet?  Elijah?  A great teacher?  An interesting figure?  Or is he the Son of God?  The standard of truth.  The navigator?  The leader.  In a word, is he Lord? 

If he is the Son of God, if that is the answer you come to in your own heart and mind (the gospel seeks to force you to the question), then that makes all the difference in the world in your work and your leisure.  The world becomes a place that suddenly has been stood on its head, according to the world’s values.  It is the difference between despair and hope, how you answer that question.  It is the difference between meaninglessness and purpose.  It is the difference between the tyranny of living working for yourself or living and working for love. 

God’s workmanship.  What is it God is doing through this piece of work, this gospel, this literary work?  What has God done for the author of Mark that the author is trying to do through you?  God is at work.  God is still at work.  And you are the work that God is constructing, each one of you.  You are the person that, in no small part through this story, God is shaping and calling and challenging and seeking to nurture.  To create in you the person that God intends for you to be. 

That’s what I want you to remember this Labor Day weekend, as we think about our work, that each one of you are God’s work.  You have the opportunity in God’s work to partner with God in the wonder and mystery of God’s creation.

© John T. DeBevoise, 2000