Time to Tear it Apart

WESTMINSTER PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH
February 27, 2012
First Sunday in Lent
Rev. Mark R. Bradshaw-Miller
Mark 1:9-15; I Peter 3:18-22
“Time to tear it apart”

It may come as some surprise, but when I was a child, I hated to read. I would read three pages and have no idea what I had read. It took so much effort that even reading CliffsNotes, or what is today called SparkNotes, was a chore. This all changed one day when I found a story that captured my imagination. And what was it that brought me to a love of reading? Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka!

For those of you who know the story this probably explains a great deal about me. But for those who have not had the pleasure let me recap the story. Greogor Sampsa is a travelling salesman doing a job he does not like. One morning he wakes up to find he has become a hideous bug. The rest of the narrative tells the story of the havoc that is unleashed with his family and his own life. While Metamorphosis is like most of Kafka’s works expressing futility, it is also a story of what happens when our perceptions and views change, when our lives change. When we change our practices or when people around us treat us differently our perception changes. And when our perception changes whole new possibilities open up before us. How is that for putting a positive spin on a fatalistic story?!

At many of the baptisms which have occurred in the church, even the recent adult baptisms, they have been joyous celebrations. However, it is something that should give us pause. When Paul talks about our baptism into Jesus he says, “Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?” I do not know about you, but this does not sound like good news. Welcome to the sacrament of baptism, welcome to the community of believers; know your sins are forgiven and be at peace. Oh, and by the way, you get a death on the cross like Jesus. It sounds like we are confronted with another fatalistic story that has to be twisted a bit to find the good news.

This story is only fatalistic if Jesus had no choice and if there was no possibility of transformation. Jesus did not have to die because God said so. God is not an angry child abuser who requires the sacrifice of his son so that what he created, that turned out to be imperfect, could be saved. But this is the kind of thing we do not often like to talk about. However, the good news in what sounds like a bad news story, is that it did not have to happen that way. Jesus invites people to join in following him. Participating in his baptism is to do just that. But it does have consequences.

The world in which we live does not take kindly to change. The powers of the world, our selfish desires backed up with military and political power have and will continue to wreak havoc around the globe. Those powers will not be given up easily and do not like to be challenged. So in this way, we say that Jesus’ death was inevitable. What keeps it from being just another tragic story is that the tomb was empty. In the end, we are not left to our own devices. Love wins! The power of love will overcome even death. But the road there might be a bit bumpy to say the least.

The scene at the Jordan has been depicted in many ways. Most of them look serene and holy. All the people can see the heavens open up, the dove descending upon Jesus and God speaking from the sky. However, that is not what happens. It is only Jesus who hears the voice, and sees the heavens and the dove. As he comes up out of the water, Jesus is the only one who knows that everything has changed. And, as we read the story, we, too, are shown that everything has changed.

When the heavens open up it is a tearing of the heavens. It is a sign that the world will never be the same. However, no one knows it yet. That is how all revolutions begin. By the time it makes it to CNN, things have been happening for a while. The tearing of the heavens becomes a sign to Jesus that he must now live this new reality for all to see. And so he heals, and teaches, and feeds, and calls us to do the same. The very beginning of our faith is a radical tearing apart of the current arrangement which ought to give us pause. And it ought to keep us mindful of the need to open our eyes and look for signs of God’s activity all around us.

In the movie Dead Poets Society, Robyn Williams is committed to helping a group of very privileged boarding school boys see the world in new ways. In one scene he invites the students to come to the front of the classroom, stand on his desk and repeat a line of poetry from Walt Whitman. He is inviting them to hear the poetry in new ways. Some of the boys treated it as a joke but others could see the heavens torn apart and a new world begun.

That is the story of our faith. It is the story of Lent to which we now move. We, who know the stories, or assume we know the stories so well, must look for ways to hear the voice of God and see the heavens torn apart. The journey of Lent is meant to help us break with the past and break out of familiar patterns. Some of the opportunities for change may come from external sources. People may see when we turn into hideous bugs. Other times we will be forced by teachers to change our perspective. But the most lasting changes we will face are the ones where God invites us to recognize the tears in the fabric of the status quo. And when that happens, when it happens deep down in us, then we will be able to face the brokenness in the world and continue on knowing that the broken places may just be the places of new life. Amen.