|
Gallows
Humor “Aside from
that Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?” After her career had declined and she
had started aging, Actress Tallulah Bankhead would answer the question "Are
you Tallulah Bankhead?" with "No, darling, I'm what's left of her".
An artist asked the gallery owner if there had been any interest in
his paintings on display at that time. “I have good news and bad news,” the
owner replied. “The good news is that a gentleman inquired about your work
and wondered if it would appreciate in value after your death. When I told
him it would, he bought all 15 of your paintings.” “That’s wonderful,” the
artist exclaimed. “What’s the bad news?” “The guy was your doctor!”
Gallows Humor.
Today’s incident in
Mark 8
follows Peter’s celebrated confession, that Jesus is ‘the Christ’. We see
and hear an exchange between Jesus and Peter that reveals just how easy it
is, with apologies to all fans of American Idol,
to confuse adulation and truth. When Jesus speaks openly of his suffering,
Peter will have none of it, proving that it is possible to have the words,
the lingo, and the devotion and yet to completely miss what Jesus is all
about. By relating this incident with the addition of Jesus’ “gallows
humor”, Mark is doing theology,
he is deliberately making us think about our faith.
No wonder Jesus had to embrace what I am calling “gallows humor”.
Each time Jesus speaks about his suffering, the disciples are totally
preoccupied with something totally contrary: their
own needs, their own status, their own preferences, where they rank in their
imagined pecking order, which of them is Jesus’ favorite!
When an elderly grandmother decided to move to Israel,
she went to see her doctor to get all of her charts. The doctor asked her
how she was doing, so she gave him a litany of complaints:
this hurts, that’s stiff, I’m tired and slower, etc. He responded, “Mrs.
Siegel, you have to expect things to start deteriorating. After all, who
wants to live to 100?” The grandmother looked him straight in the eye and
replied, “Anyone like me who’s 99.” Gallows humor.
In the teaching of Jesus to which we are
paying attention today, we are being offered an
alternative model of being. It is for our gain, it is in our interest to
consider it. It won’t be at all easy, because we are being challenged to
want something different, something other than what we have ever wanted
before, something completely and utterly different. Instead of thinking only
of ourselves and believing that it is to our good to gain wealth and avoid
any path which leads to suffering, we are to be challenged to be generous,
to give of ourselves, even to suffer.
The key to all this is found in one Bible verse -
one which we find six times on the lips of Jesus,
six times from the mouth of Jesus, six times from the heart of Jesus. This
crucial Bible verse divides itself into five lines, and I would like to help
us have it in the very front of our minds today.
Please will you all repeat it after me?
If anyone would be my disciple,
[Congregation responds
'If anyone would be my disciple,']
Let them deny themselves, take up their cross and follow me;
[Congregation responds 'Let
them deny themselves, take up their cross and follow me;']
Whoever finds their life, loses it;
[Congregation responds 'Whoever
finds their life, loses it;']
Whoever loses their life, finds it.
[Congregation responds 'Whoever
loses their life, finds it.']
What does it profit you, if you gain the whole world and lose your own soul?
[Congregation responds 'What
does it profit you, if you gain the whole world and lose your own soul?']
These words were spoken by Jesus before Good Friday, before Jesus’ death on
the cross. These words were spoken by Jesus early on in his ministry, even
before the Transfiguration. These words and what they mean and can come to
mean, can and will change us, can bring new meaning to what we do day by
day, can free us from fret and worry, bring us to a new depth of faith and a
new beginning in our living.
If anyone would be my disciple, Let them deny themselves, take up their
cross and follow me; Whoever finds their life, loses it; Whoever loses their
life, finds it. What does it profit you, if you gain the whole world and
lose your own soul?
Commenting on the phrase “deny self”, William Barclay said this: “We will
understand the meaning of this demand best if we take it very simply and
literally. ‘Let us say no to ourselves.’ If any of us would follow Jesus
Christ, we must say no to ourselves and yes to Christ. We must say no to our
own natural love of ease and comfort. We must say no to every course of
action based on self seeking and self-will. We must say no to the instincts
and desires which prompt us to touch and taste and handle forbidden things.
We must unhesitatingly say yes to the voice and command of Jesus Christ. We
live no longer to follow our own will, but to follow the will of Christ, and
in that service, we find perfect freedom.”
In Mark, Jesus ask us “to lose our lives”, in
John’s Gospel there is a complementary mode of expression that maybe will
help us understand what it means “to lose our life”. To describe “losing
your life”, John uses the example of a dying seed
when it is planted. “Unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies,
it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. He who loves his
life, loses it; but he who hates his life in this world will keep it for
eternal life.” As the seed dies, it produces much fruit. And so with our
lives,
only as we die to self will fruit burst forth.
Four older men were out golfing. “These hills are getting steeper as
the years go by,” one complained. “These fairways seem to be getting longer,
too,” said one of the others. “The sand traps seem to be bigger than I
remember them, too,” said the third senior. After hearing enough from his
senior buddies, the oldest and the wisest of the four of them at 87 years
old, piped up and said, “Just be thankful we’re still on the right side of
the grass!” Gallows humor.
“To lose our life”, “to die to self, to die like a grain of wheat” means
that selfishness dies in our life, slowly and ever so gradually, over time.
Dying to self is a daily event. There is a daily dying of selfishness in our
lives. Ever so slowly, we are to focus more and more on other people’s needs
rather than our own. As selfishness dies, otherness is born, an “otherness”
that is alive and growing. This “otherness” is in truth the life of God, the
life of Jesus, the life of the Holy Spirit, the life of love, the life of
our neighbor in our lives. It is what results when we deny ourselves and
pick up our cross of suffering: Putting our own plans, pleasures and
priorities on hold and the needs of others first, before our own needs.
Serving the otherness of God involves taking care of those people whom God
has put at your doorstep; seeking out people, entering into meaningful,
truthful, just relationships with those who are worn down by life, who face
rejection by society, who are locked out from opportunity and care.
Among those we are called to serve are those
in our church family who already face their own struggles: The father who
struggles to face life; the widow of a husband who faced illness and death
with great courage; a daughter watching an elderly father decline due to
Alzheimer’s; the couple facing illnesses and worry over their futures. We
are to live in solidarity with those who struggle against addiction; the
young person struggling to accept their God-given self-esteem; those
evacuated because of a hurricane; young family struggling over the loss of a
business or the loss of a child or the diagnosis of a chronic illness.
Serving the otherness of God includes welcome to a recent immigrant;
acceptance of those whose lifestyle is not the one we choose to adopt;
welcome to those who have more questions than answers; patience and love and
care and concern for the needs of so many, known and unknown.
The words and the message of Jesus; the meaning of this season of Lent, and
the heart of what it means to live as disciples of Jesus Christ collide in
the call to live as Christ lived, to love as Christ loved, laying down our
life for others. Christianity, the faith we embrace, because we have been
embraced by Christ Jesus is this great invitation to deny yourself, to say
“NO!” to ourselves, to take up your cross, to say our “YES” to Jesus, to
follow Christ.
Jesus said,
If anyone (here at Northminster)
would be my disciple,
Let them (let all of
you here) deny
themselves, take up their cross and follow me;
Whoever finds their life (by ignoring Jesus)
will lose their real life;
Whoever loses their life (for the sake of Jesus)
will find their real life.
What does it profit you (my
friends) if you gain the whole world
(all the stuff) and
lose your own soul (your life purpose with God)?
My friends, God asks us in this new week to recognize and take opportunities
to say “NO” to ourselves and to say “YES” to Jesus. This is
what it means for us to take up our cross and follow as disciples.
It is that simple and that difficult! Amen. |
