Year B

Mark 8:27-38

The Very Rev. Denise Vaughn

Wisdom Cries Out

St. Augustine of Hippo once said, “The Lord’s command seems difficult and painful when he says that anyone who wishes to follow him must deny himself.  But it is not really so, since he helps us to do what he commands. He fulfills his own words: “My yoke is easy and my burden is light.” Love, or grace, makes it easy to carry out whatever is difficult in his command.” The texts for today show this loved filled way with four different human responses-or lack of it-to God’s grace, all true to life and all instructive for the part we play in the story of our lives.  The story of our response to God’s grace is the story of a lifelong venture.

It has its moments when the issues are clear and the demands costly. At other times, the issues are filled with ambiguity, and decisive action is hard to come by. There are times when there seems to be long periods when our faith consists of simply keeping at the task, struggling not to be overcome by our weaknesses and the turmoil in the world, while always seeking to hear and discern God’s will which can be difficult at times and costly because at the same time we are to be about trying to make the world a better place in which to live.

Lady Wisdom today takes to the streets, in the text from Proverbs, to chide the people for their failure to hear and discern God’s will. The figure of Wisdom has a long and rich history in Jewish and Christian tradition. Lady Wisdom believed by many to represent the ever searching, ever calling, ever challenging Spirit of God, takes her place at the very center of life and demands to be heard. She show’s up with a challenging question-Is anyone out there listening to me? She is not particular who follows her. She does not call the chosen, the holy, or the privileged, but invites anyone who will hear her.

The crowds she cries out to are openly defiant toward any knowledge that reflects godly wisdom even though divine knowledge is readily available to those who seek it, to those who listen to Wisdom’s voice. Wisdom becomes frustrated because she has tried so hard to win the people to no avail. Why do we resist wisdom? If one is “wise” to God’s ways, one is sure to be happy. To fail to be “wise” is to violate one’s own well-being and the purposes of God. The word that Wisdom delivers is one of distress. She laughs at their turmoil in which those who have rejected her find themselves.

Here, as in the words of the prophets, we are brought face to face with the awful possibility that a whole people turn away from discerning God’s will. Unfaithfulness consists of being deaf to Wisdom’s voice, of waywardness and complacency. Wisdom, who continues to cry out today, will be given to those who worship in awe and seek God so that they can understand and hear God’s will. In the gospel text today, the theme is one of hearing and not hearing, seeing and not seeing, as wisdom cries out to be heard.

Jesus tells his disciples, responding to wisdom is one of denying self, taking up his cross, and following him. This faithful journey will take one along the same path he took, to the cross, but ultimately to Easter. Today’s text is considered to be the climax of the first half of Mark’s gospel, coming at the midpoint of the gospel. Following this passage, Jesus and the disciples head for Jerusalem in a journey that seems to move at an ever faster pace to the inevitable conclusion of the cross. All along through most of the previous chapters of Mark’s gospel, the narrative has focused on the powerful various works of Jesus, seen for example in the inclusion of non-Jews, the Gentiles. All these works provoke considerable opposition from the religious authorities.

All along, the disciples demonstrate little insight into what is happening, leading Jesus to ask them in verses before today’s text “Do you not understand?” In this section of the Gospel, there is an attempt by Jesus to provide a vision for the disciples about the nature of who, he is and who the disciples are. It is hard to overemphasize the critical role today’s questions to the disciple’s raises for them and for followers today about what it means to confess Jesus. The passage begins in an almost strange way, by focusing on what other people are saying about him and then he asks the disciples “Who do you say that I am?” Peter’s confession and objection to the cross is evidence that he is getting the words right, but the meaning not so right. 

Peter realizes the contradiction in any notion of a suffering, dying Messiah even though he would have had to have seen the opposition that had been building and that, though the crowds heard Jesus gladly, those in the power were plotting and scheming. His objection, a logical way of thinking, was a human perspective, not God’s grace filled way. There is no way to Easter other than through the pain of Good Friday. The divine plan for those who want to follow Jesus is one of having to walk the same sort of journey that he walks. Setting the mind on divine things, means looking to the cross of Christ and following him with our very lives. This is the way of wisdom.

James today takes up the question of true wisdom that has its origin in God. He encourages seeking God’s ways instead of the world’s ways. What he has been after is what we call integrity. Christian faith calls for a relationship with God that has integrity; it operates out of God-given wisdom which we are to seek and hear from God alone. That integrity brings James to questions of speech within the community and to urge them not to speak against one another. Taming the tongue is at the heart of faithful response to God James says. This grace is a gift from God and a way for us to more deeply become those who are created in the image of God.

It all comes down to this today: the way of wisdom in this world and in the next is to love God and neighbor as the self and Jesus always connects the way of the cross to this grace way of wisdom. We must be passionately committed to the life of Jesus alive in us. This is hard and can be messy as any real love is because we are flawed human beings as all the texts remind us today. Yet, as the psalmist tells us, “the law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul, the decrees of the Lord are sure; making wise the simple; the precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart; the commandment of the Lord is clear, enlightening the eyes; the fear of the Lord is pure, enduring forever…these are more to be desired than fine gold. The goodness, glory and wisdom of God define our identity as imperfect servants; as the cross identifies God’s way of wisdom.  May we look to the cross of Christ, takes ours up and follow him all our days.