Text used – Mark 1:9-15

• This doesn’t happen often, folx, but today is one of those days when I wish I had the capability to share a movie scene with you.
  • Movie that came to mind for this week → 1989 classic coming-of-age movie Dead Poets Society (and one of my favorite movies in high school)
    • Written by Tom Schulman
    • Directed by Peter Weir
    • Stars: Robin Williams, Robert Sean Leonard, Ethan Hawke
    • About an English teacher at a boys prep school in New England in 1959 who uses poetry and unorthodox teaching methods to embolden and encourage the boys in his classroom to break out of their shells, pursue their dreams, and seize the day
    • Particular scene that I was thinking about this morning happens relatively early in the movie

• • • • Keating begins lesson by jumping up an standing on his desk → explains to students, “I stand upon my desk to remind myself that we must constantly look at things in a different way. You see, the world looks very different from up here.”
      • Then challenges the students: “You don’t believe me? Come see for yourselves. Come on.” → invites the students to join him one by one up on his desk
      • Continues his lesson: “Just when you think you know something, you have to look at it in another way, even though it may seem silly or wrong. You must try.”
      • Culmination of the lesson: encouraging the boys to bring their own thoughts, experiences, interpretations, and understandings to the situation
        • Situation in the classroom context = reading poetry
        • But as he is so powerfully adept at doing, Keating applies the same teaching to the situation of the boys’ lives: “Boys, you must strive to find your own voice because the longer you wait to begin, the less likely you are to find it at all. Thoreau said, ‘Most men lead lives of quiet desperation.’ Don’t be resigned to that. Break out. … Dare to strike out and find new ground.” → It definitely would have been a particularly radical thing to teach a room full of boys on the cusp of becoming young men in 1959 as becomes abundantly clear throughout the rest of the film. I don’t know … maybe it’s a particularly radical thing to teach today, too.
  • Last line – last 2 verses – of today’s Scripture reading is what had me thinking about that scene from Dead Poets Society: After John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee announcing God’s good news, saying, “Now is the time! Here comes God’s kingdom! Change your hearts and lives, and trust this good news!”[1] → “Change your hearts and lives, and trust this good news!” This definitely would have been a particularly radical thing to preach to a people living oppressed by a foreign, hostile occupier back in 1^st-cent. Jerusalem as becomes abundantly clear through the life and death of Christ himself. I don’t know … maybe it’s a particularly radical thing to preach today, too. I guess we’ll see.
    • Call to change hearts and lives = call that rings out through the millennia from the moment Jesus uttered them more than 2000 yrs. ago to today and on into the future
    • Call to change hearts and lives = call that echoes Mr. Keating’s philosophy in Dead Poets Society
    • Call to change hearts and lives = call of the season of Lent
    • Call to change hearts and lives = call to sacrifice à theme throughout our Lenten worships this year
      • Main idea for this series from Rev. Brandan J. Robertson: In this Lenten series, we will examine the tangible ways that Jesus demonstrated sacrificial living in his day and age, and the powerful, world-shaking ramifications that his sacrificial life had on his society in his day, while posturing ourselves to imitate Jesus in our day.[2] → To put it in terms of the reference from Dead Poets Society, we’re going to spend Lent standing on our desks, changing our viewpoint and trying to look at the world around us from a different angle, and reflecting on where that new angle might take us.
• Today’s Scripture reading = perfect opening to this whole discussion of sacrifice and world-shaking ramifications and change → Mark’s version of Jesus’ baptism
  • First need to remind ourselves of the world of Mk’s gospel
    • Remember: Mk’s gospel was the first one written not that long after Jesus’ death and resurrection – makes it a more “quick and dirty” narrative of sorts → As Christianity began to take root, they needed a way to circulate Jesus’ story – to begin to share that “good news” in a way that was consistent and translatable.
    • Also remember: Mk’s gospel was written in a difficult and dangerous time[3]
      • Nero was Caesar = one of the most dangerous emperors for Christians → lots of persecution (led to violent deaths of a number of Jesus’ original disciples)
      • Lots of false prophets rising up, trying to fill the gap left by Jesus → see that reflected in lots of NT writings
      • Temple had just been destroyed for the 2^nd (final) time by the Romans as retaliation for a Jewish revolt → after 4 yrs. of war, in 70 C.E. Romans finally regained control of Jerusalem and destroyed the Temple, leaving only a portion of the western wall (Wailing Wall still stands in Jerusalem today)
  • Because of all of this, Mark’s gospel has an immediacy to it. It’s the “just the facts, ma’am” version of the good news. The word “immediately” pops up in Mark’s gospel all the time – Jesus and the disciples are always doing things and going places “immediately.” → while that word doesn’t show up in today’s passage, Mk’s version of Jesus’ baptism certainly gives off that feeling of immediacy
    • No crowds (that we know of)
    • No pre-baptism declarations of Jesus’ greatness from John (that we know of)
    • But there are a few things that I really love about Mark’s few sparse verses about Jesus’ baptism.
      • First= how completely normal everything seems → opening verse: About that time, Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee, and John baptized him in the Jordan River.[4] → There isn’t fanfare involved. There isn’t any added gravitas or ceremony or formality. Jesus and John found one another somehow – we’re not even told if Jesus sought John out or if it was the other way around – and Jesus was baptized. It just feels like this makes Jesus a more approachable Jesus … a more relatable Jesus … a more human Jesus.
      • Another thing I love = ambiguity of the Spirit’s declaration → not ambiguous in the words but in who hears them → A few of the other gospels make it clear that others heard the Spirit-dove’s declaration about Jesus being God’s Son and about God being pleased with Jesus. But Mark’s gospel leaves that uncertain. It just says: While he was coming up out of the water, Jesus saw heaven splitting open and the Spirit, like a dove, coming down on him. And there was a voice from heaven: “You are my Son, whom I dearly love; in you I find happiness.[5] → Was it Jesus alone who heard those words (and then told someone else about the experience later … since it is included in all four gospel accounts)? Did John hear it, too? Was there anyone else around who saw and/or heard the Spirit-dove? Mark’s gospel has a tendency to leave us with more questions than answers, which when you think about it is a lot like faith – it’s as much about sitting with the questions as it is about seeking out answers … maybe even more so.
  • Today’s Scripture reading = also perfect opening to this whole discussion of sacrifice and world-shaking ramifications and change because it represents a significant moment of sacrifice and world-shaking ramifications and change in Jesus’ own life → These encounters – Jesus’ baptism and temptation in the wilderness, John’s arrest, and Jesus’ public call to “change your hearts and lives” – is the beginning of Jesus’ ministry.
    • Before that in Mk’s gospel = nothing
      • No childhood
      • No other formative experiences (e.g. – that time he was found in the temple teaching the teachers when he was an adolescent that we read about in Lk[6])
      • Nothing → Mark’s gospel begins with a short description of John the Baptist and his call, then dives right in with this world-shaking beginning of Jesus ministry – a ministry that brought about a change like no other.
• So let’s talk about that change. Jesus makes a pretty blatant call to change – “Now is the time! Here comes God’s kingdom! Change your hearts and lives, and trust this good news!” Throughout the season of Lent, we reflect particularly on that call. It is, after all, the call to repent.
  • Heb. “repent” = literally change direction, to return and to re-turn – to reorient your bearing → Throughout Lent, we try to reorient our hearts and lives, our words and actions, our whole selves back toward God and God’s call for us. It is a word whose very essence necessitates change.
  • Brandan Robertson has an interesting take on this: In almost any Christian context, the idea of repentance, especially tied to the proclamation of the gospel, has to do with asking God to forgive us for our moral failings. In a more progressive environment, repentance may be defined as turning from a damaging action or belief and choosing a better way. But the world translated “repent” here (which is translated as “change your hearts and minds” in our version of the text) … literally means “expanding your mind” – to work to move from our finite human perspective and expand to a broader, wider, diviner perspective. At the heart of the gospel is the call to change the way we see the world, to expand beyond our rigid boundaries and beliefs and begin to see things in a new way. … The way that Jesus invites us to respond to the news that there is a better, more righteous way to live and be in the world is to expand our thinking and to believe in the possibility of a more just and generous world that he demonstrates in his life and ministry. It all begins with the willingness to change our perspective, to see things differently, which is a sacrifice that requires great humility. True repentance means humbling ourselves to embrace a posture of empathy, a posture of listening, a posture of exploration, and a willingness to change the way we think, act, and live based on what we learn.[7]
    • Makes Jesus’ call a call to sacrifice, to be sure
      • Call to sacrifice long-held perceptions about ourselves and the world around us
      • Call to sacrifice our familiar perspectives in favor of another, more expanded, more Christ-like perspective
        • “I stand upon my desk to remind myself that we must constantly look at things in a different way. You see, the world looks very different from up here.”
  • Here’s the big question, friends. What if this “kingdom of God” that Jesus talks about isn’t something that we’re just supposed to wait and wait and wait for until it falls down out of the sky and covers the world like a fresh coat of paint? What is it isn’t something we attain through perfect prayer, perfect faith, perfect Sunday attendance, perfect piety? What if, as Jesus said, this “kingdom of God” is already here? What if the kingdom of God arrived with the birth of the Messiah and is simply waiting for us to change our hearts and lives … to repent … to reorient our whole selves to the love and work of God in this world? What if the kingdom of God is not a thing … not a place … but a way of living in the here and now?
    • Like Mr. Keating, call to stand on our desks … but we have to have the courage to take that first step up. Friends, you must strive to find your own voice because the longer you wait to begin, the less likely you are to find it at all. Thoreau said, ‘Most men lead lives of quiet desperation.’ Don’t be resigned to that. Break out. … Dare to strike out and find new ground. Dare to risk and find holy ground. Now is the time! Here is God’s kingdom! Change your hearts and lives, and trust this good news! Amen.

[1] Mk 1:14-15.

[2] Brandan J. Robertson. “Lenten Series: The Power of Sacrifice” in A Preacher’s Guide to Lectionary Sermon Series: Thematic Plans for Years A, B, and C, vol. 2. (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2019), 99.

[3] Pheme Perkins. “The Gospel of Mark: Introduction, Commentary, and Reflections” in The New Interpreter’s Bible Commentary series, vol. 8. (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1995), 514.

[4] Mk 1:9.

[5] Mk 1:10-11.

[6] Lk 4:39-52.

[7] Robertson, 100.