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i SGALILEE TO JERUSALEM" ; BETHANY PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH
MARK 10:32-45 LAFAYETTE, INDIAWA
MARCH 31, 1974 JOHN M. BUCHANAN

Lent, I would submit, just isn't what it used to be. We are not in a
Lenten mood today, culturally or retigiously. As 1 move about the city I
see very littie that indicates that this season of the year is any different
from any other season. The Roman Catholics still observe the ritual of Ash
Wednesday, bat from the Protestant side of it Lent has more to do with tourna-
ment time than suffering,sacrifice and seif-denial.

What it used to be for me - and for a lot of people - was Midweek Services
Now Presbyterians stapped going to church on Wednesday evening a long time ago.
But in Lent we used to gear up, and it was simply one of the givens for us.
Lenten services were held on Wednesday night, and we used to get on the bus
and go, and I don’t remember there being much discussion about Tt. We went
to Church every night in Holy Week; twice on Good Friday. Year after year we
heard the passton story read until the details were seared in our memories.
Now please understand that my family ws not extraordinarily devout. We were
members of a Prasbyterian Church and we attended it regularly. We were not
deeply involved in the life of that church. B8ut we did go. And what came
through to me in all that sitting in the church was something very important.
I don't recall one word spoken by a minister in a Lenten sermon. But through
it ali I recognized somehow that Easter wasn't cheap-for God - for Jesus - or
for me, because I had a lot of time invested in getting ready for it.

That's been lost. And I think we are poorer for it. Some of it was
rather rote, to be sure. Some of the Lenten sacrifices people used to make -
like giving up sweets, or going to the movies - were pretty banal. But some-
how through al} the banatity and superficiality the message got across that
Easter is more than a new hat, a full sanctuary and the aroma of jijjies. That
I regret.

Part of the reason we have lost it, 1 suppose, is busyness. Unlike the
life style of twenty or twenty five years ago, we literally do not have time.

And it would take a selling job of mammoth proportions to convince Presbyteriar

~BALTLER 10 GEKUSALEN ~2- MARCH 31, 1974
that it's more important to be in church on Wednesday nights than at any of
the other meetings, engagements, or entertainments that are already on the
docket. when put in direct competition with almost anything eVse in life
the Church finishes dead last. We are busy. But I believe there is more to
it than that. |

Theologically, Christian Faith maintains that resurrection happens at the
end of a process that includes commitment, sacrifice, suffering, self-denial
and death. And that the resurrection really becomes something worth shouting
about only after one has confronted what preceeds it. But we're just not in
the mood for that religiously at this moment in time. "Celebration" is "in".
Everyone is celebrating sometning. And while the church in our time badly needs
an infusion of joy and gladness, my concern 75 that it is a superficial joy
that does not grow out of God's victory in Jesus Christ over the forces of
evil, sin and death. I discavered, while working on this sermon, why I'm
becoming a little weary of the word “celebration’. An apocryphal story is told
about a church that was ordering new altar cloths and pulpit scarves: red,
green, white - all the liturgical colors of the church year but the violent
of Lent. Wo violet - it's toa depressing.

Partially, I suppose, It is a reflection of a prevailing mood in our
culture. We've had it so good materially for so long that real existential
dread is reserved not for plagues, famine and earthquakes -but for inflation.
Any concept of voluntary, intentional sacrifice is totally alien. Along the
way to affluence, or perhaps as a consequence of it, we have become accustomed
to “instant gratification.” Whatever we do, we want the reward - the prize -
now, not later. "“Lkaugh In" several years ago caught the mood of our culture
in the phrase, ‘If it feels good, do it." That's a bit racy for most of us,
and what our life style reflects is a slight variation on the theme; that is,
“If it doesn't feel good, there's no way I'm going to do it." Sometimes it
seems to me that that is almost the motto of our generation. Even when we
are doing things that are charitable and sacrifical we have a desparate need

an

GALILER TO JERUSALEM ~3- MARCH 31, 1974
to make it look like fun. Consider the United Fund - and I'm not
knocking it. But knowing about human need in our community is not enough.

It's not enough to tell] the story and ask people to help. It has to sound

Tike fun - and become stylish and fashionable. It has ta feel good.
Lent just isn’t what it used to be. All of that by way of approaching |
the Hew Testament Lesson this morning. Notice, again, the sequence in the

tenth chapter of Mark: on the way to Jerusatem, Jesus out in front, the
disciples following behind,amazed and afraid. He chose the occasion to
announce, for the third time, what was ahead. The prior two times the
disciples had not understood - or had been unwilling to understand. He told
it graphically using four harsh verbs: mock, spit, scourge, kill. And at
that point James and John showed how totally detached they were from what tf
was saying by choosing the occasion to ask for a favor.

“Grant us to sit, one at your rignt hand and one at your Teft, in your
glory." The timing wasn't very good. But desus, ever patient, responded:
"You don't know what you are asking. Are you able to stand with me in the
days ahead?" A little too brightly they answered “We are able”. They
weren't, of course. When the chips were dawn they, with all the rest, backed
out. But later, tradition has it, both dted as martyrs. In any case, Jesus
seized the occaston to teach a lesson - a Tesson about greatness as servant-
hood. He concluded with the words: "The Son of Man came not to.be served
but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom to many.”

There are a lot of important, suggestive themes in that passage. But
in the context of Lent, and our earlier discussion, the one thing that
Stands out is a rather clear dividing line in Jesus' life between Gadilee and
Jerusalem. It was a turning point for him, not only in terms of time and
geography, but also in terms of a different style of faithfulness. Galilée:
represents one style - Jerusalem, another style. dames and John clearly
indicate that they prefer it in Galilee and want ta avoid the meaning of

moving:ta:derusalem,

"GALILEE TO JERUSALEM -4- MARCH 31, 1974

For Jesus the deciston to leave Galilee and go to Jerusalem meant going
from the place of comparitive safety to the place of danger. David H. C. Read.
writes: "This is the turning point in the Gospel story. The Galilee days
are over. There will be no more happy crowds gathered on the beach while Jesus:
Speaks from the side of a jittle boat: no more fishing expeditions: no more
quiet evenings in the villages around Capernum: no more nights of deep
communion under the Galilean stars; no more swelling crowds hanging on his
words and jostling to touch the hem of his garment. Galilee lies behind."
(Notable Sermons from Protestant Pulpits P.173)

Jerusalem stands for threat, danger, big city cynicism, power, strangers,
Tonliness and the ever present shadow of Rome.

The two places represent two kinds of religion.

Think about it. Galilee religion has to do with peace, comfort, love,
joy, meditation,prayer: religion untainted by conflict and controversy:
religion that is untouched by and unresponsive to the kinds of things that
Happen in the city. It is a popular kind of religion, the kind that sells well
and is conspicuously successful. It is what many of us want from our religion
an escape, or at least a respite from the harsh realities of life that occupy
uS Six days a week.

In terms of ethics, it's the kind of religion that knocks off the rough
abrasive edges of Jesus' teaching and makes his brand of morality sound sus-
n“ctously like the Boy Scout law. In terms of the Bible it is the kind of
religion that is very selective. One observer notes that when it comes to
reading the Bible, we have developed a system "whereby I put in my thumb and
pull out a plum and say ‘what a good boy am I': whereas we know perfectly well]
that some of the Bible plums taste very bitter and sour in our mouths and Teave
us feeling anything but good."

In terms of the life of Christ itself, this kind of religion has it all
on the quiet shores of the lake, or in the garden praying, neve in the dirt

and sweat of the city market place.

GALILEE TO JERUSALEM ~B- _ MARCH 31, 1974

Jesus spent time in Galilee, doing Galilee things. Honest religion
includes comfort peace, joy, méditation. But the time came when he moved
from one place to the other. He needed, in order to be honest with himself,
ta go to the place where life is lived harshly and meaniy. He had to expose
himself, his teaching, his Gospel to the raw skepticism of the market place
and court and city street. He could not have it all in Gatilee

James and John speak for a lot of us when they ride rough shod over his
warning about what it means to go to Jerusalem . And when the going got tough;
when friendly crowds became a threatening mob of strangers, they deserted him.

We do too, don't we? The favorite middle class remedy to a lot of
societal problems seems to be moving. When the schoals get in trouble, when
racial trouble begins to brew, when politics get corrupt and taxes too:.high,
Americans move away - just like that, William Muehi, Chaplain at Yale Univer-
Sity has changed a phrase in a favorite old Gospel Song so that it comes out:

"Is thare trouble and temptation?

Is there sorrow anywhere?
We need never be discouraged
N ao one's making us stay there."

But more to the point, there ts no quicker way to cause a churchman to
leave, than for his church to do or say something that sounds as if it might
~o moving from Galilee ta Jerusalem. The United Presbyterian Church fell
From grace, lost millions of dollars and thousands of members when it decided
that the time had come to move from Galilee to Jerusalem: to be honest about
following a Lord who made that same move. We don't even want to be incon-
venienced by our church. People tell me that they can't come on Sunday morn-
ing because it's the only morning they have to sleep tn - as if that somehow
settles the matter. And when the church gets involved in controversy: when
friends start asking "Hhat in the world are: Presbyterians up to?": when we
beginto feel the slightest bit of discomfort - we either find another church

that stays in Galilee~and there are plenty of them-or we stay home.

SALILEE TO JERUSALEN ~§- MARCH 312, 1974
The ceeper significance to all of tnis is that the Gospel of Jasus
Christ is a call to you and me to a new life. It is not merely an invitation
£o join a church and make a pledge, although that is part of it. At heart it

1s an invitation to change, to become something altogether different from
“what we were before. Saint Paul saw it in terms of the old man dying wiit
Ghrist and a new man rising - to a new life, a whole new world, a new way of
“Pving ane thinking. And it 4s apparent that if we haven't been down that
road we will continue to drag our feet when Jesus Christ turns his attention
So Jerusalem.

No one understood that mora clearly than the late Dietrick Bonhoeffer.
in fact, Bonhoeffer was so terribly Honest about the Gospel that I find it
uncomfortable to read him aiy more. Ten years ago I was very enthusiastic
about him and his writing and nis impact. Ten years Tater, and older, and
more settled in, they threaten me a tittle bit. Bonhoeffer, of course, didn't
dust say it. lle lived out his theology and was executed by the Nazis. Listen
to his words:

"When Christ calls aman. he bids him come and die. It may be a death
like that ef the first disciples who had to leave home and work to follow
nim, or it may be a death like Luther's who had to Teave the monastery and
go out into the world. But it is the same death every time - death in Jesus

Christ." (The Cost of Discipleship, P. 79)

stmething must die when we decide to follow Jesus Christ. He understood
that -~ laid it out plainly at every opportunity - never forced, coerced or 1487
persuaded anyone to follow him. Commitment to him meant tht something deep
inside had te be turned around. Call it Sin, or self, or egotism. Whatever
you want to caly it, it means that old attitudes, old priorities are set
aside and new attitudes, new priorities take their place, 1 don't care how
many dramatic conversion experiences a person had had, that is what convers‘aon

means. Something has to go. And a new being has to be reflected in a new

way of looking at things that is shaped and moided and informed by Jesus

“'GALILED To geRusaies -7- | MARCH 31, 1974 —
Christ,

There is a prayer written by a Chinese Christian that goes: "0 God, ever
give us something to die for, for if we have nothing to die for, we have
nothing for which to live."

That's what it means ta be a disciple of Jesus Christ. It is to have
something to die for ~- and therefore something for which to live. It means
that in and through all the commitments we make, one stands above all the
rest. It means that our relationships with others, our opinions in the
political arena, our plans and goals are an outgrowth of the new life based
on Jesus Christ.

The disciples were amazed and afraid. And for good reason. Again David
Read has drawn a verbal picture that speaks eloquently.

"Can you see them moving up that rocky path to Jerusalem on that spring
morning? desus is not with them. With face set in determination he strides
on up the rocky path to meet his most deadly foes. Perhaps already on the
horizon he can see a cross where some wretched rebel hangs a victim to Roman
power. And some distance behind come the disciples, in twos and threes,
exchanging frightened glances, stumbling forward, tired, troubled, amazed
and afraid. (Ibid, P.175)

If Lent means anything at all ® us it is this. There is no cheap road
to glory ~ as James and John discovered. There is no convenient way to be a
Christian. There is no resurrection without a cross. There is no joy on
Easter Norning unless it is preceeded by suffering and death.

So, let us follow, stumbling behind, amazed and afraid ~ but following.
AMEN

FATHER, keep us from all that is superficial about the days ahead. Help us

each to follow, wherever our Lord leads us. AMEN