Title: Self-Defining God
Author: Christopher Harbin
Text: Mark 8:27-38
There are lots of people vowing to speak for God. That is nothing new. We've had false prophets since before the days of Elijah, Micaiah, Isaiah, and even Moses. Not all of them claimed to speak for Yahweh, but it should not be surprising at all that most of the voices making the loudest claims to being the sole owners of God's truth might as well be speaking for anyone other than Jesus. That even applies to a host of people who claim Jesus' name. Jesus' own disciples had trouble keeping up with what Jesus was teaching them. They had a hard time setting aside their assumptions about God to embrace Jesus as he was. Whom do we allow to define God? Are we set on pushing God into the boxes of human making?
I can't speak for you, but I kind of like to be known. I don't mean famous. I want people to know who I am, rather than picturing me as someone and something I am not. I don't care for people making assumptions about me that are completely unfounded. I don't like them having expectations for me that do not fit the reality of who I am, what I am capable of, and how I navigate the world we share. I want people to see me and understand who I am, rather than placing me in some sort of box they have designed and that will never fit me comfortably.
When we find Jesus in today's passage of Mark, there are a host of expectations and competing ideas about his identity, role, and purpose. That has been apparent for some time. Herod had developed the notion that Jesus was John the Baptist who had returned from being beheaded. The crowds he had fed on two occasions now rather much wanted him to become a political leader of Israel. People within and even beyond Israel looked on Jesus as a miracle-worker and healer. They looked at him as a prophet. All their differing notions of Jesus' identity competed for space with each other. They were trying to make sense out of what they were seeing in Jesus, a ...
Author: Christopher Harbin
Text: Mark 8:27-38
There are lots of people vowing to speak for God. That is nothing new. We've had false prophets since before the days of Elijah, Micaiah, Isaiah, and even Moses. Not all of them claimed to speak for Yahweh, but it should not be surprising at all that most of the voices making the loudest claims to being the sole owners of God's truth might as well be speaking for anyone other than Jesus. That even applies to a host of people who claim Jesus' name. Jesus' own disciples had trouble keeping up with what Jesus was teaching them. They had a hard time setting aside their assumptions about God to embrace Jesus as he was. Whom do we allow to define God? Are we set on pushing God into the boxes of human making?
I can't speak for you, but I kind of like to be known. I don't mean famous. I want people to know who I am, rather than picturing me as someone and something I am not. I don't care for people making assumptions about me that are completely unfounded. I don't like them having expectations for me that do not fit the reality of who I am, what I am capable of, and how I navigate the world we share. I want people to see me and understand who I am, rather than placing me in some sort of box they have designed and that will never fit me comfortably.
When we find Jesus in today's passage of Mark, there are a host of expectations and competing ideas about his identity, role, and purpose. That has been apparent for some time. Herod had developed the notion that Jesus was John the Baptist who had returned from being beheaded. The crowds he had fed on two occasions now rather much wanted him to become a political leader of Israel. People within and even beyond Israel looked on Jesus as a miracle-worker and healer. They looked at him as a prophet. All their differing notions of Jesus' identity competed for space with each other. They were trying to make sense out of what they were seeing in Jesus, a ...
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