Any comments that would help strengthen this sermon would be appreciated.
Prayer of Illumination,
Oh Holy God, who calls to stay awake, strengthen our willing spirit and our weak flesh. Arouse us from the comfort of our slumbers with your Word. Prepare our hearts that we may follow you into the uncertainty of the days to come. Open our ears and eyes that we may hear your Word afresh this day. Amen
Our reading this morning is from The Gospel of Mark. I will be reading from the fourteenth chapter beginning with verse 32. Listen now to hear God’s Word to us…
32 They went to a place called Gethsemane; and he said to his disciples, ‘Sit here while I pray.’ 33He took with him Peter and James and John, and began to be distressed and agitated. 34And he said to them, ‘I am deeply grieved, even to death; remain here, and keep awake.’ 35And going a little farther, he threw himself on the ground and prayed that, if it were possible, the hour might pass from him. 36He said, ‘Abba, Father, for you all things are possible; remove this cup from me; yet, not what I want, but what you want.’ 37He came and found them sleeping; and he said to Peter, ‘Simon, are you asleep? Could you not keep awake one hour? 38Keep awake and pray that you may not come into the time of trial; the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.’ 39And again he went away and prayed, saying the same words. 40And once more he came and found them sleeping, for their eyes were very heavy; and they did not know what to say to him. 41He came a third time and said to them, ‘Are you still sleeping and taking your rest? Enough! The hour has come; the Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. 42Get up, let us be going. See, my betrayer is at hand.’
This is the Word of the Lord,
Thanks be to God.
As many of you have heard there is a little letter that has been floating around the Presbyterian Church for a number of weeks now. And there have been lots of conversations as well as numerous responses. This letter, which has become commonly known as the “Deathly Ill Church” letter, expresses in no uncertain terms that the PC(USA) is deathly ill. Years of decline and years of votes over contentious issues have led the writers to declare that this portion of the body of Christ is deathly ill.
As one might have suspected this letter has sparked a great deal of discussion and debate. Some have come out speaking in favor and yet others in opposition to the letter. The amounts of responses and conversations have become so great that one could easily become overwhelmed by the topic. And for some the sheer magnitude, diversity, and the highly charged emotions have proven to be to great. The letter has elicited in fear in some, and yet in others, it has become a call to arms, a time to speak out and take a stand. A number of friends at school have spoken of worries about what this will mean for the Church they are heading into and questioning if their gifts and talents will be better served elsewhere.
The response it has elicited in me, however, has been one of questioning. I have wondered what dose it mean to be the church in this age? How do we remain faithful to God in the face of uncertain days that lay ahead?
But beyond the questions that this letter raised within me, I believe that the letter has begun to stir a sleeping church. Calling us to wake up. We all have known for a while now that our church, the Presbyterian Church USA, and many other mainline churches like us, have been experiencing unprecedented decline in membership, shrinking budgets and a diminished place in society. But why did this letter, stating these facts, elicit such a strong response? Are large membership numbers, a big budget and status within society signs of God’s favor upon us, and symptoms of a healthy church? And the declining numbers, budgets and diminished role with society as symptoms of a deathly ill church?
I must state that I do not agree with the conclusions that the "Deathly Ill Church" Letter draws. I agree that the church is in decline, but I do not agree that the PC(USA) is deathly ill. I would argue that in some places the Presbyterian Church has been comfortably asleep. We have grown comfortable, believing that our influence, which we once held in society just a few decades before, would last forever. And as time has changed and membership numbers have declined as well as an increase in the rate of pastor burn out have become such commonplace realities that we just accept it as the way things are. And we look at the monuments of our glorious past, and dream of the “good old days.” We, like the disciples, have fallen asleep and are not fully aware of the importance of this hour.
As we come to our text today in Mark the disciples and Jesus are approaching the final days of Jesus life and earthly ministry. Unbeknownst to the disciples this is the final night in which they will be with this wandering Rabbi. As part of Passover, the disciples have traveled with Jesus to Jerusalem. They witnessed the triumphant entry into the city, with Jesus riding upon a colt, and the crowds shouting praises to him. The disciples were with Jesus when he cleansed the temple by driving “out those selling and those buying in the temple” and watched as he overturned the moneychangers’ tables. And He foretells of the temple as well as his telling of Jesus’ own death. But on this final night Jesus, having already shared a meal with his friends breaking bread and blessing the cup do they come “to a place called Gethsemane.”
Having traveled from the Mount of Olives, the disciples find themselves standing in Gethsemane. Jesus taking Peter, James and John a little further away reveals the deep distress that Jesus is feeling as his hour approaches. We should not be surprised that it is these three who Jesus reveals this too. Peter, James and John serve an important role in Mark’s Gospel. As it was these three who have been witnesses to the transfiguration and the raising of Jairus daughter from the dead. So we can assume that Peter, James and John had become comfortable witnessing some peculiar events. And yet now they are witnessing something completely different then they have seen before. They see Jesus, the same man who was transfigured on the mountain, who has the power to calm seas and raise people form the dead, nearly overcome with anguish. He tells them, “I am deeply grieved, even to death.” And all he asks of his friends is to “remain here, and keep awake.” And yet they can’t. Three times Jesus comes back from praying to find his closest disciples sleeping, and implores them two different times to keep awake. But their eyes “were very heavy” and they continued to fall asleep.
There is a connection that is drawn between the image of the sleeping disciples and Jesus’ final parable about the return of the Son of Man. In Mark 13, we hear Jesus tell a parable about a master of the house who leaves for a journey. He places his slaves in charge of the household with tasks to take care of. He commands the doorkeeper to keep watch or keep awake, more accurately. Saying, “For you do not know when the master of the house will come.” It would be a terrible situation when “he may find you asleep when he comes suddenly.” So Jesus tells those gathered, “Keep awake.” Jesus is not urging those gathered to remain strong in the face of persecution but to be prepared, to keep awake, and to be vigilant.
It is clear within this parable that the master of the household is Jesus, and the slaves are the disciples and followers of Christ, and in turn you and I. And the disciples in Gethsemane were so comfortable, so use to witnessing things that Jesus did that they could not recognize the importance of this moment. They saw their master he was with them. Did they really need to keep awake? So they fell asleep, not once but three times. Jesus knew the importance of this hour and tried to convey it to his friends, but they were not yet ready to drink the cup that Jesus would drink from. A cup that Jesus prayed God would remove from him, but knew it was God’s will to drink of it. And it is the same cup that Jesus gave to his friends assuring them that it was the cup of a new covenant sealed in Jesus’ own blood. A cup that Jesus asked James and John if they were ready to take and be baptized in a baptism like Jesus’ own. And yet at this moment the disciples were not ready to drink of that cup. They were not prepared. They wished to remain asleep.
It would be too easy to condemn the disciples for their weakness, for not being prepared at that hour in this hour. But the disciples did drink of the cup. They were awoken and did encounter of the resurrected Jesus. As witnesses to God’s power over death, they were assured of the covenant sealed in Christ’s blood and they went to work, accomplishing the task they had been given knowing that their hour would come and that they too would have to drink of the cup.
It is clear that there are uncertain days that lay ahead for the Presbyterian Church. Each day we move closer and closer to the passage of amending our ordination standards, and on those very same days churches wrestle with whether to stay or leave. And in both cases people feel as though they are being faithful. I believe strongly that things will change within the Presbyterian Church USA. We will see churches that will feel that they must separate from us as we welcome in those who have been bared from fully following their call. This will open us to hearing God’s Word a new and following Jesus down paths that we never knew before. And the question remains is, are we going to wake up and face the uncertain days that lay ahead or are we going to remain sleeping. We, like the disciples, have a choice. We can remain asleep or we can wake up and face the hour that is here and drink the cup, or doze off back to sleep.
The wonderful thing that I failed to mention earlier about the passage was that no matter how many times the disciples were caught sleeping, Jesus never gave up on them. He returned time and again to wake them, stir them from their slumbers, remind them of their duty, to remain awake and pray. And he knew “indeed the spirit is willing and the flesh is weak.” And the same is true with the church. Jesus has not given up on us. Though we may be asleep at times, Jesus returns and awakes us, calling us to get up, to keep awake and pray, to take the cup, and reminds us of the work that is to be done.
Uncertain days lay before us. Unlike the disciples, we know what lies before Jesus in the Gospel, Golgotha and the cross. And yet three days later we know the tomb will be found empty. For we know the promise is true because of the witness of the sleepy disciples who Jesus never gave up on. So we have work to do friends. The master of the household has not returned, so we must remain awake and do the work that we have been given even in these uncertain days.
Hallelujah and Amen
