[Propertalk] Sermon quotes on the Gospel for October 18: Part 2

[Joe Parrish]

Mark's story thus meets his hearers at many levels. It is as though he invites them and us to find ourselves mirrored in these scenes. Out of the reality of history he creates a stage which extends into our reality and invites us to participate, to step into the story, to expose to ourselves our will to power, our lords and our gods and somehow in the process to disentangle ourselves, our 'Lord' and our God from the system. It is dangerous - because all who want power must exterminate sources of threat.

http://wwwstaff.murdoch.edu.au/~loader/MkPentecost20.htm

William Loader
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Perhaps the authors of the Lectionary have gotten tired of hearing Jesus lecture us on the topic of his impending betrayal, arrest, degradation, brutal execution and rising again, but omitting Verses 32-34  completely removes the context for appreciating the shocking display of stupidity and arrogance by James and John. Jesus has just said, "The Romans are going to kill me in a way that they have perfected through practice to cause the maximum possible amount of shame and pain for the longest possible time." And James and John then ask, "Well, after that's all done with, could you give us the best seats in Paradise?"

http://www.holytextures.com/2009/10/mark-10-35-45-year-b-pentecost-24-29-sermon.html


David Ewart, 2009
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Again, Mark's Jesus overturns our presuppositions about power and privilege. In fact, as philosopher Alfred North Whitehead has noted, to single out omnipotence as a defining feature of divinity smacks of a regrettable tendency to pay God "metaphysical compliments," concocting lists of attributes we mistakenly think praise-worthy. As if God needed our flattery, our heaping up of omni's (omnipotent, omniscient, and the rest), our creation of terminology does little more than land us in the sophomoric puzzle with which we started. 

http://www.goodpreacher.com/shareit/readreviews.php?cat=12

Mary Louise Bringle, 2009
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      The problem is, "we know not what we ask, when we ask for the glory of wearing the crown, but ask not for the grace to bear the cross in our way to it", Henry. The crown is ours as a gift of asking, but in the getting, we often join the disciples in self-seeking.

http://www.lectionarystudies.com/studyg/sunday29bg.html

Bryan Findlayson
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As you read this text, you know something the disciples could not comprehend: Jesus aimed to give his life away in order to reconcile the whole world to God. He was ransoming the disciples who remained so in the dark about his mission, ransoming those crucified at his right and left, ransoming the ones who had manipulated systems of justice to bring about his unjust death. 
What does that ransom free you from? What does it free you for? 

http://maryhinkle.typepad.com/pilgrim_preaching/2003/10/secret_ambition.html

Mary Hinkle
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Tension is in the air as Jesus & his friends move towards Jerusalem. He's already given fair warning of what lies ahead. No doubt the tension builds as he goes on to develop in more detail what's going to happen to him, & by association, maybe to them. That kind of tension is completely lacking in the churches to which most of us belong. From an Australian point of view, Christians in our neighbour Indonesia probably come closest to knowing what Jesus really means. In the face of Islam run amok with churches burnt & bombed, Christians murdered, racial hatred feeding the flames of a new intolerance foreign to both Islam & Christianity when they are true to the One God & not crazed fanatics - on either side. 

http://www.angelfire.com/journal2/marginallymark/MMK103245P19.html

Brian McGowan
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 Perhaps James and John, who had been with Jesus on the Mount of Transfiguration and had seen the splendor of Jesus, Moses and Elijah on the mountain, that spiritual experience "went to their heads" and they thought that they were the "greatest of the disciples." James and John had become puffed up with religious superiority after the Mount of Transfiguration.

http://www.sermonsfromseattle.com/series_b_having_the_hearts_and_hands_of_a_servant_GA.htm

Edward F. Markquart
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