Failed Devotion
Mark 11:8-9;14:1-2, 10-11, 41-54, 66-72; 15:8-20
by Jim Westmoreland
The gospel readings in Mark this morning were about failed
devotion. The hosannas of the Palm Sunday crowds somehow
became the crucify him shouts at Jesus' trial. Like the crowds
we often deceive ourselves about our own devotion.
A small-town prosecuting attorney called his first witness to the stand in a trial -- a grandmotherly, elderly woman. He approached her and asked, "Mrs. Jones, do you know me?"
She responded, "Why, yes, I do know you, Mr. Williams. I've known you since you were a young boy. And frankly, you've been a big disappointment to me. You lie, you cheat on your wife, you manipulate people and talk about them behind their backs. You think you're a rising big shot when you haven't the brains to realize you never will amount to anything more than a two-bit paper pusher. Yes, I know you."
The lawyer was stunned. Not knowing what else to do he pointed across the room and asked, "Mrs. Williams, do you know the defense attorney?"
She again replied, "Why, yes I do. I've known Mr. Bradley since he was a youngster, too. I used to baby-sit him for his parents. And he, too, has been a real disappointment to me. He's lazy, bigoted, he has a drinking problem. The man can't build a normal relationship with anyone and his law practice is one of the shoddiest in the entire state. Yes, I know him."
At this point, the judge rapped the courtroom to silence and called both counselors to the bench. In a very quiet voice, he said with sternness, "If either of you asks her if she knows me, you'll be jailed for contempt!"(1)
The scriptures make no attempt to cover up the mistakes of the characters, whether it be the kings of Israel, their leaders or, in the passages read this morning, the disciples and followers of Jesus. To pull these examples of failed devotion together for our reading is both sad and depressing. I want things to be joyous and upbeat, but that is not what sent Jesus to the cross. He went to the cross because of the evil and sin of others. He went to the cross because of my sin.
It is not so hard to identify with the fickleness of the crowd. One day praising Him and the next day turning on Him like a jilted lover. He would not be pressured into being the kind of Messiah that they wanted Him to be. People can sometimes become mean when their expectations are not met. They can turn on you, and you wonder "what happened."
The priests and scribes, the religious leaders of the people, were devoted to God and worshiped in hope of the coming of the Messiah (the anointed one). Jesus didn't meet their expectations of a Messiah and they began to plot to kill him. Judas Iscariot, known in the four gospels and other letters, which were included in the canon of the New Testament, was considered the one who betrayed Jesus. Here were people close to God and close to Jesus. Yet, their devotion failed to meet the test. When the real test came, they betrayed Jesus.
Jesus spoke to the disciples and told them that they would all become deserters, and Peter said, "Not me! I'll go with you to even to death." And Jesus told Peter that he would deny Him three times before the cock crowed twice. The story of Peter's denials that evening around the camp fire while Jesus was being trial is one of the saddest stories in the scriptures, especially when the cock crowed the second time and Peter knew what he had done. The scriptures tell us that he went away and wept bitterly. Failed devotion not hurts Jesus. It hurts us too.
How many times have we heard ourselves hear someone say, I've been a Christian for 50 years. It doesn't matter if it is 5, 10 or 20 years. Jesus asks us if we have 50 years experience or one year 50 times. How deep has our devotion taken us in following Jesus as His faithful disciple?
Jesus took His disciples with Him to the garden of Gethsemanee to pray, and He told them to keep awake. He came back three times. The third time he came back and they were still sleeping. He said to them "The hour has come for me to be betrayed into the hands of sinners." And he was then arrested.
When the needs around us are great, when we are uncertain of what Jesus wants us to do, one thing Jesus calls us to do is to stay awake, and He calls us to pray. Discipleship is not about convenience. It is about being faithful. It is about sacrifice. It is about service to meet someone else's needs.
The chief priests stirred up the crowd to have Pilate release Barabbus and have Jesus crucified. The hosanna crowd became the "crucify him" crowd. This section ends with the soldiers mocking Jesus. They twisted thorns together into a crown and pushing it on His head, they said, "Hail, King of the Jews." And all the disciples had vanished. At the critical hour it was no longer convenient or comfortable or safe to be a follower of Jesus.
When the critical moments come, what do we do? What does it mean to be a follower of Jesus? What does it mean for us to be known as a Christian?
A church member complained about the pastor's constant harping on the theme of drawing nigh unto God. She confessed, "I don't want to get close to God. I just want to get over in a corner and sneak into heaven quietly. I don't want to be a saint. I just don't want to go to hell."
"I cannot believe what I'm hearing!" The pastor exclaimed.
"I can explain it easily," she said calmly. "When I started the ninth grade I set my heart on finishing high school with straight C's. And I did. You see, if you fail you have to repeat, and I wanted out. But if you start making A's people begin to expect things of you."
"It's exactly like that with God," she continued. "If you're too bad you'll go to hell, and I don't want that. But if you're too good, he'll send you to India, and I don't want that either."(2)
I don't think that this kind of thinking is all that isolated or unique. It represents the kind of belief that reaches out to choke the lives of millions of sincere, but sincerely confused Christians. Quite apart from her misguided theology of works, her theory of "C-average" Christianity betrays a very distorted understanding of the character and nature of God and who He calls us to be as Christians.
But the truth is that we have all fallen short of the high calling of God. But that doesn't mean that we rationalize our laziness and selfishness and our fear of standing out from the crowd as a Christian. What do we do? What do we do with our own failed devotion that is just as sickening today as when the disciples failed so miserably?
We confess our failures. We commit ourselves to be faithful disciples, and we ask forgiveness for our sins. Like the disciples we confess that Jesus was alone on the cross because we deserted Him and ran.
We will never be worthy, but He is. If there's ever going to be glory and hallelujah in our hearts, it must be now! We can't wait to be worthy! Our hearts, however wounded and discouraged, however failed our devotion, must confess and receive His forgiveness, and we must give way once more to the longing for and anticipation of the coming of the Christ, and we must proclaim our Hosannas to the One who comes in the name of the Lord!(3) Amen.
Century Christian Church, April 9, 2006 - Sermon by Jim Westmoreland
www.centurychristian.org
2. Mark Rutland's The Finger of God: Reuniting Power and Holiness in the Church (Wilmore, Ky: Bristol Books, 1988), 16-17.
3. Virginia Stem Owens, Passion Sunday, in The Chrysostom Society Staff, Stories for the Christian Year (New York: Macmillan, 1992), 108.