(Homily for Gayton Road Christian Church's Worship on April 28, 2019, Easter II)
Subjected to Soccer and Gardens
I cannot remember this myself,
but I am told that when I was only months old, and would wake my parents up in
the wee hours of the night, my dad would regularly take me to the living room
and subject me to watching soccer on the television. A few years later, I would be subjected to watching my older
brother play soccer every Saturday.
Is it any wonder I began playing soccer myself?
I remember in fourth grade how my
teacher subjected the class to a reading of The
Secret Garden. At first I was
bored. How could a story about a
garden fill up nearly four hundred pages?
How would I last? But
subjected to this story day after day, I unconsciously became hooked. By the end of the book, several friends
and I had already decided to try to plant a garden of our own.
A Subject is Subjected
Our society prizes
independence. The self-made man is
a distinctly American myth. The
idea is that we are all free subjects.
And the subject—if you’ll remember from grammar lessons long ago—is the
hero in a sentence. The subject
comes first. The subject is the
agent, the performer, the one in control.
The subject acts upon objects, rather than being acted upon.
But that is only half of the story
of the subject. The other half,
which our society tends to forget, is found in the dictionary. The dictionary tells us that subject is also a verb. To “subject” something is to cause it
to undergo an experience. To be
subjected to something is to be formed or shaped by something outside us,
something over which we have little control. To be subjected is how a subject is made. A subject is subjected.
The full story, then, is
this. There is no free, self-made
subject. All subjects are also the
products of experiences and forces outside themselves. This truth is at the heart of
observations like, “The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree,” which is to say,
children subjected to the habits of their parents or teachers often assume
those same habits. Or, “choose
your friends wisely,” which is to say, we are subjected to the ways of our
friends and if exposed to them long enough we may reproduce these ways
ourselves.
Peter and the Disciples: Subjects of the World
The last seven weeks, we journeyed
through the gospel of Mark together.
One thing we noticed was how dense, how willfully obtuse, the disciples
seemed at times. For example,
Jesus once told his disciples that welcoming little children was the same thing
as welcoming him. What do the
disciples do the next chapter when people bring little children to them? They don’t welcome them. In fact, they do the opposite: they rebuke them! Did they not remember what Jesus had just said?
Mark never tells us why the
disciples are so uncomprehending, but I have a theory. They were subjects of the world. They had been subjected all their lives
to stories about how important it was to have power and possessions and
prestige. As residents of an
occupied territory, continually harassed and put in their place by the Roman
empire, they had been subjected to dreams of overthrowing the empire and
repossessing their land and reclaiming their pride. When Jesus talked about the first being last, or about the great
being the least and servants of all, or about welcoming little children, who
were nobodies and nothings in the grand scheme of thing—when Jesus shared the
gospel, they did not understand it.
They were subjects of the world, where first meant rising to the top,
where greatness meant being above others.
Peter and the Disciples: Subjects of the Risen
Christ
But in today’s scripture,
something has clearly changed. In
today’s scripture, the same Peter and followers of Christ who couldn’t
understand Jesus in Mark, clearly understand him now. When we find them in front of the Jewish religious leaders
today, they have already been in prison twice for proclaiming the gospel.
It is a dramatic reversal of
character. It is, in fact, the
very definition of repentance, which in the Greek means a change of heart and
mind. They had once aspired to
power. But they now proudly bear
chains for proclaiming a love that goes to the cross and beyond.
Perhaps it was having been
subjected to the dramatic experience of Christ that transforms Peter and the
disciples. Perhaps having seen
Jesus give himself in love to the last and the least and the lowly time and
again, perhaps having seen how the power of such a love defied death—perhaps
this is what changes them. Now
they are subjects of the risen Christ, proclaiming a gospel that would turn the
world on its head. Or as they put
it, they are proclaiming “repentance and forgiveness of sins,” which is to say,
a radical change of mind and a forgiveness that liberates us from the past and
all that we have been subjected to.
Becoming Subjects of the Risen Christ
The dramatic change in Peter and
the earliest followers of Christ has me wondering. For days—for
months—the disciples had followed Jesus but not really understood his
message. Only after the cross and
the risen Christ did they really understand. Only then did they become subjects of Christ.
What about me? I am a subject of this world in
countless ways, not only as a soccer player in my youth or as a gardener in the
fourth grade, but also as someone who has been taught the values of saving for
the future (Jesus had a thing or two to say about bigger barns); as someone who
has been taught the importance of keeping up appearances (Jesus had a thing or
two to say about people who act for the sake of being seen); as someone who has
been taught the need to compete with others to do well in this world (Jesus had
a thing or two to say about trying to get ahead of others).
What would it mean for me to
become more fully a subject of the crucified and risen Christ?
Perhaps, to begin, it means that
I need to encounter more fully Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection in the
world around me. I am reminded,
for instance, how the most blessed and fulfilled people I know in my life are
persons who bear scars but also great love. Which is to say, they have borne the cross and they also
bear witness to resurrection. In
their company, I am subjected to the crucified and risen Christ.
Perhaps to become more fully a
subject about the crucified and risen Christ also means to let go. Paul continually talks of being
“crucified with Christ,” which sounds like a way of saying that Christ helps us
to realize some things do not matter as much as we think they do. Christ liberates us from the concerns
and worries that once subjected us.
Thus Paul also talks about the world being crucified to him. Life no longer means what it once did;
in Christ, everything is reordered.
Today’s passage ends with Peter
and the apostles proclaiming, “We are witnesses to these things” (5:32). There’s a dark note of foreshadowing in
that word “witness”; in the Greek, it is the same word for “martyr.” And indeed, according to tradition,
Peter and the apostles will become martyrs. But I would argue that just important as their death is their
life, which reflected a change, a new way of living.
Today before we pray, I invite you
to pause with for just one moment to ponder within. What is one way that the world continues to subject you, to
make you its subject? (Maybe it
has to do with a pattern of behavior; a relationship; the entertainment or news
industry; money.)
What is one way that you might
subject this part of your life to Christ?
What is one way that you might bear witness to the change and new life
that his life calls for?
Prayer
Risen Christ,
Where there remains in us
The vestige of the world’s old ways:
Liberate us by your forgiveness,
Liberate us by your forgiveness,
And change our hearts and minds,
That we might live
Not as subjects of the world
But as subjects of your love,
In which we are all crucified
And risen to new life.
Amen.
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