In this week’s Gospel (Mark 9:30-37) we get another dose of Jesus breaking the fourth wall. If you’re not familiar with that phrase, it comes from media, particularly TV and movies in my experience, where the people inside the world of the show or movie look at the camera or make an aside that is explicitly directed at the audience. Modern media thrives on the fact that the audience forgets that it is observing something from the outside and gets pulled into the story that is being told. A way to play with this expectation is for authors and storytellers to break the fourth wall and address the audience directly. In Mark’s Gospel this week we have Jesus breaking the fourth wall to talk to us … again.
Last week we had Jesus ask us the climactic question of Mark’s Gospel “Who do you say that I am?” While it sounds like he is interrogating the disciples, the question is really being asked of us. Who do we say Jesus is? This week we do not get to glory in answering the BIG question the right way, we have to admit to Jesus what’s been going on in the background. “What were you arguing about on the way?” Jesus asks us with a slightly pointed note in his voice. Once again, despite asking the disciples in the narrative, we know in our bones, that Jesus is asking us. What were we arguing about? There’s a hitch in our step as we look to Jesus to admit what it was we were arguing about, and also as we look at our neighbor and realize the banality of our disagreement. Who’s the greatest? Can women be ordained? Should LGBTQ+ folks be allowed to be full members of the Church? Do you believe all the right things yet? Might as well ask who can drink the ocean faster with a straw!
So many of our arguments are trivial when we consider them in the light of the demands the Gospel makes on us. The Torah, the first five books of the Bible, ask if we’ve exploited the stranger in our midst or kept the wages of the worker unjustly. John the Baptist asks if we’ve given away that extra coat we don’t need yet. Mary, Jesus’ mother, asks if we have set ourselves on a throne that is too high, and if we’ve come down yet. Peter asks if we’ve included those we thought were un-includable. And Jesus asks us if we’ve cared for the least of these who are his family, and truly himself, in the world.
These are the questions of transformation, personal and communal, that are really worth arguing about. How shall we do these things and do them well with the gifts God has entrusted to us? How shall we steward the abundance of God? How is God calling us to change and respond today?
St. Augustine's Chapel 