What Happens Next?: More Sermons for the Lectionary, Year B, Advent through Eastertide

By Bruce L. Taylor

Bruce Taylor's latest volume of sermons for the Common Lectionary (Revised) compiles traditional and story form proclamations for the Sundays and feast days from Advent through Eastertide in Year B of the three-year lectionary cycle. Theologically rich, sacramentally sensitive, and ecumenically minded, these biblically centered sermons articulate God's love for the whole creation, the profound implications of discipleship, and the necessity of Christian unity. Like its predecessors in Taylor's first and second journeys through the lectionary, What Happens Next? is intended for use by preachers, educators, seminary students, and devotional readers, who will all find it to be a welcome companion in penetrating the spiritual genius of the liturgical year and the usefulness of preaching from common texts. The book exemplifies how preaching from Mark's Gospel and the accompanying lectionary readings can shape interaction with the elements of the liturgy to encourage faithful Christian worship. The very uniqueness of Mark among the Gospels is elicited to prompt the whole church and each believer to respond to the question posed implicitly but insistently by the women's discovery of the empty tomb on Easter morning: What happens next?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wipf and Stock
• Release date: Feb 8, 2023
• ISBN: 9781666766165

Bruce L. Taylor

Bruce L. Taylor is a retired Presbyterian Church (USA) minister and attorney and lives in the foothills of Colorado’s Rocky Mountains. He graduated from Northwestern University (BA), the University of Denver (JD), the Iliff School of Theology (MDiv), and Union Theological Seminary in Virginia (PhD), and has served congregations in Texas, Nebraska, Kansas, Nevada, and Oklahoma. He remains active in congregational and denominational life and has published six previous Wipf and Stock titles.

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Introduction

The Gospel of Mark presents some unique issues for homilists and congregants who observe the discipline of following the Common Lectionary (Revised) in worship. The oft-noted lack of reference to Jesus’ conception, birth, and infancy forces a departure from Mark as Advent progresses and Christmastide unfolds. The abruptness of the Easter morning conclusion of Mark as it was probably originally written requires a hasty retreat to the other canonical Gospels for the remainder of the season that celebrates the resurrection through readings about appearances of the risen Christ, which provide scripture’s unambiguous evidence that God raised Jesus from the dead. And the stories and sayings between the first and last verses of the book are, for most people, less quotable than the beloved speeches and parables and signs recorded in Matthew, Luke, and John.

For all that, however, the oldest of the canonical Gospels is no less instructive, preachable, and theologically significant than its biblical companions. The emphases on hopeful waiting and penitent preparation for Christ are less susceptible to our own sentimental fancy here, and the direct journey from the Jordan to Golgotha crystalizes the destiny of the Son of Man and, accordingly, those who follow him.

The persistent question the evangelist places before readers and hearers, Who is Jesus?, intensifies through miracle upon miracle finally to reach a climax in the women’s fear-inducing discovery of the empty tomb hard upon the hopeless grief of the crucifixion. Readers and hearers are confronted with the need, themselves, to respond to the question, or dilemma, posed by the unsettling and factually ambiguous report that he is not here (Mark 16:6). The Gospel itself provides no narrative confirmation that Christ yet lives, nor that he ever actually reunited with his disciples and Peter (16:7). Indeed, by Mark’s own testimony, the women were too afraid to pass on the (angelic?) report and explanation of the disappearance of Jesus’ body. Thus, literarily, the original ending of the Gospel casts a veil of uncertainty not only on the resurrection as a physical event, but also upon God’s approval of Jesus’ promises, of which raising Jesus from the dead would be the best guarantee. How can the reader and hearer resolve their own life’s most critical decision, except through faith based on the Spirit’s leavening in the soul of the believer, worked by the Gospel’s report? It is to such faith, life-changing and life-defining, that Mark seeks to call his audience. Articulating that call is therefore the task and responsibility of the faithful preacher of Mark’s good news.

Of course, Year B of the Common Lectionary (Revised) offers homilists and worshipers more than the testimony of only one book of the Bible, and the riches of the Old and New Testament readings appointed to accompany the lections from Mark, and sometimes taking the place of lections from Mark, also contribute to what later Christians know, in its fullness, as gospel. The earliest audience of Mark’s Gospel was living out its response to the final story in the book. A sermon, by itself, cannot compel any particular answer to the question What happens next? But the homilist’s assignment and privilege is to encourage serious, prayerful, and faithful response to that question by individual believers and by every community of believers formed by the Holy Spirit where and as the question is asked. It is my own prayerful hope that the sermons preached on Sundays and feast days in various places that have been collected herein were and remain a worthy effort, effective as the Holy Spirit has been able to make use of them, to prompt honest, insightful, faith-enhancing, and, as required, sacrificial loyalty to Jesus Christ.

As always, I am grateful for the exegetical wisdom of the many commentators and interpreters I consulted when preparing these sermons; to my many more mentors, formal and informal, knowing and unknowing, intentional and unplanned but Spirit-occasioned; and to many congregation members over the years who were affectionate and sometimes daring companions on the quest toward faithful discipleship. I am writing this introduction during the days between the death of Queen Elizabeth II at Balmoral Castle and her funeral at Westminster Abbey. At many points along that final royal journey, her faith in God is being acknowledged in grateful words and worshipful deeds. None of us can read truly the quality or dimensions of another’s faith, nor should we try to do so nor even imagine that we could, and many people will identify royal occasions and instances when they think faith might have been expressed more finely or forcefully, but the fact that it was and is being so regularly accorded verbal recognition in connection with her reign and last wishes serves as a reminder that Mark’s question demands a response even from the most privileged and prestigious among us. And we rightly give thanks to God for every example of believers attempting to live a life of service to Jesus Christ by serving others with humility, generosity, love, and grace.

First Sunday in Advent

Spanish Springs Presbyterian Church, Sparks, Nevada

December 1, 2002

Isaiah 64:1–9

1 Corinthians 1:3–9

Mark 13:24–37

Waiting for a Certainty

Waiting. It’s something that I don’t do very well. If I’m expecting an important telephone call, if I’m needing to get someplace and dependent upon another person for transportation, if I’m relying on someone else to provide information so that I can get on with some pressing project, I find it difficult to concentrate on another subject. I find it difficult to stay seated. I find it difficult to read or even watch television. I fidget. I pace. I look at the clock. I sigh. Waiting is about the hardest thing that I ever have to do.

There are times and circumstances that waiting is hard for anyone. Sitting in the hospital waiting room during surgery on someone we love. Waiting for a baby to be born, our new son or daughter. Waiting for that same daughter or son to come driving home on a stormy night. Waiting, sometimes, for a sick loved one who has been in pain from an incurable and ravaging disease, to die. Perhaps the waiting is hardest when we don’t know exactly what it is that we’re waiting for, as in a war zone, where soldiers are keen on edge, nervous about what’s going to happen and just wishing that it finally would happen, whatever it is.

That must have been the way it was back in the days and weeks and months and years covered by the last chapters of Isaiah. The people of Israel had been chastised by Babylon’s conquest of their country, by the destruction of their cities, by their exile in a far-off land, and when, after waiting, waiting for the opportunity to return to Judea, they finally got to do so, still things did not go well for them. God, who had seemed such a vital presence in their lives throughout their history, seemed to have abandoned them when the temple fell. It was as if God had never chosen them, had never favored them with blessings of prosperity and peace. It was as if their unique mission as a nation had been taken away from them, and with it, God’s interest in them at all. It was as if their prayers just went up and out into space. Like a lover crazed when letter upon letter receives no reply, like a child craving attention from a parent to the point that it would make no difference whether it was praise or rebuke, the people of Israel were desperate for some sign that God still cared for them or at least still acknowledged that they even existed.

Silence. More waiting. O that you would tear open the heavens and come down (Isa 64:1a), the prophet shouted at heaven. We can almost see him out on some hilltop, his arms raised to the sky, his voice raspy, tears of hurt and frustration streaming down his face, as he pleads with God to answer, to show a sign, to do anything, so long as it is something, to indicate that God is still there, even.

O that you would tear open the heavens and come down,

so that the mountains would quake at your presence—

as when fire kindles brushwood

and the fire causes water to boil—

to make your name known to your adversaries,

so that the nations might tremble at your presence! (

64

:

1

–

2

)

A sign—not just to God’s people Israel, but to those nations that scoffed at Israel’s God, that worshiped idols, that had caused Israel such misery and still threatened Israel with harm. God had always been present with Israel in the past, had done great and wondrous things like passing over their houses when he visited death upon their oppressors and opening up the Red Sea for their escape from slavery and providing Israel with manna from the sky and water from a rock in the wilderness of Sinai.

From ages past no one has heard,

no ear has perceived,

no eye has seen any God besides you,

who works for those who wait for him. (

64

:

4

)

Ah! But the waiting is so hard. And it was especially hard now, since Israel felt so utterly helpless, and feared that she had been abandoned by God altogether.

And it made the sense of abandonment no easier to endure, simply to suspect—to know—that it was because of Israel’s own sin that she was now in misery and that, by the scales of human justice, God had every right to abandon such an iniquitous people.

You meet those who gladly do right,

those who remember you in your ways.

But you were angry, and we sinned;

because you hid yourself we transgressed.

We have all become like one who is unclean,

and all our righteous deeds are like a filthy cloth.

We all fade like a leaf,

and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away. (

64

:

5

–

6

)

For that matter, many people had given up on God’s doing anything to help them. Once, they had neglected to call on God’s name because they had forgotten him. Now, they neglected to call on God’s name because it seemed he had forgotten them.

There is no one who calls on your name,

or attempts to take hold of you;

for you have hidden your face from us,

and have delivered us into the hand of our iniquity. (

64

:

7

)

The prophet admitted that God’s stony silence was exactly what his people deserved.

But then came a change in the prophet’s appeal to God. Like Moses long before him, admitting the unfaithfulness of his people but reminding God of the grand purpose of creation, the prophet here asked God whether the great divine architect would abandon the whole project of creation, and so declare that the divine handiwork was not really good at all. And in one of the few places in the Old Testament, God is addressed by a familial name.

Yet, O

Lord

, you are our Father;

we are the clay, and you are our potter;

we are all the work of your hand.

Do not be exceedingly angry, O

Lord

,

and do not remember iniquity forever.

Now consider,—

Look! Think about it!—

we are all your people. (

64

:

8

–

9

)

More silence—how long? We can just imagine the prophet searching the heavens with his eyes, straining his ears to hear a word on the wind, wondering, waiting, more hard waiting. And then at last came a response—God’s vow to punish the unfaithful, and God’s promise to restore the faithful.

I don’t suppose there is any one of us who hasn’t felt what the prophet felt, when, in some time of despair and longing, God was silent. In a time of illness, in a time of death, in a time of unemployment, maybe in the throes of divorce, we have figuratively, or maybe literally, stood on some hilltop shouting at heaven demanding that God show himself. I don’t think it’s blasphemous. Indeed, it’s really a matter of faith. Like the prophet long ago, when you and I are moved to shout at God, to plead with God, even to accuse God of not caring, it can only be because we have experienced God’s caring presence in our lives before, have known it to be the normal state of things. We would not be desperate for God if we had never been blessed by God.

It was in the early 1960s that newspaper and magazine headlines posed the question that a few theologians had uttered: Is God dead? Of course, it was shocking at the time—some people panicked at the thought—and the whole controversy rallied pulpiteers to a rousing chorus of denial to such blasphemy. Actually, the issue raised by theologians wasn’t so much the possibility that God had died as that our perception of God had died with the progress of science in explaining the workings of nature, with the progress of social sciences in explaining the ways of human behavior, with the post-war boom of affluence that seemed to make us less reliant on God’s favor, with the apparent growing disregard of conventional morality without any raining down upon us of fire and brimstone. Except for the nemesis Soviet Union, the world was our oyster, as they say—at least it was if you were not female or black or Hispanic or Native American. The ethicists, in essence, said that we no longer took God seriously. The cynics, in essence, said that we no longer needed God as a crutch.

But we began to feel that God really was absent when bullets rang out in Dallas and in Memphis and in Los Angeles, and at Kent State and My Lai, and when fires spread in Watts and Detroit, and when corruption besmirched the highest office in our land, and we realized once again that we need God in our national life, even as we suspect, in our moments of complete honesty, that these events all have to do with our own sin, collectively, as a society. The radio talk show hosts, of course, would scoff at such a suggestion of collective national sin. But the Bible doesn’t.

Jesus and his first disciples lived in a troubled time. Rome was the world’s only super-power, and the emperor had declared the Pax Romana—the Roman Peace—saying that the whole world would operate on Roman rules and serve Rome’s economy. But although (or because) soldiers imposed the Roman order from Gibraltar to Jerusalem, many were miserable, many were hungry, many were slaves. Nowhere was the absurdity of Rome’s proclamation of peace more evident than in Palestine. If the Jews were not totally dismayed that they were being ruled by pagan Romans, it was only because they had been ruled by a succession of pagan tyrants since Isaiah’s time—Persians, Greeks, now Romans. They still worshiped God, they still made sacrifices for atonement of their sins, once again they had a grand and glorious temple. But if God couldn’t prevent the Roman conquest, if God sat idly by while pagans desecrated Jewish holy places and trampled on Jewish sensitivities, had God gone on vacation? Was God off-duty? To put it in a more urgent phrase, was God dead?

One of Jesus’ disciples said to him, as they were walking out of the temple after coming up to Jerusalem, Look, Teacher, what large stones and what large buildings! (Mark 13:1b). They didn’t have anything like that back in sleepy little Capernaum. That prompted Jesus to comment that even the great impressive monuments to human ingenuity and skill and power would come tumbling down at the end of the age, when the cosmos would collapse and the Son of Man would return in glory. Then would be the fulfillment of creation and the culmination of faith. Christ, the Son of Man, would send out his angels and gather together all of his chosen. Tell us, the disciples asked about the end of the age, when will this be, and what will be the sign that all these things are about to be accomplished? (13:4) From the fig tree learn its lesson, Jesus said:

"as soon as its branch becomes tender and puts forth its leaves, you know that summer is near. . . .

But about that day or hour no one knows, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. Beware, keep alert; for you do not know when the time will come. It is like a man going on a journey, when he leaves home and puts his slaves in charge, each with his work, and commands the doorkeeper to be on the watch. Therefore, keep awake—for you do not know when the master of the house will come, in the evening, or at midnight, or at cockcrow, or at dawn, or else he may find you asleep when he comes suddenly. And what I say to you I say to all: Keep awake. (

13

:

28

,

32

–

37

)

Perhaps, in our time, the angel of death no longer passes over houses that have blood smeared on their doorposts, but an angel of healing walked through the alleys of Calcutta. Perhaps, in our time, the sea no longer opens up for slaves to escape their taskmasters, but apartheid fell. Perhaps, in our time, manna no longer falls from heaven, but the food you brought as a part of your offering today will nourish people in Sparks and Reno who didn’t know where their next meal was going to come from. When we are waiting, waiting, the silence of God is deafening. But God is not dead. God is quietly at work in hearts and minds, in deeds of mercy and instances of generosity and acts of justice, preparing for Christ’s return in a way that will not escape anyone’s notice. O that you would tear open the heavens and come down! (Isa 64:1a) the prophet shouted. But in those days, after that suffering, the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will be falling from heaven, and the powers in the heavens will be shaken (Mark 13:24–25), explained Jesus. And he promised, Then they will see ‘the Son of Man coming in clouds’ with great power and glory (13:26). Like the master of the house returning from a journey, but no one knows when, and so the servants need always to be prepared, doing their tasks faithfully in the meantime, keeping the house in order, we are waiting for a certainty.

God is not uncaring. God is not unreliable. God does not leave us comfortless or desolate. The waiting may be hard—waiting for peace, waiting for justice, waiting for reconciliation, waiting for vindication. God is working these things through the ministry and witness of people who recognize the time of waiting as a time of grace, in which our faithfulness hastens God’s triumph. And what we are ultimately waiting for is a certainty—the return of Christ, when God’s will shall be accomplished fully and completely and for all eternity. Do not fear. Only be ready by being God’s faithful people today, obeying Jesus Christ today, living in joy and hope today. For the greatest certainty today, as the greatest certainty has always been, is the faithfulness of God.

Second Sunday in Advent

First Presbyterian Church, Ponca City, Oklahoma

December 7, 2014

Isaiah 40:1–11

2 Peter 3:8–15a

Mark 1:1–8

We Have Work to Do

What were the weeks before Christmas like at your house when you were young? I remember a household in which my mother was very busy. She was quite a decorator and cook. When I was growing up, every room in the house had reminders that it was the Christmas season, and there was always some holiday confection cooking on the stove or some special pastry baking in the oven.

My father was transferred from Salt Lake City to El Paso about the time I turned seven years old. Just as we moved into our new house in the middle of November, my mother discovered that it had been included on a holiday home tour. Clearly, she had a lot of work to do. In a matter of two weeks or so, even before we were really unpacked and settled in our new house, she single-handedly transformed it into a Christmas showplace (and in the mid-1950s, finding an attractive Christmas tree in El Paso, Texas, in the waning days of November was close to a miracle). She made almost all of the decorations by hand, plus baking cookies and breads and cakes.

That major undertaking sort of set a standard of Christmas preparation for our family home as I was growing up. In a minister’s household, though, time for my own family this season of year was minimal, so the house in which Christi and Jesse and Beth grew up did not get the full treatment, but, like just about every family, we had some rituals of holiday decoration, and there was always extra baking. This year, just a few days ago, Linda and I discovered a leak from the dishwasher into the dining room. This entire week has involved removing moldy dining room carpet and sheetrock and emptying and moving the china cabinet and stuff piled everywhere, so our Christmas decorating plans in our rented townhouse have been disrupted in a big way, delaying any household preparations for the holiday.

But holiday decorating, and selecting the tree, and addressing cards, and buying or making gifts and wrapping them and sending them off or putting them under the tree, are probably what most of us think of when we talk about getting ready for Christmas. Certainly, that is the work the media would have us think needs to get done. That is how we have learned to busy ourselves in the days leading up to December twenty-fifth, the day selected long ago to commemorate God’s arrival among us in Jesus Christ. And none of us would want to give up any of those things—we enjoy them, the festive mood, the added bustle, even the extra pounds.

Some of us remember that preparation for Christmas should also mean preparing ourselves spiritually, although even in the church, the season of Advent, of waiting and preparing, of reflection and repentance, has become practically lost in the impatient rush to Christmas. We might engage in the discipline of daily devotional reading. We might donate time to the emergency shelter or the Salvation Army. We may increase our frequency of attendance at worship, even. In some way, we sense that, beyond the holiday trivia, there is a holy-day truth that should command our attention in ways beyond simply filling our social calendars and loading our credit cards.

We may even recognize that, when the Bible speaks of preparation for the coming of the Lord, it means much more than kindly wishes and holiday greetings. It means repentance and proclamation. Scripture encourages us to ponder words such as these:

A voice cries out:

"In the wilderness prepare the way of the

Lord

,

make straight in the desert a highway for our God.

Every valley shall be lifted up,

and every mountain and hill be made low;

the uneven ground shall become level,

and the rough places a plain.

Then the glory of the

Lord

shall be revealed,

and all people shall see it together,

for the mouth of the

Lord

has spoken." (Isa

40

:

3

–

5

)

Scripture presents us with images like these:

John the baptizer appeared in the wilderness, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. And people from the whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem were going out to him, and were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins. Now John was clothed with camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey. He proclaimed, "The one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to stoop down and untie the thong of his sandals. I have baptized you with water; but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit." (Mark

1

:

4

–

8

)

Scripture declares that preparation for the coming of the Lord involves changing our ways, relieving suffering, hearing and accepting and passing on the message of salvation, working to make God’s way into the world easier, living now as citizens of the kingdom which is yet to come.

Preparing—proclaiming and calling to repentance—that is the work of prophets. But prophets are not much in fashion today. They are ridiculed on talk radio. They are labeled as fanatics by many in the business establishment. They are oftentimes silenced even by church boards, or, at least, ignored. Well, not much has changed over the centuries. There’s not one of us in this room who wouldn’t have thought that John the baptizer was a kook, and probably Isaiah before him. When the religious and social and political leaders were enjoying themselves at the expense of the poor and the outcast, the prophets had an irritating habit of spoiling the party. When the regular folks enjoyed pitying their own misery, the prophets had an annoying insistence that God wanted them to live in faith.

The prophet known to scholars as Second Isaiah began his writing by quoting God’s instruction to comfort God’s people—to remove from them any reason for suffering. Lift the burden of captivity, the prophet was commanded. "Say to the exiles in Babylon that the time of punishment for their sins is over. The debt has been