Discipleship
February 16, 2021
Scripture Reading: Mark 9:2-9
Six days later, Jesus took with him Peter and James and John, and led them up a high mountain apart, by themselves. And he was transfigured before them, and his clothes became dazzling white, such as no one on earth could bleach them. And there appeared to them Elijah with Moses, who were talking with Jesus. Then Peter said to Jesus, ‘Rabbi, it is good for us to be here; let us make three dwellings, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.’ He did not know what to say, for they were terrified. Then a cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud there came a voice, ‘This is my Son, the Beloved; listen to him!’ Suddenly when they looked around, they saw no one with them anymore, but only Jesus.
As they were coming down the mountain, he ordered them to tell no one about what they had seen, until after the Son of Man had risen from the dead.
There is value in hindsight. Much of what Mark writes is from that perspective. He reports Jesus ordering his disciples not to tell who he was. According to Mark, Jesus even instructed the demons he cast out not to tell who he was. A key phrase in the above scripture is until after the Son of Man had risen from the dead. The world of first-century Judea and Galilee was full of self-proclaimed prophets and messiahs. It was as hard, to tell the truth from fiction then as it is now. They did not have as many sources of information or fact-checkers checking fact-checkers as we do now. The proof is often in the outcome.
Systems theory tells us that people have a strong need to hold on to what is comfortable. This process is called homeostasis, the tendency toward a relatively stable equilibrium between interdependent elements, a tendency toward maintenance of relatively stable social conditions among groups with respect to various factors (as food supply and population among animals) and to competing tendencies and powers within the body politic, to society, or to culture among [people]*. People are more comfortable with clinging to what they know, even when it may be bad for them. As a social worker dealing with families receiving Aid to Families with Dependent Children many years ago, I observed this in my clients. I remember one competent woman whose husband had deserted, leaving her with three small children to raise. A new, small factory opened in her town, and I encouraged her to apply for a job she did and was hired. I continued to visit her for a few weeks after she began working. She was very reticent, scared even, that this would work, but she stayed with it. About six months later, I got a call from her. She had had an emergency appendectomy. I stopped to see her at the hospital. She wanted to thank me for pushing her to make a move out of poverty. Medicaid had paid the birth of her last child. The insurance provided by her employer covered her appendectomy. She could not believe the difference in the way she was treated. A beautiful vase of flowers from her co-workers was on the bedside table. She had made the transition from one comfortable but limited homeostasis to another that allowed her to be more fully the person God had created her to be. She did all the work; I had only planted the seed.
Jesus was planting seeds with his disciples because they were not yet ready to move from the safety of their known world. Following the Resurrection, the disciples moved to new homeostasis where they became the seed planters for a better, stable reality wrapped in God’s love. We, as disciples, continue to hear and respond to that call today.
Prayer: Lord, help us plant seeds of love that guide others to become seed planters too. Amen.
*https://unabridged.merriam-webster.com/unabridged/homeostasis
All scriptures are quoted from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized Edition, copyright 1989, 1995, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights are reserved.
