SAY TO THIS MOUNTAIN

Genesis 6:11-14, 17-22; Mark 11:18-28

Truly I tell you, if you say to this mountain, "Be taken up and thrown into the sea," and if you do not doubt in your heart, but believe that what you say will come to pass, it will be done for you.

They were just words. One day, Noah heard some words. And they were not even human words, but words spoken in the inscrutable language of the divine. And Noah believed them.

They were words that must have made the people around him think he was crazy. We've seen all the children's plays and stories about Noah, how everyone came to think of him as kind of a religious kook. Because those words took on wood. And pitch. And a keel and a roof. And suddenly, in the middle of the desert mountains, something big happened. Something huge. An ark. Because someone listened to those words. What was huge wasn't the size of the ark, but the faith of the builder--faith that God's word would accomplish something big: create a new world, cleanse the old, with a sky full of possibility and promise.

***

That's the story our stewardship committee has chosen to reflect upon this fall: the faith of Noah. How his listening to these words, his faith in God, was the cause for something big to happen, something seemingly impossible.

This morning, I'd like to reflect with you on something that's really from Christianity 101: faith. What is the nature of faith? What does it mean to have faith? What good does it do in our lives? Can it change us, me; help me have a better marriage, create peace in the Middle East? Faith indeed makes some rather large claims in Christianity: We hear that through faith, we can do impossible things; we can move mountains.

***

So today, let's look at this passage from Mark in which Jesus speaks about that kind of faith: faith that can do the impossible, faith that can "move mountains." Let's pick it apart this morning. We're going to look at the scripture in some detail (again) this morning...do some Bible study. As I did last week I'd invite you to turn to that passage in your Bible we're studying today from Mark 11 if you're so inclined; it's on page 41-42 of your pew Bibles. (If you gave money for theseÑaren't you glad we're getting some good use out of them here?)

So first: let's say a little about the context of the passage. Let's review what happens before this. Chapter 11 is about Jesus' entry in to Jerusalem, which we usually celebrate on Palm Sunday, to mark the beginning of Holy Week. He goes into Jerusalem, but the place he really wants to go is the Temple--but it's too late to go to the Temple, so he goes to Bethany for the night, and returns to Jerusalem the next day. On the way to Jerusalem, to visit the Temple, Jesus curses a fig tree (v. 12) because he's hungry, and it's not got any fruit. One of the strangest stories in the gospel. Jesus goes into the Temple--that's a key detail--and cleanses the Temple. He seems to think that human beings have turned religion into a racket, instead of helping them find God. And then when he returns he finds the fig tree withered. And then this strange idea...that you can move mountains through the power of faith:

Truly I tell you, if you say to this mountain, "Be taken up and thrown into the sea," and if you do not doubt in your heart, but believe that what you say will come to pass, it will be done for you.

***

Another thing we might notice about Mark 11: lots of speaking. Mark seems intentional about using that word: Lego in Greek. In verse 17, "he was teaching and saying." Jesus is speaking, and things are happening. Jesus speaks at the beginning of the chapter--and suddenly, there's a donkey. Jesus speaks a curse and a fig tree dies. (A reminder perhaps that it was good to stay on Jesus' good side!)

And in this verse, which we're looking at today: notice how he says this, he says: "If you say to this mountain." There's that word again. Why not "if you believe this mountain can be moved"? No: "if you say to this mountain...be moved;" and later he says, "If you believe that what you say will come to pass, it shall be done for you." It's not just about believing, it's about saying somehow. Why is that?

"If you say to this mountain." Kind of funny, isn't it. "Hey--mountain! Amscray!" Kind of ridiculous--to tell a mountain to get out of town. How is that possible? What's up with that?

***

One thing that may be helpful here. It's critical, I think, to understand that in the scriptures, creation, the act of creating, is connected with speaking. Think about Genesis 1, the very beginning of the Bible: God literally speaks the creation into being. "And God said, let there be light, and there was light." Words are the means for creating a world.

Thinking about how Mark 11 is so full of speaking, we might say that Jesus, in a sense, creates a new world through his speaking, his teaching. Jesus creates a new reality. It's a world made of words; it's a world constructed out of a teaching. Jesus, through his teaching, gives us a door to another world, a new way of being. If we go through that door, we enter another world, created by words.

Jesus' first act in the three synoptic gospels, Matthew, Mark and Luke, the first words out of his mouth in public were to proclaim the Kingdom of God. His first words were these: "The time is at hand! The Kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the Good News." Jesus speaks a Kingdom, a world, into being.

***

Just consider your life, and then consider this statement for a moment, the statement: your creation, your world, the world you live in, consists of what you believe. And what you believe consists of what you say, the manifestation of what you believe. In other words, do we not, "put our money where our mouth is?"

"I am beautiful." Is that the world you're living in? Speak it and try it out. No in saying it literally, but expressing it in your life. Is that the world you're living in?

I remember several years ago listening to NPR, and the program Fresh Air with Terri Gross. And I think it was when Terri Gross was off--this other woman was doing the interview. And it was a show that featured a woman who had founded a network for people who had experienced disfigurement, their faces or bodies had been disfigured physically. And at one point in the interview, the interviewer asked, "Do you ever yearn to be beautiful?" And without missing a beat, the woman responded: "What do you mean? I am beautiful."

***

All this talk about faith creating a world...perhaps it all comes down to this. What is the power of faith? It is the power of God to create a world. It is the power to create a world, a new world in which mountains are moveable.

Do you believe that? Do you believe, through the power of God, your mountains--whatever they are, a bad job, depression, the huge gap between rich and poor, war in Darfur--that God is able to move them? Do you believe that we can move mountains together, we who have come here to be church? That's the question I want to ask this morning.

Let's go back to Mark for a moment again. There's another question that seems important: What is this mountain--that might be important to help us understand all this. What is this mountain Jesus is talking about? He doesn't say "a mountain," he says, "this mountain."

Before he goes to temple--he curses a fig tree, which, after he returns from the temple, dies. It's one of the strangest stories in the New Testament. Many commentators believe it's a symbol for the temple, the corruption of the religion; it has to do with the cleansing of the temple, the episode sandwiched between. That's the focus here--Jesus cleansing the Temple.

And so, what mountain would he be pointing to? The Temple Mount. He's pointing to a system--a system humans, not God, have created; a system of domination, out of the very thing God commanded in order that people find God, and human community. The temple had become "a den of robbers"; it made a racket out of religion, a Disney operation to distract the many and profit the few. That's what Jesus is mad about. This racket that religion had become.

"Say to this mountain."

One way of understanding it is to say that we no longer have to live under this system. It no longer exists in this new world. Hear what Jesus says, "Whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you've received it, and it will be yours."

I no longer have to live under that system. Right now, it no longer is.

No longer do I need to give in to the impulse to take another drink of alcohol, because it's ruining my life; no longer do I need to be subject to the same dysfunctional rules that have made my marriage a wreck. No longer do I have to pay tribute to Caesar's machine of war.

And the thing here is too--you don't have to do that alone. You can't do that alone. The "you" in this passage, if you say to this mountain--is a plural you. Together we live in a different world, together this mountain no longer exists.

***

But, here's the critical point. This isn't a college seminar on existentialism. What matters isn't really our belief--as if all it takes is some act of muscular human will to believe our world into existence. What matters is what we believe in. The means by which this is accomplished is not our belief, but God's power to create; it's about what we believe in. Jesus says: "Believe...and it will be done for you." Not--"you'll make it happen."

This past July, when I was at the Chautauqua Institution, I was listening to a lecturer who was talking about the effectiveness of Twelve Step programs. And how their success depends on a trust, a belief, in a power greater than ourselves, in a higher power. He said that those programs that take that step number three out, don't work. Somehow, to move the mountain of addiction we need to believe in a power that's greater than ourselves that can remove that mountain.

Faith, human faith in that power, is God's power to create a world in which mountains are moveable.

***

So what is God creating here, through us? What world will God create through our words? That's really what we're here for this morning.

Take a look around at this sanctuary. This is a place made of words. Words that have been spoken across several centuries and have taken on stone and wood and paint and electrical circuits. The beauty of this place speaks of the eloquence of generations before us. With what speech shall we speak to future generations?

This congregation is made of words--words that have taken on human shapes sitting together, here, who have heard some voice that has invited them to be here, to sit here and sing as one chorus these words which speak of the true Kingdom of which we're citizens.

Noah heard them--some words. That's all they were. Just words. He heard them, and he took up a hammer, and he drew the fire for the pitch-pot, and hewed some wood, and began to build.

***

Words. That's what you're invited to write, to speak, to muster, to reflect on what God might be creating through us, right here. Now, I encourage us to think of things that are BIG, crazy, impossible. Some has already proposed some crazy ideas. Building a second floor to the Fellowship Center Classrooms for a spiritual direction center, sending a missionary to the Middle East, creating a new worship space. Think of what crazy ideas God might wish to speak into being through us. Take some time now to write those.... [the sermon concluded with an exercise to write "dreams and visions" to be used on September 17, 2006.]

Amen.

 

September 10, 2006