• Proverbs 1:20-33

This collection of teachings intended for the instruction of young people opens with “wisdom,” personified as a woman who goes out into the street and confronts people at random with the startling question, “How long… will you live being simple?”  She shows little sympathy for those who do not heed her message.  She says she will “laugh at your calamity.”  And when some violent storm scares you or some crisis interrupts your life and brings you to your senses, “then you will call upon me, but I will not answer….”  You will endure the consequences of your own folly, “but those who listen to me will be secure and will live at ease.”

• Psalm 19

The psalmist reminds us that the daily reliability of the universe– the sun rises every morning and sets every evening– “tells us,” without using words, that “the Lord’s teachings are “perfect/steadfast/upright/unblemished/pure/truth.”  Pursue them for their inherent value.

• OR “A Song in Praise of Wisdom” (Wisdom 7:26-8:1)

Borrowing from Greek philosophy, the writer of the book of “wisdom” uses familiar Stoic language and concepts to praise wisdom as a “reflection of eternal light/a flawless mirror of God’s activity/an image of divine goodness.”  “Wisdom enlightens holy souls/making them friends of God/making them prophets.”

OR

• Isaiah 50:4-9a

The great prophet Isaiah’s powerful message reverberated and was amplified by admirers who came after him and added to his text.  This excerpt seems to be the beginning of one of those additions.  The writer acknowledges God’s gift to Isaiah of the “tongue of a teacher, that I may know how to sustain the weary with a word.”  Everyday the Lord instructs me.  The insults and even the violence against me I take in stride.  “I have set my face like flint…” and will persevere, because, “It is the Lord God who helps me….”

• Psalm 116:1-8

The psalmist has had a brush with death that led her to despair.  She confesses that even though “in my rashness I said ‘all humankind is false’,” I came to my senses and returned to praise and loyalty to the Lord.

• James 3:1-12

After an admonition that teachers should be held to a higher standard, “James” investigates the crucial role of the human tongue, which, although a “small member” of the human body can have “great exploits.”  “Unbridled,” it can start a conflagration,–“fire by hell….”  “With it we bless the Lord and Father and with it we curse those who are made in the likeness of God.  Form the same mouth come blessing and cursing.  My brothers and sisters,” it ought not be this way with us.

• Mark 8:27-38

Following the spectacular, crowd-pleasing feeding of more than 5,000, (the gospels only say 5,000 “men”),  Jesus’s successful rebutting of his religious critics, and his well-received first ministry among non-Jews, Mark’s narrative interrupts the flow with an interrogation, a taking stock.  After all this public activity, Jesus asks his disciples for reports, “who are people saying I am?”  They describe how some say he is the great John the Baptizer, while others say is the greatest of all the Hebrew prophets, Elijah.   Jesus changes from a general question about others to a specific, personal question, “but who do you say I am?”  Mark, once again, gives to Peter the privilege of speaking the climatic line, “You are the Messiah.”  Jesus continues by explaining that this declaration means he must “undergo great suffering, and be rejected… and be killed, and after three days rise again.”  Peter pulls Jesus aside and scolds him for saying that.  Jesus snaps back immediately.  He dismisses what Peter has said and growls, “Get behind me  Satan!”  He continues, “For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”  After this confrontation with Peter, Jesus turns and addresses the crowds still lingering around him.  He tells them that they, too, will need to take up their own cross “for my sake and for the sake of the gospel.”

A critical concept in Paul Ricoeur’s wide-ranging, lifetime work in hermeneutics is “attestation.”  He makes a sharp break from Modernity’s presumptuousness that humans are capable of achieving clear, distinct, certain, objective knowledge that is fixed, foundational and unchangeable.  We are, by our very (human) nature individuals who use our imaginations, hopes, fears, personal history and experience to interpret and live in the world.  On the one hand, this means that we ought to be more humble because we are aware that we always operate with incomplete knowledge of all things and all people.  On the other hand– and this is his crucial point– it means we still must make some decisions, which it turns out we actually base our lives on our interpretations.  We “attest” to the conclusions we reach with not only what we say but also with what we actually do.  “Testimony is… the engagement of a pure heart and an engagement to death,” Ricoeur writes.  (Essays on Biblical Interpretation, p. 122)

A distinctive trait of the genius of Mark’s narrative is its abrupt changes.  In today’s appointed excerpt, the followers of Jesus must be feeling more confident in this man for whom they have given up their daily obligations to follow.  And perhaps they are quite pleased with how things are going so far and to be associated as intimates with someone who has been popularly received (especially after a free lunch for thousands of people!) and who has dealt with his critics so deftly. Jesus asks his disciples for reports on what people are saying.  The disciples report flattering comparisons or even mistaken identify with God’s great prophets from the past.  But suddenly Jesus now asks for their own personal decision about him.  Peter makes a declaration for the whole group: we are convinced “You are the Messiah.”  Jesus then  describes a future they would have never imagined, which will include his public humiliation, execution and being raised from the dead on the third day.  Peter wants Jesus to downplay such talk.  Jesus flashes his impatience, “Get behind me Satan!”  He then tells them they, too, will face conflict of their own if they continue to follow him as “the Messiah.”

Ricoeur writes;

“…What progressively happens in the Gospel is the recognition of Jesus as being the Christ.  We can say in this regard that the Gospel is not a simple account of the life, teaching, work, death and resurrection of Jesus, but the communicating of an act of confession, a communication by means of which the reader in turn is rendered capable of performing the same recognition that occurs in the text,” (Figuring the Sacred, p.162)

Once one has heard the whole story of Jesus, it is clear there is a distinct view of this life, including what is worth living for, what is worth dying for, how we should invest whatever time we have between the birth date and the death date in our obituary.  This perspective is a continuation and expansion of the Torah, the prophets and the wisdom/poetry of the Hebrew scriptures, which, in their own ways, grasp that God’s ways are not our ways.  They promise, as well, to lead us to a life that can be lived to the fullest and most rewarding, in contrast to the usual “folly.”  The reaction to Jesus is not entirely new, either.  Isaiah knew the potential cost, including violence, against anyone who raises an alternative to just going-along-to-get-along.

The disciples must have squirmed that day when Jesus put them on the spot by saying– Enough about what others say, what have you decided about me and what I represent?  As Ricoeur writes, the purpose of these texts is to require the same response from us.  We have all the information we need to reach a decision aboyt this Jesus and what he tells us.

In the Summer 2009 edition of The Anglican Review, Bryan P. Cummings offers a re-appraisal of James Cone’s important work in “black theology” and writes:

“…It has led him [Cone] to an appraisal of revelation as dual-directional, that is, as revelatory knowledge not only of God but also of humankind.  In agreement with Rudolf Bultmann, Cone claims that ‘revelation is self-knowledge, a knowledge in which human beings make a decision [emphasis added]  about their own existence in the world’.” (p.405)

When Jesus asks, “Who do you say I am?”, the response one speaks tells us about the person who responds as much or even more than about Jesus..  As the writer “James” so unforgettably observed, the power of the human tongue is far out of proportion to its small size; it can say silly, hurtful things or it can “attest” to the power of God.  Whatever we chose to say defines us.