Tectonic Plates and Mirrors
Steve Thomason, M.D., Class of 2004 from the Diocese of Arkansas
Senior Sermon on September 25, 2003
Wis.1.16-2.1, 12-22 -- Psalm 54 -- James 3.14-4.6 -- Mark 9.30-37

The strongest earthquake in US history changed the landscape not of California or Alaska as you might have guessed, but of the central United States. It was December 16, 1811, and scientists estimate the principal quake measured 9.0 on the Richter scale. It zigzagged a path of devastation from Illinois into the boot heel of Missouri down through the delta of northeast Arkansas. From there it continued through Memphis, Tennessee, and on into Mississippi and Louisiana.

It crossed the Mississippi River in three places, gashing open its silty bottom and causing this mighty river to reverse its course for a time on that day. Riverboat captains reported twenty-foot waterfalls on the normally flat river, and Memphis was literally pushed up some thirty feet higher at the water's edge.
The quake's epicenter was in northeast Arkansas at the site of the present-day farming town of Marked Tree, so named for the oak tree that survived a split down its trunk and that grew for another century with contorted branches that testified to the power of the quake.

In 1990 I moved with my wife and infant daughter just a few miles from Marked Tree to the town of Jonesboro, where I would spend three years in training at the local hospital. The earthquake of 1811 is part of the lore for the people who live on this New Madrid Fault Line, and I soon found myself staring at the ground under my feet wondering when and how the land might open at any moment and swallow up all that was certain in my life.

Now I need to say before I proceed further that earthquakes have been horrendously mislabeled as "acts of God," and any notion that God causes such cataclysms to get our attention is ill-founded. I do, nevertheless, think that earthquakes represent for us a powerful force outside ourselves that cannot be controlled nor can it be predicted, and for those of us who like to "be in control," standing on terra that is less than firma is not a comforting experience.

For the disciples listening to their trusted teacher talk about his death and resurrection as events that were soon to happen, Jesus was predicting an earthquake that would soon shake their world, but not in a way that they had once thought, and certainly not in a way that they felt prepared to proceed. For the disciples this outcome represented such a seismic shift in understanding, we are told they simply do not get it. Such an event threatened to so disrupt the tectonic plates of their lives that, in their fear, they don't want to understand, and instead of asking Jesus to explain himself further, they shut down. They divert themselves by fighting over who gets to hold the mirror that answers the question-who is the fairest of all, who is the greatest, who is right?

And in the frenzy of their dispute, Jesus is the only one to hear a cock crow in a nearby farmyard, and he becomes painfully aware of the road that lies ahead of him. Jesus, we have to remind ourselves, is human, and he was asking his friends for their support at this agonizing juncture in his life. He was asking for their companionship in the days that lay ahead. He knows that if he continues his ministry with integrity, if he follows through to Jerusalem, he will be killed, and then his anguish is compounded by the realization that, given the disciples' response here, his final moments will be filled with intense loneliness. His prediction proves too much for the disciples to bear at this point. Jesus needed their community, and I think in this passion prediction, we get a glimpse of Gethsemane, and Jesus has a very heavy heart.

To be sure, the evangelist uses the three passion predictions in this gospel as literary pivots intended to draw those listening into the story and to serve the pattern of depicting the disciples as being utterly ignorant of Jesus' vision. But it is important to name the humanity of Jesus that is offered to us here in this passage-the humanity that we centuries later often have a difficult time recognizing given the coats of Christological paint that have been applied in the course of our tradition. Focusing on his humanity does not lessen his authority which we know comes from heaven-all who listen to Mark's story have known of that authority from the outset when the heavens were opened at his baptism. As William L. Countryman wrote: "True priestly service cannot be offered out of condescension, but only out of shared identity….Only insofar as we share a common life" can Jesus' death and resurrection hold their rightful place as the plumb line for our lives. (1)

This prediction is about Jesus' humanity and our connection with him, and, with this insight, I can envision him rubbing his wet eyes, and I can sense him resigning himself to the fact that he has more teaching left to do. There is a pedagogical paradigm to all three passion predictions, but imbedded deep within the encounter is a human struggling to make some sense of his future given his disciples' response. And so I ask: Can we feel the heaviness with which his heart is beating? Can we hear his sigh of anguish? Or have we diverted our attention elsewhere and now are too busy fighting over the mirror that will give us the answer we so desperately seek -- who is the fairest, who is the greatest, who is right?

The Church, it seems, is prone to putting up mirrors, adorning its walls with all sorts of stopping points that divert us from having to deal with the matters of our mission. These days in particular, as predictions of schism abound (and schism, as you know, is a geological term) -- as predictions of schism abound, we seem to be shoving each other out of the way to get a glimpse in the mirror that holds the answer for us -- who is greatest, who is right …

And all the while Jesus seeks a place where someone, anyone, will offer him some refuge and consolation, some sense of community on his journey toward Jerusalem. And when we are asked what we were arguing about on the way, how do we respond? With embarrassed silence like the disciples? By pointing fingers at each other? He started it. It was her fault … How often the mirrors have us mesmerized!

And so Jesus has teaching left to do, and in the house at Capernaum he takes a child and puts it among them. A child-the epitome of powerlessness-not even dignified here with a name. Now I suppose Jesus could have plucked the child from her play (or more likely from her chores), and used her as an object to make his point to the disciples and all who are listening. But I don't for a second think that is how Jesus worked. Jesus did not "use" people; he related to them.

Doesn't it seem plausible that there was between Jesus and the child a connection? -- that they recognized in each other a shared identity? I would like to believe that as their eyes met, something happened. The little child saw in Jesus a compassionate understanding of the suffering she endured daily in her station in life. He offered her a dignity that she had likely never known, and in that moment she knew what it was to hope.

And Jesus, this human Jesus was given the consolation and compassionate response from the child that he needed at that moment -- an unspoken understanding that let Jesus know that she would walk with him to the cross and beyond. She even knew the way.

"True priestly service cannot be offered out of condescension, but only out of shared identity," (2) and in this moment, the priestly community which Jesus envisions and to which all humans are called takes its form-it takes its form in the face of a little girl and in the face of a man struggling to find the resolve to continue.

My friends, when we become hypnotized by our image in the mirror, we cannot see the little girl's face, and in that moment the cock crows, nails are hammered, blood is spilled, and the agonizing wail of all those who will be crucified this day by a world full of injustices will cause the earth to tremble. This trembling is the earthquake that has gashed open the river of life, causing it to reverse its course. This is the earthquake over which we should be fretting.

In the face of this little child, Jesus saw the face of the Kingdom of God, and he tells his disciples and us that even if we cannot understand what he is saying and doing, just look at her face -- look at her face -- and perhaps we will understand then how to open the door to God's kingdom. Isn't that our mission, here in this time, here in this place? To look at her face? To shift our gaze from the mirror to the little child, not in patronizing condescension, but in shared identity, in community? To understand that when we serve her, we serve Christ. When we welcome her, we welcome Christ, and when we welcome Christ, we welcome God into our world -- here and now. Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.

This is the place where the seismic activity of God's Kingdom shatters the mirrors. Mirrors for which there is no longer a need.

This is the place where the tectonic plates of power shift so that we become servants to one another and to the world.

This is the place where the child is welcomed and honored with a name, where she is afforded the respect and dignity as God's beloved child, where Christ is served in all persons, and where God is glorified in all our work.

We are a community that claims to share in Christ's eternal priesthood, not through our own merits, but because we have been marked as Christ's own forever. It is a priesthood born in Jesus' life as a human, witnessed to in his crucifixion, and celebrated in the resurrection that has offered hope to all humanity, in all times and in all places.

May we be the community that stands on the fault lines of human existence, as dangerous and scary as that may be, and with clarity of vision and faith, may we be the community that welcomes all persons to their seats at the feast of the kingdom.

(1) Countryman, William L. Living on the Border of the Holy: Renewing the Priesthood of All. Morehouse: Harrisburg, PA, 1999, 57.

(2) Ibid., 57.