Participation Not Substitution

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Participation Not Substitution

Herb Montgomery, October 18, 2024

If you’d like to listen to this week’s article in podcast version click on the image below:

Our reading this week is from the gospel of Mark:

Then James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came to him. “Teacher,” they said, “we want you to do for us whatever we ask.”

“What do you want me to do for you?” he asked.

They replied, “Let one of us sit at your right and the other at your left in your glory.”

“You don’t know what you are asking,” Jesus said. “Can you drink the cup I drink or be baptized with the baptism I am baptized with?”

“We can,” they answered.

Jesus said to them, “You will drink the cup I drink and be baptized with the baptism I am baptized with, but to sit at my right or left is not for me to grant. These places belong to those for whom they have been prepared.”

When the ten heard about this, they became indignant with James and John. Jesus called them together and said, “You know that those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” (Mark 10:35-45)

In our reading this week, we are again encountering themes that repeat multiple times in the gospels of Mark. 

James’ and John’s request to sit at Jesus’ right and left hand echoes the scene in Mark 9 where the disciples were competing to be the greatest. (I wrote at length on this when we covered Mark 9; see Servants of the Most Vulnerable).

Jesus’ response promoting servanthood is also the same here as in Mark 9. When this rhetoric is directed at those seeking power and privilege over others, it can be a corrective. Those who were seeking status above others should instead have aspired to serve them. Yet, this passage has historically been directed not at those seeking privilege over others but at those seeking equity and equality with others. Christians have used servanthood to inspire some to passively accept a lower status think their social, political, or economic place held some quality of greater holiness. This passage was also used to defend the institution of slavery.  

This passage can be used for life-giving purposes, but it has also been used in death-dealing ways. It is critical that we learn to rightly discern the difference and intentionally understand and apply this passage. Ask who is the target audience of a given interpretation. Is this passage being shared with servants to keep them in their servitude, or is it used to challenge the ambition of those who are seeking to be served? 

What I find fascinating about Jesus’ responses in Mark 9 and 10 is that Mark references objects that Christianity has typically viewed through the lens of substitution and atonement, but frames them in terms of participation.

Whether we are discussing a cross (Mark 9) or a cup and a baptism (Mark 10), these did not represent things Jesus was doing instead of us or even in our place on our behalf. These were activities Jesus was inviting his disciples to join him in and to participate in themselves. In Mark, Jesus isn’t doing things for his disciples. He is calling his disciples to do them, too. 

Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan remind us that, “For Mark, it is about participation with Jesus and not substitution by Jesus. Mark has those followers recognize enough of that challenge that they change the subject and avoid the issue every time” (Marcus J. Borg, John Dominic Crossan, The Last Week: What the Gospels Really Teach About Jesus’s Final Days in Jerusalem, Kindle location 1582).

But we must be careful here as well, lest we promote the destructive myth of redemptive suffering. Whether we participate in a cross, a cup, or the fiery baptism spoken of in these passage, we must remember that the way of Jesus  is not a death cult. It is about our refusal to let go of life, not our embrace of death. As Delores Williams rightly reminds us, Christians who are suffering under oppression “cannot forget the cross, but neither can they glorify it. To do so is to glorify suffering and to render…exploitation sacred. To do so is to glorify the sin of defilement” (Williams, Sisters in the Wilderness: The Challenge of Womanist God Talk, p.132).

A cross is not intrinsic to following Jesus. When we follow Jesus, we are choosing to stand up to injustice and call for a world shaped in justice and love. A cross only enters this scenario if those who benefit form an unjust system become threatened by our calls for change and threaten us with a cross if we don’t become silent. If they don’t choose to impose a cross as a threat, then there would not be one. This is a subtle but important element in our reading this week. Jesus didn’t choose to die. He refused to let go of life even with threatened to do so: “Jesus chose to live a life in opposition to unjust, oppressive cultures. Jesus did not choose the cross but chose integrity and faithfulness, refusing to change course because of threat” (Brown and Parker, For God So Loved the World? Christianity, Patriarchy and Abuse, p. 27).

Jesus didn’t choose to suffer. He choose to stay committed to life and those things that are life-giving. We must remember: “It is not the acceptance of suffering that gives life; it is commitment to life that gives life. The question, moreover, is not am I willing to suffer? but do I desire fully to live? This distinction is subtle and, to some, specious, but in the end it makes a great difference in how people interpret and respond to suffering” (Christianity, Patriarchy and Abuse, p. 18).

When Jesus invites us to follow him, he invites us to take hold of life in opposition to the death-dealing forces in our world. He calls us to participate with him in shaping our world into a safe, compassionate, just home for everyone. And if those who have privilege and power fear losing those things through our society becoming more just, if they  threaten us if we don’t sit down and be silent, then Jesus calls us to not let go of life and to keep calling for change even in the face of threats. This is one of the most compelling elements of the Jesus story for me personally. Jesus was leading a Jewish renewal movement in opposition to the elite class who were complicit with the Romans’ oppression of his people. The Jesus story is a story of a Jesus who stood up to those in power for what was right. He stood in his own Hebrew prophetic justice tradition of speaking truth to power. He called out the injustices of his day in the very heart of the temple state, and was crucified as a result. But the story doesn’t end there. This story isn’t about death or dying. In this story, God doesn’t triumph over death by more death, even one more death, even if it’s Jesus’ death. Death is reversed, overturned, and undone by life, resurrection life. 

“The resurrection is God’s definitive victory over crucifying powers of evil . . . The impressive factor is how it [the cross] is defeated. It is defeated by a life-giving rather than a life-negating force. God’s power, unlike human power, is not a ‘master race’ kind of power. That is, it is not a power that diminishes the life of another so that others might live. God’s power respects the integrity of all human bodies and the sanctity of all life. This is a resurrecting power. Therefore, God’s power never expresses itself through the humiliation or denigration of another. It does not triumph over life. It conquers death by resurrecting life. The force of God is a death-negating, life-affirming force.” (Kelly Brown Douglas, Stand Your Ground: Black Bodies and the Justice of God, pp. 182-183).

I too know something of what it means to stand up for justice and love. I know something of pushback from those who are benefitting from an unjust system, pushback that threatens your own livelihood and ministry. These days, I’m thankful for resurrecting life. My life looks nothing today like I thought it would twenty years ago. But that’s okay. I wouldn’t change the stances I’ve taken or the people being harmed that I’ve stood in solidarity with. I know it’s the same for many of you too.  

Standing up for love and justice sometimes involves drinking the same cup Jesus drank and being baptized with the same baptism he was baptized with. In those moments we are participating with Jesus in standing up rather than choosing to be silent. We are in the right story. We must remember, this story doesn’t end in death, dying, or a cross. This story, and our story, ends in resurrection. Love wins.

Discussion Group Questions

1. Share something that spoke to you from this week’s Podcast episode with your discussion group.

2. Is participation more life giving for you than substitution? In what ways? Discuss with your group.

3. What can you do this week, big or small, to continue setting in motion the work of shaping our world into a safe, compassionate, just home for everyone? 

Thanks for checking in with us, today.

I want to say a special thank you to all of our supporters out there. And if you would like to join them in supporting Renewed Heart Ministries’ work you can do so by going to renewedheartministries.com and clicking donate. 

My latest book Finding Jesus: A Fundamentalist Preacher Discovers the Socio-Political and Economic Teachings of the Gospels is available now on Amazon in paperback, Kindle and also on Audible in audio book format.

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You can watch our YouTube show each week called “Just Talking”. Each week, Todd Leonard and I take a moment to talk about the gospel lectionary reading for the upcoming weekend. We’ll be talking about each reading in the context of love, inclusion, and social justice. Our hope is that our talking will be just talking (as in justice) and that during our brief conversations each week you’ll be inspired to also do more than just talking. If you teach from the lectionary each week, or if you’re just looking for some thoughts on the Jesus story from a more progressive perspective within the context of social justice, check it out, you might like it. You can find JustTalking each week on YouTube at youtube.com/@herbandtoddjusttalking. Please Like, Subscribe, hit the Notification button, and leave us a comment.

And if you’d like to reach us here at Renewed Heart Ministries through email, you can reach us at info@renewedheartministries.com.

Right where you are, keep living in love, choosing compassion, taking action, and working toward justice.

I love each of you dearly,

I’ll see you next week.

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New Episode of “Just Talking” Now Online!

Season 2, Episode 32: Mark 10.35-45. Lectionary B, Proper 24

Each week, we’ll be talking about the gospel lectionary reading for the upcoming weekend in the context of love, inclusion, and social justice. Our hope is that our talking will be “just” talking (as in justice) and that during our brief conversations each week we’ll be inspired to do more than just talking.

If you teach from the lectionary each week, or if you’re just looking for some thoughts on the Jesus story from a more progressive perspective within the context of social justice, check it out at:

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New Episode of The Social Jesus Podcast

A podcast where we talk about the intersection of faith and social justice and what a first century, prophet of the poor from Galilee might have to offer us today in our work of love, compassion and justice. 

This week:

Season 1 Episode 27: Participation Not Substitution

Mark 10:35-45

“I too know something of what it means to stand up for justice and love. I know something of pushback from those who are benefitting from an unjust system, pushback that threatens your own livelihood and ministry. These days, I’m thankful for resurrecting life. My life looks nothing today like I thought it would twenty years ago. But that’s okay. I wouldn’t change the stances I’ve taken or the people being harmed that I’ve stood in solidarity with. I know it’s the same for many of you too. Standing up for love and justice sometimes involves drinking the same cup Jesus drank and being baptized with the same baptism he was baptized with. In those moments we are participating with Jesus in standing up rather than choosing to be silent. We are in the right story. We must remember, this story doesn’t end in death, dying, or a cross. This story, and our story, ends in resurrection. Love wins.”

Available on all major podcast carriers and at:

https://the-social-jesus-podcast.simplecast.com/episodes/participation-not-substitution

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Now Available on Audible!

 

Finding Jesus: A Fundamentalist Preacher Discovers the Socio-Political & Economic Teachings of the Gospels.

by Herb Montgomery, Narrated by Jeff Moon

Available now on Audible!

After two successful decades of preaching a gospel of love within the Christian faith tradition Herb felt like something was missing. He went back to the gospels and began reading them through the interpretive lenses of various marginalized communities and what he found radically changed his life forever. The teachings of the Jesus in the gospel stories express a profound concern for justice, compassion, and the well-being of those in marginalized communities. This book navigates the intersections between faith and societal justice, and presents a compelling argument for a more socially compassionate and just expression of Christianity. Herb’s findings in his latest book are shared in the hopes that it will dramatically impact how you practice your Christianity, too.

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