Mark 1:1-8
The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
2 As it is written in the prophet Isaiah,
‘See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you,
who will prepare your way;
3 the voice of one crying out in the wilderness:
“Prepare the way of the Lord,
make his paths straight” ’,
4John the baptizer appeared in the wilderness, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. 5And people from the whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem were going out to him, and were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins. 6Now John was clothed with camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey. 7He proclaimed, ‘The one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to stoop down and untie the thong of his sandals. 8I have baptized you with water; but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.’
Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart
be acceptable to you,
O Lord, my rock and my redeemer.
be acceptable to you,
O Lord, my rock and my redeemer.
When I was in high school, things were rad.
Mrs. Barth is sick and we have a sub? Rad.
The choir is going to Orlando for competition this year? Rad.
The Reebok Pumps I wasn’t cool enough to get until some neighbor kid outgrew them? Stinky, but rad.
Should anybody ask what rad meant, I knew exactly. It meant radical. Like, gnarly. Need to hear it in adult lingo? Way cool.
Should anybody ask me what radical meant, I’m pretty sure I couldn’t have said. So when I started hearing the term in reference to people doing out-of-the-ordinary things, things that pushed the envelope of normalcy, I had to wrap my head around the fact that what I understood as radical was, in fact, something completely different from what the word actually meant.
And let me point out, as a footnote, that this is a serious problem we have in our culture. And I’m not just referring to the tendency of young persons to make up or co-opt words to help differentiate them from adults. That is a relatively innocent form of the rebellion that young persons do and ought to experience on their way to adulthood.
I’m referring to our tendency, as responsible adults, to use language completely absent of comprehension. We take words we hear from somewhere, or ideas we hear from somewhere, and we insert them into our everyday conversation with absolutely no understanding of what the words or ideas really mean or entail.
Now, I know we can’t just understand everything about a word or idea the moment we hear it; and I’m aware that there is always something else to learn about any word or idea; but seriously, folks, can’t we try to be a little more responsible with our language?
As an example to take us out of our footnote, how many of us have held God responsible for something that has happened to us? How many of us have observed that something has gone wrong in our lives, that we’re struggling with something, and we’ve claimed the idea that “God is testing me”?
Let’s be very careful about the kind of power we assume God wields. Let’s not underestimate the effect of God-given free will in creation. Let’s not underestimate the power of people to harm us, the power of disease, of systemic sin in our corporate and governmental structures.
Claiming that God is testing us every time something throws us off our game doesn’t make us better Christians. It just makes us naive.
What makes us better Christians is following Christ.
That’s it.
And what makes us better at following Christ is following Christ.
Some cycles are vicious. Christianity is a cycle that’s blessed.
Following Christ makes us better Christ-followers.
But following Christ makes us weird. Because the world calls us to blame and to hold grudges and to hoard, while Christ calls us to love and to forgive and to bless. Following Christ makes us bizarre, makes us outcasts, even in the Church, even among family and friends.
Because following Christ makes us radical.
Being rad is never cool. I should have known better. I should’ve stopped and studied the word I was using.
Being radical is exactly uncool. It doesn’t make us wealthy or powerful or even respected. Being radical for Christ means being one of those Freaky Jesus Dudes; standing out for the sake of love, stopping for a stranger whom even the “righteous” won’t touch, speaking for truth even when all the world - even when all the Church claims it’s wrong.
Being radical won’t make us look like the rest of the Church. It’ll stand in the face of conservatives and fundamentalists and liberals and progressives alike, proclaiming a Christ that even most Christians aren’t willing to accept. Because most Christians just want to be comfortable. They just want salvation and a La-Z-Boy. They just want enough, even though enough is never enough.
Being radical says, if I have enough, then I need to share. If I have love, I need to love. If I have power, then I need to lift up my sister. If I have a hand, I need to hold a hand. If I have a voice, I need to comfort my brother. If I have eyes, I need to look for somebody who needs a hand up. If I have Christ, then it would be blasphemy for me not to be Christ for the world!
Rad.
Do you want to be fed today? Then come to the table and accept better food than any foolish words I can offer. Come to the table and accept Christ who demands freaky Jesus-ness out of you. Come to the table and become a radical for Christ.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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