Today’s passage is Mark 15:1-15. The Sanhedrin take Jesus to Pilate, making many accusations to which Jesus makes no reply. Pilate wants to release Jesus but the crowd, stirred up by the chief priests, demands that Barabbas, a murdering rebel, be released and Jesus crucified.
Do I quietly obey God or do I noisily rebel against what I dislike?
Do I compromise my spiritual authority for worldly influence?
Do I trust God in the face of worldly power?
Jesus stays silent before his accusers because the accusations are false and he has nothing to say.
He’s spent the last three healing and teaching his followers who he is and what will happen.
Now is the time to silently obey his Father and fulfill his mission of suffering a painful death for the sins of the world.
His example of silent obedience to God is hard to follow.
Yesterday in our mokjang, one of our alcoholic members arrived drunk.
He was rude and disrespectful throughout the meeting, showing no regard for our efforts to interpret our lives through the questions our pastor asked us to consider in her sermon.
He had not gone to the worship service and treated the mokjang as an opportunity to rant about how smart he was compared to everyone else, constantly interrupting other members’ sharing with comments on the superiority of his insight and understanding of the world and religion.
Because he was drunk, it was impossible to reason with him.
Because he had not listened to the sermon, he had no point of reference.
Like all alcoholics, he was consumed by himself.
As mokja, my role was to govern the meeting so that all members could have the opportunity to share how they would introduce themselves, the subject of Pastor Kim’s sermon on the first verse of the first chapter of Romans, receive a hearing and perhaps a prescription from me guided by the Holy Spirit.
My impatience with our drunk member made that impossible.
As the drunk member’s interruptions grew more frequent, so did my efforts to silence him. Finally, he verbally attacked me.
One of our new members was so disturbed that he excused himself and left the meeting.
Like Pilate, I left the meeting with a sense of failure.
Pilate had yielded to the clamor of the crowd and sacrificed Jesus.
I yielded to the clamor of my impatience with a self-righteous drunk and sacrificed my Christian love for someone who needs to be in alcoholic rehabilitation to save his body and a spiritual community to help save his soul.
Throughout our mokjang, I struggled with the love I needed to show a drunken alcoholic and the love I needed to show my sober members seeking spiritual understanding and guidance in their lives.
The noise of my impatience and anger drowned out any hope I had of hearing the Holy Spirit and interpreting my life through the message of the sermon.
There was no quiet obedience in me.
Application: speak to my alcoholic member with the hope he will come to worship to be ministered by the Holy Spirit.
Lord, give me your Spirit to be obedient to your love.
