“Surely Not I?” and Questions on the Way to Cross V:
“Could You Not Keep Awake One Hour?”


Sermon by Brigid A. Boyle and Cynthia A. Jarvis
April 13, 2003, Presbyterian Church of Chestnut Hill

Mark 14:19

"They Began to be distressed and to say to him one after the other, 'Surely not I?'"

"Surely, not I?" the disciples asked one after the other on that fateful night. "Surely, not I?" they asked as the Lord's prediction tipped toward passion and they all wondered who it might be that would betray him. "They began to be distressed and to say to him one after the other 'Surely, not I?'

On this Palm Sunday, only days before the darkest we will ever know, we would do well to consider this question on the way to the cross. Lest our understanding grow dim and our shouts of "Hallelujah!" sound hollow on Sunday next, we must consider this question. "Surely, not I?"

Of course, if we are to consider this question seriously on our way to the cross, we cannot jump ahead, yet, to what we know of story's end, to what we know of the details of Christ's betrayal: the 30 pieces of silver, the opportunity sought, the kiss … you know the rest of the story. But rather, immersing ourselves in the story, dwelling at this point in the story, we need ask what this question really meant to those who asked it first and what this question means to those who ask it still.

"Surely, not I?" Sitting round the table after supper, Jesus forecasts to his disciples, the twelve who had been with him from the beginning, who had seen miracle worked, illness healed, sight restored and the like, that one of them will betray him, that one who eats by his side will hand him over to be crucified. Immediately, of course, they become distressed and begin asking the question, "Surely, not I?" What did this question really mean?

On the one hand, my imagination of this asking of this question applies a certain amount of human arrogance to the asker. "Surely, not I?" they asked, as though they knew it was another who would betray, as though it more conviction than question. "Surely, not I?" they asked as silently they wondered who among the others it might be, as, like Adam and Eve so long ago, they would deflect any potential responsibility from themselves. This take on the question is tempting (and easy) for the preacher to follow, for words, which would speak of finger pointing, blaming the other, and assumptions of piety, are not inapplicable to my life or to yours. Yet, if we were to stop there, to say "yep, that's us" and move on to the rest of the story, or simply to let chastisement of our overconfident egos alone suffice for proclamation, as together we probe this question on the way to the cross, how much we would miss.

And so we are pushed toward further consideration of the question. That, I think, is this: perhaps the question was asked not out of arrogance, but out of sincerity. Perhaps the question was asked by those who were really, genuinely distressed with the deep conviction that indeed betrayal might have come by way of anyone around that table. "Surely, not I?" I suspect that was the case more than anything else.

I think of the incident just verses earlier, of the anointing at Bethany, whereupon a woman pours costly ointment upon the head of Jesus. It was not just one of the disciples who was indignant. Mark tells us it was "some" and whatever that means, it means that there was more than one who did not understand who Christ. It means that there was more than one who failed to comprehend what he was about. It means that there was more than one who was capable of betraying him.

But more, and here, I confess, I do push us forward a bit in details. I think of the length to which the gospel writers go to make clear the truth that the one who ultimately betrayed him, Judas, was a follower, like you, like me. "[He] was undoubtedly a disciple and apostle: … " writes Barth, "no more so, but also no less so than Peter and John; sharing, as they do, the same calling, institution and mission. … No matter what the gospels record about what Jesus said concerning his disciples," he continues, "what he said and did for them, and what he did through them, we have to realize that Judas Iscariot was also present; and he played a full part in it all." Jesus was betrayed by the one in the "closest conceivable proximity to [himself.] … What Judas did affects them … to be sure, they have not actually [betrayed him] or cooperated with him. But the point is that they obviously could have done it." The point is that any of us obviously could have done it.

And we do: discipleship defined by our own ideas more than Christ's command, lives lived day and day out with only the faintest of reference to Him who gave us life, calls to responsibility and justice ignored in favor of what is easy and avoids conflict, service with joy and hope replaced by service with cynicism and criticism, refusals to trust his word of promise and so despair deepened and hope lost. We do betray him.

Such a recognition of that point, not so much how we self assuredly claim it will not be us, but that it, in fact, is us, is vital. Without it, what follows in the week ahead rides along the surface as simply a good story for us to recall but once a year. It is a necessary question because it prompts us to realize our own brokenness and sin and so to understand all the more the depths of God's grace, the mercy of Him who whose covenant of grace is even the one who would betray him, and the love of this One who bids us all come to his table.

So let us then, in these days ahead, as we gather round the table, as shadows turn into the deepest of darkness, as bread is broken and cup is poured, as body is broken and blood is poured, ask the question, "Surely, not I?" knowing that the answer will be "yes it is you" but also, surely, "yes, it is for you."

Thanks be to God. Amen

Questions on the Way to Cross V:
“Could You Not Keep Awake One Hour?”

Mark 14:26-42

"'Could you not keep awake one hour?'"

You know how it goes. The hour is late and what with a rich dinner, a bit too much wine, a week filled with the stress of travel or the anxiety of an uncertain day ahead, you cannot help yourself. Much as you mean to keep awake until the news comes on or the child comes home or the movie ends or the wash is dry and can be folded, the eyelids are heavy, the head bobs forward and, before you know it, you are out for the count. "Could you not keep awake one hour?" Jesus asks, and we imagine ourselves, along with Jesus' disciples, sound asleep just when we most wanted to keep awake.

Yet if Jesus' question in Mark had intended only to evoke in us some simple identification with the disciples' endearing human frailty…if Mark's story of Peter's denial were told in order to reveal nothing more than a momentary and equally recognizable crack in Peter's otherwise rock solid character…if his account of the crowds shouting "Crucify" were offered simply as an instance of poor human judgment based on lack of information…or if his portrayal of religious authorities in cahoots with politicians were a critique of our current state of affairs or affairs of state meant to provoke a protest…then we could read the story of Christ's passion as though it were a morality play, the moral being: next time, keep awake, bear witness, choose the right side, mind your bedfellows! But he wants us wakeful not that we might learn of him how to live, but that we might learn of him how to die.

Not by chance, I think, Jesus asked that the three disciples--who had seen in him God's glory on a mountain--come only a stone's throw away from him in the garden. Peter, James and John had been terrified eyewitnesses to Jesus' transfiguration and had heard a voice saying, "This is my Son, the beloved; listen to him." There could be no doubt in their minds as to the One with whom they were having to do on this fateful night, underlining the fact that no amount of certainty can keep us from our decision to live without him. No amount of belief, of faith, of knowledge, of understanding will keep us awake in the world to God's presence nor will keep us faithful. Sin abounds! In fact, there is a sense in which those to whom the most has been revealed can be said to run the farthest from him this night. They are the ones, you see, who know-really know-the identity of him from whom they are choosing to run. In other words, we know: it is Christ's church that chooses to live safely without him in the world rather than remain wakeful and with him all the way to his cross and death. Nevertheless he asks us to keep awake: not that we might learn of him how to live, but that we yet might learn of him how to die.

So in the second place, this One in whom God's glory was made known reveals to the same three disciples, before he prays, how totally, how completely he inhabits our frail flesh. Jesus says to them, "I am deeply grieved." Not sad, not afraid, not anxious but grieved--which implies that this One who is so completely with us in life has assumed without exception the condition of the only animal able really to anticipate the hour of its death. He speaks his grief to these who must die also, that they might be witnesses, for our sake, to the conversation for which we were made at the hour of our death. "Remain here and keep awake," he says, meaning to give us the help we need most: help not in our living, but in our dying.

Then within hearing distance, he prays, "Abba, Father, for you all things are possible; remove this cup from me…." Jesus asks of God what we ask: to be given an easier way…to live and not to die. Still awake to his words, we turn them, along with the rest of his "sayings," into an ethic for living, missing him who has come to be our companion at the hour of our death.

I think it must be precisely at this point in the story that we are found fast asleep. "Remove this cup from me," he prays and then we are out like a light, leaving him--who wills his life and his death into God's will--alone. Though the truth is that, even were we awake to hear the prayer's end, no amount of will exerted on our part, not even the little self-restraint and courage it would take to be a saint, would find us able to redeem ourselves from the God-forsaking life ahead of us.

So when Jesus finds them sleeping at the hour of his death, it is to say that he finds himself utterly alone. With his eyes wide open toward the cross and death, while ours are shut in the kind of sleep that seeks to avoid what we cannot bear, Jesus alone wills the will of God. Mark recounts the "frightful loneliness in which they left Him, and in which quite alone-not with them but without them and therefore for them-He had to do and did what had to be done. If there is anything which brings out clearly this simple 'for us' as the content of the Gospel," says Karl Barth, "it is this aspect of the event in Gethsemane, in which the act of God in Jesus Christ had absolutely nothing to correspond to it in the existence of those who believe in Him. They could not watch with Him even one hour. He alone watched and prayed in their place."

He watches and prays in our place still. No doubt in this week ahead, we who regularly rail against watching with him one hour of a Sunday morning may add at most another hour…or not! For after a rich dinner and having drunk a little more than we ought, much as we had intended to worship him, we simply cannot keep awake one hour more. "It is enough," he says and with a start we wake in time only to run for our lives, leaving the hour of our death in his hand alone. Thanks be to God.

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