There has been talk of the death of God around all of my life. The phrase dates back at least to the 19th century philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, and perhaps even farther. There was a rise in interest in existentialist philosophies in the 1960s and when I attended seminary in the 1970s it was expected that academic theologians and philosophers have at least a basic understanding of the concepts. The phrase “God is dead” is often misunderstood and used in contexts that are very different from the meanings discussed by philosophers. Nietzsche didn’t mean a literal death or end of God. Rather Nietzsche was afraid that the decline of religion and the rise of atheism would result in an absence of a higher moral authority and lead the world towards chaos. His fears have been partially realized in the incredible violence of the 20th and 21st centuries. I suspect that his analysis is a bit simplistic - the factors surrounding the wars of the 20th Century are complex and the role of religion - or the lack of religion - in those conflicts is only one of many factors.

The reason I mention death of God theology is that some younger deconstructionist writers pick up the topic as if they were the first to encounter the idea. Most of what is being written on the topic these days is a reflection of ideas that have been around for more than a century. I prefer the term deconstructionist to describe this way of thinking as opposed to its other popular name: postmodernism. While I understand the concept of a post-modern era, I think it is a bit misleading to recycle old ideas and bill them as the product of a new era. Such deconstructionism is really a modern thought and not postmodern.

That discussion, however, is pretty much one for philosophers and rather boring to most people. So I would like to reflect on an idea that is even older this morning.

In the cycle of readings that we follow, the Revised Common Lectionary, this is year B. Year B is the year of reading Mark. I’ve been through this cycle many times in the span of my career - at least a dozen - and I have discovered that the different years have different moods. Year A - the year of Matthew’s Gospel - has a flavor of outreach and extending the gospel to the world. Year C - the year of Luke - focuses on Jesus words and sayings. Between those years we have Mark - which is a short gospel obsessed with the death of Jesus and John - a very theological and philosophical gospel.

Mark is the shortest of the gospels - driven with a rapid pace and the love of the word, “suddenly.” Although contemporary church life doesn’t often encourage reading books of the bible in their entirety, Mark invites sitting down with the story. I can be read in less than two hours. Although his meaning is significantly different from the worldly philosophers’ death of God theology, Mark has no fear of talking about death. The mortality that all humans share is not unknown or foreign to God. The death of Jesus drives the gospel.

It is a surprisingly strong contrast to the way that many people - and many churches - think of God.

I’ve read the arguments of those who don’t believe in a supernatural God so many times. Students of the scientific method sometimes react negatively to the concepts that come from the prescientific era. The read stories that were told to explain the identity of tribal people as if they were scientific treatises and point out logical inconsistencies that matter little to people who have been sharing those stories for thousands of years. They react to moments in the story when amazing and miraculous events occurred as if those were times when God has broken the “rules” of science. They reject the notion that God is somehow outside of the universe - outside of nature - supernatural. And often they do so without understanding that the god they are rejecting isn’t the God in which faithful people believe.

Mark’s gospel presents a very different view of God. Yes, there are miracle stories. Yes, there are events of amazing healing. Yes, Mark sees God’s power and glory in everyday events. But Mark gives us Christ crucified. Jesus humbled and accepting the limits of human existence. Christ offering his body not as some bloody sacrifice for the sins of the faithful, but as a supreme act of trust in the human capacity to carry the message of love and justice beyond the span of a single human life.

After reading Mark’s gospel we are left with the realization that we who follow and believe are now Christ’s body. We are called to provide the hands and feet on earth to do the work of love and justice in our generation. Ours are the voices through which God’s message of compassion and kindness is conveyed. Just as God was fully embodied in the life of Jesus, those who follow are endowed with the call to provide the touch, the smile, the listening ear - to embody God’s love for the world. Mark sends us forth - filled with the spirit - into the world.

Death - even the cruel death by crucifixion of Jesus - is not the end of God’s presence in the earth. Jesus’ death is not the end. More than the act of supreme sacrifice, it is the act of supreme trust. God trusts the community to carry the message in each generation. God is fully present in each generation, but God does not end with the passing of generations. Fully human and fully divine - a doctrine of the church that has arisen from the experience of many generations of faith.

I love the contemporary deconstructionists for their questions. The questions they raise invite honesty from our institution that has a tendency to focus on institutional maintenance instead of sacrificial service. They remind us that we don’t need to preserve tradition or power. Those are fleeting.

Mark’s gospel, however, gives me an entirely different message: A resurrection people need not fear the talk of death and we need not fear death itself.

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