Sunday, September 16, 2018

Pentecost 17, Year B (2018)


Proper 19 :: Isaiah 50: 4–9; Psalm 19; James 3: 1–12; Mark 8: 27–38  
“OF ANOINTING AND BEING ANOINTED”
(Homily text:  Mark 8: 27–38)
Let’s talk about anointing and about being anointed. [1]         
(We might do well to remind ourselves what anointing is, and what it signifies: Anointing is a ceremonial action by which a person receives holy oil and (often) the laying on of hands in prayer.) [2]
As we do, we might approach the subject by setting before ourselves these questions:
Who receives an anointing?
For what purpose is a person anointed?
Have we been anointed (and for what purpose)?
The focus of today’s homily arises out of our Gospel text for this morning, in connection with Peter’s answer to Jesus’ question, when the Lord asked His disciples, “Who do you say I am?” (Mark 8: 29) Peter’s answer is memorable: “You are the Messiah”.
What Peter meant by his answer is this: “You are the Anointed One”. “Messiah” means “anointed”, coming from the Hebrew word for “anoint”. “Christ” has the same meaning, coming from the Greek.
To understand (perhaps) what Peter meant by his answer, we ought to go back into the Old Testament to understand more about the business of anointing people.
There, we discover that priests and kings were anointed. [3] When they were anointed, the ceremonial act of anointing signified that they were set apart for a specific ministry or task, and that God’s favor rested on them as they carried out those duties. (The same meaning is attached to the anointing of objects.)
Oil was also used in healing. Isaiah 1:6 suggests such a use.
When God the Father sent His Son to take up our humanity, God’s chosen people regarded the Messiah in a number of ways. It would be prudent for us to look at some of the expectations that were attached to the title “Messiah”:
Military commander:  Some of the Jews at the time of Jesus’ earthly ministry expected that the Messiah would return and would remove the occupying Roman government and army, restoring God’s people to the place they had been nearly a thousand years before when David was king. The party most associated with this view of the Messiah was called the Zealots.
King:  Some expectations which were attached to the term “Messiah” had to do with that person being descended from King David’s lineage. We find such evidence in the Psalms of Solomon, which comes to us from the body of Jewish writing known as the Pseudepigrapha, and which may have been written at about the time of the Lord’s ministry.
Healer:  The evidence seems to be less abundant for another aspect of the understanding of what the Messiah would do, and that has to do with healing. In general, the Messiah, when he came, would restore and fix everything that was wrong with God’s people in that day and time. Perhaps it’s possible that the longing and expectation that was attached to King David stemmed from these memories of David’s accomplishments.
Jesus as the Messiah fulfills all of these expectations. For example, In John 6:15, we find that the people who had been fed by Jesus begin a movement to proclaim Him as king. Perhaps because Jesus had fed that large crowd of at least five thousand people, many thought that He would be capable of fixing everything that was wrong with life in those days. The Letter to the Hebrews picks up the theme of Jesus’ kingship and His priestly ministry, declaring that He is “a king forever after the order of Melchizedek”. [4] (Hebrews 5:6)
The early Christians understood Jesus’ Messiahship as being all of these things:  king, priest and healer.
At this point, we can return to the questions which we set before ourselves at the beginning of this homily.
Who receives an anointing?  Anyone who is set apart for a specific purpose or ministry can be anointed. At ordination, for example, a priest’s hands are often anointed. (Altars, as we have seen, are often anointed when they are consecrated.) Monarchs are often anointed at the time of their coronation.
For what purpose is a person anointed?  We would do well to speak of the purposes for which anointing is done by referring back to the meaning of the Sacraments: A Sacrament is an “outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace.” Anointing gives a person a unique measure of God’s grace and power to do whatever it is God has in mind for that person. Anointing with the Oil of Chrism is a rite in which healing is the reason for the anointing.
Have we been anointed (and for what purpose)?  For many of us, the most significant anointing we have received is that which is done at the time of baptism. In that action, the following words are spoken as the Oil of Chrism is applied to the forehead: “You are sealed by the Holy Spirit in Baptism, and marked as Christ’s own forever.” Anointing at the time of baptism is the outward and visible sign that God has claimed us, in Christ, as His own forever. In baptism, we turn away from our old life, and we turn to God in Christ in order to rise to a new life in God. We receive the gift of the Holy Spirit to know God’s will and to do God’s will.
Of course, there are many other occasions when we might be anointed, such as at the time of illness or at the time of death (this last action is often called “Extreme Unction”). Or, we might be anointed in order to be commissioned to do something unique or special.
The various threads we have been exploring all come together in the Book of Revelation, where we read that Christ has made us “kings and priests to God”. [5]
In all of these actions, we are called to act as agents of God’s power to heal, to restore, and to fix what is wrong in the world.
May we be anointed with the power of the Holy Spirit to be Jesus’ disciples in the world today, healing and restoring what is estranged from God, and what divides people from one another. 
AMEN.          


[1]   The technical term for anointing is Unction.
[2]   Objects may also be anointed. An example would be when a newly installed or constructed altar which is to be used for the celebration of the Holy Eucharist is consecrated. The Bible mentions the anointing of objects.
[3]   The practice of anointing a newly crowned monarch continues to this day. Queen Elizabeth II was anointed when she became queen in 1953.
[4]   Melchizedek is mentioned in Genesis 14, and in Psalm 110:4. He was king of the city of Salem, but was also a priest. This idea is expanded upon in chapter seven of the Letter to the Hebrews.
[5]   Revelation 1:6 and 5:10, in the Authorized Version -or- King James Version.