If Any

Sunday, September 13, 2009

Ordinary 24B

Text: Mark 8:27-38

Theme: Christ’s call on our life is to live a life of sacrifice

“²⁷Jesus went on with his disciples to the villages of Caesarea Philippi; and on the way he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that I am?” ²⁸And they answered him, “John the Baptist; and others, Elijah; and still others, one of the prophets.” ²⁹He asked them, “But who do you say that I am?” Peter answered him, “You are the Messiah.” ³⁰And he sternly ordered them not to tell anyone about him.

³¹Then he began to teach them that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. ³²He said all this quite openly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. ³³But turning and looking at his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, “Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”

³⁴He called the crowd with his disciples, and said to them, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. ³⁵For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it. ³⁶For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life? ³⁷Indeed, what can they give in return for their life? ³⁸Those who are ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of them the Son of Man will also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.”

It is almost always safer to share some deep truth in a small group rather than in a large group. The dynamics are just simpler. There’s less room for misunderstanding if you can look into the eyes of everyone present and SEE that they heard you and understood what you’ve said. There’s more time available if you note a confused look on someone’s face and go into a further explanation of just what it is you are trying to get across. People don’t feel as intimidated about speaking up when they are in the company of close friends, and that held true for Jesus and the disciples when he chose to try to get away from the crowds that seemed to perpetually be following them around any time word got out that “the one who might be the messiah” was in the area.

Caesarea Philippi had been rebuilt and enlarged by Herod Philip, son of Herod the Great, as the capital of the province, north of the Sea of Galilee, near the headwaters of the Jordan River. Prior to his opportunistic and politically expedient naming of the town after Tiberius Caesar, it was called Paneas, named in honor of the Greek god Pan, who was worshipped in a nearby grotto.

Though it served as the regional capital, it was a city surrounded by wilderness, an area that was sparsely populated and fairly distant from the established centers of population.

It was into that wilderness that Jesus retreated with his disciples. As they drew further and further away from the crowds, Jesus begins to ask the disciples questions that demand their attention, and reflection.

Jesus’ first question would sound self-serving if we didn’t know what was coming. He basically asks “what are people saying about me?” and you can tell from the disciples’ answers that they’ve been hearing stuff from the crowds, and one wonders, perhaps they’ve been discussing it among themselves as well.

“John the Baptist.” That first one always struck me as odd, since Jesus and John the Baptist were contemporaries – at least until shortly after Jesus’ public ministry began and John lost his head. But then, I’m not sure the Jewish concept of reincarnation was in play here. It sounds like they were grasping at straws.

“Elijah” carries a little more contextual weight, since he had been dead longer, and was known as the one who would prepare the way for the Messiah’s coming. Though on that same note, John the Baptist claimed to be fulfilling the prophecy in Isaiah 40:3-4: “A voice of one crying in the wilderness: prepare the way of the Lord.” Either way, both suggestions carried with them something in common: “Messianic excitement” – that is, there was a buzz going around that Jesus was the promised Messiah.

His next question brings it right in close to home for the disciples. “Who do YOU say that I am?” or “What are YOU saying about me?” The ‘you’ in the sentence is an emphatic pronoun. It indicates that the crowd he had just asked them about, the ‘people’ he refers to in his first question, have no idea who he is, and he is turning to this, the smaller, ‘safer’ group, to see what they are thinking, after having had some time to observe him, listen to him teach, as well as to watch him preach and heal.

Yesterday we sat through a couple of training sessions in preparation for Leslie’s internship this year, and most of the training was an overview of what group dynamics to expect in the context of the Ministry Consultation Committee, which we were going to form. At one point, the facilitator listed the different roles people fall into when in a group situation, and one of them, aside from leader, was ‘instigator’. That is, the person who is usually the first to speak up, the one who most easily blurts out what is on his or her mind, who forges ahead into the silences that follow a question or a presentation of a theme or topic.

Peter seems to have taken that role among the disciples. He is usually the one to speak up and say what’s on his mind. And it was no different this time.

Scholars agree that everything leading up to this point in the gospel is aiming towards that confession, and everything after this point is Jesus explaining what the TRUE meaning of the title – which he does not reject – is. And he doesn’t waste any time beginning to do that, mainly because Peter gives him his first opportunity with his first answer.

Similar to the Syro-phoenician woman’s calling Jesus ‘Sir’, or ‘Master’ or ‘Lord’ in last week’s passage, Peter’s confession of “you are the Messiah” points to something more going on in the episode than simply the words that are spoken. It’s not a game of ’20 questions’ that all the disciples are competing against each other to get right. Though we see just a few phrases later that the place Peter’s answer was coming from was wrong, the proclamation still rings true on it’s own – apart from the baggage that it carried at the time. Mark is purposefully placing this exchange here in his narrative to begin the process of discovery of who Jesus is, and his first step is to disavow any pretext that Jesus is a Messiah in the style of King David – a Military and political ruler who would vanquish the occupying pagan armies and run them out, and claim the land of Palestine once again for the children of Israel.

But you’ll notice that the words don’t come from Mark to deny that, they come from Jesus. Mark DOES summarize what happened after Peter’s confession – that Jesus, in what might be called ‘plain and simple language’ (where he says ‘he said all this quite openly’), he spells out to his disciples that what being the Messiah MEANT was that (1) He would undergo great suffering, (2) He would be rejected by the Chief Priests, the Elders, and the Scribes, and (3) That he would be killed, and that after three days he would rise again.

That last seems so plain to us, reading this passage after Easter, doesn’t it? The actual wording of that last phrase is something more along the lines of an indeterminate, though short period of time rather than an exact reading of ‘three days’… though it CAN be interpreted that way. Suffice it to say, it actually sounds reasonable for someone to take you aside and try to set you straight if you start yammering about being rejected by the whole authority structure of your church, and that you are going to be killed? … Hearing would probably stop around that word and your instinct for preserving your friend would kick in. As we know he was prone to do, Peter impetuously jumps in and begins to explain to Jesus just exactly who HE is, just a reminder, something to jog his memory, since it seems like something has obviously addled his brain – he’s been doing a lot of walking and an awful lot of healing lately. I think we need to take BOTH the Sabbath AND the first day of the week off, he’s just running himself ragged. I don’t know what I’m going to do with him.

Jesus’ response is not what we could call ‘diplomatic,’ is it? He doesn’t chuckle and say ‘Peter, you didn’t quite understand what I said … let me repeat …’ none of that coddling here. He straight up calls him on the carpet. For having just made THE pivotal proclamation of the entire Gospel of Mark, Peter sure doesn’t get to rest on his laurels for long, does he?

The problem is, as I alluded to earlier, Peter’s response to JESUS’ beginning to explain to the disciples that yeah, he is the Messiah, but THIS is what being the Messiah means for him, and for us (Being rejected by the very people who have been supposedly holding vigil all these centuries until the Messiah comes, watching and waiting for him; it means that he would be put to death, and, oh yeah, he would be raised on the third day) – Peter’s reaction to Jesus telling him that being the Messiah is, in fact, about being a sacrifice, suffering for the sake of humanity the penalty that we would all by rights be subject to – tells us that while the words were the right words, Peter was still thinking in earthly, temporal terms. He was still looking for Jesus to whip out a sword and whip all those great crowds that had been following them around into some great frenzied army that would rise up and push all the Roman occupiers into the Mediterranean or up to the North somewhere, but definitely OUT of the land of Israel. Jesus calls him Satan and tells him to get away from him.

How’s that for straining a friendship?

He spells it out: “you’ve set your mind not on divine things, but on human things.”

In other words, he’s saying “you need to look at this from GOD’S eternal and worldwide perspective, not the narrow and provincial perspective of the High Priest, the Elders, and Scribes. They’ve lost sight of the forest because they are trying to keep tabs on all the trees.” I am about more than simply freeing Israel from its captivity to Rome, I am about freeing HUMANITY from it’s captivity to SIN.

Then the crowd reappears. Did you notice? “He called the crowd with his disciples, and said to them: ‘If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me’.”

There are three things he’s telling them (and us) to do:

1. Deny ourselves. The form of the verb ‘deny’ in this verse is not a suggestion, it is a command. The basic idea here is to say “NO!” To disown not just our sins, but our very self – if and when that self is vying for first place in our lives – to turn away from the idolatry of self-centeredness. It is not the kind of self-denial where we give up a particular vice or pleasure for a temporary length of time, like chocolate, or ice cream; it requires submission to a new King (Jesus Christ) in the place of the old (me).

2. Take up our cross. It’s a twin of the first one. The cross was never just a burden or trouble to the Jews of Jesus’ day, or for that matter, to the Roman’s of Nero’s time. The victim was required to carry his own cross to the place of his execution. To take up one’s cross requires absolute commitment, even to death.

3. Follow me. The form is the continuing present – ‘make it your habit to follow my example.’ It is a supporting command rather than a third requirement. It takes the first two into account and helps explain them, which in turn explains what it means to be a disciple. Mark uses the word ‘follow’ in his gospel in connection with discipleship.

The Message translates verses 34-37 this way:

"Anyone who intends to come with me has to let me lead. You're not in the driver's seat; I am. Don't run from suffering; embrace it. Follow me and I'll show you how. Self-help is no help at all. Self-sacrifice is the way, my way, to saving yourself, your true self. What good would it do to get everything you want and lose you, the real you? What could you ever trade your soul for?

Jesus puts into stark relief what is truly at stake if we live our lives as if WE are in control, as if WE are THE most important thing in our lives. We lose our identity, because we cannot sustain an identity based on ourselves alone.

Denying ourselves means rejecting the lie that we are the ultimate arbiter, the ultimate judge, of our own existence.

Taking up our cross means repeatedly, daily, hourly, choosing to follow Christ’s example of self-sacrificing love.

Following Christ means making that choice enough to where it becomes second nature.

May we all live lives of Christ.

Let’s pray.