Sermon
Lent IIYear B
25-2-18
Eltham
Readings
OT:Genesis 17 – God's promises to Abraham
Psalm: Psalm 22 – positive bit at the end
Gospel: Mark 8:31-38 take up cross and follow me.
+FSHS
The New Zealand poet James K Baxter once wrote in the poem “Song to the Lord God on a spring morning”:
Whoever has lifted
the burden of Christ will find that an armful of dry grass
is the same weight as the cross.
Hearing again the gospel reading this morning we wonder at that, because while it’s pretty straightforward—no fancy exegesis is needed to get the meaning of the bald words Jesus utters—everything about it is difficult. First of all is Jesus’ prediction: that the journey he and the disciples are on ends in suffering, death, and resurrection. Second is Peter pulling Jesus aside and having a heated argument with him in which Jesus calls him “Satan”. And third is what Jesus says, not just to the disciples but to the crowd, that to be his disciple, to follow him, means giving up everything and taking up the cross, and that if they can’t or won’t or don’t do this, then they’re not worthy of being his disciple. Overreaction much? We might be tempted to ask. But even that reaction is because we, in our reasonably comfortable middle-class existences, if we’re honest, find Jesus’ words shocking, confronting.
In Mark’s characteristically sparse tale, immediately before our periscope begins, Jesus has just asked the disciples who people say that he is. After some fumbling around about John the Baptist and Elijah and the prophets, Peter makes the stunning, grandiose declaration: “You are the Messiah.” The anointed, chosen one. And Jesus silences the disciples, forbidding them from talking about that truth. It’s presented by Mark that Jesus then begins to predict the not-too-distant future in response to Peter’s correct perception. Yes, I’m the anointed one. Now, you’ve gotta learn what it means to be the Anointed One: it means suffering, rejection, murder and death, and the promise of new life three days later. He takes the risk of making himself vulnerable with the disciples. But the disciples find this so unpalatable when they get their minds around it that Peter pulls Jesus aside for a quiet chat… which turns into an argument.
I have often wondered what Peter said to Jesus. The Greek word implies something like, “Shut up!” I wonder if Peter brought the full arsenal with him: You can’t say that Jesus, not when we know who you are. I mean, what about our dreams of who the Messiah’s going to be, riding into Jerusalem on a white charger to liberate the nation from foreign rule? If you’re the Son of God, then surely glory and triumph and a heavy gem-studded crown await you. I mean, we’ve put our lives on the line and given up everything to follow you. Are you seriously trying to say that it’s all been in vain? That at the end of it we’re all going to die? That you’re going to die? What about us? And you could say that to me, James and John, ‘cause we’re close to you. But for goodness’ sake, spare the ears of the others; you know they’re weaker and don’t really understand, and think of the impact your death would have on them. And what about all the people who have followed and depended on you, the people you’ve healed and preached to and who have been inspired by you? I mean, people have invested in you. It’d be a betrayal. You can’t say those things! And they’re not going to happen anyway. What kind of Messiah allows himself to be killed? And in any case, surely there’s enough of us to stop that happening. Don’t be so negative!
Beneath all of this is Peter’s fear and disbelief, and probably dismay and disappointment. Mark tells the story, but only hints at the complex web of relationships which existed between Jesus and his disciples, and Peter in particular.
Whatever Peter said, Jesus had an equal and opposite reaction: No, you shut up, and get behind me you… you… Satan! Accuser, de-railer, tempter. You’re thinking not the way God thinks. Your way is not the way of the kingdom of God, but instead the way of instinct and fear. I wonder what Peter thought when Jesus calls everyone to him, Peter standing off to the side perhaps, and then tells them all that to follow him means denying themselves, taking up the cross, and following him. That it means losing their life for his sake and the sake of the gospel in order to find it. That it means not being ashamed him Jesus and his words—or else they would find that in the last reckoning Jesus will be publically ashamed of them. In some ways, knowing that he prompted those words I imagine would have stung Peter deeply.
And the point of this is that we empathise with Peter. We can well imagine being in his shoes, trying to hold someone back from what we consider is a reckless course of action. We also can empathise with him in that while we might have things all sorted out in our minds, and know Jesus is the chosen one of God, and have the story before us, here we’re brought face to face with several core truths. We’re not in control and God’s not made in our image. God’s way of thinking about things isn’t ours. And if we’re following Jesus, who is “not a tame lion”, we can expect risk and adventure that’s not without pain—but which holds incredible promise and true life.
Peter forgot the lesson Jesus had been teaching for three years: that the realm of God is a realm in which the old order of things is stood on its head: the humble exalted, the lofty pulled down from their thrones, the hungry fed while the rich go empty away, a realm in which the boundaries are loving God and loving neighbor as self, and don’t fall across race or class or ethnicity or gender. Looking at it that way, we can see that Jesus’ death was inevitable, both from the perspective of his way getting up the noses of those who were powerful and rich and well-fed, as well as the divine pattern of death leading to new life. I suspect he’d known all along, since the time of his baptism, that being the Anointed One, the beloved Son, would bring him to a shady mortal end.
In this day and age where we wear crosses as jewelry, and are used to seeing the cross as a powerful symbol of hope and life, we forget that in Jesus’ day the cross was a shameful, humiliating way to die. Cicero, a Roman lawyer and writer, decried crucifixion: “There is no fitting word that can possibly describe a deed so horrible” (Against Verres). In Jewish tradition, there was a curse: Cursed be anyone who dies hanged on a tree. To take up the cross implied embracing the horror, shame, death, humiliation, hopelessness—and to embrace it willingly, following Jesus’ own example. I wonder how many in the crowd that day, the disciples, Peter, really understood what Jesus was saying.
I wonder whether we really understand what Jesus was saying, is saying to us through the story today. Lent is a time for us to be in touch with the fact that, no matter what we think and how secure we think we are, we are not really in control of our lives, and never have been, never will be. Jesus, in choosing to share with the disciples what was obviously difficult for him to say, about what awaited him, was also making a statement about trusting God, about the realm of God being precisely about living in such a way that our hearts beat with God’s heart, and that whatever our journey, God’s purpose is in it, and that even if we go through valleys of shadow and death, God leads, guides, and will hold us, promising life in abundance. If we live in the heart of God, then fear can’t control our lives or hold us back. If we live in the heart of God, then we have courage to live the radical message of repentance, to stand up to injustice and the manifestation of evil in our world. To seek and offer forgiveness for the times we stuff up and hurt others. To live as agents, not of holding grudges and petty vendettas, but of reconciliation. To choose paths of action which lead to abundant life. To look for the signs of God’s growth in our contexts rather than focusing on fear that holds back potential. If we live with our own hearts beating close to God’s heart, yes, we will suffer and bleed with the world. But it will be suffering with, not in isolation. And it will be suffering that is both life giving as well as having the promise of the fullness of life when it’s done.
And that’s the good news of what it means to take up the cross and follow Jesus: that following Jesus is something we do together. Jesus and his story must be at the centre of our lives—how else are we going to live close, our hearts beating close to the heart of God? Jesus and his story must be at the centre of all we do as his followers, as individuals, and as a church community here at St Margaret’s. We each must take up the cross, but when we each take up the cross, we find it lighter for all those with us also taking it up as we follow our leader, our Anointed One. Perhaps James K Baxter’s poetic vision is true:
I need not complain that youth has gone
or that the sins of morning
haunt me at noonday. Whoever has lifted
the burden of Christ will find that an armful of dry grass
is the same weight as the cross. Man only lives for a day
yet he can hear the singing of strong voices.
Alleluia Adonai.
Therefore, whatever another day
may hold for me - exile, darkness, and the rod of Pharaoh lifted
to scourge my back - this brightness of morning
cannot die. The murmur of many voices
will stay with me when the light has gone,
and my days are like an acre of burnt grass.
Alleluia Adonai.
May we have grace that our hearts may beat along with the heart of God, and to take up the cross and follow Jesus.
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