You Want Us to Do What?

DATE: September 16, 2012
SCRIPTURE: Mark 8:27-38

© Rev. Alison J. Buttrick Patton

Mark 8:27-38

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.” ²⁹[Jesus] asked them, “But who do you say that I am?” Peter answered him, “You are the Messiah.” ³⁰And [Jesus] sternly ordered them not to tell anyone about him.

³¹Then he [Jesus] began to teach them that the [Human One] 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, [Jesus] 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 [all], “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 [Human One] will also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.”

How many of us stepped out into last Monday awash in still-vivid impressions of a sun-drenched lawn at 245 Post Road E, balloons bobbing in the breeze and children gailey bouncing across the grass in potato sack races. Strains of Celtic music echo in the ears, along with the sounds of laughter, happy chatter and words of blessing poured out on backpacks and their owners alike. Last Sunday, we were electrified by all that joy. Gathered in view of the Saugatuck Church steeple, we passed the peace and passed bread and passed around our hopes and dreams for this community of faith. “We? We are going places! Can’t you feel it? God’s Spirit is unleashed….”

Many of you have told me that you walked off that lawn and into Monday with a spring in your step.

Monday afternoon, September 10th, I made my way to Sherwood Island, where I listened to the names of all the local folks who died in the attacks on September 11th, eleven years ago. I watched as family members walked across that grass, between lines of school children quietly standing at attention; watched each person approach the 9/11 memorial with solemn purpose and set a white rose on one of the names carved in stone there.

Tuesday morning, I prayed with a Westport man who has no job and no shelter. By mid-week, I’d learned that violence had erupted in Egypt and in Lybia. The U.S. Ambassador to Lybia, J. Christopher Stevens, and three of his staff, had been killed. By Saturday, 20 countries around the Middle East would report angry protests in response to a fiercely anti-Muslim film just released by an independent film maker in the U.S. All this against the backdrop of an increasingly heated presidential campaign and whatever personal turmoil may have confronted each of us in the last seven days… It’s been a week. You can feel the weight of it, as heavy as the mood was light last Sunday.

This morning’s gospel text, like this week’s events, feels heavy, more pressure than grace. “You want us to do what, Jesus? Lose our lives…Really?” Peter was certainly distressed. Things had been going so well. Just a few verses back, Jesus had restored the sight of a blind man by spitting on his hands and touching the man’s eyelids. Get past the ewww factor, and it was a powerful, intimate act. And despite Jesus’ appeals to keep it quiet, word of this and other miraculous acts had been spreading throughout the countryside. So somewhere along the way, Peter began to wonder, “Could this be the one? Could Jesus be the leader we need to overturn the mighty Roman Empire and restore the glory of Israel? ” Surely, one who can heal a blind man can save us all! Maybe this is it: Jesus, the Messiah, Jesus: anointed by God to overthrow Cesar and establish God’s kingdom of peace and prosperity … Peter’s hopes rose: Surely, they were going places!

Then Jesus started talking about suffering and death; about the Jewish authorities turning on him and soldiers arresting him. And that, that’s not the talk of a victor. Like any good campaign manager, Peter took Jesus aside.

“Pardon me, Jesus, but we’ve got to stay on message here. The people, they need a little uplift, a little hope. Let’s be honest: If we’re going to build a movement against the empire, you’re going to need all the backing you can get — even with all that miracle-working. Plus, there’s your image to maintain: Jesus the Christ! So try not to scare anyone off, O.K.?”

Can you blame him, really? Peter: so well-intentioned, full of love and high expectations? But Jesus would not be managed. Nor would he play games with people’s expectations. He wanted folks to see the whole picture, even if it made them uncomfortable. And if they weren’t getting uncomfortable, well: They just weren’t paying attention.

Because what Jesus was saying, on that road to Caeserea Philippi, is that following him is no Sunday afternoon picnic. The world through which Jesus walks, the one into which he calls all of us, is a world strewn with crosses. So Jesus walks, right through the rubble of a shattered building, until his robes are caked in ash and his face is streaked with tears.

He weeps, for victims and attackers; for shattered dreams and shattered relationships; for the anger and dehumanizing hostility that will erupt while the dust still settles he weeps then he rolls up his sleeves…

Jesus walks. Walks right through the middle of the demonstration — among the wounded and the outraged, as rocks fly past his head, tear gas stings his eyes and the sound of sirens fills his ears. He walks among warring Muslims, Jews and Christians; lovingly plants his feet right in their midst. “Let the one without sin throw the first stone,” he says. And “Blessed are the peacemakers.”

Jesus walks to the outskirts of town, under bridges and into the woods to find the cast down and the cast offs. He sits on the ground next to the guy with no coat and only one shoe, across from a woman who cradles an empty bottle in her lap. He breaks bread — enough for everyone there. Then he walks into city hall and tells a parable about the unjust judge, the one who shredded the safety net and turned his back on the poor.

Jesus walks — not where it’s safe, but wherever he is needed — through the city streets and into the board room: to confront the powerful; befriend the outcasts; banish demons, reconcile enemies and restore sight to the blind.

Did you know: These verses in chapter 8, they mark the midpoint of Mark’s gospel. Over the course of two and a half chapters — chapters 8-10, Jesus explains three different times that he’s going to suffer, die and rise again. And if you take a step back, you’ll see that this section begins and ends with scenes in which Jesus restores sight to someone who is blind. Like two sign posts, those two scenes point to what’s going on in these verses in-between: how Jesus tries to explain to his near-sighted disciples, tries to shed light on his ministry and what it’s all about — the promise and the perils.

“Don’t you see?” Jesus asks Peter, the disciples, and us. “This isn’t about glory. That’s a human desire. It’s not about looking good or coming out on top and it’s not about you, Peter, and whether the truth makes you squirm in your sandals. It’s about people. God’s people. It’s about God’s precious, struggling, mixed up, particular, hard-headed, heart-broken people; the ones who have lost sight of God’s love; the ones who yearn for it; the ones who suffer and the ones who cause suffering. It’s about walking with people, in all their mixed-up messiness, listening deeply, confronting injustice …and restoring wholeness.

And that? That’s not easy. It’s never easy. Following Jesus, wading in after him, it takes everything we’ve got, everything we are. This week reminds me that following Jesus is demanding because the healing, reconciling work he calls us to do is demanding. I look at the life of J. Christopher Steven. I don’t know anything about his faith, whether he thought of himself as a Jesus-follower. But I know that his life’s work as an ambassador, most recently in the Middle East, had to have required all his creative resources. It had to have gotten him in trouble once or twice, as he navigated competing cultural and political claims, and labored to craft community in that region so ancient, so cherished by so many, so divided. In the end, it cost him his life.

I’m not saying that following Jesus means we have to get ourselves killed for the cause — although that happens. What I am saying, what I think Jesus was saying, is that transforming the world, ushering in God’s holy reign, is slow, messy, risky work.

So why do it? Why follow at all? Why not say, “Thanks for the invitation, Jesus. But I think I’ll just hang out here. You go ahead…”

Maybe what helps us are those glimpses of the big picture. Even though we’re near-sighted. Even though we struggle, every day, to see past our own fears and frustrations, our own doubts and distractions. Maybe, once in a while, we get a glimpse of what it means to be a part of something bigger, what it feels like to be enfolded in God’s beloved community. Once in a while, God’s Spirit moves through our midst and helps us to lose ourselves for a little while: so we gimp across a sun-drenched lawn in a three-legged race, looking ridiculous and laughing with abandon. “Ah! Here: here is the Reign of God!”

Or we rally around a family who has suffered a heart-rending loss — holding and feeding and praying together and for a while we lose ourselves in that sacred work of being community in a time of need. And we realize, “This, this is what it’s like…”

Or we pour our heart and sweat and tears into making a difference in our corner of the world and find our own lives completely changed in the process… “That, that’s what Jesus meant…”

The world into which Christ calls us is strewn with crosses. But Christ gives us the strength and the vision, to lift them. And those crosses, they don’t get the last word. “Whoever loses their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, shall save it.” Jesus said. So hope erupts in our midst. Love rises again. The sun(son) bursts onto the scene, and our loads are lifted, hearts are mended, anger is dissolved and lives are restored. That’s the end of the story — and we’re called to be a part of it. One step at a time. Are you ready? May God bless us as we go. Amen.