SERMONS

Mark 8: 27-38
The Reverend Angela L. Ying
Bethany United Church of Christ
March 29, 2009

Have you ever found yourself “On the Way”?

Now Jesus and his disciples were going through the villages and “on the way” Jesus asks them, “Who do people say that I am?”

Oh, John the Baptist or Elijah or one of the prophets.

Then Jesus pops the question, “But who do you say that I am?”

Hmmm—Aren’t you getting a little personal Jesus—of those of us who are just starting to chill out from being your frozen chosen?

I do not know how you would answer on the spot, but I think most would have probably played it safe and said, Jesus—why, you are our teacher, our prophet, our guide, our buddy, our companion on life’s journey.

Not so for Peter, who would later become “The Rock” on which Jesus would grow and build the church.

Filled by the power and wisdom that only the Holy Spirit can give, Peter takes the big risk and blurts out, “You are the Christ!”

And Peter is right.

And yet, the gospel of Mark does not dwell on when a disciple of Jesus simply gets the right answer.

A lot of good it does our Peter.

For moments later as Jesus fortells of his death and resurrection, Jesus is addressing the head of the discipleship class as “Satan” when Peter thought he was being nice in not wanting Jesus to die.

We can imagine someone or ourselves saying, “Don’t you think that’s a little negative? I think we need to be more positive, more optimistic!”

And yet, Jesus’ words are as sharp, direct and perplexing as those of a Zen master. “You are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.” You are getting uprooted by every day distractions rather than being grounded in God.

As a listener, we feel a voice of protest rise up on Peter’s behalf. “Gosh, Jesus, Peter is your friend – he just does not want to see you get nailed.”

“On the way.”

Perhaps, the disciples were now thinking “On the way—to what?”

In his book, Let Your Life Speak, Palmer Parker writes,

I had always imagined God to be in the same direction as everything else that I valued: UP. And yet, with God as the “ground of our being”—I had to be forced underground before I could understand that the way to God is not up but down—down to ground on which it is safe to stand and to fall.

The teachings of Jesus in our text are directed not to the disciples alone, but to the crowds. That is—to anyone who might be thinking of following Jesus “on the way.”

What does it mean to follow Jesus on the way?

Perhaps, it is more a journey than a destination, a walk more than a sprint, a planting, pruning, and sometimes uprooting for later blossoming than a full grown cut flower.

Jesus prepares us as he prepares his people for discipleship by sharing with them that a disciple who follows Jesus learns paradox.

Lesson One: If any one want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.

I can hear myself and the disciples caught by surprise and not prepared for Jesus’ words.
Wait a minute. I thought when I signed up for “Being a Christian 101”, it would be all fun and games – potlucks and parties – no more problems – don’t worry, be happy.

What is this take up my cross and follow Jesus? Where did that come from?

And if taking up your cross is not hard enough, we and the disciples hear—Lesson Two: Whoever would save their life would lose it; and whoever loses their life for my (Jesus’) sake and the gospel will save it.

The disciples had left boats, jobs, and families to follow Jesus. The pace of their work was hectic and exhausting, but in spite of occasions of opposition, they found it did ground them for what would lie ahead.

Jesus constantly takes his disciples to a deeper level of discipleship.

Darrell Guder author of the book, The Continuing Conversion of the Church, writes “The ‘gospel which meets my needs’ must be replaced with the Good News that reveals needs I did not know I had, while providing healing I never dreamt was possible.”

Not only does a disciple who chooses to follow Jesus learn paradox – where the last will be first and the first last, where those who exalt themselves will be humbled and those who are humble themselves for God will be exhausted!—Actually in the gospel it is those who humble themselves will exhalted. But I have always wondered if exhaustion comes first before being exalted. For as a disciple, one learns, not our own way, but God’s way and as I have shared before, a disciple learns to dance (even if we have two left feet)—with the paradoxes of life!

In Henri Nouwen’s Bread for the Journey, he shares “the great paradox of life is that those who lose their lives for God will gain them. This paradox becomes visible in very ordinary situations. If we cling to our friends (and I would add “our children”), we may lose them, but if we are non-possessive (and see them as gifts of God), we will make friends, even with our children … When we want to be in the center, we easily end up on the margins, but when we are free enough to be wherever we must be, we often find ourselves—centered.”

A Disciple who follows Jesus learns paradox.

A Disciple who follows Jesus also learns suffering.

This is probably what takes Peter by surprise. He can work with the paradoxes, but the suffering?

For to be a disciple of Jesus, you and I cannot run away from the rejection, pain and suffering of Jesus and the suffering present in ourselves and in all of God’s people.

To ignore, shun and not pay close attention to the cries within our own lives and in the struggles of God’s people is to miss the point of discipleship.

For when we are on the way as a Christian community, often we discover more problems and more questions not less.

I have a hunch Jesus was teaching his disciples that if they were more concerned about everyone in the room being happy and comfortable and a fear of failure – than about taking risks and walking together in faith through life’s unknowns – discipleship is not going to be what we think.

Let us remind ourselves that the gospel teaches us that we are on this journey through the forty days of Lent towards the Garden of Gethsemane and the cross of Christ not the Magic Kingdom and Space Mountain at Disneyland.

Mark is a Good Friday gospel in the sense that the cross is central to understanding Jesus and the nature of discipleship – and with that comes rejection, pain and suffering. The gospel does not want the church to use Easter to escape Lent and Good Friday.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who was killed in his standing up against Hitler and the Nazis writes in his book, The Cost of Discipleship, “The cross is there, right from the beginning, a disciple has only got to pick it up; there is no need for you to go out and look for a cross for yourself, no need for you deliberately to run after suffering.

Jesus says that every Christian disciple has his/her own cross waiting –- each endures one’s own allotted share of suffering and rejection. Each has a different share – but it is the one and the same cross in every case.”

A disciple who follows Jesus learns paradox.

A disciple who follows Jesus learns suffering.

The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. understood what it meant to live in and with paradox and what it meant to suffer when he said, “we must accept finite disappointment, but we must never lose infinite hope.”

And also from our scripture text,

A disciple who follows Jesus loses one’s life for God, loses one self to God.

Now here is where my grandmother who read the Bible every day and lived to be 104 often reminded us – Please Note: “that to lose your life for God—you have to first, have a life! To lose your self to God, you have to have a self.”

A Sense of Humor is quite critical in discipleship as we learn that you and I cannot give to others what we do not have within each of us.

Attempting to give your life away on your own becomes a suicide, if you do not know what true life in Christ is.

Giving yourself to God or to another without counting the real cost is not discipleship, but a form of needy, co-dependent, nice Christianity—Jesus and the church can do without.

It is a strong ego, a strong sense of self which Jesus is teaching his disciples to form.
A strong ego and sense of self, not a big ego and a false sense of self.

We do not want to get the two confused as we grow community for a strong self is indeed necessary to grow.

Thirty years ago, Anne Lamott’s older brother, who was ten years old at the time, was trying to get a report on birds written that he had three months to write.

It was due the next day.

She writes,

We were out at our family cabin, and my brother was at the kitchen table close to tears, surrounded by binder paper and pencils and unopened books on birds. My brother was immobilized by the hugeness of the task ahead.

Then my father sat down beside him, put his arm around my brother’s shoulder, and said, “Bird by bird… Just take it bird by bird.

Who do we say Jesus is?

Claiming that Jesus is the Christ is just the beginning of our faith journey together as disciples, who walk by faith – step by step – one step at a time—On the Way.

Copyright ©2009 Angela Ying. All rights reserved.