Day of the Church Year: Pentecost 16B2021
Scripture Passage: Mark 8:27-38
I have compassion for Peter this morning. After Peter correctly identifies that Jesus is the messiah, Jesus tells Peter and the rest of the disciples about his upcoming suffering, rejection, death, and resurrection. Understandably, Peter doesn’t seem to hear the resurrection part, but he’s super clear on the death part. And he doesn’t want Jesus to go through it, so Peter rebukes Jesus. In turn, Jesus calls Peter Satan and rebukes him right back. Not Peter’s finest hour. To add insult to injury, Jesus then instructs the disciples to deny themselves, take up their cross, and follow him, to go where Jesus goes. So, you can see why I have compassion for Peter this morning...because who wants to follow a messiah who is going to suffer, be rejected, and die? If you didn’t already know where I was going with this and had the choice in front of you: Who would you rather follow? A. a successful, brilliant leader or B. a rejected criminal who receives the death penalty, I’m guessing most of us would go for option A, the successful, brilliant leader. Of course we would.
Honestly, though I preach and teach about Jesus on the regular, I somehow still have managed to avoid really taking it in that the One we follow was convicted as a criminal, received punishment as a criminal, and was rejected by everyone except for a handful of women who stayed near the cross. I have managed to avoid thinking about Jesus being actually quite dirty from his ministry travels where he was, in effect, homeless. In my head, I skip over these unsavory and gritty details and move right to the lovely parts of his radical love and wise teaching about non-violence and the kingdom of God. But Peter’s rebuke of Jesus and Jesus’ corresponding rebuke remind me this morning that Jesus and the literal, historical path he followed was pretty grimy. He was touching people who were sick, making mud with his spit, and in constant close quarters with the crowds seeking healing. You and I may be here at church on Sunday morning looking for a shiny messiah, but that’s not the one we have.
That’s not all. Jesus instructs the disciples and us to follow him. So it’s not just Jesus who will be grimy. Jesus’ disciples were probably equally odorous and grubby—because they were doing many of the same things Jesus was doing. No wonder Peter protested. And Peter especially didn’t want to end up on a cross. He didn’t want to suffer. He didn’t want to be rejected. Who wants that? But that, apparently, is the way of Jesus.
We are so accustomed to following shiny, successful people, people who fit the conventions of success in our world. But the reality is that Jesus was not shiny, and he was not successful by any measure we would use in our world, with the exception of Jesus’ extraordinary wisdom. He was not wealthy. He was not respected by the people who mattered. He didn’t follow important social conventions about the sabbath and who and who not to touch and talk to. We see him as a sinless, perfect god-human, but he brought shame to his family. Sure, he was popular—with the unpopular people, with the sick people, with the poor people, but even with those who followed him, he was only popular when he was healing and feeding them. Once he got to cross, where’d everybody go?
Right about now in my sermon preparation, I was wondering: Wow. Why do I follow Jesus? And: he really is a different kind of messiah than we expect.
A messiah is one who leads and saves, and if a messiah is to lead and save, at the very least, he has to be alive, in power, and popular enough for people to follow. But our messiah, Jesus, takes up a cross and denies himself and tells us to do the same, to follow him into suffering and rejection and death.
I still can’t quite articulate why Jesus is so compelling to me when he invites us to follow him into suffering and rejection and death. All I know is that, when I deny myself, when I make my life about others and not about me, when I take up the cross and joyously use my time to contribute to my community, life is better. Way better. For me. Ironically. When I give up trying to be popular and shiny, when I stop trying to please people and instead focus on just having integrity, sure, some people reject me, but others are drawn to that kind of authenticity. The same is true for communities—like Grace. When we focus less on trying to offer perfect programs, when we give up pleasing everyone, which we can’t really do anyway, we are freed to welcome all people, to serve one another through the pancake breakfast and heat respite, by providing rides for a neighbor who needs it and teaching and befriending kids, by doing our part to contribute to this community—whether it’s serving as a liaison to breakfast serving crews, mowing the lawn, vacuuming the carpet, singing in the band or choir, reading scripture during worship, or any number of other things. We’re not perfect people, but because we deny ourselves and take up the cross, life is better. For us. For our whole community.
Today, I have compassion for Peter who wanted to help Jesus avoid all that was gritty and unsavory and downright painful. I get it. Somehow, in a way I don’t completely understand, when we look suffering and rejection and death in the face, when we let go of making our lives the way we want and stop focusing on us, something happens. Seriously, it has got to be God at work. Of course, it is. For when Jesus looks suffering and rejection and death in the face, when he walks the way of the cross, what he finds at the end of that path is resurrection, new life. We do too. Jesus says: Deny yourselves and take up your cross and follow me. For those who save their lives will lose them, but those who lose their lives for my sake and for the sake of the gospel will save them. Thanks be to God! Amen.