Cruciform Community

Mark 8:27-38
16th Sunday after Pentecost
September 12, 2021

Jesus 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?” And they answered him, “John the Baptist; and others, Elijah; and still others, one of the prophets.” He asked them, “But who do you say that I am?” Peter answered him, “You are the Messiah.” And he sternly ordered them not to tell anyone about him.

Then 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. He said all this quite openly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. But 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.”

 

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. For 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. For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life? Indeed, what can they give in return for their life? Those 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.”

I have been looking forward to this moment for some time. About three months, in fact. No sooner did I say goodbye on the first of June, and I began to anticipate my return. I had a wonderful summer, filled with rest, relaxation, and writing time. I hope you had a good summer, too, and I look forward to hearing if you enjoyed your break from me as much as I enjoyed my break from you.

It’s good to take a break. Unrelieved activity can exhaust us. Unrelieved connection can blow us apart. Constant motion can become commotion. And we begin to forget why we are here.

So I am here, and you are here, and together we will be the church again. As the fall begins, it is worth considering what kind of church we are going to be. Some people think there are lots of options.

We could be the busy church. The busy church has programs, classes, activities all the time. How is that working for you? I don’t know. Nancy asked me to take back the reins for the Wednesday weekly e-mail. I glued together what you sent me, what we know, what we plan to do – and hope to do. And it’s true, I return from a sabbatical with renewed energy. But when I pressed “send” on that 85-pound e-mail, I was already feeling tired. Being a busy church may not be all it’s cracked up to be, especially in a pandemic.

So maybe we could be the impressive church. Some think that sounds like a pretty good option, too. Especially when they look around this room. This is a congregation full of impressive people. Not only are you good looking; you’re smart, too. Lots of educated folks. More than that, a deep reservoir of wisdom. Every time I teach a class around here, I always learn something. Thank you for that. You are a most impressive bunch, and you make it easy to return. Our building may not have gargoyles nor stained glass Bible stories, but it houses of you.

But we are Christian people, so we take our cue from Christ. He never calls us to be a busy church or an impressive church. No, he has something else in mind. He invites us to be a church that follows him. That’s not easy, for he has gone invisible on us. We can hear his Voice, but we can’t always see his example.

All the same, if we were listening to the Bible text for today, we know what kind of church he wants us to be. He wants us to be a church that gives its life away for the benefit of others. As far as he is concerned, that’s the only kind of church there is.

He puts his invitation into the air: if anybody wants to follow me, let them give everything away. Let them deny themselves. Let them lose it all for my sake. This is what he means for us to “take up a cross.”

It is a most confusing invitation. The day he first said it, Simon Peter didn’t understand. Jesus and his band of merry followers had enjoyed one success after another. The kingdom movement had begun. Hope was spreading like wildflowers. Sick people were getting well. Those with invisible troubles were catching their breath and calming down. The hungry were getting fed. Thanks to Jesus, the world was getting better – at least in that little corner of Palestine. 

Simon Peter says, “Jesus, what are you talking about? Are you going to throw away all your success? After all, we’ve finally figured out who you are – you are the Christ, the Messiah of God.”

And Jesus stares him down and says, “Shh! Quiet down. Don’t tell anybody that.”

“But Jesus,” says Simon Peter, “look how busy you’ve been! Old Mark has been writing down the things you’re doing and can barely keep up. Throwing out the demons, restoring the lepers, shouting away the storms. Man, you are God’s Super Hero.”

Jesus spins around and says, “I told you to be quiet. Hush up. I must give my life away, and so must you.”

“But Jesus,” insists Simon Peter, “you must keep building, keep growing, keep increasing your influence. That’s the kind of Messiah we have been waiting for – somebody successful! We know who you are, and you’re never going to die!”

Jesus stops in his steps, spins around again, stares him down, and says, “Stop this, you devil. You are not thinking about God’s work. You are merely impressed with statistics, and numbers that grow, and being bigger and better and flashier and gaudier. And God doesn’t care about any of that. What God values is one thing and one thing alone: are you giving your life away for others.”

I confess to you how confusing all of this is. After all, thanks to the pandemic, I am now an Internet Evangelist. I have a TV show. I have even gone blonde during the pandemic. I’m thinking about hiring a make-up artist out of the church budget.

And yet, if you add up the average number of people who come here on a Sunday morning with those tuning in online, it’s a good bit less than the number of folks who were here a couple of years ago. So much for being a Show Biz church!

I’m messing with you a little bit, but I believe the point is relevant. The world may sell the notion that, if something is alive, it has to keep getting bigger – like a product that takes over the market, or a TV show that gains more viewers, or an advertisement that gets more sales, or an evangelist that grabs more souls. But according to Jesus, those are not the values of the Gospel. They are the values of the world, a world described by one preacher as the very same “world that pushed Jesus out of it and onto a cross.” (Bonhoeffer) 

The mystery of the Gospel is that Jesus knew what kind of world this is. So what did he do? He gave himself away to the cross in order to benefit the world. He was not interested in building his resume. He refused to play it safe. He would not stay in Galilee – but set his face toward Jerusalem. This is the mystery that makes us Christian.

If we are going to be the kind of people who follow Jesus, it’s good to consider just what that means.

He speaks of “losing yourself.” Did you ever lose yourself? I’m not asking if you ever got lost – that’s a different question. But losing yourself.

A lady I know who has plenty of resources, who has every reason to coast on her good reputation, has been slipping into the city when nobody is looking. She doesn’t tell her friends at the country club what she’s doing. But I’ll tell you: she is teaching at-risk teenagers how to read.

She sits with them, learns their names, learns their stories, listens to how they have no home of their own to return to, so they sleep on the couches of their friends. And she is teaching them how to read. Giving encouragement. Focusing on helping them learn and improve. Staying by their side when they have setbacks. Celebrating each good test grade. And she’s not keeping track of how many kids she’s helped, because it’s not about the numbers. She helps just one at a time.

And know what she says? “I lose all track of time when I’m doing this.” Hear that? Losing herself and gaining a soul.

Or how about Mick? Most of us knew him. We nearly filled the sanctuary yesterday for his memorial service. He had a good job, loved his wife, raised two outstanding children, made a lot of friends. He ascended in the Masonic Order, learned the rituals, made more friends. Made a lot of friends around here.

And yesterday, a man came up and said, “I thought I knew Mick, but I had no idea. I didn’t know that Mick was personally responsible for taking children with spinal difficulties, severe burns, all kinds of illnesses to the Shriner Hospitals in Boston, Philadelphia, and Erie.” He transported over three hundred kids, but it wasn’t about the numbers. He took them one at a time. This was his volunteer work when he could have been cruising the Mediterranean.

Know what he said? “I’ve lost track of how many kids unless I look at the records. It’s just something I can do.” He lost track … and gained a soul.  

And yesterday, yesterday of all days, while speeches were made, and monuments were honored, and painful memories were recounted, I remembered what I could of 9-11. Not merely the planes crashing, the towers falling, the psychic numbing of a nation, nor the cries for retaliation. All of that was the nightmare.

No, what I remember is that Sunday afternoon when people of this church boarded a bus, went to New York, and delivered 75 homemade pies to the surviving members of the Hook and Ladder company in Hell’s Kitchen. The captain of the fire department told us how his company rushed into the South Tower to pull out as many people as they could. They did this willingly, sacrificially, because (as he said), “It was the right thing to do.”

Risking your life to save others – sounds like Jesus. Remember what he said? “For 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 good news, will save it. For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life? 

To follow Jesus is to be inducted into the mystery of the cross. We learn of that transaction of evil that cancels evil, that death of his that leads to life, that horrific execution that opens all of us to the offer of forgiveness. This is the mystery of Christ that can shape and reshape our lives. Following Jesus is the journey of

giving up control,

            surrendering to the gift of grace,

            sacrificing our delusions of glory,

            joining in God’s ongoing operation to salvage a broken world.

This is what it means to “give our lives,” to “take up our crosses,” and to “deny ourselves.” It is the move to step off the throne and put Jesus there, where he rules with crucified hands and a heart overflowing with love. This is a continuing journey for all of us. We never master it. We never become experts. Over time, we realize that’s OK, because it’s not our job to rule the world, or increase our little corner of turf, or even to become impressive.  We are here to love and serve, to lift up and encourage, to look out for the interests of other, and to let each person know that they are eternally valuable in the sight of their God.

So here we are, together again, the cross-shaped community of Christ. As the fall unfolds, we will continue to be schooled by the Gospel of Mark. If we take the journey seriously, it will be a bumpy road, for we will be asking Jesus to shape us more and more like him. That will not happen easily. But it is the invitation of the Gospel. To follow him, to learn from him, to love like him.

See you next week.

(c) William G. Carter. All rights reserved.