Pentecost 14

May my words and my thoughts be acceptable to you, O Lord, my refuge and my redeemer. (Psalm 19:14)

SEASON: Pentecost 14
PROPER: 19 B
PLACE: St. John's Parish, Kingsville
DATE: September 17,2000


TEXT: Mark 8:27-38 - He asked them, “But who do you say that I am?” Peter answered him, “you are the Messiah.” . . . . . . “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.”

ISSUE: This is a very decisive passage in Mark’s Gospel. It is a turning point. Jesus is defined as The Messiah, but in contrast to the way the world thinks. He defines his messianic ministry as that of suffering servant. Discipleship is defined by leaving behind the traditional life that is safe and secure, and becoming branded as a follower of Christ in his servanthood. Each of us and the church today need to re-define who are we really as Christians in our world today. Who do people say that we are? Again we have a challenge to participate in the great reversal, not thinking as the world thinks, but as God thinks.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

In the Gospel of Mark, this particular passage is a very decisive one. It is an important defining, turning point. The passage is dealing with definition of who Jesus Christ is, and what it means to be a follower, a disiciple, one who takes up the cross to follow him in that ministry.
As Mark sets up the scene of Jesus being in conversation with his prominent disciple Peter, we are told that they are in the area Caesarea Philippi. This is a place that has Roman influence and prestige, named for an Emperor. It is a place with royal powerful prestigious connotations. It is in this area that Jesus asks Peter, “Who do the people say that I am.?” Peter replies that some of the people see Jesus as a prophetic figure, like old John the Baptist calling people to repentance and renewal. Others perceive of him as a figure like the charismatic Ezekiel, prophet and healer of significant stature. But then Jesus says to Peter, “Who do you say that I am?” Peter replies, “You are the Messiah.” We’re inclined to think Peter got it right. He passed the test. Not so.
In our culture today, we all think in a very individualistic way. We decide where we want to go to school, who we will marry, what occupation we will pursue. This way was not the way things were in Jesus’ time. You identity was given to you by your community. So when Jesus asks Peter, “Who do you say that I am?” it is not a test to see if Peter has the right answer. It is rather a way of getting a handle on how he is perceived by the community. Do they still see him as the son of Joseph and Mary, the son of a carpenter? Or, do they see him as having moved beyond that? How is this discipleship the community around him identifying him. And clearly he has been moved on to something quite different from his original background. He is seen as prophetic, a teacher, rabbi, healer. He’s achieved by virtue of the close community as moved in status and honor. Without that acknowledgement by Peter, you are the Messiah, Jesus probably would not have been able to move on with his mission and ministry. He needed the consent of the ministry.
Jesus tells Peter to tell no one of this messianic assignment, because for Jesus messiahship meant something quite different than what was commonly thought of as a messiah. Common thought was that a messiah was a royal triumphant leader. But Jesus begins to teach Peter and his disciples that his messiahship will take another form. It is the form of a suffering servant. He will be rejected by the scribes and Pharisees, the religious leadership of the time. He will suffer and be killed, and rise again. This definition was very foreign to the disciples. Peter rejects it. He wishes to hold to the more popular concept of his world, that a messiah is a triumphant military leader, similar to the former King David who united the nation. Like in so many other ways, Jesus again proclaims a great reversal. Peter is thinking as the world thinks, and must learn to think as God thinks. The Messiah of God is a suffering servant, who serves, suffers, dies for God’s people, and goes on living in resurrection King David had been a noble triumphant military leader and King, but David died. The true messiah of God, Son of Man, Son of Adam is a suffering servant who dies and lives on. It is a mysterious notion, but it is the way of the Divine.
In the second part of this defining passage, Jesus then tells Peter and the disciples what it means to be follower of the Suffering Servant. “If anyone wants 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.” Again, it is helpful to understand what is going on here in terms of what the passage means. Today when we talk about denying ourselves, we are usually thinking is some kind of monastic terms, or penitential terms. Denying yourself is what you do in Lent. Thus, the passage here, if we don’t understand it in context gives a pretty dismal understanding of what it means to be a Christian. Remember that in this culture, individuals were not considered important. Family, kin, community was what was important. Denial of self was not a matter of denying yourself personally, it was detaching from the support systems that kept you alive. It meant you had to leave you family traditions, you safety systems, your comfort systems, and make a clean break with the way of the past, and begin to follow in the new way of Jesus Christ. It was in giving up that old life with its safety and security, and that exclusive life, and join the new life with Christ in his servanthood that you took on a new meaningful life that was true life with an inclusive loving and forgiving God.
You took up the cross. You took up, in the Greek, your “stauros” There are various interpretations of what this means. A “stauros” is stake or pole, something, like a cross stuck into the ground. In other words, to take up the cross could mean that you have to pull up stakes to follow Jesus Christ into the new Realm of God, into the Kingdom of God. Get the point? Here’s Jesus in a royal city, Caesarea Philippi, redefining what a leader or messiah is, and is calling his followers into a new Royal Realm of God. The “stauros” or cross can also be understood as a “T” shaped, or Chi shaped “X” kind of cross that was used to brand animals that belonged to someone. It was a branding. Get branded as a follower of Jesus Christ, as one of his own. Of course, this is exactly what we do in Holy Baptism. We brand the person as the possession of Jesus Christ, Son of God, with the sign or branding of the cross. The priest anointing the person with holy oil making the sign of the cross says, “You are sealed by the Holy Spirit in Baptism and marked as Christ’s own forever.”
Taking up the cross, also can be interpreted quite literally. By the time Mark was writing this gospel account, Jesus had been crucified on the cross. Some other disciples were crucified as well. There were persecutions going on. Fact of the matter is that even in recent years there have been significant persecutions of Christians around the world in Central and South America, and in Africa. Often the modern present day culture persecutes the Christianity by its rampant materialism, consumerism, by its attempts a diminishing Christian values. Subtle though it may be, it’s still there in terms of minimizing the importance of faith, religion, prayer in the lives of people. Our world and time can be very exploitive, and destructive of human dignity. God forbid, but people do get persecuted for their faith, and that happened in the Columbine High School incident. Suffering is not something from which Jesus and his followers are exempt. We have to embrace suffering sometimes. Suffering can be very strengthening in Christian perspective. Though we may experience suffering and die, we live with Christ. We have to embrace it sometimes. Christ didn’t promise an easy life, only a cross sometimes, but meaningful life lived in love. Then, paradise, to walk in the royal garden in God’s Kingdom.
Clearly, Jesus was calling his disciples to a new way of life and thinking that moved away from some of the old cultural norms of exclusiveness to a focused, determined, sober, deliberate way of love and caring for the dispossessed. He was calling them away from self-centeredness and sinfulness, and into the Realm or Kingdom of God where there was a justice and concern for the overall human condition. Apparently, early Christians saw this new life with Christ hardly as dismal, but as a liberating joy to have a life that had meaning and purpose linked with God and with the establishing of a world that was not oppressive, cruel, manipulating, demeaning, unjust, overbearing, and destructive of the human spirit. Jesus’ messianic servanthood was liberating, outreaching, out caring. You could eat with sinners in love and forgiveness because God in Christ had reached out to you in your brokeness and in your imprisoned way of life. You could touch the lepers and the dying, and you could empathize with the sick and suffering not as the cursed but as the children of God, as brothers and sisters. You could break the bonds of the old purity rules and still be folk worthy of God’s Empire.
Marked with or branded with the sign of the cross, called Christians, Who does the world say that we are today? Are we seen as a band of very respectable people who keep to themselves in an isolated community of the self-righteous? Are we seen as a friendly group of people who know pious phrases and Bible verses about a sweet sentimental Jesus who kind of participate in a spiritual masturbation? So much of what we do is, and is perceived as done for our own gratification? Is the church and its people today clearly known for their giving up old traditions, their wealth, their satisfying ingrained comforts to be suffering caring servants with Christ? Christianity is perceived as a community of the self-righteous who believe in a judgmental god of reward and punishment: Good people. like us, go to heaven, and bad people, people different from us go to hell.
Being branded with the cross, pulling up stakes, taking up the cross, and suffering is the stuff of which the ministry and the messiahship of Jesus Christ and his church is about. It was one hell of a tough decision for the disciples to make. It’s tough for us too. It’s hard to give up our white race power and prestige. It’s tough to give your money away in an immediate and sacrificial way. It’s tough to take a stand against injustice and the persecution of Christian in a world that can laugh at what we value. Unless you take the plunge says Jesus, you really can’t be followers of mine. Unless you lose the life of the popular culture and what’s so comfortable and secure, you really don’t understand what it means to have real life, and life with real meaning. “O God, grant that your Holy Spirit in all things may direct and rule our hearts.” (Collect for the day.) We are what God has, and though Christ Jesus he calls us in spite of ourselves.