Categories: uncategorized
Date: 03 March 2012 15:24:48
The sermon I've written for tomorrow mornings sermon based around Mark 8:31 - 38....evangelical yes; any apologies for the fact no.
It had been going so well, the crowds were happy and Jesus was a celebrity. The healings were always a crowd pleaser of course, but it was what Jesus said as well as what he did that had them hooked.
There was a slight issue with the Pharisees, like that time they had come asking him for a sign from heaven to test him. But overall it was going well – or that’s what Peter thought at least.
Peter knew he was following the Messiah, even if it was one of those things that Jesus had told them to keep quiet about.
But then it all started to change. Jesus words turned darker. He started to teach that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests and then be killed before rising again after three days.
Peter wasn't happy…this wasn't what was going to keep the crowds coming back for more. He decided it was time to have a quiet word with Jesus, time to try and put the message back on track.
Now Peter was one of those men who didn't come across as your natural spin doctor – he often suffered from foot in mouth and ended up being told he’d got it wrong, or gone too far. But none of the usual reactions he got had prepared him for Jesus this time. After having the quiet word to try and get Jesus back on track Peter was told, “Get behind me Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”
Peter had well and truly been told off by Jesus because yet again Peter in his over enthusiasm had made a crucial mistake.
Then Jesus calls the crowd and the disciples back together. His message changes again, after the public prediction and the private rebuke comes a public challenge. The challenge Jesus lays down to his listeners is, “if any want to become my followers let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.”
What exactly Peter made of this we don’t know but we do know that he made the choice to carry on following Jesus and despite all his human failings and the tendency to suffer from over enthusiasm or foot in mouth Peter was forgiven and became a great leader.
Jesus changed Peter but he didn't destroy who he essentially was, which was a man of huge passion.
Peter was faced with the choice each one of is when Jesus laid down the challenge. The choice he then and we today are faced with is whether to choose the world with all its concerns about status, power and other people’s reactions or whether to follow Jesus through the hard as well as the easy times – taking a choice others sometimes find it hard to understand.
In some ways it should be easier for us today, after all Peter had the challenge laid down after the prediction. We have it laid down to us after the prediction has been confirmed. We face the choice knowing that Jesus did indeed die and rise again 3 days later.
But in some ways we are just like Peter.
Whilst we know about the death and resurrection occurred we still don’t quite understand it. We still have question marks and we still live amongst people who prefer the idea of the sweet, sleeping Jesus – all meek and mild that we hear about at Christmas to the grown man who made the choice to endure a savage death on the cross. A man who whilst perfect endured a criminals death designed to be as cruel and humiliating as possible. The idea of a perfect God choosing to endure this death for us before rising from the dead is not the ending some today want to focus on either.
But today, within this period of Lent I invite you to face the challenge that the grown Jesus who did die and then rise again laid down in our reading from Mark and lays down again for us today.
I invite you to face this challenge not as in days gone by preaching fire, brimstone and eternal damnation but rather by spending some time considering what this challenge might mean in practice, for us living here in 21st century County Durham.
The first thing about this challenge is that it means rejecting the supposed “common sense” attitudes of the world. It means rejecting the notion that success can only be gained by gaining as much as possible, as quickly as possible and by being as successful and popular as possible.
Those types of ways of thinking were the very ones which Jesus had a go at Peter for being human rather than divine ways of thinking.
That doesn't mean we should all become hermits or try to be as dowdy as possible and suffer for the sake of suffering. But it does mean looking at things a different way. It means looking at the big picture as it really is, rather than trying to focus on the bits which make us feel good.
The challenge laid down to us is about how we respond to the reality of Jesus and the whole gospel, including those bits which can make uncomfortable reading. The challenge is one which asks are we ready to follow Christ even if that road may lead to being unpopular and making decisions which mean we don’t end up with the 32inch flat screen tv, the sports car, and the big house with the designer kitchen and all the other things which are seen to measure success in our world.
Therefore, the challenge Jesus lays down and the invitation to follow him is not an easy challenge.
The second aspect of this challenge is that it involves us denying ourselves. At lent it can be very easy to decide to give up things for 40 days and to feel very virtuous about doing so. Anybody who listens to the Archers will know that in Ambridge an example of this type of denying oneself is where several characters are trying to give up gossip for lent. That’s not the sort of denial that Jesus asks for. Jesus doesn't want forty days of us denying ourselves he wants a life time of it.
An example of how this denial is different to giving up things for Lent can be seen if we think about the following example. Somebody may give up chocolate for Lent and that will benefit them but nobody else.
Somebody else may decide that as fair trade fortnight falls within lent they are going to start thinking more about the products they buy and try to buy more fair trade goods during lent. If they do this they will notice their shopping bill goes up and they may decide not to buy chocolate in order to try and keep within their budget. In this case the giving up of chocolate is happening not to benefit themselves but because in trying to help others they have to go without something themselves.
If they only do this during lent, as a feel good thing to make them feel that they are doing something virtuous during this time of year it will only benefit others for a short period and their motivation is actually a worldly one rather than a divine one.
However, if they start this during lent but then continue it beyond the 40 days – realising that they are called to live this life where sometimes we have to give up things to help other people not to make us feel good but because it is God’s way of living then they are taking a totally different approach. It is this last way of looking at things which is divine rather than worldly, and it is the type of thing the challenge Jesus lays down is asking us to do.
This challenge is not about making ourselves doormats but it is about choosing to live a life which is based on gospel values where we look out for the world around us and the people in it, bearing the costs involved.
Taking up our cross can also mean having the courage to make hard moral decisions which might make us unpopular with those around us or which might cost us worldly success. This is the type of cross people tend to face within the work environment, when asked by bosses or colleagues to do things which are questionable. Christians who take a stand and say I am sorry, I can’t do that because I don’t think like that/ or I have a moral problem with that may find themselves having a real cross to bear at work as a result.
Therefore when we face this challenge let us not think it is an easy challenge which should be taken up without thought or consideration. Following Jesus is a decision which has consequences and we need to consider the costs as well as the benefits. The costs may not be as high for us as people in some countries, but they still exist.
So having looked at the difficult issues involved in choosing to follow Christ there is the question why bother? Why make a decision which is likely to lead to sacrifices and pain?
Sometimes in looking at why people have tried to scare people into believing through talk of fire and brimstone. I don’t believe fear is any reason to make the decision to follow Jesus. Scaring people into doing things is a worldly approach rather than a divine approach. Whilst the challenge Jesus lays down to us is difficult He remains a loving God. I cannot believe the same God who looked into so many eyes with compassion would want to scare people into following him.
Another reason people feel they have to believe is because they think it gives them some kind of eternal insurance policy. Believe now and get into heaven later. They don’t get the part of the challenge which talks about denial and taking up your cross. So they are not taking up the challenge Jesus lays down and they are not fully following – they are just trying to make an investment, again a worldly rather than a divine way of looking at the world.
So why take up the challenge? Why deny yourself? Why take up your cross and follow Jesus?
Well, I want to suggest it’s all about grace and mercy.
Jesus chose to go to the cross for us, it was not something he was forced to do…..but he chose to die that death, enduring the torture and cruelty because he loved us.
In rising again 3 days later he gave us the opportunity to be fully connected to God.
Without Jesus choosing to give us that gift we would not be able to receive forgiveness – we would not be able to know the reality of what Peter had when he was given a second chance, third chance and forth chance by Jesus when he kept making mistakes.
Because of Gods love we have the opportunity to truly be our whole selves and everything we are intended to be.
We are given the chance to free ourselves of the world’s expectations which weigh us down and simply make us work longer and longer hours to try and get more and more stuff we don’t want and don’t need.
We are given the chance to be allowed to make mistakes and learn from them. We are given the chance to truly live in relationship with those around us and make decisions which benefit them, rather than just us. We are freed from the fatalist and deterministic lifestyles the world promotes and can know we are seen as valuable who ever we are, knowing we are making a real contribution through whatever we do – however the world views it.
We can know what it is to be truly loved, in ways which even our closet relationships can never replicate.
Those are just some of the benefits of following Christ….but whilst those benefits are freely given by Christ and do not depend on any works of ours they do rely on us making a response to that challenge Jesus lays down. Are we individually and corporately ready to deny ourselves and take up the cross and follow Jesus?