Sunday, March 4, 2012

Sermon for Lent 2, 3/4/12 Emmanuel, Mercer Island

Each year the Bishop recommends a book to the diocese to read during Lent.
This year he recommended the Bible.
Well, how novel, you might say.

After all the Bible IS “Holy Scripture,”
            words that have the power to convey what is holy,
                                    what is of God,
                                    what is revelatory of God,
                                    what is life-revealing and life-sustaining.

I grew up in the Episcopal Church
            and during all those Sunday School years
            we got some of the stories in the Bible, but not really a whole lot of them.
I remember being embarrassed because of my ignorance of the Bible
            around other kids who went to bible churches,
                        who knew more of the stories
                        and who had been made to memorize verses.

So as a young adult I made a point of reading the Bible all the way through.
And that began a love affair with the Bible
            that has continued throughout the years.
I would read the Bible according to the two year lectionary for the Daily Office
            using a different translation every two year cycle.              You can too.
I also have studied Greek and Hebrew so as to delve deeper into the texts.
But the main point for reading the Bible is what
A colleague of mine wrote in his church newsletter this last week:
“…we  easily remember the characters, plot and action of good stories,
and the stories of the Bible are wonderful, often strange, even bizarre, intensely personal narratives in the lives of real human beings
living the intensity and often confusion
of an intimate open or closed relationship with God…
The Gospel reading for today is just such a story:
            personal, about Peter, as a real human being
            living the intensity and confusion of an intimate relationship with Jesus                                     that is both open and closed to what Jesus is saying to him
                                                                                                and to the other disciples.

First we need a little background to give some context for the story.
To understand the Gospel for today,
            we need to back up and read what came just before today’s reading.
And then you may come to see that what we are dealing with here
            is radical, counter-intuitive and off the charts.

But then we are dealing with Jesus,
            or rather I should say, HE is dealing with us.
He loves us so very much,
            and so he disturbs us.  That’s part of the love.

Those of you who are taking part in the adult education hour
            for this Lenten series with Peter Snow already have a leg up on this.
-- That’s a bold-faced “hint” to the rest of you to attend. --

Peter Snow last Sunday talked about the Hebrew ideas regarding the Messiah
            and the historical context for this tiny nation
                        caught up in the movement of vast empires sweeping through,
            how the people were focused in their despair, their hopes, their prayers
                        for the Messiah who would rescue them  -- and more:
the Messiah who would take on the foreign oppressors
            and actually would conquer them, and the nations of the world,
            bringing them to their knees,
so that it would be they who would come to Jerusalem bearing their tribute money
            instead of the other way around.

So Jesus had just asked his disciples, “Who do people say that I am?”
And they had related ideas about his being a prophet.
And then he had asked them point blank, “Who do YOU say that I am?”
And Simon Peter, bless his heart, blurts out, “You are the Messiah/
            the Christ/the Lord’s Anointed.”
And in Mark’s version, Jesus simply says, “Don’t tell anyone THAT!”

Why?  Because that was not the kind of Messiah
that had anything to do with Jesus and what he had been doing and preaching.

Then, the passage continues, Jesus began to teach his disciples – what? –
            that the Son of Man MUST undergo great suffering  --  Oh, no!  --
            and be rejected by the elders, the chief priest, and the scribes
                        -- NOT be affirmed in messiah-ship by the religious power that be!
                        that is, to be considered a heretic and outlaw
            and THEN be killed – but the Messiah was supposed to live forever –             
and after three days rise again.              Huh?
He said all this quite openly.

This was not what the disciples expected Jesus to say,
            nor what they wanted to hear.
This was the moment when the fingers go in the ears:
            “La la la la la.  I’m not listening.”

Jesus would keep repeating this however.

Well, all this just flew in the face
            of what Simon Peter had just claimed for Jesus,
                        because the Messiah was not supposed to die, but live forever.
What Jesus was saying was totally unacceptable.
It seems Peter was ashamed of Jesus for backing away from
            his (and the culture’s) ideas about the Messiah.
For Peter, being a good Jew,
            the idea of Jesus rejected by the religious leadership is unthinkable.
And the kind of death Jesus says he will die is incredibly shameful.

I’m sure Peter thought
            he was expressing positive concern and appreciation for Jesus,
but that was so small and so off-track from this greatest of all spiritual actions
            that would be the salvation of the whole world.
So Jesus comes down fast and heavy on Peter
and makes his rebuke of Peter for the sake of all the other disciples present.
And today’s reading ends with a final rebuke for Peter
                        - and anyone else for whom the shoe fits -
            “If you are ashamed of me and what I am telling you,
                        then I’m ashamed of you.”

Ouch! 

Well, one crucial part in what Jesus was saying had been missed:
            Jesus would be killed, and after three days rise again.
The deal is the resurrection.
            If we don’t get that, what Jesus said next can’t make sense.

Because Jesus then called to him not only his disciples, but the whole crowd,
and said,
            “If you want to follow me,
            you have to deny yourself, renounce/disregard yourself,
                        forget yourself, refuse to acknowledge yourself,
                                    that with which you identify yourself.
            In fact, take up a cross of your own, your own means of execution.
            Then you can follow me,” said Jesus.

Because here’s the great paradox:
            If you try to save/preserve yourself/your life,            you will lose it.
We all know that we have no control over how long we live.
If you try to save your life and cheat death,
            that will only go so far and then you’re dead.
                        -- The undeniable reality of our mortality. --
BUT if you lose your life for my sake, Jesus says, you will save it.
            If you lose your life for my sake, you will save it.

Now, what really does that mean?

It’s important for us to grapple with this because this statement
                        - If you want to save your life, you will lose it,
                        but if you lose your life for my sake and the Gospel’s,
                        you will save it. –
            appears in all four Gospels, a total of seven times.

Hmmm, must be important.

What does it mean?
Start with this thought:
            Jesus is saying that I need to lose the idea that my life belongs to me.

The word for life in the passage in Greek means more specifically
            life breath, life force, that which animates the body,
            the breath that God breathed into the first human
                                                                                    formed of the dust of the earth.
Notice our own breath and the process of breathing.
It is hard wired into us,
            not even needing my intention and will in order to function.
How is it that I can then claim that my life belongs to me.
Life is a gift that we get to live.

Well, I need to wrap this up,
            because I have way too much that I could say about all this.
Here’s the situation:  You have to give up the idea of your life.
Follow Jesus, and it is no longer your life.
Follow Jesus, and you will come to see the truth of this
            and the great liberation this brings.
Now be willing to see your life in respect to
            the mission of the Kingdom of God coming on earth as in heaven.
Follow Jesus, and it is no longer your life
            and now life is lived out in Christ, in service and in mission.

We might say either that we can’t do that,
or we really don’t want to do that, we would rather have our own little lives.
But that is settling for the small self in place of the fullness of life,
            the full human potential, the abundance of eternal life
                        which is not off somewhere when your body finally dies,
                        but is here, now, even if you don’t realize it.

Jesus would call us into a discipleship
            in which you would die out of your life and into his life.

This may not be the message we want to hear,
            but it’s Lent, so it’s a good time to listen to it anyway.

Read your Bible.
The story for today is one of those stories
                                                that can connect with us on the basic human level:
a story that is personal, about Peter, a real human being, like you and me,
            living the intensity and confusion of an intimate relationship with Jesus                                     that is both closed and open to what Jesus is saying to him
                                                                                                and to the other disciples.

Think about your own mortality
            in the light of what Jesus is saying.

And remember that one crucial part
            about after three days rising again.

The deal is the resurrection.