Following Jesus

 I keep thinking about the Gospel story for last Sunday.

            Jesus out there in the desert being put to the test.

This Sunday the followers of Jesus are finding themselves 

            in a metaphorical desert of testing, 

                        being told to take up their cross of self denial.

            Maybe we should look more deeply at the spiritual testing

                        that we are being blest with.

Life, the created order, the ways things are at any given moment

            provide us with countless lessons and just as many exam questions

                        testing us and who we are and who we want to be.

The good news in this is that we are not victims of our circumstances,

            and if we can get that, then problems become opportunities 

                        and life can be much more affirming and creative and enriching.

 

My spiritual director once wrote:

“…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 to and closed to what Jesus was 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.

 

So the historical context:

In this particular time in history for this tiny nation

            the Hebrew ideas regarding the Messiah

were 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 than that:

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 now be the Romans 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 picks up with today’s reading,

            and Jesus began to teach his disciples – what does he teach them?  

            that the Son of Man MUST undergo great suffering  --  Oh, no, no, no!  

            and be rejected by the elders, the chief priest, and the scribes

                        -- What?  

                        NOT be affirmed in messiah-ship by the religious power that be!

                        instead, to be considered a heretic and outlaw

            and THEN be killed             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 his culture’s) ideas about the Messiah.

For Peter, being a good Jew,

            the idea of Jesus being 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, forget yourself, 

                        refuse to acknowledge 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 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. – 

this statement            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.

 

There is so much more

            but 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.

Those of you are engaged in praying the Daily Office, Morning or Evening Prayer, and those of you who read the scripture lessons that go with each daily reading in the Forward Day by Day 

            are already in a very good program of systematically reading the 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.

 

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.