2nd Sunday of Lent
Genesis 17:1-7,15-16 Psalm 22:22-30 Romans 4:13-25 Mark 8:31-38
“If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.” In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen
I suspect we’ve all had one of those moments when we’ve been on an emotional or spiritual “high” and within moments we’re picking up our ego from the floor after experiencing a moment of sheer embarrassment or humiliation. The verses just prior to today’s reading from Mark’s Gospel has Jesus asking the disciples “Who do people say that I am?” And they told him, John the Baptist; and others say Elijah; and others, one of the prophets. And he asked them “But who do you say that I am?” Peter boldly answered him, “You are the Christ.” I can hear the disciples murmuring to themselves something like “well done, Peter, well done.”
The tables turn quickly, though, for in the following verses Jesus began to teach them that he, the one just identified by Peter as the Messiah, the Christ, must “suffer many things, and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes and be killed....” Neither Peter nor his fellow disciples were expecting this and Peter, scripture tells us, pulls Jesus aside to rebuke him. Peter is expecting Jesus to be the mighty warrior, powerful and charismatic leader who is going to take military action to rescue the Jewish people from the brutal treatment of the Romans, not some “king” who is to suffer and die at the hands of scared and intimidated religious leaders and thugs of the Roman establishment. Jesus rebukes Peter in front of the rest of the disciples with these gut-wrenching words, “Get behind me Satan! For you are not setting your mind on the things of God but on the things of man.” Ouch!
I feel for Peter. I think his expectation along with the disciples and anyone else who was following Jesus all through the towns, villages, and countryside, that Jesus was the long-awaited messiah that was going to overthrow the Roman authorities, was reasonable. How else could Jesus’ arrival be understood? Why else would Peter and the disciples uproot their lives to follow him?
Like Peter, I’m guessing we all would have had the same hopes and expectations of Jesus had we been there. I think we’d all want God to be a strong and victorious God. In our divided and ailing world, I think it’s safe to say that many seek a God who breaks the teeth of the enemy, who destroys the wicked, and who pours out punishment against those who oppress and subjugate the vulnerable. I think many of us equate strength with victory. The problem is, this is what strength looks like from our human perspective, not from God’s. Like Peter, Jesus calls us to see and experience the world around us with divine senses, not human ones; to measure strength in terms of sacrifice and vulnerability, not through the lens of power and revenge.
I have often used the term “bizarro world” when what I would think to be “normal” or “reasonable” is completely thrown upside down. I had no idea that there is a fictional planet that appears in American comic books published by DC Comics where this upside-down reality is at the core of the comic. According to the Urban Dictionary (another source I have never previously used), this Bizarro World comic portrays a world where everything is the exact opposite: up is down, first is last, good is bad, wrong is right, giving is taking, and vice versa. Peter must have thought that he was entering this fictional world as his mighty warrior speaks of being tortured and killed. Making matters even more confusing, maybe even maddening, Jesus tells his disciples and any who choose to follow him that they should expect the same fate. Jesus tells any who will follow him that they need to deny themselves and take up their cross as a way of life that demands and operates with a different set of values, expectations, and ultimate rewards. Jesus then follows his comments regarding the cross and its implications for discipleship with a most confusing paradox:
“For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it.” Bizzaro world, indeed.
So what do the cross and a life of discipleship have in common? What does it mean to “deny oneself and take up one’s cross” in following Jesus?
As I mentioned earlier, it seems very clear to me that we live in a world that has two sets of values: God’s values and ours. From the perspective of the human value system, we come first, and our dear friends the disciples exemplify this thinking. Remember James and John asking if they could sit at the right and left-hand side of Christ and share in Jesus’ glory? We also get a glimpse of this human understanding of power and importance when on their way to Capernaum several of the disciples had been arguing amongst themselves as to who was the greatest. Their seeking, our seeking, for power, position, prestige, comfort, and self-preservation all represent the thinking of human values, values the disciples had mistakenly hoped that Jesus also desired.
God’s values speak of putting others first. This reorientation towards others replaces our desire for self-determination with obedience and dependence on Jesus. This reorientation from self-centered living focused on the present world and our rebellion against God, offers freedom. We’re free from using our energies and resources for our own use, which so often drains us of joy and peace, with the renewing of our energy and joy in the service of others. This is why we receive such a sense of purpose and uplifted spirits as we offer ourselves in service to the good folks at BHT. My sense is that we’d do anything for Joanne and her team and the families they serve because it exemplifies in tangible ways God’s values of living.
This season of Lent gives us a specific time in which we can reflect on what it means to take up one’s cross in following Jesus. We’re called to lay down our crosses of self-serving priorities with the cross of Jesus and his ways of self-sacrificial service. We have the opportunity each day to consider how we will define power and strength, success or failure and to choose between self-preservation or offering ourselves in service to others.
Each day we can choose our heavy cross of a life lived for ourselves or lay it down for the challenging and often heavy cross of lives lived in service to our Lord and Savior. The choices we consider won’t always be easy nor will the choice to serve Jesus. But serving Jesus and living the values of God brings lives filled with joy and peace, attributes we can not sustain with priorities that are of this world.
My friends, come to think of it, I’d say that we are called to live in a Bizarro World. Scripture tells us that the “first shall be last”, “the lowly are lifted up”, “the hungry are filled with good things”, “the rich are sent away empty”, “the wise are made to be foolish”, that we are to “serve and not to be served”, the “dead shall live again”, and “the wolf and the lamb shall graze together.” Our Presiding Bishop Michael Curry wrote a book titled Crazy Christians in which he reflects on a vision of discipleship that, as Bishop Andrew Doyle of Texas writes, “embraces the prophetic dream of God, and to go out into a world desperately in need of the sweet, sweet sound of love in order to turn that world upside down.” Crazy Christians turning the world upside down....I think Peter would approve. Amen