On the Way
Pentecost 17 B / Proper 19Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā September 16, 2018
Isaiah 50:4-9aĀ Ā James 3:1-12Ā Ā Mark 8:27-38
Pastor Susan Henry –Ā House of Prayer Lutheran Church,
Hingham MA
Grace to you and peace from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
Weāre right smack in the middle of Markās telling of the story of Jesus, but letās look back to the start of it.Ā There, Mark writes that this is āThe beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.āĀ Weāve known who Jesus is from the very first verse of Markās gospel.Ā But Jesusā disciples and the crowds who seek him out donāt know who he is ā yet.Ā Some of the demons do, but nobody pays attention to them.Ā Peter and the other disciples have heeded Jesusā call to follow him, going where he goes, crossing the Sea of Galilee again and again, watching and listening as his ministry unfolds, as he heals people, feeds them, delivers them from what torments them, and teaches them.Ā The disciples think they have a pretty good idea who Jesus is.
But they donāt, really.Ā Todayās gospel testifies to that.Ā Jesus is headed north to Caesarea Philippi, beyond Jewish territory, near some of the places where the Roman emperor is worshipped.Ā āOn the way,ā Mark says, Jesus wants to know who people think he is.Ā The disciples report that some think heās John the Baptist come back from the dead or Elijah who was taken into heaven or one of the prophets of old whoāve come again.Ā Any of them could have āa word from the Lordā for those with ears to hear.
But then Jesus asks a harder question:Ā āBut who do you say that I am?āĀ Itās āyouā in the plural ā āyou allā ā but Peter answers, āYou are the Messiah.āĀ You are the Anointed One, the Christ, the Messiah of God ā which is the ārightā answer.Ā But then, instead of congratulating Peter on his insight, Jesus āsternly order[s] them not to tell anyone about him.ā This confuses us ā and I suspect it confused them, too.Ā If theyāve got it right, why wouldnāt they share it?Ā Isnāt this what people are waiting for?
We might imagine that Jews in Jesusā time were all anticipating the coming of the Messiah, but Judaism then was more diverse than we used to think.Ā Some Jews did expect a powerful leader from King Davidās line who would throw off the oppressive rule of Rome and instead establish a reign of peace and an era of holiness.Ā Some longed for a messianic age of religious purification.Ā Others no doubt recalled how not only kings but also prophets and priests were āanointed ones.ā[1]Ā Maybe āMessiahā was a word like a Rorschach test ā what you saw said more about you than about anything else.
Peter has the right word about Jesus, but weāll soon see that he has the wrong meaning.Ā Maybe thatās why Jesus shuts the disciples down:Ā āDonāt go around talking about something you donāt really understand.āĀ When Jesus says that he āmust undergo great suffering, and be rejected, . . . and be killed, and after three days rise again,ā Peter is appalled.Ā He doesnāt want to hear anything remotely like that from Jesus.Ā And, anyway, what kind of Messiah would suffer and die?Ā It makes no sense, and Peter takes Jesus aside and starts to reproach him for saying such a thing.Ā Jesus, however, comes back at Peter harshly, saying, āāGet behind me, Satan!āĀ Youāve got your priorities confused with Godās.Ā Follow me, donāt get ahead of me because Iām not going where you want me to go.Ā Back off, Peter!ā
Where Jesus is going is no longer back and forth across the lake or around the villages and cities, but toward Jerusalem.Ā From here on, he is on the way to rejection, to suffering, to death.Ā And even though he has told the disciples that he will rise again, I canāt imagine they could hear that, let alone envision it.Ā Whatever expectations theyāve held about a coming Messiah have been shattered.Ā Within those diverse understandings among Jews, none include rejection or suffering, death or apparent failure.Ā Surely any Messiah will come with strength and power, in glory and triumph.
While the disciples are still reeling from Jesusā words, he gathers the crowd in with them and he tells all of them that following him will be costly.Ā It wonāt lead to glory or wealth or success or power or whatever else the world counts as āwinning.āĀ Our egos can be seduced by all those things, but if we define ourselves in terms of what our egos are desperate for, we will have a false sense of who we are.Ā That false self is what Jesus will call his disciples to deny so that they can live with a true sense of who they are — formed in the image of God, made for relationship, called to freedom, meant for serving, created for love.
When we talked in Bible study about what it means to ādeny ourselves,ā we struggled to understand what Jesus was asking.Ā If the disciples gave up everything to follow him, is that what Jesus calls us to do, too?Ā Do we have to abandon the people we love or the work we do or the joy we find in life?Ā Now, surely among Godās gifts to us are the people who love us and the right use of the abilities God has given us, so that canāt be what Jesus is talking about.Ā When the word āprioritiesā came up, something shifted from fear about what we might lose if we follow Jesus to curiosity about what we might gain, even as we reckoned with making some sacrifices as we get our priorities straight.
In denying our false and inadequate selves, we may see our true selves more clearly.Ā In acknowledging our own brokenness and in letting go of our selfishness ā maybe only little by little — we will glimpse more of the full humanity God intends for us.Ā In following Jesus more faithfully, we will be drawn deeper into the worldās suffering, into Jesusā suffering for our own and the worldās sake.Ā These are good things, but hard things.Ā They remind us that, while we might not get the God we want, we get the God we need.
We get Jesus, who knows that our false selves get in our way and lead us to worship all the wrong things in all the wrong places.Ā We get Jesus, who sees the messy, broken places in our lives and meets us there.Ā We get Jesus, whose story ended not in his rejection, suffering and death, but in new life which is ours as well.Ā And we get Jesus, who continues to love us out of our resistance to following him more faithfully, so that we can more fully experience life in him, in community, and in the kingdom of mercy and grace that is already but not yet here.
Thereās hard stuff in the gospel today, for the disciples long ago and for us today, but letās gather our courage and go where Jesus wants to take us, praying on the way that we may āsee him more clearly, love him more dearly, and follow him more nearly, day by day.ā[2]
Amen
[1] David Schnasa Jacobsen, āMark,ā Fortress Biblical Preaching Commentary, Fortress Press, Minneapolis, 2014, p. 120.
[2] Richard of Chichester, 12th century