Sermon Mark 8:31-38 August 12, 2018 Take Up Your Cross and Follow Me Sermon Title: Beyond Security Mark 8:31-38

Transcription

1 Sermon Mark 8:31-38 August 12, 2018 Take Up Your Cross and Follow Me HPMF Sermon Title: Beyond Security Mark 8: Then he began to teach them that the Promised One must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. 32 He said all this quite openly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. 33 But turning and looking at his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things. 34He called the crowd with his disciples, and said to them, If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. 35 For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it. 36 What would you gain if you were to win the whole world but lose your self in the process? 37 What can you offer in exchange for your soul? 38 Whoever in this faithless and corrupt generation is ashamed of me and my words will find, in turn, that the Promised One and the holy angels will be ashamed of that person, when all stand before our God in glory.

2 ! If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. Those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, will save it. This is probably one of the hardest passages for those of us who claim to be followers of Jesus, especially for those of us who emphasize discipleship as a way of life. If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. It is one of those passages most of us could do without. We prefer other passages like, come to me all you who are weary and I will give you rest, and I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength. Some of us like to believe that Jesus was talking only to his disciples those twelve special Christians and that the rest of us are excused from denying ourselves and lugging crosses. Others insist that Jesus is the only one called to die on a cross, and that because he did, the rest of us can pursue blessings rather than cross-carrying.

3 Then again, we all know people who have taken this hard saying and made it their life s motto. If any want to be my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. Chuck Hosking Every Friday afternoon Chuck Hosking rides his bike up the hill toward Sandia National Laboratories outside of Albuquerque, New Mexico on his cruiser bike with an 8-foot-tall banner strapped to his seat and handlebars. He sets up at one of the gates where employees leave Kirtland Air Force Base and unfurls a sign: Jesus said love your enemies do we? He stands quietly and holds the sign for about an hour and a half while the employees leave the base and drive home from work. Chuck holds his vigil to protest the labs nuclear weapons work, hoping the brilliant scientific minds employed inside the gates might consider a different line of work or, better yet in the contractor that runs the labs will decide to switch all that brain power over to solving the problems of global warming.

4 Every Friday for 30 years. He began Ash Wednesday 1983 and vowed to go to the base every day for the 40 days of Lent. At the end of 40 days he kept going. For months, eventually he settled to once a week. A reporter asked him if anything has changed in all those decades? No, was his cheerful response, I realize it s not having any significant results Most days are very boring, he says. I don t think I have much more chance of changing their minds than they have of changing mine. he said. 1 And still, every week he rides his bike to Sandia Labs, in an act of faithfulness. If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. This passage seems to fly in the face of much of how we perform Christianity in America rather than asking for our daily bread and for it to be on earth as in heaven, we mostly ask God to bless us and our family, asking God that it will go well for us. If we live in this country, we have all been impacted by some version of the Prosperity Gospel some version of believing that if we are good enough or try hard enough or grab our boot straps firmly enough, God will notice and God will bless us and keep us from harm. But in this passage it seems that God does not care so much about my comfort and safety. God does not care whether I am happy or not. What God cares about is the quality of my life. Not just my life, mind you, not just the 1 This story can be found at

5 ! continuation of my breath and the health of my cells, but the quality of my life the depth of my life, the scope of my life, the heft and zest of my life. 2 Perri Sachs Sparkles 2 Smiles Perri Sachs, a 16 year-old from a Miami, Florida suburb, spends her free time going to nursing homes and their local Children s Hospital with her bag of manicure products. She says her mission is to pass on lots of love through a thin layer of paint. She began doing this when she was fourteen, and as a few friends have joined her, they have named their group Sparkles 2 Smiles. 2 Barbara Brown Taylor lays this idea out in her sermon, Risking Life, from her book of collected sermon on the Gospel of Matthew, Seeds of Heaven.

6 Why did she start it? "I really liked painting nails," she says. "I didn't have enough friends that wanted me to paint their nail, so I said, 'OK, whose nails can I paint that I can practice on?'" Between taking AP courses and playing in an orchestra, this is what she does. Her mother Valerie says that some of her mom friends tell her, Let her be a kid she shouldn t be spending so much time with those who are dying. To which her mom replies, "This is her. It's her being a kid." Of going into the Children s hospitals, Perri says " I know they like having their nails done, but I love coming here." 3 For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, will find it. These words of Jesus remind me of our trip to Northern Iraq many of you have heard me say this before, but when people ask us what we learned on that trip, one of my responses is, I believe that the people who make the most difference in this world are those who seem to live without the fear of death, or who continue to their work, in spite of their fear of death. And in those two short weeks, I was well aware of how much I do not live without the fear of death. Barbara Brown Taylor says that The deep secret of Jesus hard words to us in this passage is that that our fear of suffering and death often robs us of life, because fear of death turns into fear of life, into a stingy, cautious way of living that is not really living at all. The deep secret of Jesus 3 This story on Sparkles 2 Smiles can be found at

7 hard words is that the way to have abundant life is not to try to do all we can to save and secure our lives, but to spend it, to give it away. To be where God is to follow Jesus means going beyond the limits of our own comfort and safety. This is a passage about living a life that matters a life for Christ s sake and about refusing to put our own comfort and safety ahead of living a life like that. 4 Sister Dorothy Mae Stang Sister Dorothy Mae Stang, known by family as Dot, know to those she served as Sister Dorothy. She was born in Ohio, served as a school teacher, until the 1970s when she moved to Brazil where she dedicated her life to defending the Brazilian rainforest from depletion from slash and burn agriculture. She also worked as an advocate for the rural poor, helping them make a living by farming small plots and helping protect them from ranchers working to oust the farmers and those living among the rainforest. She is often pictured wearing this T-shirt with a slogan that translates "The Death of the Forest is the End of Our Lives". 4 Also from Barbara Brown Taylor s sermon, Risking Life.

8 ! On the morning of February 12, 2005, Sister Dorothy woke up early to walk to a community meeting to speak about rights of the Amazon. Soon she found her path to be blocked by two men, two men who were working on behalf of a livestock company. They asked her if she had any weapons, to which she replied that her only weapon was her Bible. She then read a passage from Matthew, "Blessed are the poor in spirit..." And then they shot her.!

9 Sister Dorothy was killed in 2005 according to the organization Global Witness, in 2017 at least 207 environmental activists were killed trying to defend our Rainforests. 5 process? What would it gain if you were to win the whole world but lose yourself in the In Luke s remembering of this story, Jesus says, take up their cross daily and follow me [Luke 9:23]. This makes us think that this is more of a lifestyle than a death wish. 6 I think this means that it is a daily choice to make, to chose love daily. Just as I have to chose each day what kind of husband I will be, what kind of father will I be. I must also choose daily if I will pick up the work which God has called me to? Will I seek to follow the Christ, or will I follow my own way? Will I follow beyond the limits of my own comfort and security? Or will I follow only to a point? Luke s version reminds us that these words of Jesus are not just about big events, like how will we react if someone breaks into our home or if our country is invaded it is much more subtle than that it is a daily choice. Don Eiler Tim Geddert makes this point in his commentary on Mark from the Believers Church Bible Commentary series.

10 ! I remember a story my friend Don Eiler from West Virginia used to tell of a colleague of his. Don was a sociology professor who grew up in the Church of the Brethren. His colleague Russ taught Physics Russ, loved Physics. After years of teaching physics, Russ noticed that most of his students were, upon graduation, going to work for military contractors and places like Sandia National Labs helping our government research, design and build better and more powerful weapons. This ate away at him. So he quit. He went back to school and got his PhD in English. He returned to teaching, but now as an English professor. Though, it was said that his students would complain that Russ would always turn his English classes into Physics lectures. What can you offer in exchange for your soul? If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. These may never be easy words to hear, but they are good news. Friends, of all I have said this morning, it is likely that these are the words hardest to believe, that this is Good

11 News. 7 These instructions are not just about following Jesus into death, but an invitation to follow him into life to abundant life. A life of passion. To be where God is to follow Jesus often means going beyond the limits of our own comfort and safety. It means receiving our lives as gifts to be given in love, not things to be hoarded and protected at all costs. What would you gain if you were to win the whole world but lose yourself in the process? This is the Good News. Nathan Hill One evening as five-year old Nathan Hill was being put to bed he asked him mom if there were children who grew up without parents, if there were kids who grew up with no toys or bedroom. He was really upset by the truthful answers that his mother gave him that night, and so he decided he wanted to do something to help these other kids. 8 So, at his next birthday, he took the money he was given for his birthday and bought models, cars and dolls to give away. He added this to the games and toys he got for his birthday and gave these away too 7 Tim Geddert, commentary Mark. 8 Nathan s story can be found at

12 .! Friends, if I only had time to tell you about Maximillian Kolbe, Marybeth & Lester Lind, Barbara Nizon, Neima The Peace Singer of Sudan, or Father Rutilio Grande. All who have lived lives shaped by these hard and life-filled words of Jesus. If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, will save it. This is Good News. Thanks be to God. Amen.