Mark 8. Mark 9. St. John s United Church Sunday September 16, 2012 Scripture: Mark 8: 34-9:1 Reader: Allan Collier Reflection: Rev.

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1 St. John s United Church Sunday September 16, 2012 Scripture: Mark 8: 34-9:1 Reader: Allan Collier Reflection: Rev. Beverley Tracey SCRIPTURE READING: Mark 8 34 He 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 For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life? 37 Indeed, what can they give in return for their life? 38 Those who are ashamed of me and of my words * in this adulterous and sinful generation, of them the Son of Man will also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels. Mark 9 1 And he said to them, Truly I tell you, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see that the kingdom of God has come with * power. Reflection: I think it was in one Henri Nouwen s books that I came upon this description of a baptism in Latin America. The service begins with a procession -- the priest with the parents carrying the baby to the front of the sanctuary. The procession is accompanied by what sounds like a funeral dirge. There, at the front, they gather around a wooden box, which for all the world looks like a coffin, now filled with water. The first question leading into the vows the priest asks the parents, do you desire to have your child baptized? On the one hand, it seems a needless question -- why else are they there? And yet as the liturgy continues, you get it what they are about is serious business. The priest takes the child into his arms, and fully submerges the child in the water-filled box. The imagery couldn t be more graphic this is about the child dying with Christ, being buried with Christ. 1

2 And then as the child is lifted right up out of the water, coughing and sputtering, catching its first breath, we hear, and you are raised from death, alive with Christ forevermore! The child is then clothed in new garments to embark on this new life of following in Jesus way. Now I don t suppose anyone in the congregation finds themselves thinking how cute or how adorable is that?! What they have just witnessed is as sobering as it is shimmering. Who on earth thought of such a ritual? Where did that come from? My guess is that it has its roots in Mark Chapter 8 the passage we ve just heard Allan readwhere we hear Jesus say, 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 and for the sake of the gospel, will save it. What he s saying is hard for us to hear like it was for Peter and the others. But Jesus had a notion they weren t all that clear on where he was headed, where it was all going, and what it might mean for them - for us. And so, not wanting to mislead, he begins to spell it out. As he often does, he begins with a question: Who do people say that I am? And what about you, he presses -- who do you say that I am? When Peter, on their behalf declares, you are the Messiah Jesus pounces on it knowing that in a sense they get it and yet they don t, and a half truth is dangerous. A leader, yes. A liberator, yes. But not in the way they have in mind a victorious military commander or a righteous religious judge. As plainly as he can, he begins to spell it out how he will be rejected, how he will suffer and be put to death. And after three days, be raised to life. It wasn t that he had some special insight into the future. It was inevitable. The consequences of his commitment to God s reign of love would lead to his death at the hands of the authorities. What he s describing is a defeated Messiah. A dead Messiah. 2

3 Peter can t and won t hear of it -- Messiahs win, they don t die. He tries to correct Jesus. Get behind me Satan, Jesus says to him Satan meaning hinderer don t hinder me or anyone else --get out of the way. And then he calls the crowd that s been milling about, to come closer. What he has to say next is for everyone. Everyone including us. If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For all the ways we ve heard this in the meantime -- the distorted ways, the misguided ways I think it s important that we hear what Jesus is saying in its original context. The place is first century Roman occupied Palestine. The cross is the Empire s highly effective instrument of intimidation. Any rebels who tried to stir up the people were rounded up and forced to carry the cross beam to the place of execution, where they were crucified -- literally nailed to a cross, naked, in the most public of places, and left there to die, usually by slow tortuous suffocation. The cross was the Empire s method of deterring rebellion and maintaining order. And it worked like a dream - so long as people were afraid to die. It was that fear that gave the Empire its power. And then along comes Jesus who s commitment to this whole new way of being human together is somehow stronger than his fear of death. What we see in Jesus is an amazing freedom the freedom to risk giving up his life for the sake of something bigger, for the sake of this vision of another way. If enough people were prepared to join him, if enough people shared his freedom, then this reign of terror would lose its power. And God s reign of love could find a place. So he calls others to join him and he s brutally honest about the risks. To follow in his way, he tells us, to share his same commitments and vision, will be to risk winding up carrying one of those cross beams. To go with him is to risk suffering, like he will suffer. It is to risk dying. And taking that risk involves being prepared to let go of everything all that your life might 3

4 have held. It is, in other words, to deny yourself. Those who lose their life, for my sake and the sake of the gospel will gain it, he says it s about letting go for sake of something ever so much greater. Do you hear then how this way of the cross is about making concrete choices to resist the powers that destroy life? Do you hear how this way of the cross is about making concrete choices to support life, to bring healing, to bring an end to suffering? While these choices entail letting go, maybe even suffering, a dying of sorts, do you hear how what we re talking about is not at all in the same vein as when people, speaking of having their cross to bear, mean putting up with a brute of a husband, or living with a disability or enduring chronic pain or economic hardship. Those things are what they are but they are not what Jesus is calling us to, when he says take up your cross and follow me. So what is he calling us to today, in our world, at this time, you and me? Chances are for most us living here, it won t involve a martyr s death. In Egypt, last Spring, in Tunisia; in the Philippines right now, in Alabama in the 60 s following Jesus all too often led to martyrdom. But following in the way of the cross takes many forms all of which are characterized by the practice of non-violence. That s the mark of the way of the cross --that s the call the practice of non-violence both in our resistance to deadly forces and in our strengthening of that which serves life. It s the practice of non-violence in our personal relationships -- how we speak to one another and about one another letting go of our need to judge, to push our own agenda, to control, to diminish. It s our practice of non-violence in our collective action in our political and social action. It s our practice of non-violence in our public life -- how we relate to the world around us our neighbours, the Earth itself through our work, what we buy, what we eat, how we save, how we invest. It s for us to look at all these things and dare to ask am I serving life or am I harming life? Chances are we re about both, because we re caught up 4

5 in structures and systems that are inherently violent. So how then shall we live? As people of the way of Jesus, how then shall we live? That s the question for every person, for every generation. Jesus leads us by way of the cross how then shall we live? Here s the paradox by dying! By dying to our own agendas. Dying to our need for comfort and control. Dying to our addiction to pain-avoidance and instant gratification. Dying to our need for an eye-for-an-eye justice. Dying to the right to violently defend ourselves, our turf, our stuff. How then shall we live? By dying to whatever prevents us, whatever holds us back from shaping and embracing the world as we all dream it would be. Somehow in all of this we have Jesus who has gone this way before us, who walks beside us, who calls our name, who knows what it is to let go of everything his friends, his life, his dream. Somehow in all of this we have Jesus who knows what it is to lose it all and gain even more. And this is the hope, this is the assurance he holds out to us that in dying we will know the rising. 5