I tell you that story not just because I know you want to know, but because of something

Transcription

1 George A. Mason Second Sunday in Lent Wilshire Baptist Church 25 February 2018 Dallas, Texas What Must Means Mark 8:31-38 I might as well get this out of the way right away, since so many of you are asking. Yes, my new grandson, River Dean Shannon, is doing well. And his happy parents and grandparents are, too. Thank you for all your prayers and concern. Some of you know this birth was an ordeal. Jillian was induced on Valentine s Day at 41 weeks. The baby was ready, she was ready, but her body was how shall I say it still closed to the idea. The drugs had to begin from a cold start, taking her from 0 dilation to 10 before she could begin the four hours of delivery. It was 51 hours from the time she entered the hospital until she gave birth more than two days of contractions. It was exhausting for everyone, but mostly for Jillian, don t you know?! Kim got to be in the delivery room, along with our son-in-law, Chris. She was there for the eight hours of hard labor, holding a cold compress to our daughter s head, comforting her and cheering her on. As a parent, you never want to see your child suffer, and you would do anything you could to take the pain from her. Somewhere about hour 42, Jillian wanted to see me. I came in to find her lying on her side in the bed, eyes closed, awaiting the next contraction. I kissed her on the cheek and told her I loved her. She looked up at me and asked, Daddy, am I going to die? I said no, I didn t think so, but it would probably feel like that from there on until the baby was born. I told her that this is one of the things love makes us do. She has to go through this suffering for the sake of giving life to her little boy. God is with you, sweetheart, I told her. With every breath, try to imagine you are breathing in the Holy Spirit. God knows your little boy needs to know his mother. It s still hard for me to think about that moment. But seeing Jillian with her little River now makes me proud of her beyond words. She s a warrior, that girl. I tell you that story not just because I know you want to know, but because of something

2 Jesus wants you to know. He began to teach them that the Son of Man MUST undergo great suffering.... Must, he said. The Son of Man the one who embodied what it means to be human and who shows us the nature of God, too this one tells us that he MUST undergo great suffering. Peter rebukes Jesus for taking this view of things, and Jesus rebukes him right back. Peter thinks it s just a choice that Jesus is making, and a bad one at that. He could go another way. He could make someone else suffer instead. That s really Peter s argument. Our people have suffered long enough. It s Rome s turn. We can do this, Jesus. But Jesus knows he must undergo suffering, rejection and death if new life is going to come to the world. And that s not because God foreordained that people must reject and kill Jesus; it s because that s always the way new life comes about dying first, then new life. This isn t something Jesus did once and for all for one and all so that we could all live like we want to all living, say, and no dying. No, this MUST is for us, too. 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. So what does this MUST mean? If you and I want to be followers of Jesus, we MUST align ourselves with the pattern of reality that God has embedded in all things. Our calling as Christians is not to follow our bliss and do what makes us happy. The way of Jesus calls for self-denial that will sometimes feel like the end of our lives, but afterward, we rise again. We find out that it s really a new beginning. Jillian had to trust that truth in the delivery room, and she will have to learn that as a parent for the rest of her life. Her life is not just about herself. She will have to deny herself and her own wishes a million times over for the sake of her son. And we, whether as parents or not, we all of us will have to learn this truth a million times over must learn it. This truth leads us to the next thing about the meaning of Must. We must live this way, not 2

3 because self-denial is an end unto itself but because it is the means of love for the sake of someone else. The way of Christ isn t about my good alone; it s about the common good. This truth seems lost upon so many of us these days as we agonize over the gun violence plaguing our country. We re locked in an ideological battle between gun-rights advocates and gun-control advocates. At times it s loud and nasty. And up until now, nothing has gotten done. Just a lot of death. Until now. Maybe hope is rising after three days, so to speak. These kids in Florida can we hear it for these kids? Maybe they will succeed where we adults have failed. Please, Jesus. Jesus words add something that is often missing. He calls us to set our minds on the ways of God, not humans. He calls us to deny ourselves, take up our cross and follow him. He calls us to sacrifice our lives for the cause of the good news. What do we think that would mean in this vexing time in our country? How might our self-denial and crosscarrying be seen and heard in this moment? Honest Christians may differ on public policy. But there are many ways to address most issues that don t involve yelling at each other or oversimplifying complex things. For instance, curbing mass shootings and devastating gun violence doesn t have to come down to a choice between repealing the 2 nd Amendment and confiscating everyone s guns or arming every schoolteacher in America. The hard work isn t about liberal or conservative ideology winning. It involves things like considering what leads young males to commit these crimes, for instance. Missing fathers in almost every case are part of the story, and mentoring vulnerable young boys might make a difference, even without changes in laws as well as limiting exposure to violence in our movies and video games, better mental health care, and taking seriously the problem of white supremacy and white nationalism that fuels anger, nurtures hatred for others and inspires so many of these shootings. These are mostly culture changes. Lots of things can be done that don t involve policy changes. But hear this, too; working to change laws can also be what crosscarrying looks like. Spiritual 3

4 solutions to social problems require both changed people and changed policies. When Jesus calls Peter Satan and tells him he has set his mind on human things rather than divine things, he doesn t mean that all which Christians have to offer the world is thoughts and prayers, because otherwise we would get political. The politics of Jesus were not otherworldly; they were about this world being organized in such a way that God s will might be done on earth as it is in heaven. Jesus told us to pray for that, but he also expected us to work for that. The politics of Jesus are a nonviolent revolution of love. We MUST love our neighbors in such a way that we will suffer with and for them rather than make them suffer or leave them to suffer. Billy Graham died this week. He was a remarkable man of God, and I am grateful to realize that he was just a man like the rest of us. Millions responded to his message of God s love in Jesus Christ and found a relationship with God that brought peace to their hearts. His humility was his most endearing personal quality, which was seen in his willingness to admit when he was wrong and to learn from his experience. A Catholic commentator wrote this week: Billy Graham was asked once why he preached only personal salvation and not peace and justice. He said that as people become converted, they would be peacemakers and justice-seekers. He was pressed further. How come he d been converted, and wasn t more upfront about these things, then? From that day, to his credit, Graham included more of the dimensions of the Good News in his preaching. Following Jesus, we re called to make visible the Good News, and that means both putting it into words and showing by our lives what it means in terms of justice and love. 1 To be fair to both sides of his legacy, while Billy Graham never crusaded against segregation, but he undermined it subtly by gestures, such as including Ethel Waters on his team early on. The symbolism of her singing was profound. Yet he also thought that Martin Luther King Jr. was moving too fast, and he wouldn t support the Civil Rights Act, 1 mes/peace/reflection/ten-reasons-justiceessential-gospels/ 4

5 speak out against the war in Vietnam or lend his voice to the war on poverty, or do anything more than to say that if he had a gay child, he would love him more because he would need it. He was an evangelist, but seldom a prophet. I can t help but wonder, though, how Evangelical Christianity might be different today if he had been. We each have our unique calling, but being spiritual will always include our willingness to undergo suffering, be rejected by religious or government authorities, and maybe even be killed for the sake of the whole gospel of Christ. Here s an example: I love the Bill of Rights and the 1 st Amendment, especially because of religious liberty. But the Bill of Rights is not the Ten Commandments. The first ten amendments to our Constitution were not given by God on Mount Sinai. They are about individual rights; the Ten Commandments are about what is right. The Bill of Rights, for all its merits, is about the individual, whereas the Ten Commandments are about our common life our duty to God and our neighbor. The church exists in that middle space, holding together rights and responsibilities never one side without the other. There s a radical way that comes between denying rights to others and claiming rights for ourselves; it s the Jesus way of self-denial that calls for self-restraint for the common good. Even if all the laws remain as they are today and I hope they don t, and I will be looking for ways to help these changes come to pass nonetheless as Christians, we don t have to buy guns just because we can. That s not what MUST means. We don t have to buy into a culture of violence that thinks that the way of peace and justice is about good guys with guns shooting bad guys with guns. The policeman assigned to the school was fully armed yet hid to protect himself while those kids died, which proves that this isn t the answer. I feel for that man. How will he live with himself now? He saved his life, but he lost it. We can model a different way by denying self and carrying our crosses for the sake of love. Tanai Benard is a Texas educator and a mother. She was driving her fifth-grade son, Dez, to school the other day and asked him if his class had worked on an active shooter drill. He said they 5

6 had and then went on to describe how they would do it. The teacher would shut and lock the door, then put black paper over the window. Dez and two other boys would push a table in front of the door. The other kids would then go stand behind the three of them with their backs to the wall. Tanai listened carefully, and knowing that her son was only one of two African American kids in the class, she asked who selected him to be one of the boys who would shield the other kids. I didn t get picked. I volunteered to push the table and protect my friends, he said. His mother was getting nauseated listening to this. She asked him why he would volunteer to do that. Ten-yearold Dez, sounding a lot like he gets the meaning of Jesus MUST, said: If it came down to it, I would rather be the one that died protecting my friends than have an entire class die and I be the only one that lived. 2 Imagine how the world would view the church if that was the way Christians lived. 2 sts/