Mark 8:31-38
February 23, 1997
Mark Haverland
Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16
17:1 When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the LORD appeared to Abram, and said to him, "I am God Almighty; walk before me, and be blameless. 17:2 And I will make my covenant between me and you, and will make you exceedingly numerous." 17:3 Then Abram fell on his face; and God said to him, 17:4 "As for me, this is my covenant with you: You shall be the ancestor of a multitude of nations. 17:5 No longer shall your name be Abram, but your name shall be Abraham; for I have made you the ancestor of a multitude of nations. 17:6 I will make you exceedingly fruitful; and I will make nations of you, and kings shall come from you. 17:7 I will establish my covenant between me and you, and your offspring after you throughout their generations, for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your offspring after you. 17:15 God said to Abraham, "As for Sarah your wife, you shall not call her Sarai, but Sarah shall be her name. 17:16 I will bless her, and moreover I will give you a son by her. I will bless her, and she shall give rise to nations; kings of peoples shall come from her."
Mark 8:31-38
8:31 Then he began to teach them that the Son of Man 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. 8:32 He said all this quite openly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. 8:33 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." 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. 8:35 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. 8:36 For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life? 8:37 Indeed, what can they give in return for their life? 8:38 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." When I was the minister at Faith UMC twenty years ago, I had many puzzling experiences. Mostly because I was a new pastor with no experience in small churches. In fact, I had hardly any experience being a minister at all. Most of my difficulties revolved around the age old conundrum - should the preacher preach the Bible from the Bible’s perspective or from the perspective of the congregation. Does the preacher wind up in his best, stentorian voice and deliver the stern, hard stuff of the Bible - as we see it particularly clearly in this morning’s gospel reading - or does he deliver the anodyne message of comfort which the congregation so often longs, and needs, to hear? Does the preacher look at the people through the eyes of the Bible, or does the preacher see the Bible through the eyes of the congregation? Do you come here to be judged or to be loved?
The experience from my previous church which came to mind as I thought about the Gospel lesson this morning was of a couple who left my congregation for the big Assembly of God church in Des Moines. They had been faithful members of the church when I arrived, but it was clear from the start that I did not provide the spiritual nutrients they needed. Some of you may have the same experience. I do not have the pastoral piety that many ministers do. My faith is more intellectual and abstract, which tends to put people off whose faith is more personal and emotional. I am more aware of this potential conflict now than I was at that time. I am also now less confident that my approach is the right one or at least the right one for others. I am now better able to accommodate and appreciate the different styles of religious belief and practice that exist in every congregation.
Frank & Lois finally confessed to me that they liked the Assembly of God church better because it was happier, more upbeat and positive. I am sure they were right. At that time in my life and ministry I guess I was a little earnest. My emphasis was on the stern call of Jesus to sell everything and give all your money to the poor. I thought that we should take literally Jesus’ words about how hard it is for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God. In other words, I saw the people through the eyes of the Bible. “Don’t preach where the people are,” my professors had instructed, “since the people are never where they ought to be.” Or as Jesus put it to the crowd: “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.” Jesus was even harsher to Peter: “Get behind me, Satan! for you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.” There is little pastoral, bedside manner here. No new age pop psychology. No politically correct sensitivity. No “Don’t worry, be happy” message. Nothing concerning self- actualization or self-improvement or “I’ve Gotta Be Me.” A disciple of Jesus is one who denies self, takes up his or her cross and follows Jesus.
These passages are harder for me to preach now than twenty years ago because I now have more sympathy for Peter. He just wanted to be happy, to succeed. What’s wrong with that? Peter, as do religious folk all through history, doesn’t like the invitation to suffering and death. And why should they? It’s supposed to be “Glory, glory Hallelujah” when Christ comes into our lives. We have been shaped by a culture which values self-made people, Yankee ingenuity, self-reliance, scoring, Horatio Alger know-how, wealth, success; which celebrates conquerors of the frontier, space, disease, dictators; which places high premium on defending ourselves and our way of life - literally saving our lives - by military power, by immigration restrictions and zoning laws, by private arms and neighborhood watches, by constant vigilance. Number one is the place to be, and number one is the one to look out for. We want our Christ to be a winner and to teach us how to be winners, too. With enough virtue and vigor and vigilance, and by accepting Jesus, we can triumph over any problem. If you want to be happy, just accept Jesus. It is up to us. “God helps those who help themselves” is the text we want to think is in the Bible somewhere. Or, as some wag recently put it: “You don’t have to rich and powerful, in order to happy, rich is sufficient.” To such values, however, Jesus says “Get behind me, Satan!” Make way for God’s ways, which are just the opposite. But Peter is just like all of us. We come to church to feel better, not to be told how bad we are. We want to be winners in this game of religion just as we want to be winners everywhere else.
No person is immune from this drive for success, fame and wealth. Even ministers are driven by a success Gospel. Indeed, I have the best reasons in the world for wanting to be effective, for making a difference, for being (in the best sense of the world) “successful.” This translates into mastering the arts of persuasive sermons, effective planning of church programs, into managing people and committees, into directing people visibly into growth in Christian life and faith. But this kind of success does not come from preaching to the crowds as Jesus did. One popular preacher recently explained his approach by saying, “You cannot succeed preaching the cross. People do not want to hear that; they already have enough problems.” And, of course, he is a very popular preacher. Yet all these efforts to make and measure ministry focus attention on the preacher’s own triumphs and, ultimately, prove futile, as we all know. The controlling minister wants everything and everyone to go his way. “To let go and let God,” to step aside and leave room for people to grow in their own way in their own relationship with God; This is wrenching for the average paster. Success, you see, means I win! I’m right and your wrong. I could not provide Frank and Lois the ministry they needed. It would have meant abandoning my control over what the Gospel means.
So it is with all of us who aspire to be “successful” parents, “successful” spouses, “successful citizens, “successful” teachers, ”successful” in any role or relationship: The more controlling we are, the more guarded, defensive, invulnerable, the more we lose it. When we let ourselves be more vulnerable and trusting, when we let ourselves risk losing the badges and plaudits the world bestows, when we let ourselves risk seeming to become non-parents, non-citizens, non-teachers in the eyes of the world... in other words, when we let God rule our lives, we find ourselves gifted with intimacies and energies that enlarge our aspirations. To paraphrase Jesus somewhat: “Only those who cease trying to control their lives will ever actually be alive.”
Sometimes we devote so much energy to protecting ourselves - to washing our hands constantly, to wearing heavy rubber gloves, to searching for the very best gasoline prices, to equipping our house with burglar alarms , to monitoring the stock markets and interest rates - that we hobble ourselves; our protections bury the very self we wanted to protect. And sometimes when we ease our own protective efforts, trust that God is God and is on our side, we discover that with energies thus released and in the open space thus created, there is amazing chance for new growth.
I saw the move, “The English Patient” last week. It set me to thinking how many of the truly tragic events of life are caused by one person trying to control not only one’s own life but also the lives of others. Most of the movie’s tragedy was caused by the war, of course, but inside this story was the drama of impossible love. Think of how many problems are caused by people, sometimes parents, sometimes jealous husbands, wives, lovers, trying to control whom someone else chooses to love. The fact that Romeo and Juliet is such a universal theme in the history of literature, indicates that this desire for control, to measure success at love by whether or not I get what I want, is pretty widespread and almost inevitably leads to tragic outcomes. I do not mean to condone adulterous love, but I do want to call into question the kind of jealous rage which destroy others because it can not control whom they love.
The Gospel reading reminds us how radically different are God’s ways from our own ways. They reveal how entrenched we are in the value systems in which our culture has trained us from birth, and how offended and frightened we are by plain reminders of God’s values. We, like Peter, “are not on the side of God, but of men,” We want our Christ to be triumphant, not rejected and suffering. And we want our Christ to help us be successful, too. And we measure that success by whether or not we get what we want.
In my first go around as a minister, I would have ended the sermon there. Heavy with the gloom of judgment. But now I want to explore a message of comfort. Largely I suspect, because it has become more and more apparent that I need this word more than most. I need more than most people to learn to give up my drive for success, to find my way to fame, if not riches. I realize that my drive for success means I want to be right, in control, and to get what I want. And so I search the harsh and stern text of this morning for a ray of hope for all of us who do not want to follow Jesus by staggering around under the weight of our sinful inadequacies. We want to follow Jesus by being happy.
First of all, I do not believe that we need to abandon all that makes our lives full and meaningful in order to carry our crosses. God does not ask us to stop being human, with human needs for comfort, joy and even personal satisfaction. The promise to Abram and Sarai is, after all, that they will have a child, a pretty normal, human event. The message of the scriptures this morning is not unrelentingly grim. God promises Abram and Sarah that they can be transformed by the promises of God, even their names will change when God controls their lives. They need only place their hope and trust in the Lord in order to be transformed. The promise here is that we don’t have to give up our human needs, we just don’t need any more to be enslaved by them. We need to accept the new life which comes when we trust God rather than ourselves
God promises Abram fatherhood, of a son and of a nation. But so long as he feels this destiny is up to his own potency, in the way most of us take on the burden for our destiny - he is only dismayed and amazed, for he feels, as we all do, impotent. “Shall a child be born to a man who is a hundred years old?” But when he heeds God’s offer of a covenant which transcends reliance on his own potency and relies instead on the potency of God, then the promise is fulfilled. Inviting our vulnerability is God’s response to our gnawing preoccupations with winning, with making and getting our own way, for it is in our vulnerability - even though that often means dying in the eyes of the world - that we become open to trust and faith in the power of God’s kingdom.
Jesus also invites us we to be transformed. All we need to do is begin investing in things that yield a real profit. This has nothing to do with return on investment, IRAs, retirement planning, compound interest. Just the opposite. It has to do with turning our destinies over to God, for it is in our vulnerability that we become open to God’s kingdom, followers of a Christ whose own ultimate vulnerability unleashed immense redemptive powers.