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United Church of Paducah
4600 Buckner Lane
Paducah, KY 42001
(270) 442-3722
Worship Times
Sunday Service: 10:00a
Refreshments &
Fellowship: 11:15a
Christian Education
For All Ages:
11:20a - Noon
Nursery Services Provided Handicap Accessible
All Are Welcome!
A Congregation Of The
"Never place a period where God has placed a comma." - Gracie
Allen
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From March 12, 2006
Turning Toward Jerusalem
Mark 8:31-39
"Who do people say that I am?" Jesus asked out of the
blue. "You are the Messiah," said Peter without missing
a beat.
The question answered itself: Peter's Jesus was the
God-sent one. It was obvious not because Jesus strode
about wearing a radiant crown, because he didn't. Nor
was it because people were given to bowing down when
Jesus passed by, because this didn't happen either.
Still, every time Jesus healed it was clear. When he
opened up the scriptures for deeper understanding, it
was clear then, too. Especially when Jesus spoke with
authority to the Pharisees and scribes, challenging
their perspectives and practices, that Jesus was the
Messiah was evident to Peter. Jesus was filled all the
way to the top with God and God's loving purpose.
"Who do people say that I am?" "You are the Messiah."
Peter had the "who" part nailed. But the "what" was
another thing altogether, as our reading this morning
reveals. You see, after Peter's you-are-the-Messiah
reply, Jesus said something Peter hadn't expected.
"The Son of Man must [not just might, but 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."
Jesus' remark was like a punch to Peter's gut.
Everything Jesus was saying was in direct opposition to
Peter's expectations for the Messiah.
Like every faithful Jew of his time, Peter had
envisioned the Messiah leading his people into victory
over the oppressing Romans. He had conjured up images of
a great peace overtaking his now-troubled homeland, a
kingdom ruled by one more wise and wonderful than ever
before, one whose words and ways would mirror those of
God himself, one who would ensure that the weakest and
the least important ones would be as fully tended-to as
anyone else in society.
Many things Peter had imagined for the one God anointed.
But suffering? Suffering? There was no place for this in
Peter's visions of the coming Messiah-life.
And rejection? Surely Jesus was jesting. Who would dare
reject the Messiah?
It got even worse. Jesus had gone further to speak
openly about being killed. How could this ultimate
defeat have any place in God's provision of a Messiah?
Suffering. Rejection. Death. None of what Jesus was
saying made any sense, especially not as necessary
elements for the Messiah's saving journey. To speak like
this was nonsense, Peter thought. It bordered on
insanity. No, it didn't just border on insanity, it was
insanity.
God doesn't go down in flames; God rises above
everything. God doesn't make God's self vulnerable; God
is perpetually invincible. God doesn't chance
humiliation and death; God's got the whole game wrapped
up with a perfect, victorious bow.
Peter had no choice but to refute this crazy talk by
rebuking Jesus.
If it's true that all the world loves a lover, it's also
fair to say that all the world is wowed by winners. No
one I know watched the Winter Olympics to see who was
going to come in last place in men's short-track speed
skating. No, everyone tuned in to see if Anton Apollo
Ohno was going to best the South Koreans.
Nor did anyone one I know call NBC headquarters to
complain that the network was providing grossly
inadequate coverage of the three women taking up the
rear in the 50-K cross-country ski race.
If left to our own preferences, we are drawn to winners
and to the prospect of winning. No one cheers for the
athlete who looks squarely into the camera and says,
"Well Jim, I hope to set a record for being the slowest
one out there today."
Just as no one wants to buy stock options when the CEO
issues a statement saying, "Our goal, here at Versa-cog,
is to flail a good while and then fail miserably."
Even in the church, we're attracted to success and are
fairly averse to what might look like failure. Said more
bluntly: we like wearing crosses, but we don't like
bearing them.
Not sure about this? One look at our worship habits
reveals the draw of Easter's joy but the hesitancy to
seek out Wednesday's ashes or Maundy Thursday's last
supper. Many find Good Friday's utter darkness and the
long hard wait for Sunday's sunrise too much to bear.
Such occasions plunge us into realities we'd rather not
face.
Even now, after two thousand years of practicing the
faith, the church still is not sure what to do with
Jesus' plain talk about suffering and death, about
denial of the self and the need to be cross carriers.
American churches, especially.
In the American church (and yes, I know I'm speaking
broadly here), we are more apt to consider ourselves
successful if another pew gets filled than if another
belly gets filled.
In the American church, choosing the color of the new
hall carpeting regularly elicits more passion than
turning out at city hall to make a difference for the
elderly or the working poor.
In the American church, we spend considerable energy
trying to keep member churches from leaving the
denomination after a risk-taking national decision, but
not much at all strategizing about how we can reach out
to the disenfranchised whose suffering was the impetus
for the decision in the first place.
In the American church, even preachers aren't always
sure about what Jesus said that day: "if any want to
become my followers, let them deny themselves and take
up their cross and follow me." I know I'm not, not when
it's the church that helps pay my rent.
If I am making you uncomfortable with my remarks this
morning, know that I make myself uncomfortable, as well.
But for good reason. The Lenten season is upon us and
Lent asks us to take a good, hard look at what we might
prefer to have stay in the shadows - which is where
(largely) we prefer to keep Jesus' remarks about such
things as self-denial, suffering, and life's crosses.
Several thoughts about suffering and crosses. And then
I'll leave you to reflect and pray on what Jesus says
today, so that he can speak to you in the living of your
life.
When Jesus speaks of suffering, he is no way means to
suggest that suffering is ever its own reward.
I remember traveling in New Mexico and seeing 200
year-old blood splatters on the ceiling of a roadside
chapel, left by "los penitentes," men who sequestered
themselves there during Lent and caused their own great
physical suffering by whipping themselves with
metal-tipped leather thongs.
Denial of self ought never be confused with degradation
of self.
Suffering must never become a spiritual aim, a religious
goal. However, if our faith is to be faithful to
Christ's example, suffering must be the risk we are
willing to take for the sake of love.
In Jesus' case, his willingness to turn toward Jerusalem
and journey there was a willingness to suffer the
consequences of a rare and radical love. Jesus could
have easily stayed on the perimeter, hanging out in
backwater Nazareth, saying and doing what he said and
did, ruffling a few unimportant feathers but managing to
live to a ripe old age.
But he didn't do that, did he? He didn't play it safe.
He pursued a path that put himself at complete risk for
rejection and humiliation. Why? Because he knew that
love - in order to be perfect love - love must be willing to
go the distance, even when going the distance opens on
to the prospect of suffering.
So, suffering. Now a word about the cross. The cross is
not God's invention; it is the world's. Let me say that
again. The cross is not God's invention, but the
world's. The genius of
the cross, if you can call it that, lies in mankind's
creative ability to control others through the use of
fear and torture. Rome created the cross; not God.
So when Jesus calls us to take up crosses and follow
him, what he is daring us to do is to look Rome (or the
equivalent of Rome) in the eye and refuse to be made
afraid by the worst that the world can mete out. When
Jesus calls us to be cross bearers, he invites us to
hold fast not to beams of wood, but to a divine love
that cannot be overcome. Not even by death.
If Peter had a hard time hearing Jesus' remarks that
day, if he wrestled with the place of defeat and death
for the Messiah, I doubt he heard everything Jesus said.
After Jesus spoke of the necessity of suffering,
rejection, and death, he spoke of rising again.
Resurrection, in other words. God's response to
suffering, rejection, and death.
"Those who want to save their life will lose it, and
those who love their life for my sake, and for the sake
of the gospel, will save it."
This is no morbid request, this turning toward
Jerusalem. No flat demand that we prove ourselves in
order to somehow earn God's favor. It is, however, the
paradox of love: succeeding by seeming to fail, finding
victory through defeat, giving up in order to gain,
losing as the path to winning.
What Jesus asserted, what Jesus preached at the precise
midpoint in his ministry, what Jesus lived out in the
days and months that followed, none of it makes much
worldly sense. Which is why Peter so quickly rebuked him
and why we wrestle so mightily with taking Jesus at his
word.
Jesus made no promises that the journey would be easy,
or that others would understand it. He promised
something else: that from the worst that the world metes
out, from the depths of defeat, from suffering,
rejection, and even death, God gives something the world
cannot give: a life that cannot be taken from us, no
matter what the world may do.
Amen.
© Rev. Karen Winkel
United Church of Paducah (UCC) |
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