August 31 2008
Pr. Dawn Roginski

Last week, Peter called Jesus the Messiah, or the Christ. In Peter's world, this title designated the one who was to bring the liberation of Israel, the victory of God over the nations, the transformation of the human heart, and the establishment of the Messianic reign of peace and justice. Through the Christ history would be fulfilled. God would again become supreme and the earth would be changed into a place of blessedness. I can imagine Peter became excited as he thought about all that was going to happen, all the power that would be exerted on behalf of his people. But Jesus stops him before he goes any farther into his fantasy of power and turns all those thought and dreams upside down. When Jesus explains that the Messiah must die, that does not fit into Peter's plan, so naturally Peter questions. Jesus then says that the rock on which the church was to be built is now a rock on the path causing others to stumble. Peter understands, and then he doesn't understand at all. One moment he is walking on water, the next, he is sinking, the moment after that, he is saying with the other disciples to Jesus, "You are the Son of God." At the end, the disciples all promise to stand by Jesus, and Peter pledges that even if he must die with Jesus, he will not deny him; within an hour or two, the disciples are all gone except for Peter, who stays in proximity to Jesus long enough to claim, "I do not know the man!" A rooster brings him back to himself and he weeps bitterly. Peter is rock and stumbling block at almost the same moment, and he is blessed with just enough self-awareness to know both things are true of him.

And we may say, poor Peter, he cannot seem to make up his mind. But can we really criticize? Peter is, in this respect, representative of those who follow Jesus. As Mary Hinkle says, If you have not known yourself to be both brilliant and clueless as you follow Jesus, fierce and craven, faithful and running for your life at almost exactly at the same time, you are not paying attention. Jesus does not say he will build his church on a rock such as Peter because the man's insight is so great or his faithfulness so remarkable or even because Jesus has any particular hope that Peter will become, over time, more faithful and less frightened. Jesus chooses this particular human because Jesus sees God at work in him. "Blessed are you, Simon, son of John, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you but God in heaven." God is at work in this one, and when Jesus sees that, he gets on board with it.

Peter, still smarting from being called Satan and a stumbling block hears these words along with the rest of the disciples; "If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me." Now in popular culture, people tend to think this means that one should accept the suffering they have in this life quietly, without compliant. The cross has become not only an instrument for the suffering of Jesus, but the suffering for us as well. The cross is given labels such as cancer, unhappy relationships, abusive parents, unemployment, and so on. You may hear people say that these things are the cross they are to bear.

Many to do not get that this is not the point Jesus is trying to make and clergy are as guilty of this as lay people. I have heard sermons about accepting suffering gracefully, and trying not to complain because it will bring you closer to being able to identify with the suffering of Jesus. I even heard a pastor recently talk about cancer being the cross a woman has had to bear. Maybe this kind of thinking helps people to be more patient with illness and suffering. But more often it leads to all kinds of self-abuse, and/ or self-degradation. But when Jesus says take up your cross, this is not our calling. We're not supposed to seek literal or figurative martyrdom. If Jesus' death on the cross was a full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice, then nobody has any right to demand bloodshed or suffering for sins or crimes. For some of us, the hard part of taking that in and living it out is that we have to give up vengeance; for some, the hard part is to stop punishing ourselves. Or maybe we did not hear that so I will repeat it again, Jesus was the perfect sacrifice. We do not need to try and emulate that sacrifice because it has been done, once and for all. And we are saved through this act so we have no need to try and earn it. We have no need to fear that we don't deserve to be saved. It is all pure grace that leaves no room for doubt.

So now that we know we are saved, how will we respond? This is the true question of discipleship in our gospel text. Jesus call is not to totally lose our self, but to live in a way that is concerned about the needs of others before ourselves. It is pulling away the mask we wear which manipulates others to gain advantage. It is losing the preoccupation with our own power. It is giving up the need to create and sustain good impressions. The truth is, we don't need these facades. When we deny ourselves and take up the cross we abandon the mask, the false self, and allow ourselves to be real and vulnerable, to be loved and loving, also to the point of suffering and death. These texts are not calling us away from what it means to be a human being, but calling us to be truly human, to find our true selves in God, and claim our wholeness. Paul Tillich tells us the true nurture of the self is to love ourselves as God loves us. It is serving the false self that is selfishness. Caring for oneself as God cares for us means opening oneself to God's love as the life and energy of the soul. That love will expand in all directions: towards ourselves, towards others, towards God.

Ultimately, Paul gives us a picture of being a disciple when he says: love one another with mutual affection; outdo one another in showing honor. Do not lag in zeal, be ardent in spirit. Rejoice in hope, be patient in suffering, persevere in prayer. Contribute to the needs of the saints; extend hospitality to strangers. Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them. Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with one another; do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly; do not claim to be wiser than you are. Do not repay anyone evil for evil, but take thought for what is noble in the sight of all. If it is possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.

And what if we do answer Jesus' call to pick up our cross and follow him? What if we did present ourselves as living sacrifices to God, becoming whole in Christ's image and leaving aside the concerns of the world? Not seeking to increase our own suffering but to follow the "Christ," who was Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified as a threat to the order of families and of the Empire. We remember that Jesus is the one the God of Israel chose as the Son of Humanity, judge of the nations, who repays evildoers by calling down forgiveness rather than fire. And so as we believe that the nations will be judged it will bring freedom from fear and we can let go of racism, classism, sexism and homophobia. We can be at peace even when we're in conflict with the authorities of this world because we're in the care of the Prince of Peace. We don't have to prove to anyone, even ourselves, that we're worthy of love if we take in and really believe that Jesus loved us without regard for deserving.

As we follow Jesus, things will change -- us, our relationships, our world, and as Barak Obama said, our country. Change means losing things as they were, but if we've caught Jesus' vision for how God is redeeming the world, we know that what we gain is of far greater value than the chains we lose. Jesus brings us out of old ways of being and relating that bring sorrow and death so that we can be free for new ways of relating to one another, and in the self-giving love in which Jesus forms us, we find real, deep, and eternal joy. Amen