Worldy Ways? (Mark 8:31 - 38)

     Atlanta has the highest per-capita number of Mercedes Benz’s in the country.  Or at least it seems that way . . . you can’t drive a half a block without some joker in a Benz cutting you off, or gliding majestically down the highway like a ship of state, as if his status as a Mercedes owner gives him the instant right-of-way . . . Atlanta is a Mercedes town, all right, and nowhere is it more obvious than on the Perimeter road, that eight-lane ring of hurtling metal that circles the city, because it seems like every Mercedes in town is on it, from about six am until nine, and again from three-thirty until seven.  Every Mercedes and Beemer and Lexus in town--it’s like they’re mechanically incapable of doing anything less than eighty--and every day it’s a deadly circus, with cars whipping and weaving around and around Atlanta like _some idiot merry-go-round.

And one day, I’m poking along at sixty-five--all right, all right, so it’s ten miles over the speed limit--when some . . . guy . . .  in a Benz almost takes my front bumper off, and I’m sitting there stewing, looking at his tail-lights inches from my face, and what I’d really love, what I’d give my eye-teeth for at this very moment, is a roof-mounted gun turret, with laser-guided missiles and a heads-up display, so I could just blow him out of the way, just clear the decks and get on with my life.  So you can imagine my delight when I read about that Pennsylvania firm who’s modifying SUVs just that way--you press a button on the dash, the sun-roof slides open, and up comes either your own personal 50-caliber machine gun or grenade launcher--take your pick, soccer moms--but my disappointment was keen when I read the fine print, that these things were not to be sold in this country, but were for overseas hot-spots, like for Sheiks with too much oil-money on their hands.

     Now, while I’m being at least semi-facetious, I think that many of us secretly want to have the ability to take out the obstructions in our lives, to just overpower them and get on with our own agendas . . . or maybe to be a super-hero or a gunslinger, who use force--like bopping the villains on the head or a gunfight at the O.K. corral--to subdue the bad guys and help the helpless little people.  It’s the way of the world, isn’t it?  The ones with the most power--political as well as military--are the ones that get their way, the ones who get their paths cleared for them . . . and the good guys are the ones who use that power to help the helpless . . .

And I think that’s where Peter’s coming from when he pulls Jesus aside to talk to him.  After all, he’d just been the first disciple to figure out who Jesus was--Jesus had asked--not three verses ago!--“Who do you say that I am?”  and Peter had answered “You’re the Messiah.”  And that title carried with it some awful heavy baggage.  To the Jewish people, the figure of the Messiah was understood as a powerful militaristic figure, who promised deliverance of Israel over its enemies and the restoration of its former glory, the glory it enjoyed under the reign of their greatest King, David of Bethlehem.  And we can almost excuse Peter for his agitation . . . he’d just come to an amazing, startling conclusion about the identity of his teacher, and here Jesus was, talking gibberish.

He was saying that the Son of Man--another Hebrew title--must suffer greatly, and be rejected by the very ones who should know better, the elders and the chief priests and the scribes, and worst of all, he was to be killed and after three days rise again!  And to Peter, this must have been just nuts, so he takes him aside to speak to him.  And we usually attribute it to Peter’s great concern for his master, and there may have been some of that, but the Greek word translated here as ”rebuke” is the same as the word Jesus uses to command the wind to be silent on the Sea of Galilee, and to order the disciples to be silent about what they had seen . . . and it’s the word he uses with demons who inhabit the bodies of humans . . . and this word ”rebuked” carries a whole lot of freight--it’s a word of command, a word of authority . . . it’s a word used to speak to underlings, people under your control, and here Peter is using it with Jesus!

And so when he pulls Jesus aside, Peter is treating the Messiah like an underling--or worse, as demon-possessed--but Jesus shows that he knows the real problem when he calls him Satan—"Get thee behind me, Satan!”--because Satan is the master of the world, the Prince of the old reign, and Peter is thinking in worldly terms here . . . he expects the Messiah to walk softly but to carry a humongous stick.  He doesn’t get it that Jesus is talking a different way of doing business--God’s way--and it isn’t the way of human culture. “You,” he tells Peter, “are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”  Peter expects Jesus to get himself to an armory and kick a little Roman you-know-what, but Jesus tells him instead he’s going to be killed.  I would say that there’s quite a gap in their understandings of the divine way.

And now Jesus goes on to clarify what he means, and this time, he addresses the entire crowd. “If any want to follow me, they must deny themselves, take up their cross and follow me.”  And this is a grim image--everyone in the crowd knew about crucifixion, the Romans made a public spectacle out of it, and even though Jesus has not said he would die this way, everyone in the crowd--not to mention the disciples--could picture a condemned criminal dragging the cross-bar slowly through the streets of Jerusalem, just hours or even minutes away from a horrible death.

     In the movie “O Brother Where Art Thou,” George Clooney’s character is making fun of his dim-witted companions, who’d just been baptized, and he’s calling it all superstitious mumbo-jumbo, and he says ”Why you two are just dumber than a bag of hammers . . . I guess you’re just my cross to bear,” which is how we’ve come to view it, as some kind of infirmity or affliction that God has laid on us to, I don’t know, burden us or something, but that’s not what Jesus meant when he said take up your cross . . . he meant that metaphorically, that we follow him like a criminal in the streets, always ready to suffer rejection and humiliation for our faith, always ready to be laughed at, to be discriminated against, for the sake of the gospel of Jesus Christ.  Like Jesus himself on that fateful Friday, we follow Jesus as if we were going to our own deaths at the hands of our persecutors.

Well.  As if that weren’t enough to drive disciple-recruitment numbers way down, he goes on to amplify what he is saying . . . “those who want to save their lives will lose it, those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it.”  And here the incongruity of life in Christ is in sharp relief--losing your life will save it?  Saving your life will mean losing it?  What, indeed, would profit anyone to gain the whole world and yet forfeit their own life?   And of course we can see that when he says lose their life he means not only physically--although surely he means that--but metaphorically, as well . . . ”deny yourselves,” he says “and lose your life for may sake, and for the sake of the gospel.”

      This is a basic text for Christian discipleship, and it’s repeated in Matthew and Luke as well . . . following him—discipleship—requires a denial of self, almost a death to self, so that we live our lives for Christ and not for ourselves.  And it’s been recognized as a very tough thing almost from the beginning . . . Augustine, the father of Christian theology, said: “How hard and painful does this appear!”  And he’s right, it does seem hard and painful, and even more so today, when the entire Western world is caught up in an orgy of self-involvement.  “Do something for yourself today!” the slogan goes, and it seems only right and proper . . . after all, you’re worth it, and besides, you deserve a break today . . . all that old self-sacrifice stuff is out the window, along with all those hair shirts that litter our closets . . . it’s the me generation, the I generation, and it’s sold as a welcome respite from the time when all we were encouraged to think about was others--and maybe it’s true, maybe there’s been a healthy re-balancing of concern for self.

And yet . . . we’ve gone way too far the other way, and cultural anthropologists tell us that it’s all being driven by consumerism, that ever-growing need to get more and more people to buy more and more things . . . here’s how it works: ads show people enjoying the newest, shiniest toy--the cell phone you can play games on, the mini-van with the DVD player--and they’re happy, successful, beautiful people, people we want to be like, people whose stuff we envy.  At the same time, they tell us we work hard for our money, we deserve what we get . . . and the manufacturers are there to give it to us.  Don’t like minty-fresh, licorice-striped Crest toothpaste?  We’ve got another ten varieties you might like better, there’s one out there for you!  Assert your individuality by buying something mas-produced!  And the media--especially TV, coincidentally sponsored by commercial products--models self-indulgence in every story-line . . . every show about doctors or lawyers or police detectives who never have any money problems . . . how many shows out there are about people living on the edge, maybe working at a fast-food joint, with no medical insurance, and for minimum wage, and with a passel of kids at home to support?  I dare the networks to put that one on . . .

Over in First Corinthians, Paul says “The message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us . . . it is the power of God.”  It’s foolishness to human culture, but it’s the wisdom of God . . . “for God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger.”  And that’s what today’s passage is about as well . . . Peter just couldn’t believe it when Jesus said he would die, it seemed foolish to him, it was against the ways we humans have contructed, against the ways of power and might . . . and in just the same way, denial of self is diametrically opposed to modern wisdom, which says you can’t help others until you help yourself.  But Christ calls us to self-denial, to the giving-up of our own lives, for the sake of his gospel.

     The way of human construction is . . . the country with the biggest army and navy and air force . . . wins.  The way of God’s rule is . . . the meek shall inherit the earth.  The way of human construction is . . . the ones with the most money do whatever they want, those with the least . . . do without.  The way of God’s rule is . . . the last shall be first, and the first shall be last.  The way of human construction is to do anything for the advancement of the self, but the way of God’s rule is to deny that same self, take up the cross and follow Him.

This Lenten season, as we meditate on the meaning of the cross, and the meaning of Christ’s death for us, think about Peter and his misunderstanding of the true nature of discipleship.  What does that look like today, in our churches that are embedded in the culture of success and excess and win, win, win?  Think Peter’s misapprehension of the gospel, and apply it to the church as we know it today.  Amen.