Our lay worship leader preached on today's Gospel reading
Apparently it is said that within the first 45 seconds of a job interview, the interviewer already made up their mind about whether you will be called back for a 2nd interview. I don’t know what the interviewer is meant to base this on – the strength of a handshake perhaps, or the appearance of the person being interviewed. But it seems that in this world, people make snap judgements about other people all the time – based on clothes, accents, jobs, politics. We decide if we like someone based on their smile, or their first words.
What did you think of Fred? Oh, I didn’t like him. He didn’t smile (but nobody told you that his beloved dog had to be put down yesterday)
I won’t go to that shop again. The shop assistant was horrible. She didn’t speak to me. (but nobody told you that she was on her second back-to-back shift because her husband had just been made redundant)
I know I’m guilty of this – basing my opinions of others on one interaction that I’ve had with a person, without thinking about the background of the person, or the reasons why they might be behaving in the way they are. I’m sure people have done it with me. And it can have consequences – sometimes good, sometimes bad; but consequences there will be.
We see this happening with those who encountered Jesus. Before the events recounted in today’s gospel reading, Jesus had been travelling around the country: he had been healing, teaching, annoying the pharisees by breaking the Sabbath laws, attracting the poor by feeding them. And I’m sure many of these people only encountered Jesus once or twice, so their opinions were based solely on those times.
So, when Jesus asked, “Who do people say that I am?” the answers that he got were those of people who had only seen the healing, heard his teaching, seen the miracles wrought by Jesus: “some say you are John the Baptist; and others, Elijah; and still others, one of the prophets.” Of course, the disciples could have continued “And the Pharisees say you are a blasphemer, the scribes say you are a son of Beelzebub, and as for your family, they say you’re out of your mind…”
But then after that general question, Jesus spoke directly to his closest friends, those who had been with him from the beginning, who had seen more than the miraculous healings. They had seen him calm the storm and walk on water; They had heard him teach both in public and in private; they had been chosen and loved by this extraordinary man.
And you? He asked, Who do you say I am?
And Peter, dear impetuous Peter blurted out what they all were thinking, hoping for, longing for. You are the Messiah. The Christ. The one who has come to redeem Israel.
And then, strangely, it seems, Jesus neither confirms or denies this. He simply tells them to say nothing about it.
Which seems rather bizarre in a way: you would think that Jesus would have at least congratulated Peter for joining the dots and coming to the right conclusion. But he doesn’t. And I can’t help wondering if, as Catherine suggested last week, this is because Jesus himself is still learning, still working it out for himself. This confession of Peter, that he believed Jesus was the Messiah, was in fact another piece of the puzzle for Jesus – perhaps the final piece of the puzzle. Because it is only after this that Jesus starts to acknowledge that his path is going to be a path of pain, of sacrifice and of difficulty. It is as though he has finally understood what this will mean.
He has understood. But I fear that Peter, and probably the others, have not. While they are still thinking that Jesus is the Messiah who will lead his followers triumphantly into Jerusalem, to rid the Promised Land of the invading Romans, bringing liberty and prosperity and joy to all Jesus understands that his Christhood is the way of sacrifice and service to others. And when Jesus starts to explain what this will mean, Peter starts to tell him he’s got it all wrong – and Jesus rebukes him. Rather harshly, I can’t help feeling – but then, at the same time, if Jesus is growing into his role as Messiah, he cannot be – he must not be - tempted to use his powers in a self-serving way.
There is a saying I have seen a couple of times recently: Tell God your plans and see him laugh. In this situation though, it’s more a case of Tell God who you think he is and see him laugh.
We are all like Peter. He wanted a Messiah who was on his side, on the side of what he thought was right. Peter had the plans all made in his head: Jesus is the Messiah, in my mind the Messiah is like this, and so this is what Jesus will do next. When Jesus started to talk about suffering and death that wasn’t at all what Peter wanted to hear.
Are we like that too? Even though we have encountered God, and we have seen what God is like – full of love, and inclusion, and mercy, and joy – do we still want to put God into a box and define God according to what WE think God is. Someone who is on our side? Someone who lets us pick and choose who we consider to be worthy of helping? Someone who knows we don’t really want to get our hands dirty and would prefer to stay in our own little bubble, if it’s all the same to you…Oh, and we certainly don’t want to be involved in any suffering and death, thank you!
Unfortunately – or perhaps I should say fortunately – our God is not like that. Just as Jesus wasn’t going to be confined by Peter’s limited imagination, God will not be confined by ours. And God will not let us confine ourselves by our limited understanding. God wants to open our hearts, not close them down.
We have such a dull imagination, I fear. Think of those words “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves” How does it make you feel? I feel slightly “meh”, it sounds so joyless. It makes me think of not having that second piece of chocolate tart or giving up what I want to do because Andrew wants to do something different. It speaks of days spent fasting and long faces. But, as one commentator writes:
What if self-denial is about separating from that which we often use to define ourselves and each other; political parties, national identity, economic status, family of origin, even religion? What if it is about redefining ourselves, our priorities, and our beliefs to be more in line with those of Jesus? What if self-denial is the key to loving our neighbour, our enemy, God, and even ourselves? Maybe self-denial is what makes space and place for another and recognizes her or his life as important and sacred as ours. Maybe self-denial is, paradoxically, what allows us to come alive. Maybe it means re-examining our beliefs and attitudes about who we are, who another is, and who God is. And, finally, maybe self-denial means we don’t take ourselves more seriously than we take God.
Last time I preached on this passage, I spoke of a TV series that Andrew and I were watching at the time. The series was “New Amsterdam” set in a hospital in New York. The maverick new medical director is a thorn in the side of the hospital board, because he will not consider cost cutting exercises, or how to save money, but rather focuses on his patients, and his staff, and their needs. His most common phrase is “How can I help?” which so often has the effect of opening the floodgates, of allowing his patients the opportunity to say what they need and feel…. He treats them as people, not as numbers, often to the inconvenience of the hospital and himself.
This is what Jesus did. When he encountered them, at the well, touching his gown, listening to his stories, he asked people “How can I help?” regardless of what toll this would take on him. And when he said to his followers “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.” This is what he was talking about.
This is what our cross is. That question “How can I help?” .
Because when we ask it of others, we must be prepared for an answer that may well inconvenience ourselves; we must be prepared to lose our lives in order to become immersed in the lives of others and the life of the created world.
And in this case, we start to see that when Jesus asks us to take up our cross, he is pointing us to a God who meets us, and the world, in the midst of vulnerability, suffering and loss; a God who calls us to make an active choice to live in the ministry that God has called us to, every day; a God who wants us to let go of all the things that hold us to the world, to our past, to our insecurities and instead to encounter God in the world, in ourselves and in other people.
So be it. Amen.
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