Second Sunday in Lent Yr B Feb 28 2021
Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16, Romans 4:13-25, Mark 8:31-38, Psalm 22:22-30
Jesus says, follow me. But if you do, there will be consequences. You will lose your life. Not much of a party invitation is it? What would that look like on a save the date card. That card for me would read, Kathleen Ann Monson, on August 21st, 1957, you are invited to lose your life. Details to follow. You see, that’s the day I was baptized. How do I even know that you ask? I have my baptismal certificate framed on my wall, my ordination certificate is there as well, but the baptismal certificate is the most important to me, to us. That is the day I lost my life, to be reborn into the life of Jesus. And it is with this identity, a follower of Jesus in the way of love, that I live my life. All the rest is the details.
In this story from Mark, there are some very important questions that are part of the details, that inform the way of love. Who do you say I am? Can you turn from all that demands your attention and follow me? Can you put aside your own selfish ambition? Can you lay down your life? As we wonder about the answers to these questions, we may find that Jesus calls us to some uncomfortable places, some borders and barriers that must be broken.
We begin, as we began last time in Mark, with location. Location, location, location. We need to look at the physical location of the story, and where the story is in the larger narrative, it makes a difference. So Jesus and the disciples are in Caesarea Philippi, and that is way far away from Jerusalem, about 110 miles away, and remember, anyplace they go they go on foot. Jesus and the disciples were walking all over the place and they were nowhere near home. In this place, so far from home, Jesus asks, who do you say I am. Peter declares, you are the Messiah. Peter says, you are the one for whom we have been waiting, you are the one given to us by God.
This declaration of who Jesus is, is made way out in the villages, a beautiful area and a center of Pagan activity. Caesarea Philippi is home to the Temple of Pan. This is not a judgement about good and bad, only an illustration about how the location of this declaration that Peter, the Rock, makes, about who Jesus is, becomes an important part of the story. They are way out of their territory, deep in pagan lands, in the places they are not comfortable. What does it mean to confess Jesus as the messiah in this wilderness, in foreign lands? Jesus and his followers are the aliens here. Talk about losing your life! In this setting Peter affirms Jesus’ identity, you are the one for whom we have been waiting, you are the one given to us by God.
So what does this all mean for us, in our setting, in our lives? Who do we say Jesus is when we are in the wilderness, when we are in front of the temple of pan? Who do we say Jesus is when we are with those who claim a Jesus who takes power rather than the one we know, the Jesus who empowers us in the way of Love. And, how do we respond to the demand to deny ourselves and take up our cross. You see, these two claims have everything to do with each other.
I’ll tell you why. Peter’s claim that Jesus is the one for whom they have been waiting, becomes our reality that Jesus is God in the flesh, Jesus is God in the midst of humanity. Jesus, the one who travels to the wilderness, Jesus, the one who feeds thousands of people in the wilderness, Jesus the one who gives sight to the blind, this is the Jesus we follow in the way of love. Not a god who demands power and glory, but Jesus, who goes to the edges of the earth to bring those who are on the margins into the community of the beloved. Not a god who demands the sacrifice of a son, but God in Jesus, who asks the sacrifice of self.
That is what Jesus is asking of us here. Jesus says, put aside your selfish ambition, give up your busy is better life, give up your need to be successful, your need to be liked, your need to please, your need to be perfect, put aside all that is killing you for the sake of love. Because love changes everything.
And it is so hard. It is hard because it demands that we love ourselves. It is hard because once we love ourselves, and put aside all that is killing us, our eyes and hearts are opened to our own brokenness and vulnerability, and our eyes and hearts are opened to the brokenness we see around us. It is hard because it is scary. Fear is at the root of most of our inability to love. It is hard because we also must say, like Peter says, Jesus, you are the Love of God, and we must say it in difficult places, in uncomfortable places and conversations. We too must go to the margins, and break down the barriers that keep people from the love of God. We also must speak out loud, on behalf of ourselves and those whose voices are silenced, Jesus is the Love that wins.
What are the wild places that you go to speak the love of God? For some of us that may be hard family conversations. For me it’s when one of the people I love says something, or posts something on facebook that supports or defends an attitude that is not loving, but judging, racist, or misogynistic; it’s a wild place that I need to enter, not to take sides or to judge, but to have conversation about why that comment or that piece they post is not loving.
Just remember, in the waters of baptism you have been set free to bear God’s love into all the wild places of your life. By your baptism you have been marked with oil and retraced with ashes as Christ’s own forever. You carry the light of Christ to illuminate all of the dark and wild places. You carry the cross of love in your pocket. You are created in God’s image. You are equipped, by your baptism in the community of saints and the cloud of witnesses, with Peter and all the others, to proclaim the love that wins. Thanks be to God.
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