Spiritual Growth :: Sermons

Sunday, September 13, 2009.
Proper 19B RCL. The Rev. Kate Ekrem

Mark 8:27-38

Like many of you, I’m sure, I’ve been thinking about September 11 this week, and I remember that soon after that, I had a conversation with a friend of mine about the role of religion in that tragedy. 9/11 really shook his faith, and he felt that religion had caused what happened. His point of view was that religion is dangerous, because it creates fanatics, conflicts, and religious wars. Without religion this wouldn’t have happened. What we need instead are just people to act with enlightened self-interest. If everyone acted that way, people could live peacefully together.

I thought about that, and then I asked him if he thought that enlightened self-interest was what made the many firefighters who died that day run up the stairs of World Trade towers. Because I think that possibly had more to do with self-sacrifice. Religion does not call us to eradicate other people. Christianity calls people, instead, to self-denial. Jesus said: “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.”

That’s a pretty stark thing to say, and it would have been even a starker image in Jeus’s time, when everyone would have been familiar with the sight of condemned criminals carrying their cross to the place of execution. But he said, Take up our cross and follow. We’re not be asked to do anything Jesus didn’t do first. We’re not even being asked to do what Jesus did – none of us is the Son of God, after all. But we are asked to follow him, to model our life on the way he lived his life.

There is a story about a woman who applied to college, and the application asked, “Are you a leader?” The woman thought about that, and decided she had better be honest, so she wrote “No.” A few weeks later she got a letter: “Dear Applicant: A study of the application forms reveals that this year our college will have 1,452 new leaders. We are accepting you because we feel it is imperative that they have at least one follower.”

Followers don’t always get respected – everyone wants to be a leader. But look at the example of Jesus. He said, “the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected” – what does this say about who God is? That God will willingly suffer and be rejected. God can let himself be humbled. Humans can’t do this – we would get an inferiority complex.

This is true heart of God, the heart of Jesus – God is willing to be a servant, a sacrifice. Jesus said, “the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve.” God didn’t come to be served by us, but to serve us, and to show us how to serve others. The humility of God is just as essential God’s nature as the gloriousness of God. We praise God’s glory because God is willing to be a humble servant for our sake.

This is hard to understand. Simon Peter, the first person to recognize Jesus as the Messiah, the Christ, did not understand it. When Jesus said he was going to be rejected and killed, Peter took him aside and said, you’ve got it wrong, that’s not what you’re supposed to do. You’re not supposed to act like this, you’re supposed to be the all-powerful Messiah, you’ve got a world to run, get to it! And Jesus called him Satan. Perhaps Peter did become Satan for one instant – he became one who tried to control, and take over, and oppose God’s purpose in Jesus. That drive to control, to prevail, to win at all costs is what Jesus is asking us to give up, to let go of. If Jesus didn’t try to run the world, we don’t need to, either. And the secret Jesus is sharing with us is that there’s a great freedom in that. Dying to that kind of life and being reborn to a new life of freedom is what the Christian journey is about.

Jesus calls us to deny ourselves. To let go, to not grasp things so tightly that we can’t love or enjoy them. There is a Japanese story about a man who came to a Zen Buddhist monk to learn about Zen. The monk served him tea, and when he poured the tea into the man’s cup, he just kept pouring after the cup was full so that the tea overflowed. The man said, “Stop! The cup is full, you can’t put anymore tea in it!” And the monk said, “Just like your mind, which is full, so that it can’t take in any more wisdom.” Like that man, we also need to empty ourselves so that God can fill us.

Peter makes a mistake, but he has another chance. The disciples are called a second time in this passage. And again Jesus calls them to follow, but this time they know more about what he is asking of them. Jesus asks us to follow again and again, each time we know a little more of exactly what he is asking of us. Are we willing to empty ourselves so that God can fill us?

And God will fill us. St. Paul wrote, “He who did not withhold his own Son, but gave him up for all of us, will he not with him also give us everything else?” To give up our selves is to gain everything. “Whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it.”

Sources include: The Good News According to Mark, Eduard Schweizer The New Prayer Book Guide to Continuing Education “Mark 8:27-38”, James L. Mays, Interpretation 30 Ap 1976, p 174-178. S. I. McMillen, None of These Diseases (story about college applicant) Zen Flesh, Zen Bones (story about teacup)