Sermon: Helping Each Other See

Mark 8:27-38

Helping Each Other See

James Sledge                                                                           September 13, 2015

I’m going to ask you to imagine a scenario that may terrify some of you. Imagine that there is someone seated near you that you have never met or seen before. That’s not the terrifying part… I hope. Worship comes to an end and she turns to you and says, “I’ve really never done the church thing. Could you tell me what your church believes about Jesus?”

Let that sink in for a moment. How would you respond? What would you say to this person? Really think about it. What would your first words be?

Countless authors have noted that Mainline Christians, especially those who think of themselves as more “progressive,” struggle to answer such questions. More often than not, we instead began to explain what we don’t believe. “We’re not like that county clerk in Kentucky who won’t give a marriage license to gay couples. We don’t believe that Jews and Muslims are going to hell. We’re not fundamentalists who take every word of the Bible literally.” And so on.

Now some of this may be helpful, even welcome information, but none of it actually answers her question about what we actually do believe.

In our gospel reading this morning, Jesus asks a “What do you believe?” sort of question. He starts with, “What are other folks saying?” Then he moves to, “But who do you say that I am?” Not so different from someone asking, “What do you believe about Jesus?”

I wonder how long it took Peter to answer? Peter seems to be one of those folks who talks first and thinks later, so I’m betting pretty quickly. I wonder about the other disciples. If Peter had been quiet for once, what would they have said? Or were they relieved that Peter had taken the risk and blurted out something?

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The gospels were written to help Christians with “What do you believe?” questions, especially “What do you believe about Jesus?” Because people in our day sometimes hand out Bibles as a way of introducing Jesus, it’s easy to forget that the gospels were written, not for people who had yet to hear the story of Jesus, but for people who already knew it, who were already in a church. They’re written to help Christians better understand who Jesus is and what difference that is supposed to make in their lives.

Like Peter, these folks correctly could identify Jesus. So can most of us. If pressed, most of us could share a bit of his story, could identify him as Messiah, or Christ, or Son of God.

But it turns out that being able to Jesus doesn’t really mean Peter, or any of us, understand who he is or what it means to follow him. Peter is clearly expecting a different sort of Messiah than what Jesus describes with his words about suffering and death, and I’m not so sure that has changed very much in our day.

Probably all of us have ways in which we would like Jesus to be something or someone other than he says he is. We want Jesus to help us get where we want to go, but he insists that following him means letting go of our agendas and connecting to God’s.

We live in a culture of addition that tells us, in ways obvious and subtle, that the secret to life is more. We must have enough things, enough experiences, enough enrichment activities for our children, enough success and power and influence, and on and on. Much of life’s busyness and anxiety is rooted in this pursuit of more, always worried that we don’t have enough, always concerned that others are getting ahead.

But Jesus speaks of subtraction, of letting go, even of our very lives. No wonder Peter tries to straighten him out.

In our scripture today, and on numerous other occasions, Jesus makes it very clear that following him is difficult and often at odds with the prevailing culture. Christian faith is not one more item that can be added to the shopping cart. It is about learning to see differently, and so to live differently. Jesus describes it in terms of setting the mind on divine things rather than human things.

But the very fact that Jesus chastises Peter means that learning to see as God does, as Jesus does, is not something impossible. Quite the opposite. Following Jesus means to let him begin to show us how to see differently. And the gift of the Spirit to the Church gives us divine help in becoming a community that nurtures, supports, instructs, and guides all of us in becoming more and more Christ-like, in acquiring this new way of seeing and living. It is a counter-intuitive way, but it is the way to life, Jesus insists.

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In a few moments we will celebrate the Sacrament of Baptism. It is a covenant ceremony where as a community we make promises to God and to one another. Libby’s parents promise to “be Christ’s faithful disciple(s), obeying his Word and showing his love,” and we as a congregation renew our faith by affirming this promise with them. Libby’s parents promise to live the faith and teach it to her, and as a community, we “promise to guide and nurture Libby by word and deed, with love and prayer, encouraging her to know and follow Christ and to be a faithful member of his church.”

None of this is about adding a little spirituality or faith to our burgeoning, consumer shopping carts. It is not an insurance policy promising us heaven when we die. It is a shared journey where we come to know Christ more and more deeply as we follow him, as the Spirit guides us, as we learn to see as God sees.

When Jesus says,  “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,” it can sound harsh, even judgmental. “You’d better do this, or else.” But when we remember that Mark’s gospel shares these words with those who have already chosen the way of Christ, I think they become encouragement to stay on the path of life that we have already begun, and that Libby begins with her baptism today.