2018-02-25 – Rev. Dr. Ryan Sato
“MIND ON DIVINE”
Mark 8:31-38
I would like to “clear the deck” a bit…because when we hear today’s gospel reading, we might get stuck with the “shame” imagery of the final phrases…
“Those who are ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation,
of them the Son of Man will also be ashamed…”
Preached out of context, this could feel like a huge finger wag (the foam-finger-wagging Jesus?).
But remembering that Jesus is talking to first century Jesus-followers, who in a mediterranian-asia-minor loyalty culture would have better understood the healthy conviction of shame, they wouldn’t have heard this as “you should be ashamed of yourselves!” … instead it would be more along the lines of the Psalmist, who in a psalm like psalm 25 cries out in prayer: “To you O Lord, I lift up my soul…O my God, in you I trust; do not let me be put to shame.” God don’t let the ways and patterns of my life put me in places of dis-fellowship from you…I lift up my soul to you!
We’ve done our confession prayer…remember the assurance? In Christ, you are forgiven.
Free from the burdens and guilt of your sins. Good news! Week after week, day after day… God is NOT ashamed of you.
Jesus is NOT ashamed of you.
Shame is not the final word.
Community of God, Father, son and Holy Spirit…clear the deck…and let us hear your life-giving, life-bearing word…through the words of Jesus, our companion on the way. (pause)
* * * * * *
Jesus is teaching the inner circle of his disciples… and he’s hit that point in their relationship where they are having “the talk”… you know….the one where you really press into the parameters and potentials of your relationship? (ie. I can still remember my “the talk” with Sandy during our early dating era).
Jesus says: “You know who I am… or you say you know who I am… but let me state it openly…”
“The Son of Man must undergo great suffering,
and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, the scribes,
and be KILLED,
and after three days rise again.”
In the moment, it’s unclear if Peter heard that “three days” phrase…the word “killed” is the word that seems to get lodged in his brain.
KILLED??!!
Peter grabs Jesus by the elbow and with his face turning red and hair bristling on the back of his neck he pushes him out of hearing range of the other disciples.
Peter rebukes Jesus.
We don’t get the conversation here but we get Jesus’ stern and forceful response…as if he’s speaking again to the unclean spirit that plagued him a few weeks earlier in the local synagogue.
In the synagogue he shouted: “Be silent! Come out of him!”
Now he looks intently into Peter’s eyes and shouts: “Get behind me Satan!
For YOU are setting your mind NOT on divine things but on human things.”
Jesus turns his gaze to the faces of the wide-eyed inner-circle disciples…and then lifts his voice and eyes to the crowd that has gathered amidst all the fuss and fury of the moment…
“If any (of you) 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.
For what will it profit them to gain the whole world
and forfeit their life?
* * * * *
Jesus lifting his eyes and his voice to the crowds…and looking at them…and looking 2000 years beyond them to us…
You there…you, you, you….
And maybe we’re as wide eyed and gob smacked as the 1st century hearers.
But this is meant to be good news for them…and good news for us.
Want to hear again what it’s like to follow Jesus?
The ‘following’ goes hand in hand with:
Denying ourselves.
Taking up crosses.
Can we pause for a moment, and try to get into the mind/heart space of these hearers?
Denying themselves would mean that their lives are no longer their own. They would leave vocations and the routines of their old lives and be re-made and re-apprenticed to a new master. They would leave fishing boats and weaving looms and live life on the road, trusting and praying for daily bread…depending on the hospitality of others for their well-being.
And it gets even more intense…because taking up a cross in first century Nero-controlled rural villages of Galilee would mean taking up the torture instrument of death.
These Christians would have known and seen that the way of the cross was the way of suffering, torture and their demise.
But the good news of the gospel of Mark…the good news of the kingdom (dream, reign) of God that had come into reality through the presence of Jesus is that by walking this way of denial and cross bearing…there is salvation.
Jesus says:
“For those who want to SAVE their life
will lose it,
And those who lose their life for my sake, will SAVE it.
And as for profits and riches…they will not be stored up in treasures where moth and vermin destroy…
Instead the riches of the present life will outweigh & outlast gaining the riches and profits of the whole world.
>>> Whoa!?! This is other worldly is it not?
This pushes our hearts and our imaginations and our desires to a different place.
All because we follow Jesus.
And as we follow Jesus, as we get in line behind this vagabond rabbi, Jesus does a winnowing work…he sifts us…and promises that being in companionship with him is the place of true peace, true rest, true security.
>>> What might this mean for us in these more somber, contemplative days of Lent?
NOTE: Lent is a time to tithe 10% of the year to the Lord…and see what emerges.
For the past 10 days I’ve been encouraging us to carry a word/phrase/hymn stanza with us and see how that plays out in our lives, in our hearts, in our imaginations in these days.
And not that I want to add more to our lists, but maybe this week we might take the exhortation from Jesus regarding “divine things”….
“Set your mind on divine things…not on human things.”
And this is not an exhortation to be “so heavenly minded that you are no earthly good.” That’s not the divine mind we’re talking about…
But there is a Jesus-shaped way to a divine mind…right?
It’s there in the message that Jesus said to the crowds in today’s story…and it’s there for us to consider, to embrace, to weave into the patterns and fabric of our lives.
And there’s a mystery to it…
But there is a promise of salvation. Not “up there” salvation in the bye and bye…but a “here & now” salvation where we will save our lives by losing them…where in the midst of the way of suffering, sorrow, loss and lament, Jesus will be there. With us. Creating deep, lasting life where we think all is lost.
In the pathways of struggle and fear, Jesus knows every inch of the terrain.
Death is not the final word. Failure is not the final grade.
Desolation is not the final destination.
For there is a promise…and we’ll try not to forget it or ignore it as Peter did, we will have ears to hear the proclamation:
“And after three days…rise again.”
In the midst of this humble, lowly way, Jesus proclaims re-birth and resurrection.
Followers of Jesus, let us set our minds on divine things!
And may our Living Lord, our abiding Saviour, shore us up and strengthen us
in these days of denying ourselves and bearing our crosses.
One contemplative writer calls this way of denying/bearing,
“the Christian existence of joyful nonsense.”
“In a culture of self-realization, our call is to renounce self,
in the face of noise, silence is the preference,
in a world of competition, the Christian’s declaration is that the winners will be losers
and the losers winners…
The Christian exposes the emptiness of fullness for the sake of the gospel’s fullness of emptiness.” (W. Paul Jones)
JOYFUL NONSENSE…and the companionship of Jesus.
Both now, and forevermore!
Amen.