then he began to teach them
Mark 8:31-38, Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16, Romans 4:13-25
March 8, 2009 Lent 2 (B)

And then he began to teach them that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again.

My guess is that they stopped listening after the 'suffering' and the 'be killed' part and they didn't even hear the last part about rising again. And anyway they had not signed on for suffering and death. When they dropped their nets I am thinking they saw the love and they had thought this was the one who would save them, lead them to a new way of life, to something better, to something more where everybody would be blessed and everyone would just get along and live in peace happily ever after. Following him they must have thought would make them be winners not losers for a change. And even if they did hear the last part about rising again, overcoming the suffering and death as it were, why did the winning have to pass through the losing first? My guess is they didn't understand this any better than we do. And we have had a lot more time to think about it. Still the words are a little too direct. We are not sure what to do with them even now as they confront us again for the first time:

If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take their cross and follow me.

Self-denial has taken many forms over the centuries since Jesus spoke these words. As often seems to happen with us we take a simple idea and turn it into something that appears to fulfill the original meaning but in fact becomes just another way of avoiding the original meaning. I don't know if I ever told you this story but when I was spending my junior year in college abroad at the University of Madrid I happen to be strolling along minding my own business when this rather (to me) bizarre parade appeared coming right up the Gran Via. In groups about the size of marching bands men wearing long robes with pointed hoods were marching in columns up the street which was strange enough but they were also chanting and beating themselves on their backs with chains in perfect rhythm. Now, I confess that I was unaware that it was Good Friday. I was a university student who was not practicing my religion at the time and had not been paying attention to the season and besides, my experience of Good Friday in rural Methodist Iowa had never prepared me for anything like this. Being relatively intelligent, I think, (if I may say so) I began to put the fact that it was a Friday in early spring and what else could this be?

Anyway to make a long story short this is an example of how an idea like self-denial can become something quite different that what was intended. I feel pretty confident in suggesting to you that self-denial is not about torture or self-mutilation or abuse or even humiliation which in their own strange way became quite ego-centric. Self-denial is about overcoming the ego, the desire to have what we want or to have our own way in order to discover what is needed. It is even more simply Jesus asking us to think about others and their needs before fulfilling our own. Ironically it may be easier to wear a robe and hit ourselves with chains once and a while rather than spend our lives serving the needs of others.

I don't know if you have noticed but sometimes I tend to over think things. I am determined not to do that this time. When Jesus calls us to self-denial in this crucial passage about the Christian life the message is really very simple. We are being asked to care for others and their problems and not just take of ourselves. We are being asked to see the world as a community where we all have responsibility for one another whether we know or even like one another or not. We are our brothers' keeper after all. This message could not be more timely in a world that teaches a very different value which can be characterized by the standard cliche? which says "every man for himself". This is also one significant place where Christian teaching is the opposite of Darwinism where survival of the fittest is the explanation for the world we have today. One of the things that is wrong with our world today is that survival of the fittest has become a significant value that encourages us to get what we can while we can and those who get trampled have no one but themselves to blame for their weakness, their lesser intelligence, their bad luck, indeed their fate.

Buried in the back pages of the business section of the Boston Globe this week was this little tidbit: When the Attorney General of New York sued Merrill Lynch this week to reveal the bonuses they gave to their executives after the company failed and just before they were acquired by Bank of America lawyers came back with the defense that it could be harmful if the truth were to be told. Bank of America will suffer grave and irreparable harm if Merrill Lynch and Co. employees paid 3.6 billion dollars in bonuses just before the firms acquisition by the bank are publicly identified. Disclosure of the information would also cause "internal dissension and consternation", pose security risks for the exposed bankers and their families, and cause employees to leave." Never mind that they took 3.6 billion in bonuses after the company failed and left countless persons holding the empty bag. It is implied in our system itself that those who have much have earned it and those who have little have also earned it. In our world the rich have the right to be rich never mind the circumstances of their neighbors. Jesus says that the rich and poor alike have the obligation to care for each other. You can see why Jesus is not taken seriously. It almost sounds quaint: everybody responsible for everybody else, mutual concern, mutual respect. Right. If you ever needed evidence that the values of our society are vastly different than the values of Jesus, here it is. The vision of a world of mutual concern is more like an impossible dream. Jesus never used the expression 'never mind'. For followers of Jesus the other is never out of our mind, never beyond our mutual concern. We are called to be mindful of the suffering of the world and seeking ways to relieve it. What we have is only valuable for how we use it. John Wesley the practical genius said go ahead and make all the money you can and then share it. Do all the good you can with what you have. Again the message is simple really. Jesus wants a world where everyone shares the abundance, where everyone has enough, where everyone can become the person God created them to be.

Jesus said : For those who want to save their lives will lose them and those who lose their lives for the sake of the gospel will save them. It will not do to turn away from this word thinking that you have to be crucified to follow Jesus. Jesus is not talking about death when he says lose your life for the sake of the gospel he is talking about giving something up of yourself for the sake of the community of humankind that I mentioned earlier, our brothers and sisters who happen to live on the planet with us, the ones we are responsible for whether we ever meet or not if we are going to follow Jesus our neighbor is anybody who needs help. If all we care about is our own interests we are lost. If we have earned 200 million dollars and it is ours and we keep it to secure ourselves while others starve and go without health care and shelter, then beware, we may have everything we want but have nothing we need. Again the message is simple and relevant. If we are to ever know life as God intends it we are to be givers and not takers.

A clear understanding of our society is revealed when ever the word 'taxes' comes up in the political conversation. 'Taxes' is a dirty word and it is dirty word because our sense of mutual concern and of community has eroded. A letter to the globe this week said it is unfair for those who make more than $250,000 year to pay more taxis than those who make less. Apparently it is fair that a few have too much and many don't have enough. One wonders what fair means sometimes but it hardly matters if you want to be a follower of Jesus. It is not about being fair it is about being generous, it is about caring for others and their needs, it is about grace which trumps fair in the value system of Jesus. In our world where the rich or anyone else for that matters don't want to pay taxes, it really is every man woman and child for themselves. Never mind that taxes could provide what the community needs. I know that taxes are complicated, too complicated I think, I know that it is said that the government wastes the money, but even that is a further revelation of how far we have gone from the ideal of community. We cannot care for one another if we cannot trust one another to care for one another. Even as I say these words out loud I wonder if this train has already left the station, if we can even take seriously the notion that a government can be trusted and that we the people are willing to care for and provide for each other, especially the weakest among us.

I mention this because it is really is serious and even though it is simply the way it is I wonder what it might mean to 'the way it is' if we really followed Jesus, if we really acted for the interests of our neighbors, if we acted or even considered the interests of our enemies. (That is what Jesus meant when he said love your enemies.) Did you know that Abe Lincoln said the best way to be rid of your enemies is to make them your friends? It may sound crazy but it happens all the time in the history of the world. Unfortunately we find new enemies to hate and so it goes. If we were to act in the best interests of our neighbors and even our enemies the world might be changed but we won't do that until we really understand what it means to deny ourselves and take up our cross, to lose ourselves. Our cross., that which we do not have to take up but we could choose to even though it causes us to suffer more than we had to while it gives some relief to someone else we may never even know. What Jesus says is simple to understand and almost impossible to actually do and so it is.

Sometimes I don't think we are sufficiently aware of the gap between the values of Jesus and the values of our society. We like to assume they are compatible but the truth is that we are severely challenged if we ever dare to follow Jesus in theses days in this place. That's Ok. A challenge is good. It makes us come alive. Maybe the very real crisis of our world and its values will be an opportunity for us to grow, to seek others ways, to take the values of Jesus more seriously. After all Jesus offers a very real alternative to the way it is. This is good and hopeful and relevant. Jesus' ideas are not just idealistic abstractions about what should be but another way of doing business. There is life and the possibility for life in the gospel of Jesus. He could really make a difference if anyone were to actually follow him someday.

It is interesting that the bottom line in all the words of scripture today is the promise that God offers life to those who are faithful. The promise is not just for life after death but life before death. It is written that old Abraham was as good as dead when the promise of life was finally fulfilled in him. Perhaps it could be said of the Christian movement in the 21st century in beautiful New England that we are as good as dead, too, but the promise of life is still ours when we finally wake up, rise from death, become mindful of the precious life we have been given to share with all other living things and turn to God and follow Jesus and serve the world for the sake of the gospel, giving ourselves away for the sake of the love that will save us all.

in the presence of the God who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist. Amen.