The Confession

Here is my sermon from Sunday. The text was Mark 8:27-38:

For those who study the literary structure of scripture, some have argued that the gospel of Mark is circular. Not that he is making a circular argument but that the stories that happen at the beginning of Mark are paralleled at the end, so that there are rings to the story. If you accept that argument then the center of the gospel can also be found, the story around which everything else centers. But, even if you don’t accept that theory, and I’m not arguing either for it or against it, in Mark there is a clear center of the story. A clear place in which everything leads up to it, and then everything leads away from it, and that is the story we heard this morning of Peter’s proclamation of faith and the first passion prediction that Jesus makes. It also happens to be conveniently enough, basically right in the center of the gospel as well. There are 16 chapters in Mark and the story is found in chapter 8. It also represents a break in time. There are three years of Jesus’ ministry encapsulated up to this point, and he begins making his way to Jerusalem with 3 passion predictions in the next two chapters, and then the remaining five chapters tell the last week of Jesus’ life. That delineation is why Mark has sometimes been referred to as a passion narrative with an extended introduction. And it is this passage that begins that passion narrative especially with Jesus’ passion prediction. I’ve already talked a little about how Mark structures the story around grouping stories or common themes. And this chunk of text is also bracketed by two healing stories, that also happen to be the healing of blind men, and we’ll come back to why that is important.

But Jesus and the disciples have left Galilee and are traveling to the cities, or the area of Caesarea Philippi. Now this is a town named for two Roman rules, first for Caesar Augustus, and then for Herod Phillip, Herod the Great’s son who is the ruler, the tetrarch, of the area. And so there is a clear roman presence and political importance to this town. Additionally, depending on when Mark was written, and we’ll address that in a few weeks, Vespasian, before he becomes Emperor, rested his troops in the city before going forth to crush the Jewish resistance in Galilee during the Jewish Revolt, and his son Titus, before he too becomes emperor, celebrated his victory over Jerusalem in the city by executing captives and holding a victory games. So there is a lot of significance to where this is taking place for those who first heard Mark’s story. But, Jesus is not in the city, he is on the way there. Instead he is in that in-between that is so important in Mark; he is in the wilderness. And he asks the disciples “who do people say that I am?”

Now this is an important question to start and what it indicates is that Jesus’ name is becoming known around the area and there is speculation about who he is and what he is doing means. And so if you were here when we looked at two healing stories and Jesus’ tells the man with leprosy not to tell anyone, but of course he does, this is further indication that lots of other people have been talking about Jesus. No one is remaining silent even when they are told too. And so the disciples say that some are saying that he is John the Baptist come back from the dead, and others say Elijah and still others one of the prophets. And there are two things significant about that list. The first is that it is exactly the same thing that Herod Antipas, Phillip’s half-brother, says when he hears about who Jesus is after he has had John the Baptist killed. And the second is that all of them are seen are precursors for the coming of the Messiah, the ones who will prepare the way as we heard in the opening of Mark. And then Jesus asks the most crucial question, “Who do you say that I am?”

And that is a question not just for the disciples, but that is a question that rings through to today. The first question is one about evangelism, that we are to go out and tell people about Christ, using words when necessary and St. Francis allegedly said, and so we tell people who Jesus is, just as people told us about Jesus. And that’s all well and good, but at some point what others tell us, or what we tell others about Christ, stops, because it has to become something we accept or not. So last week we heard the parable of the sower and talked about the different soils and their receptivity to the seed, and I said that I believe that the soils represent the disciples, all of them, good and bad, and the same is true for us as well. But some people think that in spreading the seed they have to keep working at it, and watering it and putting fertilizer on it, and sowing and sowing as if they can make someone else faithful simply through sheer effort. But it doesn’t work that way. We have to let go and trust the Spirit and God to do the watering and produce the growth, to allow people to make their own proclamation. We cannot do it for them, and we cannot be their faith for them. Our youth group is getting restarted today, and one of the things that Phillip told us parents at our orientation meeting is that we can do all the things in the world to introduce our youth to Christ, to plant the seed, to talk about what it means to live a life of faith, but they have to be able to answer the question for themselves, just as we all do: “Who do you say that Jesus is?”

And for a moment it appears that the disciples get it, or at least Peter does, and he says “You are the messiah.” Now this answer is a little different than what we hear is Matthew and Luke, as is the rest of the story. But, this answer shouldn’t come as a surprise to us, because it is a confirmation of what we are the readers already now, because remembering how Mark begins with the line “the beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.” and Christ means messiah in Greek. And so we already know what this answer is, and we also know what that means, but it becomes readily apparent that Peter doesn’t know what that means. He doesn’t fully understand. And we shouldn’t be surprised by that because of what happens immediately before this story, which is the healing of a blind man. But, in this healing story, it doesn’t happen all at once. Instead first he doesn’t see clearly, and so Jesus has to lay hands on him again so that he fully regains his sight. And immediately before that healing Jesu asks the disciples “Do you still not perceive or understand? Do you have eyes, and fail to see? Do you have ears, and fail to hear?” and what was the last healing before that? A deaf man.

So a clear indication that the disciples just don’t get it. They have a glimpse, like the blind man’s first step, but they don’t see it all yet. And it becomes immediately clear to everyone, pun intended. Because Jesus then gives his first of three passion predictions, and we are told that he says this all quite openly, which adds some correction, to Jesus telling the disciples not to say anything about what Peter has said. But Peter takes Jesus aside and the translation says “rebukes him.” Which then gets turned onto Peter as Jesus in turn rebukes him and says “Get behind me Satan, for you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.” That should make us think about the soils we talked about last week and that of the thorns choking out the seeds, being concerned about the ways of the world not the ways of God. And yet Jesus knows what will happen, because as we already discussed, the cost of discipleship has already been shown by what happens to John the Baptist. That when you challenge the powers and principalities, religious or political, that they will strike back, and that’s where the location of being near Caesarea Philippi, plays a key role.

Now my argument is that Mark sets the disciples up as foils as what discipleship doesn’t look like, it is the statement to get behind him that I think is key here. Because I can sort of imagine that when Peter pulls Jesus aside and rebukes him, you can sort of imagine Peter standing in front of Jesus wagging his finger at him, and it’s where he is in relation to Jesus that’s important. When Peter is called to discipleship, Jesus says “come follow me.” But, you cannot follow from the front. And so it immediately sets up Jesus saying, “If any want to be my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.” A more literal translation of that would be “If any want to follow behind me, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow behind me.” Then he says, if you want to save your life, you will lose it… for what will it profit them if they can gain the whole world, but forfeit their life. Now thinking of the actual passion, Judas agrees to betray Jesus for wealth, and just as Jesus is saying I am, to the question if he is the messiah, which will cost him his life, just outside Peter is saying I am not, to the question if he is a disciple, in order to try and save his life.

Mark does not suggest, or even say, that suffering and death are God’s will, or that martyrs are to be imitated, but that as a consequence of living an all-encompassing life of love, that loss and persecution and even death are possible, and this table at which we will gather in a few moments is a reminder of that. Those who see to bring justice and peace and love are often victims of the violence and injustice they are trying to end. Just think of those from our own time, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Martin Luther King, Jr., or Archbishop Oscar Romero or Esther John, to just mention a few. Additionally, this call to the cross and suffering is not a call to an aesthetic lifestyle of self-denial, but instead a call to find life, to find healing and wholeness and love through God, and through the community of God, because this is a communal exercise as we all follow Christ together. But Jesus didn’t want us to be unaware of the consequences of this journey, and to understand that the world acts through fear and wants people to fear, because it’s easier to control people and to get them to do bad things when they fear. But, to be on the side of God, rather than the side of humanity, to follow God rather than earthly leaders, is to reject most of the ways that the world operates and to focus and to live into love, love of God and love of neighbor.

And that begins with answering the question, “Who do you say that Jesus is?” And remember, it’s not what others say about him, as important as that might be in helping us to learn and to grow, it’s about what you say. But, that confession of faith is just the beginning of the journey, otherwise it is just, in the words of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, cheap grace. “Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross.” A recurring theme in Mark, and really all the gospels, is that making public proclamations of faith, claiming that you are religious, even to some degree doing “religious” things, is meaningless unless they are the right things, which in this case is about love your neighbor, being a servant to all, and picking up your cross and following. I pray that it will be so my brothers and sisters. Amen.