Sermon for February 25, 2024 - The Second Sunday in Lent

Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16; Psalm 22:22-30; Romans 4:13-25, Mark 8:31-38

A few years ago, while we were serving in Lancaster, PA during what felt like the height of the opioid epidemic in that area, I was surrounded by signs of the crisis. Since we lived and worked in the heart of the city, much as we do today, I often saw drifters congregating at the library parking lot next door to our church waiting for their next fix. I often heard the familiar sounds of sirens as police and EMTs quickly descended upon another overdose in the park around the corner. If I walked the back alleyway to the coffee shop a few doors down the street, I would often see empty syringes lying in the bushes and street. And at night, our dog Thorin would alert us to people who scaled the church wall or sniff out those who had passed out in the churchyard.

It was in the midst of this suffering that we realized as a church we had something to offer those caught in the cycles of addiction. As the opening of John’s gospel reminds us, that the light did not overcome the darkness. So, we decided to bring addiction and recovery out from the shadows and into the sanctuary in conversation with the gospel, in conversation with popular music, so that we might find and invite God’s healing presence into our struggles. That was how our Addiction and Recovery Masses were born. 

To prepare for our first Addiction and Recovery Mass, we read Richard Rohr’s Breathing Underwater, which is about how the underlying principles of AA and of the gospel are similar, and can be best summed up by these seemingly contradictory statements:

We suffer to get well. // (Bear our cross)

We surrender to win. // (Submission to God)

We die to live. // (Baptism)

We give it away to keep it. // (Go and make disciples)

Contradictions and perplexities dominate our gospel for today on multiple levels. 

In the passage just before today’s reading, Peter has correctly identified Jesus as the Messiah, when Jesus asked his disciples that all important question, “Who do you say that I am?” Just as soon as it seems Peter is understanding who Jesus truly is and what he is about, Jesus tells the disciples that the Son of Man will suffer, be rejected, killed, and three days later rise again. 

Peter cannot make sense out of this apparent contradiction between his long-held ideas of the Messiah of Hebrew scriptures and what Jesus is saying. And who could blame Peter for then pulling Jesus aside and trying to get him to snap out of this strange way of thinking?! Peter, and his ancestors, had been waiting their whole lives for the Messiah to liberate them, hearing that he would suffer, die, and rise again was incomprehensible. The image of the Messiah that Jesus is teaching is in stark contrast to all that the disciples had been taught in the Temple and synagogues, and in scripture. It is a paradox that the disciples will take a whole gospel to truly understand. Jesus then rebukes Peter for focusing on human things instead of divine things and follows with another paradox: One must lose their life in order to save it.

This is the first of three predictions of Jesus’ suffering, rejection, death and resurrection in the Gospel of Mark. Each time Jesus speaks of his passion there is a pattern that follows. First, Jesus speaks of his suffering and death. Then, a disciple speaks in denial or disbelief. Finally, Jesus gives a teaching about discipleship. In each of these passages, the mis-match between common human expectations and Jesus’ teaching of true discipleship dominate the narrative. 

We often move quickly over these passages because we read the gospel backwards, so to speak, since we know what is going to happen. But for Jesus’ disciples and the gathered crowd, they knew the horror of a crucifixion. Jesus’ expectation that would-be followers pick up their own cross would be terrifying. 

Jesus’ teachings on discipleship are just as much for us as for every generation of his followers. So what does he mean, when he not only tells his followers to “deny themselves and take up their cross”, but then doubles down with the paradox “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?” 

In Mark, Jesus defines discipleship as a contrast between human values and God’s values. Jesus’ teaching on true discipleship following the second and third predictions of the passion shows this most clearly.

When the disciples are arguing who is greatest among them, Jesus instructs them to be like a servant and like a child, the least by the world’s standards, not the greatest. When James and John request places of honour and glory, Jesus invites them to drink his cup and share in his baptism, also implied his suffering, and to embrace the role of servant. Jesus contrasts the life of discipleship with the ways of the world. Jesus’ followers will be like the Son of Man who gives his life for others. Likewise, in today’s gospel reading, Jesus contrasts the life of discipleship with the ways of the world. This is why Jesus rebukes Peter for focusing on human values rather than God’s values.

According to human values, one’s own life comes first. We might be kind and generous and thoughtful toward others, yet cultural norms dictate the priority of our own safety or privilege or physical comfort. Jesus advocates risking your life for the sake of another. In other words, be willing to lose your life for the sake of the gospel in order to save it.

According to Mark’s gospel, the disciples represent human values. They aspire to power and greatness and assume that Jesus shares these values. Jesus represents God’s values, best summed up by his willingness to risk his own life for the sake of others. Jesus does not encourage suffering for its own sake, nor does he recommend acceptance of forced servitude. The key to meaning here is “for the sake of the gospel” and Jesus is our model. Jesus invites his disciples to follow his example, to be willing to risk our lives for the sake of others.

There are many saints and heroes of the faith who lived and died for the sake of others; their names are well-known. A modern example of risking one’s life for another that sticks in my mind, is of a man who was the lead news story for a couple days, a few years ago. This courageous person whose name history has long forgotten saw a man who had fallen on the subway tracks in the path of an oncoming train.

Realizing there was no time to get the doomed man to safety, the hero threw himself on top of the stranger between the tracks while the train traveled over them and came to a stop. Both men survived. I do not know if the courageous man was a Christian or belonged to any faith community. But his risk for the sake of another represents God’s values. His action is so memorable because it contradicts the human value of self before all others.

Each of us make decisions daily that hold in tension human values and God’s values.

Being a disciple of Jesus means changing our ideas of what it means to be a success or failure. 

Being a disciple of Jesus means actively choosing practices that are life-giving to others rather than self-preserving. 

Being a disciple of Jesus means that we embrace the paradoxes of being a disciple of Jesus in our world.

We are called to embrace our suffering, so that we might be healed. We are called to surrender and total submission to God, so that we might find freedom. We are called to die to ourselves in baptism, so we can truly live. We are called to give it away and share it with others, so that we can keep it close to our hearts forever. These may seem like paradoxes to the rest of the world, but to us, they are the path to everlasting life in God through Christ. Amen.