[Here are Sunday's readings and sermon from today's worship service. The recorded service will be posted as soon as it is available. Next Sunday's worship will be held in the church, but circumstances will not permit recording.]
Isaiah 50:4-9a
4The Lord God has given me the tongue of a teacher, that I may know how to sustain the weary with a word. Morning by morning he wakens— wakens my ear to listen as those who are taught. 5The Lord God has opened my ear, and I was not rebellious, I did not turn backward. 6I gave my back to those who struck me, and my cheeks to those who pulled out the beard; I did not hide my face from insult and spitting. 7The Lord God helps me; therefore I have not been disgraced; therefore I have set my face like flint, and I know that I shall not be put to shame; 8he who vindicates me is near. Who will contend with me? Let us stand up together. Who are my adversaries? Let them confront me. 9It is the Lord God who helps me; who will declare me guilty?
Psalm 116: 1-9
1 I love the Lord, because he has heard my voice
and my supplications.
2 Because he inclined his ear to me,
therefore I will call on him as long as I live.
3 The snares of death encompassed me;
the pangs of Sheol laid hold on me;
I suffered distress and anguish.
4 Then I called on the name of the Lord:
“O Lord, I pray, save my life!”
5 Gracious is the Lord, and righteous; our God is merciful.
6 The Lord protects the simple;
when I was brought low, he saved me.
7 Return, O my soul, to your rest,
for the Lord has dealt bountifully with you.
8 For you have delivered my soul from death,
my eyes from tears, my feet from stumbling.
9 I walk before the Lord in the land of the living.
James 3:1-12
3Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers and sisters, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness. 2For all of us make many mistakes. Anyone who makes no mistakes in speaking is perfect, able to keep the whole body in check with a bridle. 3If we put bits into the mouths of horses to make them obey us, we guide their whole bodies. 4Or look at ships: though they are so large that it takes strong winds to drive them, yet they are guided by a very small rudder wherever the will of the pilot directs. 5So also the tongue is a small member, yet it boasts of great exploits. How great a forest is set ablaze by a small fire! 6And the tongue is a fire. The tongue is placed among our members as a world of iniquity; it stains the whole body, sets on fire the cycle of nature, and is itself set on fire by hell. 7For every species of beast and bird, of reptile and sea creature, can be tamed and has been tamed by the human species, 8but no one can tame the tongue—a restless evil, full of deadly poison. 9With it we bless the Lord and Father, and with it we curse those who are made in the likeness of God. 10From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers and sisters, this ought not to be so. 11Does a spring pour forth from the same opening both fresh and brackish water? 12Can a fig tree, my brothers and sisters, yield olives, or a grapevine figs? No more can salt water yield fresh.
Mark 8:27-38
27Jesus went on with his disciples to the villages of Caesarea Philippi; and on the way he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that I am?” 28And they answered him, “John the Baptist; and others, Elijah; and still others, one of the prophets.” 29He asked them, “But who do you say that I am?” Peter answered him, “You are the Messiah.” 30And he sternly ordered them not to tell anyone about him.
31Then 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. 32He said all this quite openly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. 33But turning and looking at his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, “Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”
34He called the crowd with his disciples, and said to them, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. 35For 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. 36For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life? 37Indeed, what can they give in return for their life? 38Those 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 when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.”
If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.
· Today’s Gospel contains a lot of serious talk. It doesn’t sound all that comforting. Jesus reveals the actual cost of discipleship, which is nothing less than taking up our own crosses.
· I’ve discussed this very idea with a number of other pastors over the years. One pointed out that this “taking up their cross” is often reduced to “my cross to bear” when referring to a physical pain or an annoying person or some other very real thing a person has to deal with. Taking up the cross and following Jesus is more than that.
· Execution by crucifixion is a horrible sentence with much pain as well as utter degradation of the person executed. It was carried out by many cultures –not just the Romans- and it was used as a horrifying public example of just how powerful those in charge were. It was done to humiliate both the one executed and the group that person came from.
· This “Suffering Messiah” was not the narrative the people around Jesus expected. The Messiah was to be a national leader, the nation’s saviour, and an earthly power in and of himself. The idea of a crucified Messiah would go against everything that was expected. Jesus would not fulfill those expectations. In fact, he faced those expectations among his own disciples and had to break the mold of their understanding. He said For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things. And he even went so far as to refer to Peter as “Satan.”
· We still encounter expectations of Jesus as the Messiah in our own day. The world as it is wants a Messiah or Saviour who brings success, who brings riches, who affirms our own ideas, provide “self-actualization”, and brings a sort of glory to the self.
· That is not Jesus. Jesus is truly the Messiah, but not as expected. Jesus is truly the Saviour, but not as often advertised. He will not head up a national political movement nor will he direct a purely spiritual “Kingdom of God” that does not deal with justice, peace, and freedom from oppression here and now.
· As Jesus’ disciples, this is the Messiah we follow. For us, the cross is not just a symbol or a piece of display or jewelry. For us, it becomes our way of life. The denial of self that Jesus speaks of is not giving up candy or beer or television, but giving up our control of our own lives and giving it over to God. It is embracing the cross of Christ, the instrument of his death and of our salvation. It may take our entire lives to fully come to this, but that is why we depend on grace. The free gift of the grace of God is seen in the cross because in that we see just how far God would go to raise us up and give us new life in Jesus.
· At the end of today’s reading, Jesus speaks of being ashamed of those who are ashamed of him. It could be that those “ashamed” of Jesus have given up following him. We may wonder about ourselves, and it is here once again that we depend solely on the grace of God, that grace that flows to us freely from the one who freely emptied himself in every way… for us and for our lives with him. Perhaps every morning, we try again, taking each day as a gift and a new opportunity. After all, it is all grace.
If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.
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