“Lost and Found” Mark 8:27-37

²⁷ Jesus and his disciples went on to the villages around Caesarea Philippi. On the way he asked them, “Who do people say I am?”

²⁸ They replied, “Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, one of the prophets.”

²⁹ “But what about you?” he asked. “Who do you say I am?”

Peter answered, “You are the Messiah.”

³⁰ Jesus warned them not to tell anyone about him.

³¹ He then began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and after three days rise again. ³² He spoke plainly about this, and Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him.

³³ But when Jesus turned and looked at his disciples, he rebuked Peter. “Get behind me, Satan!” he said. “You do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns.”

³⁴ Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. ³⁵ For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me and for the gospel will save it. ³⁶ What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? ³⁷ Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul?

Dear Sanctuary,

How are you? I am fine.

Actually that’s not true.

You see, I wrote another sermon this week. A real one. I worked on it all week. And then yesterday afternoon I threw it away and just wrote you this letter instead. Because I realized that in my sermon I was trying really hard to convince you of something.

In that sermon I threw away I told you about how my grandson Wyatt as a toddler was very independent and his go to phrase was, “I do it!” And how Independence and self-reliance comes quite naturally to Americans. I pointed out that in our culture, individualism is seen as heroic, as though the goal in life is to become some combination of Paul Bunion, the unsinkable Molly Brown and the Marlboro man. Yes, we can “I do it!”

At which point I got really snarky, maybe too snarky. Because I was going to tell you about how religion has colluded in this individualism. How the glorification of the individual can perhaps best be seen in that new title Americans have given to Jesus in the last 100 years…“Personal Lord and Savior."

As though in your contact list between your Personal Assistant and your Personal Trainer can be found Jesus, your Personal Savior.

And he can be your personal Lord and Savior, too, if you just choose him. Like a magical puppy in the pound. If you choose him he’ll be yours. How much is that doggie in the window? And with your personal magical puppy will come all the warm feelings and love and blessings that you can imagine.

But then I was going to tell you how that’s not the Jesus we meet in our text today. This Jesus says deny yourself, take up your cross and follow him. And if you try to save your life you’ll lose it and if you lose it for the sake of the Gospel you’ll gain it.

Of course, this saying of Jesus that we are to deny the self and lose our life to gain it has been totally abused. Misinterpreted into messages like, “If you want to be a follower of Jesus you must deny your social life, pick up your cross of churchianity and follow him.”

I wanted to convince you that when Jesus says “deny yourself,” that maybe it’s really denying the self that wants to see itself as separate from God and others. Deny the self that believes that Christianity is a suffering avoidance program. Deny the self that does not feel worthy of God’s love. Deny the self that thinks it is more worthy of God’s love than it’s enemy is. Deny the self that thinks it can, “I do it.”

Because I really wanted you to know that dying to that false self no matter how painful, will bring you real life.

And I wanted desperately to convince you of this.

But that’s why I threw that sermon out, see, ... because I realized I could never do something that Jesus himself wasn’t able to pull off.

In our text for today Jesus tried to tell Peter that the Messiah must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, and priests, and be killed, and after three days rise again. He tried to tell Peter of this great mystery of God and Peter was not convinced. Peter thought Jesus had lost his last mind. I can see Peter taking Jesus by the arm off to the side muttering under his breath, “Lord! Get a grip, what is this nonsense you are preaching about?” You have to love how Peter did take him aside to rebuke him — you know, so Jesus wouldn’t lose face in front of the guys.

Jesus tried to teach Peter the great paschal mystery of Jesus suffering death and resurrection, but Peter couldn’t get it from just being told. Because some things have to be experienced. Peter, who honestly is always just a stand-in for us and the other clueless disciples in the text had not yet experienced Good Friday and Easter.

Without experiencing how at the cross God can gather up all of humanity’s violence and abusive power and even gathering up Peter’s own denial of Jesus into God’s own self and responding with nothing but love and forgiveness after the resurrection on a beach in Galilee, without experiencing the resurrection Peter couldn’t have known it just by being told it will happen.

So, there’s no way I can preach a good enough sermon to convince you that it is not in self-sufficiency and individualism but in dying to self and living to God where life is to be found. There are simply no rhetorical devices at my disposal to convince you of something that has to be experienced to be known. I cannot form a sound enough argument to convince you of the mystery of how God does this death and resurrection thing.  But I want to desperately because I have experienced it to be true.

I have experienced the way in which I will pursue what seems to be life in the false promises of consumerism and self-reliance and politics, of higher education and religion until I am laid bare by the emptiness and failure of it all. And I have experienced the way in which God takes that mess of my own making and makes something new in me and in my life. Something I never would have chosen out of a catalog or created for myself. It may be a small piece of wisdom, or an unexpected friendship or yet another opportunity for me to be forgiven by you.

I’ve experienced the death and resurrection of this baptismal life that it’s no longer a belief. It’s a knowing.

So, if you are faced with your own limitedness in your life right now—that you can’t manage to stop consumption in whatever to excess on your own, or stop shopping compulsively or stop hating yourself or stop loving someone who is hurting you. If you are filled with false pride or filled with fear and unable to find motivation to do what you know should be done. Know there is no shame in that. Because, as St. Paul said, God’s strength is perfected in your weakness.

You know what? Denying yourself might mean sitting with your spouse in the evening instead of being in separate rooms doing separate things. Denying yourself might mean stepping off of a committee, or stepping up. Denying yourself might mean spending more time with your children and grandchildren, or yes, even your in-laws. Denying yourself might mean having to sit through this pastor’s dry sermon for another Sunday. Hmmmph.

But seriously, denying yourself might just look like letting yourself off the hook for having to be God. Even God, little g. god of the household, god of the remote, god of the kitchen, god of, well, I’m sure you have a few examples that come to mind. 

As I like to remind myself a big difference between me and God, big G, is that God never thinks he’s Arthur. And that’s the truth.

So, letting God be God for you means denying the cult of the self, both self-aggrandizement and self-abasement.

So good people of God, I cannot convince you of this. I can only describe what it looks like (and trust me, it never looks flattering). When it comes to something I know and not something I simply believe all I can do is write this letter and hand it to you like a field guide.

As your preacher that is all I am authorized to do. I wish it were a magical puppy. Instead, it’s life and life abundant found in the paradox of losing yourself in Christ.

May it be so.

Signed,

Sincerely, your pastor,

Art

This is the Word of the Lord for the day.

Amen.