THE FIFTEENTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST
Isaiah 50:4-9
James 2:1-5,8-10,
14-18
Mark 8: 27-38
Proper 19/B
Many years ago now, when I
had completed the first two years of seminary basics, I was deep into what I
considered to be the really exciting stuff, systematic theology, where the
purely philosophical and theological meet; and the men and the women are
definitely separated from the boys and the girls. In the midst of all that
exercise of grey matter, one of my theology professors gave us a handout. It
read:
And Jesus said unto them, “Who do you say that I am?”
And they replied “You are the eschatological manifestation of the ground of our
being; the Kerygma in which we find the ultimate meaning of our interpersonal
relationship”…and Jesus said unto them, “WHAT?!”
That message was posted on
the professor’s office door and we all knew what it meant. It meant that as
soon as we become impressed with our own thinking about God, we will be
catapulted back into the reality that God is beyond our knowing. That’s what
happened to Peter. It happens to all of us. It’s about expectations vs.
reality. It’s about who we think God is as opposed to who God actually is.
It’s the same with Jesus. Ask
us who Jesus is and we’ll tell you he’s meek and mild, bringing to us a
feel-good sort of God, adding a bit of security here and a dash of pleasure
there. Most people want just enough of Jesus to feel protected, like a
vaccination; enough to protect you but not enough to cause you undo distress.
It is into those kinds of expectations that Jesus comes today, ripping Peter
apart; not to mention the other disciples perhaps cowering in the background.
Mark, Chapter 8, verse 27, is
known as the lynch-pin, the watershed of the entire gospel. Every previous
moment, every previous expectation leads up to this place. The place was
Caesarea Philippi. Caesarea Philippi had once been the worship center of the
god Baal. To this day it is called Banias, which is a form of Panias; because
on the hillside there was a cave said to be the birthplace of the Greek god
Pan. In the hillside rose a temple of gleaming white marble, which had been
built to Caesar, the one true god, as the Roman world called him.
It was against this backdrop that
Jesus spoke to Peter and the others today. Up until now Jesus has run out
demons, healed all manner of diseases, and told lots of interesting stories.
But Peter seems to be getting impatient.
It is well to remember here
that the concept of the Messiah in Jewish thought did not imply a divine being,
but a human being. The popular hope
was that a descendant of King David would raise an army to drive any oppressors
out. Then, like David, the Messiah would be installed as king and would set up
an earthly reign.
So when Jesus asks, “Who do people say that I am?”, after
everybody else has pointed out the obvious possibilities, Peter says, “You are the Messiah”, as in, ‘So let’s get on with it. Let’s go to
Why does Jesus become so
angry with Peter? It’s because Peter was willing to cave in to a lie about God.
No doubt Peter wanted – and expected –
Jesus to just keep on healing people and telling parables and blessing babies
until he died a greatly admired benevolent leader of
As one
professor of New Testament writes: “Although
it is true that ‘with God all things are possible,’ it is hard to speak truth
to power and then spend summers at the lake. Jesus will
speak truth to power, and power will squash him like a
gnat.”
And that’s where the rub
comes in, isn’t it? Because Jesus will not lie about who
God is. If God is Love, as Jesus says, then risk and
vulnerability cannot be taken out of the equation. Lest we are tempted
to see the
Philip Yancey writes: “Despite
Jesus’ plain example, many of his followers have been unable to resist choosing
the way of Herod over that of Jesus…History shows that when the church uses the
tools of the world’s kingdom it becomes as ineffectual, or as tyrannical, as
any other power structure….Power, no matter how well-intentioned, tends to
cause suffering. Love, being vulnerable, tends to absorb it. In a point of
convergence on a hill called
It is through the servant’s wounds
that we are healed, said Isaiah, not his miracles. So the question is, if God
can wrestle the triumph of Easter out of the jaws of apparent defeat in the
horrific events of Good Friday, what might that mean for our own personal fears
and failures in this world?
We are just common ordinary
disciples. We are not up against the powers of
In his book “The Silver Chair”,
C.S. Lewis gives us a dialogue between the little girl Jill and the lion Aslan,
Aslan says to Jill, “Are you thirsty?”
“I’m dying of thirst,” said Jill. “Then
drink,” said the Lion. “May I, could
I, would you mind going away while I do?” said Jill. The Lion answered this
only by a look and very low growl. And, as Jill gazed at its motionless bulk,
she realized that she might as well have asked a mountain to move aside for her
convenience. The delicious rippling noise of the stream was driving her nearly
frantic. “Will you promise not to do
anything to me, if I do come?” said Jill. “I make no promise, “
said the Lion. Jill was so thirsty now that, without noticing
it, she had come a step nearer. “Do you eat girls?” she asked. “I
have swallowed up girls and boys, women and men, kings and emperors, cities and
realms,” said the Lion. It didn’t say this as if it were boasting, nor as
if it were sorry, nor as if it were angry. It just said it. “I daren’t come and drink,” said Jill. “Then you will die of thirst,” said the
Lion. “Oh dear!” said Jill, coming
another step nearer. “I suppose I must go
and look for another stream them.” “There is no other stream,” said the
Lion.
In the same way, as scripture
declares, there is no God BUT God and the God Jesus reveals to us is a God who chooses vulnerability because
sacrificial love is the essence of God’s Being. Two
thousand years after Jesus walked this earth fear of
Barbara Brown Taylor writes:
“Jesus) does not tell his followers to go find their
crosses.. he is pretty sure
they already know right where they are. He just encourages them… to stop
covering them up and tripping over them and pretending they are not there. He urges
them to squat down and pick them up...My guess is that each of us has something
of which we are deathly afraid.. Maybe it is the fear
of standing up for something you believe in, or telling the truth about who you
are to people….that is your cross….If you turn away from it then you deny God
the chance to show you the greatest mystery of them all: that right there in
the dark fist of your worst fear, is the door to abundant life”.
This week I had a lengthy
conversation on the telephone with someone out of state who told me about
coming to the moment when she faced a great fear. It involved a letter she had
to write. She said, “The moment I put that letter in
the mail I felt a weight lift from me that was incredible”. This is what Jesus means when he tells us that
in losing our lives we will find them. This is what Peter would ultimately come
to understand; so much so that he was willingly lifted onto his own cross. But
because of who Jesus is, we trust that he was lifted to the dazzling brightness
of God’s presence, whose name is Love and everlasting Savior.
AMEN
The Rev.Virginia L. Bennett,
D.Min.
St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church
*Hooper Walter, ed,
C.S. Lewis: