Mark 8: 27-38            Growing in Faith ? Risking for the Gospel's Sake            E/GR/DC            Sept.17, 06

1. Peter's feeling pretty good.  He's doing great growing in faith.  He has the right answers when Jesus asks, ?Who do you say that I am?  The Christ.  The one to lead the people.  To set them free.  The popular beliefs were that the Christ or Messiah would deliver the people from Rome.  Groups like the Zealots were extreme in their belief that armed rebellion and violence would speed the Messiah?s coming.  Suffering would come, but the Messiah would turn it upon the enemy.  In sharp contrast, Jesus uses a term from their own prophets that had been uncompromising down through the generations.   Jesus teaches that this ?son of man? will be the one who suffers, is rejected and dies.

2. Of course, Peter had the best of intentions.  ?You know Jesus, you really aught not to talk like that.  You can?t talk about suffering and rejection and expect people to want to be part of your group!  We?re just getting started here!  We?ve got to pull them in, get them hooked.

3. Jesus looks at the disciples and then confronts Peter, making it a teaching moment for the community.  What a shock when Jesus answered with such intensity.  ?You are not on God?s side.?  Because this was a matter of incredible importance.  It had to do with whose wisdom would be followed.  Popular wisdom ? you know the kind that either says, take it easy, and anything goes, or I can disregard or destroy anyone who is not like me.  Bring on the destruction of insurrection.  We?ll force God?s hand.  Jesus is very clear that is not God?s wisdom.  God?s wisdom is to take risks in serving on behalf of the well-being of all people.  Bringing life, not death.

4. And what a shock when they hear what it means to hear God?s wisdom, and follow Jesus.  ?If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross and follow me.?  First, let us look at what they don?t mean.  These 2 key aspects of growing in faith as we follow the Christ, have a history of misunderstanding and abuse.  Usually ?self-denial? and ?taking up one?s cross? were used to beat down people and groups already denied, abused or on the margins.  Or taking up my cross means putting up with a minor irritation, like having so much stuff, I don?t know where to store it!

5. So what did it mean to Jesus?  The people of Jesus? day thought in terms of community, not individuals.  Both self-denial and taking up the cross can be vitally understood as living the kind of community Jesus calls us to shape.  Self-hatred does not build community.  Living in response to and respect for our neighbour does.  This kind of community means risking my own and my group?s agendas to follow Jesus.  We help bear Jesus? cross where he cannot do it alone.

6. I think it?s incredibly important to recognize that Jesus said ?Take up your cross,? not ?Climb up and hang on it!?  Suffering exists.  I don?t need to tell you that.  You know that all too well.  In our community, in Montreal?s Dawson College, or when children in Africa are orphaned every 14 seconds.  But it does not need to destroy us.  In fact it can transform us.  The cross is actually a powerful symbol that death is not the end.  Even death is transformed.  In making taking up the cross part of discipleship, Jesus is asking us to do something.

7. Hannah Arendt was asked about evil and suffering at the time of Eichmann?s trial.  She was asked if he was evil incarnate.  ?No, he was a banal businessman who followed instructions.  He was very pleased that his engineering skills worked so well for the task he was given building concentration camps for the mass destruction of life.?  Hannah went on, ?the real evil was those who knew there were people in the boxcars on their way to death and did nothing.  There are no innocent bystanders.  We are guilty of leaving the cross behind when we ignore the out stretched hand, or step over people on the sidewalk or ignore the plight of refugees around the world, or refuse to see that poverty, abuse and racism are the root causes of crime and violence.
8. But how do we build the kind of community Jesus meant?  And not get overwhelmed with the needs in our world?  Perhaps the clue is that Jesus asked us to pick up our cross.  As part of Christ?s community, discerning the part that we can play.  The cross we can see and manage as we grow in faith.  Not everyone else?s cross on me too.  We find the things that we can do and we do them.  Bill Gillis from Conference Office last week was speaking about the refugee family in sanctuary in Crescent Fort Rouge, his home church.  He told about the danger for them to return home because one of the couple is Shiite and the other Sunni Muslim.  Their lives would be in great danger.  The children have grown up in North America and the girls would be unable to go to school or pursue careers they now aspire to.  The father has work, and his job is being held for him.  One of the things we can do is write letters.  If you would like to send a letter in their support, you can pick up a copy at the back of a sample you can send as is, or change to make it your own.

9. The people of Resurrection Church San Salvador had an opportunity to participate in the power of the cross.  In 1989 during the Salvadoran Civil War, Bishop Gomez wanted his people to have a chance to express their sorrow for the sins of their country, and the hopes and prayers they had for the future.  He invited the worshippers to write down those sins, hopes and prayers on a plain white cross.  About that time there was a crack down on guerilla fighters by the government.  Soldiers came to Resurrection Church to search for Bishop Gomez.   He was in danger because he spoke up for the poor.  He escaped 15 minutes before the soldiers.  They searched the church, and seized the white cross as evidence.

The government kept the white cross.  It stood among the soldiers.  As they read the messages written on it, their hearts were turned, and they recognized the sins written on the cross were their sins.  By this time, Bishop Gomez was returned from exile and invited to the President?s house.  He asked the President about the white cross.  Later, the President asked for the white cross to be brought to his house.  As it stood in his home, he read the messages and considered the sins of the government.  He sent the cross back to Bishop Gomez.  The people of Resurrection Church see the cross as a sign of God?s Spirit working in the world.  It?s now known as the ?subversive cross? and stands to testify to the power of God and a beacon of hope.

10. The power to transform.  That?s what the community that follows the Christ is about.    Caring for one another.  Understanding each other without judging.  Welcoming even the most difficult into this loving community.  This community risks accepting God?s love for us and recognizing our call to love and forgive others in the same way.

11. Two friends were walking through the desert.  Overwhelmed with heat and thirst, they had an argument.  One friend slapped the other in the face.  The one who got slapped was hurt, but without saying anything, wrote in the sand: "Today my best friend slapped me in the face."  They kept on walking, until they found an oasis, where they decided to take a bath.  The one who had been slapped got stuck in the mire and started drowning.  Later, he wrote on a stone: " Today my best friend saved my life.  The friend who had slapped and saved his best friend asked him, "After I hurt you, you wrote in the sand and now, you write on a stone, why?"  The friend replied, "When someone hurts us we should write it down in sand where winds of forgiveness can erase it away.  But when someone does something good for us, we must engrave it in stone where no wind can ever erase it."  We are called to write our hurts in the sand and to carve the goodness in stone.  That?s what God has done for us.

12. Take up your cross.  Take up your cross.  Take up your cross.   When we live these 3 teachings from scripture, we say clearly who we say Jesus is as we follow Jesus in a life of serving.  God will love us and lead us in this incredible journey of faith as we risk everything for the gospel of Christ, and gain everything in return.