"A Fresh Start to Loving Service"
First Congregational Church -- Wauwatosa, Wisconsin
Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost -- September 13, 2009
Rev. Steven A. Peay, Ph.D.
[texts: Prov. 1:20-33/Jas. 3:1-2/Mk. 8:27-38]

Well, here we are, another program year, another “Rally Sunday” – which I think I’m going to start calling “Fresh Start Sunday,” because we’re are starting fresh into learning and growing and serving together as a church. I think, perhaps, that we need our fresh start, especially in reaching out in loving service, because so many people simply no longer know what the Christian faith is really about, save perhaps in caricature. Let me give you an example.

One of the things that I found particularly amusing – though often terribly shocking – was when Jay Leno would do his “Jay Walking” routine. Author Peter Hawkins pointed out that Leno would do a Bible Quiz on Good Friday. Here are some of the questions and the answers:

Where was Jesus born? “Somewhere in Iraq.” What was the crown made of that he wore at his crucifixion? “Flowers.” Who will inherit the earth? “The rich.” What two biblical cities did God destroy on account of their evil? “Pompeii and Atlantis.” Cast your what upon the waters? “Life raft.”

Now, imagine with me that Jesus is doing the man-on-the-street questioning and asks "Who do people" -- that is who do those outside the circle of followers -- "think that I am?" The answer came back, "John the Baptist, and others Elijah; and still others one of the prophets," is indicative that the outsiders had missed the point of Jesus' teaching, that they were, in many ways, as clueless as the people Leno asked. The works he had done, the way he had taught had not made who he was evident to them, on the bright side they were at least in touch with their own religious culture. At best they thought he was some forerunner of the promised Messiah. Thus, the reference to Elijah, whom it was believed must reappear before the Messiah could come. Since some thought Elijah had reappeared in John the Baptist, some felt that he had returned to life in his successor, Jesus. Still others thought a "prophet like Moses" would appear in the final days and maybe this Jesus was he. All had not achieved the truth of whom Jesus was and like all of Israel, whom they represent in Mark's Gospel, they won't get it, in fact the disciples don’t get it, until the full revelation of the Christ through the cross and resurrection.

Jesus raises the intensity of the questions, and makes it very personal, when he asks, "Who do YOU say that I am?" He's made no comment on the indecision or the diversity of opinion of those outside the circle of disciples. Now it comes to this intimate group of followers to make a decision. You can almost feel the tension in the air as he asks, "So, and you, what do you say? For YOU, who am I?" The question is no longer that stuff of the opinion poll, telling what others think. It's now a question of personal decision and commitment. Peter, always quick on the trigger, jumps right in: "You are the Messiah." Jesus keeps up the theme of the Messianic secret that is especially developed in Mark by telling them not to spread this news around. He told them not to talk about his Messiahship because they didn't really understand it yet.

The truth of this becomes very clear shortly thereafter in the next encounter with Peter. Peter has confessed that Jesus is the Messiah and now Jesus explains what that means. The 'anointed one' is the one who will pour himself out in unselfish, self-giving love for the life of the world. The Messiah will identify fully with the human condition with all of its suffering and pain, transforming it into a redemptive act. The act of Christ on the cross is the great demonstration, then, of God's love for his creation and it is his invitation to humanity to participate in that love. The cross is God's answer to this personal question, it is God's self-disclosure, his revelation of just how much he loves and cares for us – it’s God’s fresh start in modeling loving service.

Peter's response to Jesus' explanation is one of shock and horror. He tells him, "Now Jesus, there's no way that this can be the case!" Peter's response had been rote, like an answer from the catechism. It was a safe, intellectual kind of response -- the kind of response that most of want to make to that kind of question. It's a response that makes one feel like a believer, gives a certain amount of us comfort, and makes you feel good. It doesn't, however, cost anything in terms of the practical side of things. So Jesus confronts Peter with the error of that position.

What Peter said contradicted God. No doubt, Jesus perceived in Peter's words the echo of the Tempter, who in the desert during the forty days had attempted to sway him from following the way worked out by the Father. So Jesus rebuked Peter, "Get behind, me Satan!" Satan is the accuser, the one who tries to pull us away from God's way. We have to understand this exchange in the larger context of things.

Peter's confession of Jesus as Messiah had set him apart from the common opinion. Now, confronted with the reality of the suffering Messiah who identifies completely with the human condition he's going to back to the common opinion. Here Jesus is really speaking as the Lord of the Church to believers in every age, believers who have made a correct profession of faith, but who then interpret it incorrectly. You see, you can't have a risen Lord without a suffering Messiah. We cannot be his disciples, either, unless we are prepared to walk the same road, to endure suffering, to live unselfishly, and to offer ourselves in self-giving, in loving service just as he did. That's what it means to be a follower of Christ, to be "in Christ," to be a Christian -- 'one of Christ's.' An article that appeared in Theology Today some years ago caught my attention, since it reflected on one person's answer to this question. It was by a priest in the Episcopal Church who had begun her work in music ministry and then underwent a severe debilitation. In the midst of her illness she began to discern her call to the ministry of Word and Sacrament. Her road was not an easy one, because she experienced rejection by both her husband and the church, and all sorts of suffering as she followed the call. She wrote:

Buddhism better prepares its followers for suffering than Christianity does, despite Christianity's emphasis on the cross. The cross is not heard, not wanted to be heard, and certainly not "sold" as part of the deal in a market-conscious society. In Buddhism, one is first taught that pain is natural, a part of life, of being human. One is also given to understand that painful experience is meaningful, and so one is led to accept it in that vein. In contrast, Christians tend to get stymied in our struggle with the "Why is God doing this to me?" question. It is often not until midlife or later that we begin to grow in our understanding of the redemptive nature of suffering -- perhaps because by then we have experienced it! [Helen R. Betenbaugh]

She's absolutely correct in her estimation. We've reduced Christianity to the least common denominator in our concern to fill the pews. Nevertheless, the truth is that the cross stands at the center of both Christian and human experience and we cannot ignore it. We have to understand that our answer to Jesus' question implies a concrete, practical identification with whom he is. When Jesus goes to the cross, it's in obedience to the Father's will. We think of our crosses in life as these petty irritations we deal with -- "Oh, I guess it's just my cross to bear. Oh my!" -- and whine about them. Jesus didn't whine -- neither should we. Our emphasis is, far too often, on this whole individual thing, which is why we get caught up in the "Why is God doing this to me?" question. When Christ died on the cross he did a corporate thing, so our answer to a personal question puts us in a new level of personal relationship with God and other people. Let me explain using the words of the great 20th century Congregational theologian P.T. Forsyth. Forsyth wrote: . . . he (Christ) was, in his victory, the agent of the race. He did not overcome the world as a cloistered saint might, who conquers it in his solitary soul. . . . Christ was no mere lone individual and pioneer. He was the soul and conscience of the race. . . .If Christ died for all, all died in the act. We rise because he rose: and we rise not like him but in him. . . . We are the beneficiaries of his conquest by union with him.

Individual men have to enter upon that reconciled position, that new covenant, that new relation which already, in virtue of Christ's Cross, belonged to the race as a whole. . . the first bearing of Christ's work was upon the race as a totality. The first thing reconciliation does is to change man's corporate relation to God. Then when it is taken home individually it changes our present attitude. Christ, as it were, put us in the eternal Church; the Holy Spirit teaches us how to behave properly in the Church. . . . it was a race that Christ redeemed, and not a mere bouquet of believers. It was a Church he saved, and not a certain pale of souls. Each soul is saved in a universal and corporate salvation.

Our corporate salvation teaches us how to live in community. Our answer to a rather personal question involves us deeply in the life of a gathered community and invites us to a fresh start in loving service. As Forsyth also said, We are not absolute, solitary individuals. We are in a society, an organism. . . . And our selfish, godless actions and influence go out, radiate, affect the organism as they could not do were we absolute units. . . . We are members one of another both for evil and for good. So, how are we to go about this corporate living in the Body of Christ, which is the Church? Do we continue to reject God's wisdom, like the Proverbist asks, "how long will you remain simple?" Do we allow our tongues to get the better of us and issue gossip or unkindness from mouths that should only bless and speak the truth, as James tells us? Should we behave like Peter, who could confess the Messiah one instant and in the next deny him?

The answers are in us and in our answer to that personal question, with the implied fresh start: "Who do you say that I am?" If our response is only an intellectual, rote, catechism answer, we can never expect to experience the fullness of God's power or grace in our lives. If I say "Jesus is Lord," it means that I have given him the right to command my time and what I do with my time and that I will serve others as he did. It's a matter of practical obedience to God's will and to a life of unselfish, self-giving love. There's a challenge here and it is to answer that question not just with one's lips, but with one's life. Our response to the question is an act of self-disclosure. Our response, especially as it is lived out every day, tells God and all the world who we really are. Jesus' question to Peter about who Jesus was also called Peter to consider who he was. The situation, the question, hasn't changed.

Jesus is walking the way with us just as he did on the road to Caesarea-Philippi, the way that would lead to Jerusalem and the cross. He comes to each of us with a question – and it’s not at all like ‘Jay-Walking.’ He looks to each of us, just as he did to Peter and asks: "Who do YOU say that I am?" It's a rather personal question and it’s an invitation to a fresh start to loving service – to God and to those all around us.