St. Paul Lutheran Church, Minden, Nebraska
Sunday sermon – 15th Sunday after Pentecost - Sept. 13, ’09
“Suffer? Me? Cross of Discipleship!”
Text: Mark 8:34-38
Some of you early risers may have already read this Sunday’s Omaha World Herald Sunday funnies. Or some of you may read them when you get home from church this morning.
You often hear me say how I like to keep up with what’s going on in the world of Funky Winkerbean and this Sunday morning’s Funky Winkerbean strip is certainly no exception.
Athletic Director, Bill Bushka, is being interviewed on camera by sports reporter, Mike Majors, for a sports piece on the evening news and the reporter asks the Athletic Director of Westview High School, “How is the 2009 version of the fighting scapegoats shaping up, Bull?”
To which Bull says, “Mike, this is a team that knows what it takes to win. The problem comes when they actually have to DO what it takes to win!”
I smiled to myself, I thought to myself, and as I stand before you this morning I find it hard to keep to myself that this difference between knowing & doing is the very thing Jesus faced early on with His disciples.
Imagine Jesus being interviewed by a religious news reporter who asks the question, “Well, Jesus, how is the first century version of your fighting disciples shaping up?”
To which Jesus would have replied, “I want to tell you, these disciples are learning from me what it takes to be my disciples and follow me. The problem comes when they actually have to DO what it takes to be my disciples and follow me.”
That brings me to the question the text before us raises at the end of Mark 8. The question I’m talking about is the question, if we want to be faithful, full of love, fully redeemed, fully forgiving fighting disciples for our Lord Jesus living in this 21st century, how well do we Christians do with pain & suffering, with rejection & humiliation? How well do we do with not wanting to bear ill will toward others when we are on the receiving end of the ill will from others? How well do we do when there is a need to forgive someone whom we think doesn’t deserve to be forgiven? How well do we do when someone scoffs at us for taking our Christianity, our sense of right & wrong too seriously!
Given all the unpopular, costly, inconvenient, challenging issues & needs that are everywhere in this post-Christian culture we’re living in, what do you do when for reasons of believing in and being a follower of Jesus, you and I find ourselves with a cheek to turn, a tongue to bite, a sacrifice to make, a cross to bear, a life to lose rather than doing your own thing or going along with the status quo or fighting fire with fire.
All this talk of pain, suffering, self-denial, cross, sacrifice is not what most Christians are used to hearing or thinking about when they sit in comfortable church pews and sing the praises of a gentle, compassionate, caring Jesus who is often pictured in stained glass windows as the Good Shepherd. Yet when it comes to believers in Jesus taking Christianity, taking discipleship seriously, Jesus doesn’t pull any punches. Jesus does not speak in hushed & quiet tones as if everything is going to be all right and we’re not going to have to suffer any losses or have any discomfort following Him.
Not so, says Jesus. He said it to Peter. He said it to the other disciples and He said it to those in the crowd who had gathered around them. “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it.” There’s nothing soft & gentle here, nothing meek & mild that Jesus lays out for those who want to follow Him.
In fact, although we hardly ever think of Jesus’ disciples as his “fighting” disciples, the truth is Jesus addresses his disciples with language that a platoon of soldiers, infantrymen, comrades in arms would understand right away. Often times it happens in the heat of battle that soldiers close to each other, committed to each other, will risk suffering & pain, danger, even death; to help a wounded, fallen, fellow soldier. These men & sometimes women who put themselves in harms way are so focused on getting their wounded buddy to safety that they will run, sneak, climb, crawl, cover for each other to help each other, or act for the good of the whole platoon at great risk to their own safety & well-being.
So that’s the point this Sunday! This is the true cost of discipleship. Think of Jesus addressing his disciples, addressing all who want to follow him, addressing you & me as if we were servant-soldiers.
‘If any would be my disciple, let them become so wrapped up in doing the will of my Father in heaven, so taken up with concern for their neighbors in need, that they forget about themselves, risk life & limb to reach out, speak out, speak the truth in love, give all they can toward bringing the Good News of God’s New Kingdom in Christ to others.
‘Those who live only for themselves will actually miss life altogether, and those who lose their lives in their concern for others, in denying themselves, in stretching themselves out for others, will find fulfillment and satisfaction in life, which is authentic life.’ (Warren Covell, Another Way of Losing Life.)
In a prayer often attributed to St. Francis of Assisi, “Lord, make us instruments of your peace” . . the closing petition of that prayer asks God to grant that we may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand; to be loved as to love.
What’s at the heart of such a self-denying, cross-shaped petition is finally the realization, the faith, the confidence that for “faithful, forgiven, full-of-love, fighting” disciples of our Lord Jesus, “it is in giving that we receive; it is in pardoning that we are pardoned; and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.”
The way of Jesus is not soft, but it is the way of suffering, sacrifice, service. The way of Jesus is not wearing a cross around you neck but letting the cross be the shape of your whole life. “A Christian is someone who shares the sufferings of God in the world,” wrote the late Dietrich Bonhoeffer. That’s not to say the way of Jesus inevitably leads to horrible, bloody, suffering, persecution, crucifixion, martyrdom like what happened to Peter & Paul and a host of other faithful saints & witnesses, but the way of Jesus does be-come real & genuine when we by God’s grace give ourselves to dying, dying that we might be born to eternal life, daily dying to sin, dying to self, dying to self-righteousness & self-reliance.
Dr. Fred Craddock once put it this way saying that Jesus transforms the “two-bit life” we’ve got into two-bits, four bits, here, there, every day.
We think giving our all to the Lord is like taking a $1,000 bill and lying it on the table - “Here’s my life, Lord, I’m giving it all.”
But the reality for most of us is that Jesus sends us to the bank and has us cash in the $1,000 for quarters. We go through life putting out .25 here and .50 there . . .
Giving our life to Christ isn’t a glorious, spot-light performance. It’s done in little acts of love, 25 cents, 50 cents at a time, every day”
When Jesus says, “Give me all, he does not mean give me so much of your money and so much of you work, but he means I want you. In fact, ultimately, abundantly, daily, Jesus says, “Give me your all; give me your whole self and I will give you myself, my own will shall become yours.”
Jesus didn’t come to explain away suffering or remove it. He came to fill it with His presence.
Just as there are a host of songs for “faithful, full-of-love, fully forgiven, fighting disciples to sing, so we sang and may we continue to sing and to DO, to DO, the very thing we sing . . .
“Let us suffer here with Jesus, And with patience bear our cross.
Joy will follow all our sadness; Where He is, there is no loss.
Though today we sow no laughter, We shall reap celestial joy;
All discomforts that annoy shall give way to mirth hereafter.
Jesus here I share your woe; Help me there Your joy to know.”
(LSB, Let Us Ever Walk With Jesus”, LSB, no. 685)
