September 15, 2024, It Didn’t Work Out Like That, Mark 8:27-38 – Mtr. Kathryn Boswell

saintphilipsnorwood ♦ September 15, 2024 ♦ Leave a comment

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Most of us can remember times when our parents were upset with us. Maybe your Mom was mad because you didn’t clean your room. Maybe your Dad was in a towering rage because you used his tools and didn’t put them back where they belong. It feels bad when people you love and respect are angry with you. But the very worst possible thing your parents could say to you, the thing that feels the worst of all, is that they are disappointed in you. Is there anything more painful than thinking that someone you love is ashamed of you?

That’s why this passage hits so hard. Jesus said, “Those who are ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of them the Son of Man will also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.” It is the sternest possible warning for all of his disciples living in this world, that they were going to face overwhelmingly strong temptations – to be ashamed of Jesus.

Jesus asked his disciples, “Who do you think I am?” And Peter knew the right answer. “You are the Messiah,” he said. And Peter had a pretty clear idea of what that meant. The Messiah was the chosen one, the one sent by God to save his people. Peter truly believed that Jesus was the Messiah, and of course that meant glory, and honor, and victory over the enemy, and the dawning of a new golden age like the time of King David.

But it didn’t work out quite like that. The Messiah came, and the wisest and holiest and most honored men hated and despised and rejected him. Jesus had thousands of followers, but to be honest, they weren’t anything to brag about – they were the poor, prostitutes, tax collectors, beggars, the blind and lame and deaf, demoniacs. That was what the kingdom of God being established on earth looked like. It was hard, maybe not to be a little disappointed, a little ashamed.

And then Jesus began to teach them what was ahead of them. Not glorious victory and the vanquishing of the hated Romans, but suffering, shame and rejection. And death. And, rising again, but at that point they were hardly listening. Peter took Jesus aside, privately, and he tried to talk some sense into him, but that earned him a stunning rebuke. “Get behind me, Satan. You’ve got your mind set on worldly things, not heavenly things.”

But Peter wasn’t the only one to get it wrong. James and John came to Jesus and asked him to let them sit at his right and left hand in his glory. Just like Peter, they had visions of basking in the Messiah’s reflected glory. The other disciples were indignant when they heard about this – but it wasn’t because they thought it was a stupid thing to ask. They just wished they had asked first. But again, they got it all wrong. Instead of glory and thrones, the disciples were imprisoned, beaten, run out of town, martyred.

In the bulletin today, there’s a quote from Brennan Manning that I love: “Life is hard,” he writes. “It is hard to be a Christian but it is dull to be anything else.”

Well, carrying our cross might not be dull, but it is definitely hard. It almost certainly isn’t what we thought it was going to be, when we were young and stood confidently before the Bishop and got confirmed, or when we attended Sunday School and knew all the right answers, or maybe when we were older and we just quietly and happily found our way into the church and the family of God. We knew then we were supposed to be good people who do good things. We knew we should be reading the Bible and praying for people. We knew we should be getting up every Sunday and getting ourselves to Church. We knew that following Jesus meant going out and helping others.

But it didn’t work out exactly like that. Did we foresee that serving Jesus meant serving lunch to people who complain about the food? Did we picture the Christian life involving a lot of dishwashing, or sorting through a thousand bags of clothes? Did we imagine that loving Jesus meant loving people who were so different from us in the way they think and the way they live and the way they dress and the way they vote?

It turns out the Christian life is hard in ways we never imagined. Did we picture ourselves stuck at home for days or weeks or months on end, caring for a sick parent or spouse? Did we suppose then that the Christian life was going to involve weakness or pain or disability or poverty? Did we think there would be a time when we would have to let people do for us what we would much rather do for ourselves? Did we ever think about what it would mean to follow Jesus as we grew old and our bodies and minds began to fail us? Did we ever imagine, back in the early days of our faith, that following Jesus was going to be so messy – and hard – and sad?

If you have picked up your cross and followed Jesus, you have almost certainly found yourself on a journey that is humiliatingly human, that is full of potholes, that is mostly pretty un-glorious. There might be times when it is very easy for you to feel disappointed, to be ashamed of it. Surely, you might think, surely I’m supposed to be living a Christian life that looks a lot more victorious and impressive. You can probably think of any number of people who seem to be doing it right – who seem to be so much less encumbered by their humanity. Why does my Christian walk seem so much more like a slog, or a trudge, or a dead end?

When Jesus talks about not being ashamed of him, I think we mostly picture making a brave stand in the face of non-believers. We’ve all heard inspiring stories about people who have endured persecution, or even people who have given their lives for their faith. And there may come a time when any one of us is called to make a stand like that. If we do, by the grace of God, may we stand firm.

But it might be just as hard, or maybe even harder, for us to stand firm in our plain old daily walk with Jesus. We have great respect and love for the faith we read about in the Bible or see in the lives of great Christians. But it is awfully easy to be ashamed of the form the faith takes in our own lives. It is so easy to think our lives really ought to be more like the lives of the really holy people we’ve heard about. But Jesus never despises the small sacrifices and acts of service and suffering, and the quiet acts of grace that pave the way before us. Jesus is never ashamed of our stumbling pace. You never need to be ashamed of the way Jesus has led you, because Jesus was not ashamed to walk that same dusty, rocky human road, all the way to the cross.

Jesus’s life was so completely different from what people had expected of the Messiah. So different that the religious authorities didn’t recognize him – refused to recognize him. So different that even his friends and followers were tempted to be ashamed. What kind of Messiah comes as a homeless peasant? What kind of Messiah hangs out with the riffraff? What kind of Messiah loses? What kind of Messiah dies?

Our kind of Messiah.

The Messiah who walks every painful step along with us. The Messiah who knows about small victories and real struggles, who knows about sweat and tears and disappointment and shame. And who knows the great mystery that the messy, painful, stumbling way of the Cross is the way of love, and the only way of real, abundant life. Life that we never need to be ashamed of.