Isaiah 50:4-9a
Psalm 116:1-8
James 3:1-12
Mark 8:27-38

The Gospel according to Mark 8:27-38

Jesus went on with his disciples to the villages of Caesarea Philippi; and on the way he asked his disciples, "Who do people say that I am?"  And they answered him, "John the Baptist; and others, Elijah; and still others, one of the prophets."  He asked them, "But who do you say that I am?" Peter answered him, "You are the Messiah."  And he sternly ordered them not to tell anyone about him.  Then he began to teach them that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again.  He said all this quite openly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him.  But turning and looking at his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, "Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things."  He called the crowd with his disciples, and said to them, "If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.  For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it.  For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life?  Indeed, what can they give in return for their life?  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." 

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They’re in Caesarea Philippi, this bustling city of the Roman Empire known as a center of religious cults, a place where you can worship a different pagan god on every corner. Kind of like Atlanta.

And Jesus asks his disciples what folks saying about who he is, and they report the latest gossip. Then he asks, "But who do you say that I am?"

You know, when you’re studying the Bible (or when you’re doing your best to preach about it), it’s often very helpful to try to put yourself in the place of the biblical characters, try to get back into their time and mindset, and ask yourself, "What would I have heard?" "How would I have responded?" That’s often helpful.

I don’t think it’s really very helpful here. Because — come on, let’s get real — it’s really impossible for us to pretend not to know who Jesus is. Even people who don’t believe in Jesus know that he’s credited with being the Christ (the Greek word for "Messiah.") They think it’s his last name. I don’t think we get very far pretending that we don’t know the Jesus is the Messiah, the Christ.

And I don’t think it means very much to just say it. "Oh, yeah, I know who Jesus is; he’s the Messiah, the Christ." In fact, I don’t think it means much to say it in a more formal way: "I accept that Jesus is my lord and savior."

The reason I don’t think that means much, is that you have to ask, "OK, what does that mean?" "Jesus is the Messiah;" "Jesus is the Christ;" "I want to follow Jesus" — what does all that mean? Isn’t it interesting how we church people so often spout the right words or say the right formula, and no one stops and asks, "Great, but what does that mean?"

Well, Jesus does. Peter says, "You are the Messiah," and Jesus says, "Great, you said the right thing. Now let’s talk about what that means." And he tells him that to be God’s anointed, the Christ, means that he will be rejected, and humiliated, and tortured, and killed. And when Peter says, "Say it ain’t so!" Jesus rebukes him, the most stunning rebuke in the Bible: "Get behind me, Satan."

I don’t think we get very far trying to imagine that we don’t’ know whether Jesus is the Christ, but I do think there is a lot of good work we can do asking ourselves, "OK, so what does that mean?" Jesus gives us some help. He says, "If you want to follow me, you have to deny yourself and take up your cross and follow me. If you want to save your life, you will lose it for my sake."

Well, it seems that lots and lots of people, a lot of us a lot of the time, say we believe that Jesus is the Christ, but we don’t seem to want to take up our cross, to volunteer for dangerous, difficult service — service that might well be unpopular, service that will certainly cost the lives that we’re all tempted to live for ourselves, and might well cost us our life in the physical sense. It is a lot easier to say, and say with the utmost sincerity, "Jesus is the Christ; I want to follow Jesus," but worship one of the pagan gods on the corner. Gods of conformity; gods of avoiding embarrassment; gods of domination, gods of comfort; gods of fear of different kinds of people; gods of nationalism, gods of certainty, gods of rules; gods of literalism.

You don’t have to go far to find temples to these gods. And they’re easier to follow than Jesus. By the time we get to Caesarea Philippi, Jesus has made it very clear that he will violate social and religious norms, embarrass his followers, and even subject himself and them to danger, and all because he has a vision of transformation, transformation of you and me and our culture so that no one is considered outside the bounds of God’s love; no one is "unclean" so that they do not have full citizenship in the kingdom of heaven; and no one dominates, coerces, or exploits another. And the violent, coercive power of domination will be met with the transforming, sacrificial power of love.

If you think that’s easy, either you haven’t been listening, or we live in totally different worlds. It’s much easier for us to say we follow Jesus with our lips, but not to worry too much about what that means, so we can keep on serving the gods on the corner with our hands and feet and vote and money. I think most of Christianity has done that most of the time.

If we’re going to mean what we say when we proclaim Jesus as Messiah, we should expect it to be hard, expect it to be a life-long challenge. It’s not something that you get once and you’ve got forever. We have to rehearse, build it into our characters. And we can’t wait until we are in a crisis to decide not only whether we believe in Jesus, but what that means.

Back when I used to work with youth groups, one of the things we did about once a year was discuss sexuality. And one of the points I would always make is that they needed to discuss and reflect upon their sexual ethics before they found themselves in the back seat of an SUV! You just can’t begin to form your character under pressure. You have to prepare.

And that’s one reason we come to church week after week. Because we know that it’s not so hard to say who Jesus is and that we want to follow him, but it’s very hard to mean that in our lives. We have to rehearse, prepare, to be able at a moment’s notice to challenge the god of conformity; risk insulting the god of lack of embarrassment; defy the god of domination, ignore the god of comfort; mock the god of fear of different kinds of people; insult the god of nationalism, flout the god of certainty, resist the god of rules; disobey the god of literalism.

One of the ways we rehearse, prepare, are transformed, is by retelling the stories of our heroes. This week, we celebrated the feast honoring the memory of Constance and her Companions. Constance was an Episcopal nun, the mother superior of the order of St. Mary that came to Memphis in 1873 to start a school. When she went, she probably thought that her cross to bear would be the unruly kids that show up in every class, budget problems, and grading papers.

But we never know when we will be put to the test. In 1878, a plague of yellow fever struck the city in the sweltering August heat. In a city of fifty thousand, thirty thousand fled, including doctors and many of the clergy. Constance and the other nuns did not. Their doctor, Doctor Armstrong, did not. Mrs. Bullock, a devoted lay person, did not. The Rev. Mr. Parsons, a local Episcopal priest, did not. Several ministers from other denominations did not. And sisters Ruth, Helen, and Clare, and the Reverends Dalzell and Schuyler, traveled to the city as the multitude fled.

They stayed, or they came, because they wanted to help. They nursed the sick amidst scenes of terrible horror. They took in the many children who had been orphaned by the plague. For them, at that terrible time and in that terrible place, that is what it meant to say that Jesus is the Messiah. They did not come to that strength of character and resolve spontaneously. They were formed — formed by communal worship; formed by prayer, formed by rehearsing, rehearsing, rehearsing: "Who do I say that Jesus is, and what does that mean?"

When the plague was over, five thousand people were dead. Five thousand. Among them were twelve Roman Catholic priests, thirty-four Roman Catholic nuns, and a Methodist minister. Also among them were Sister Constance, Dr. Armstrong, Sister Thecla, the Rev. Mr. Schuyler, Sister Ruth, Mrs. Bullock, the Rev. Mr. Parsons, and Sister Francis.

Sometimes it’s tempting not to rehearse who Jesus is. The gods on the corner can be very, very powerful, and churches often succumb. Tony Campolo, a well known Christian writer and speaker, said recently:

I find it strange that the last place I can really quote Jesus these days is in American churches. They don’t want to hear, "Overcome evil with good." They don’t want to hear, "Those who live by the sword die by the sword." They don’t want to hear, "If your enemy hurts you, do good, feed, clothe, minister to him." They don’t want to hear, "Blessed are the merciful." They don’t want to hear, "Love your enemies."

I know that’s true in many churches; they say they follow Jesus, but don’t want to hear what that means. I pray that that will not be true here. I pray that we will always draw inspiration from heroes like the Martyrs of Memphis and be preparing to answer in our time and our place, "Who is Jesus, and what does that mean in our lives?"

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