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Dr. George A. Purnell
September 13, 2008
“Rethinking the Questions”
Mark 8:27-38
Jesus asks three questions in the reading today that hang in the air, and have since he asked them.
My experience as a pastor tells me that people are still fighting over the answer to Jesus’ question “Who do people say I am”? Church people disagree on this question.
And my experience, personally and as a pastor to others, is that while we can answer the second question, we have a sometimes deep and sometimes shallow understanding of what it means to say that Jesus is Messiah, Christ, Lord.
The twofold third question - “For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life… what can they give in return for their life?”– can be put more colloquially:
- What do I value or trust so much that I am willing to bank my life on it?
- What is the measure of a person’s worth?
We don’t arrive at answers to these questions once and for all and move on, of course. We are always in route to self-discovery; and we move toward and then away from an understanding and experience of the identity and meaning of Jesus.
In this journey we are joined by the disciples of Jesus. Like us, these men are trying to decide who Jesus is, and their struggle for Jesus’ identity is at least in part influenced by who those around them think Jesus is, because we are always influenced by the people around us. And like us, the disciples in the gospel are also struggling with the idea that they must entrust their whole life to Jesus, invest everything in him, or lose their life.
Despite being Jesus’ most intimate earthly associates, the disciples vacillated around their understanding of Jesus and his nature or relationship with God. When Jesus asked the critical question, ‘and who do you say that I am?’ Peter answered swiftly: “You are the Messiah!” While this was the correct answer, we go on to see that it is based on a poor understanding of Jesus’ nature and his purpose.
Immediately after Peter blurts out that Jesus is the Messiah, Jesus turns to the crowd and “began to teach them that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected… and be killed, and after three days rise again. He said all this quite openly.”
Peter saw this to be a particularly inopportune time for Jesus to speak about suffering and dying, so he took Jesus aside and scolded him for talking about such things. (In Matthew’s extended version of this story, Peter more explicitly refuses to accept Jesus’ verdict that he must suffer and die. Matthew writes that Peter rebuked Jesus, saying, “God forbid it, Lord! This must never happen to you.” Mt. 16:22)
Peter liked being on tour with Jesus. The movement was growing. But Peter knew human nature, and he knew that people liked to follow people who epitomized strength and success, not people who talked about being rejected and killed.
Jesus responds swiftly and severely to Peter. And his response is directed toward us as well, because we misunderstand the gospel’s call on our lives too. We are not normally attracted to speakers who speak about self-emptying, or losing our life. Instead, we are drawn to speakers who talk about ways we can become self-fulfilled.
Today’s lesson is a pivotal point in Jesus’ ministry. After rebuking Peter, Jesus:
“called the crowd with his disciples, and said… ‘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.”
Jesus is telling Peter and us that the journey into self-discovery passes through self-denial. He is telling Peter and us that while the tempter’s call is to worldly pleasure and power, we find our true self by surrendering to God, who alone has power, and realizing that our purpose is to honor God by serving others selflessly.
There is a natural tension between the desire to give ourselves away for others and to protect what we have. How we negotiate this tension is where the rubber hits the road in grappling with Jesus’ words about how we lose our life by trying to save it, and how we save our life by losing it.
Jesus’ follow up question is, “What will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life? Indeed, what can they give in return for their life?” These terms are familiar to us. Profit and return are words we use in computation of worth.
We seek to prove our worth by our impressive curriculum vitas and professional resumes, by the value of our balance sheet, and by the extravagant homes, cars and other possessions we own.
But Jesus is saying that the measure of our worth before God is simpler to calculate. It can be determined by how we have invested our life. If we continue to turn a deaf ear to Jesus’ call of us to discipleship...if we continue to search for satisfaction and significance in the pursuit of comfort and pleasure, or in the accumulation of possessions…we will become increasingly frustrated, because our worth is not found there.
What is the meaning of life and how is it found? What is our life worth? If these are not found in accomplishments and honors, in the net worth of our estate or the location of our second home, where is meaning found and how is worth determined?
Philosophers have pondered these profound questions without arriving at satisfactory answers. I am not a philosopher. I am a man of Christian faith, and my answers are framed within the context of my faith.
I don’t believe that once we find what we believe is God’s intent for our life the search for meaning is over. God often has something more in store for us than we first thought. I believe we can and do have more than one time of epiphany, and that sometimes these epiphanies set us off on another course in life.
I believe organizations have a reason to be, a purpose to serve, too. And as with individuals, sometimes God has something more in mind for organizations to work toward if they are to realize their full potential.
Bloomington First United Methodist Church has a rich past. We should be proud of all that this church has meant to its many members and friends over the decades. We should be proud of the value this church has added to the city of Bloomington and to Indiana Methodism over the decades.By having faithfully lived out its calling over all these years, individual lives have been changed, a city has been influenced, and a denomination has been strengthened by this church.
Bloomington First United Methodist Church is living faithfully in the present. Four worship services with three different styles effectively offer Christ to people with differing tastes. Children’s ministries…youth ministries…music ministries…mission initiatives…education classes…family camps…all these and more offer our witness for Christ to the world beyond the church. We should be proud of who we are today.
We are proud of our church, its rich past and its present witness, but we have not stopped being open to God; because it is by being open to God that we discover and rediscover God’s dreams and God’s vision for our future as a people.
You have likely heard the saying if you fail to plan, you plan to fail. It is also axiomatic in faith that we can plan and plan and plan, but our plans are futile and for naught if we have not been open to God’s leading in our planning.
I know that God is always leading us to ways we can be responsive to the needs of a new day. God leads us fresh each day, just as God led the Hebrew slaves in the desert new each day. They had to open themselves to God’s leading, and renew their trust in God and in God’s agent Moses every day. We have to open ourselves to God’s leading, and renew our faith in Christ every day; because each day is a new present, each yesterday a recent past, and each tomorrow a future we are living toward.
We begin a new church program year today. Our focus for this future is for us as a community of faith to be open to God’s leading (and willing to follow) in ways that will see us be a place of radical hospitality in this year ahead…in ways that will see us celebrate passionate worship each time we assemble for worship…in ways that will see us become intentional about our faith development, both as individuals and as a community…in ways that will see us become bold and take risks in mission and service…and in ways that will see us become extravagant in our generosity as a byproduct of the joy we find in a faith driven life.
We live in challenging times. We live in a pluralistic culture. We live in a dangerous world, where our way of living and believing often seems under siege. We live, ironically, in times much like the New Testament days:
- when different faiths were being promoted, faiths that Paul and other early Christian
evangelists contested as they witnessed for Jesus; when faith in Jesus was not the
norm.
- when people were vulnerable to hostile neighbors who wanted to become their captors;
when violence, disease and poverty threatened daily existence.
We want to be faithful in our response as a church to the day in which we live, just as was the church in the days of Paul and Peter, of Timothy and Titus, of John and Jude. We want to open ourselves to God’s leading and grow closer to God, to each other, and to the world beyond our walls during this year ahead.
I invite everyone here today to come forward with the bell you received…a bell representing your prayers and the prayers of your household for the church in this year ahead…and hand it to one of the stewards up front. The stewards will tie your bell to the bell crosses, which will remain in our worship space during the year.
You will each receive a key tag to take with you. This tag has Changing Tempo on one side, to remind us of our need to take time each day to reflect and be intentional about faith in the living of our days. On the other side of the key tag are three questions to consider throughout the year: How did you notice God today? How did you notice God leading you today? How did you or how will you respond to God’s leading?
You will rethink these questions when you look at them on your key tag from day to day, and fresh each day we will consider God’s claim on our life. Amen.
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