Second Sunday in Lent. 25th February 2018
Genesis 17:1-7,15,16
Roman’s 4:13-25
Mark 8; 31-38
“If any want to become my followers, let them 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.
Like death, suffering is not a subject that normally brings great joy to our lives, or we take lightly, or fully understand. It remains one of the mysteries of life. The subject is not common dinner party conversation and although Christians for many generations have endeavoured to explain the place of suffering and the end of our physical life in a meaningful way the success I believe has only been minimal.
Over the last week I have had a number of occasions to speak about our earthly mortality {death} to individuals facing life defining surgery, talking with them about their fears, hopes and joys of their lives. The second occasion by my attendance at a funeral on Friday for a woman over the age of 90 who was a member of the parish in which I grew up. She was a woman of immense faith that survived many crises in her parish over the 20 years of her membership. She virtually never moved from Richmond and she hoped, as she told the vicar that heaven would be like her beloved Richmond and family.
The presence of death and suffering seems contradictory to the Christian claim of a God of justice and goodness, an all-powerful God who created the world. As the actor Stephen Fry said a number of years ago and he is not the only one, how could one believe in a God who allows so much suffering in the world? Why does a healthy young man die of a melanoma, or a newborn baby contract a life threatening illness? Watching a loved one die of a debilitating or degenerative disease is difficult to understand. Likewise we struggle when we see on our televisions the faces of children dying, of preventable diseases and hunger, of war games by the powerful and yet we seem powerless to intervene and respond. Where is God we ask? The life experiences of millions of people seem contrary to God’s benevolence and justice. Perhaps part of the answer lies in our understanding of the term all powerful God. The book of Genesis reminds us that out of Love God created the heavens and the earth and this is the same love that set free humanity with free will to live life to the fullest. How much of our suffering then is a result of our brokenness and separation from God?
The death of a child is vastly different from the death of a 90-year-old parent who has lived life to the fullest. The suffering being inflicted upon the people of Iraq and Afghanistan in the name of freedom remains tragic.
There have been times in the history of the Church when the presence of suffering has been explained as divine punishment. Today thankfully such views are rejected by mainstream and enlightened Christians and churches and only expressed by what I call the “ Fringe”, largely fundamentalist Christians who fail to understand Divine love. . Such comments should be challenged vigorously. Yet the presence of suffering remains and its place within the creation a challenge for both people of faith and those with non. Often we feel naked with nothing or little to offer in answering such a profound question as suffering.
Suffering in scripture is not unknown or uncommon. The book of Job recounts the story of Job, an upright and just person before God, who is inflicted with a range of terrible diseases, and despite the encouragement of his friends to outrage against God and to accept the punishment because of his own actions, Job remains faithful and obedient, while trying to understand the reasons he has been so inflicted.
Job struggled with his affliction- he struggled with God and the meaning of life that included suffering. Suffering which he could not explain and seemed contradictory. Likewise the Disciples in today’s gospel did not listen. Suffering associated with discipleship was not what they wanted to hear.
Stephen Ames, a Canon of St Paul’s Cathedral Melbourne and scholar has written about the presence of evil and suffering in the world as a necessary part of God’s creative act of love, finally to be understood in the time of God. Our world could not be our world without the presence of suffering and evil as a consequence of God’s giving over to human kind the creation. From God’s love we come and to God’s love we return.
In today’s Gospel we have three themes. The theme of listening, the theme of listening and not always getting it right and the theme of not liking what we hear. In this case words of suffering. Peter did not like what Jesus had to tell them. If the truth is known none of the disciples were too keen on what was said. Peter named the fear and then proceeded to correct Jesus on his mission. Peter was bold. He spoke what the others thought. The disciples had not signed on as followers of Jesus to see him die. Peter was sure Jesus was wrong. They had not signed on to place their own lives at risk of death, beatings or imprisonment. When Jesus responds to Peter you can sense their surprise, even bewilderment on their faces. This was not their plan. They were planning a revolution to overthrow the rule of the Romans in Judea. As one reads the words of Jesus it is hard to not over emphasis the critical importance of today’s Gospel and the questions it raises for those who seek to walk in the footsteps of Jesus. Mark does not portray Jesus as some sentimental wishy-washy messiah, but rather a radical and even subversive bearer of God’s dream and hope for the creation. Jesus knows what is a head. He knows evil exists in the world and that the powers to be of the day will do everything possible to stop him.. To have faith in the promises of God, although at odds with the agenda of the world, takes courage and ridicule and suffering. Jesus felt his humanity at this time, his fear and even ambivalence, but also understood his calling as the Gospel’s record. .
As I said earlier, on Friday I attended the funeral of a woman in her 90’s, the salt, glue and heart of her parish. A parish that had been through many ups and downs, challenges and even scandals over the 70 years she had been a member and worshipped Sunday by Sunday during all these occasions. During all these parish difficulties her faith remained intact and grew to embrace difference in her community along side the importance of family friends and relationships. She was an inspiration to others and her God was present in all her ways. On receiving the last rites of the Church she said in her quiet way her readiness to meet her God. She only hoped there was a bit of her parish in heaven. She did not fear death but embraced it as the next part of journey.
In his response to Peter in today’s Gospel Jesus challenges public opinion about himself as a miracle man and healer. All along the disciples fail to understand or have any real insight as to the mission of Jesus. This same lack of insight surfaces again in the gospel passage which follows {the alternate Gospel reading for today} Jesus journey’s with Peter, James and John to the mountain top where for a brief moment together they have a magical moment, a foretaste as the disciples understand it as what life should be about and they want to keep it for ever. A moment of euphoria for them . Jesus however has other ideas and they come down from the mountaintop and he goes about healing and teaching among the people, upsetting the religious and the political leaders of the day. He has commenced the journey to Jerusalem and he understands in his own heart and mind what the disciples cannot grasp for themselves -that he will experience great suffering before finally being vindicated by God. The same theme is present in what we have read this morning and marks the turning point in Mark’s Jesus. This whole scene makes sense when viewed in the context in which the account is told. Through most of the earlier parts of the gospel, the focus is on the activities of Jesus evidenced by his healing and engagement of others than the Jewish people. All this begins to rile the authorities. All along the disciples show little insight to what is happening and being said. They see and hear but do not understand.
Peter voices the concern. He was aware of the objections growing against Jesus. I suggest he saw the implication of what Jesus was now expressing while his own hopes for a messiah were different. Suffering and rejection were contrary to his plans and the words of Jesus at odds to the liberation they hoped for. His mind was elsewhere. He now begins to see the future through a different lens one fraught with danger. He even I suggest perceives that the journey Jesus was embarking upon was of “divine necessity”. Jesus responds to Peter with a different perspective, a divine perspective and not the logical and rational approach of common sense. The journey ahead will involve risk and suffering. It is a necessary track for it leads to resurrection and hope for all humanity.
In the lead up to today’s Gospel Jesus had taught his disciples many things- but like them unless we hear the challenging and confronting words we fail to hear the fullness of our mission. Too many Christians want to wrap Jesus up in cellophane, or carry him around in a box under our arms and bring him out when we need him. Others want to dumb down the demands of the Gospel message to being nice, avoiding conflict and do not challenge. Yes all of these are important but not sufficient.
The biggest challenge we face as a church and as individuals is not to be subverted by the culture of which we are part and not to aspire to wealth, status and power or be caught up in unsavoury and rescue actions.
To live according to the cross demands sacrifice, making friends with you enemy, welcoming asylum seekers and refuges, being a strong voice for the powerless.
Lent is a time for “metonia”- rethinking the way we look at God, how we understand the world and the way to understand our discipleship.
On Ash Wednesday we were marked and confronted with the sign of the cross and our own mortality. “ Remember from dust you were born and to dust you will return”..
Today Jesus speaks with authority and we are called to respond not as bystanders or passive recipients but as living water.
The cross of Christ is the sign of God’s ultimate justice and love for all humanity. Jesus Son of God shared our human life embracing the brokenness and pain of humanity, so that we can gain a moment with God, a glimpse of God and the eternal presence.
May we be like those who give thanks to God for their life knowing that from the love of God we come and to love we return.
Amen