Pouring out life
Preacher: Fiona Barnard, Honorary Global Chaplain
Readings: Psalm 22:1-5, 14-19, 22-24; Mark 8:31-38
“Deny yourself. Take up your cross”. I am sure that is not the message you want to hear this morning. OK, it is Lent, the traditional season for saying no – so perhaps we need to talk about it. After all, it’s in the lectionary for this week. And there are only 5 weeks before it all ends and you can heave a sigh of relief and reward yourself with a few Easter eggs.
But today I wonder if there is also a little voice inside you pleading, “No, not that. I am too weary to take it on. This long year has drained everything out of me. I have been denied the full university experience, the balls, the Friday nights, the sports, Raisin w/e. I have been denied human contact, in person seminars, hugs, time with grandparents and grandchildren, travel, graduation and family celebrations. I have been denied certainty for the future – even for next week, let alone this spring and summer. I think this year, I have had more than my fair share of being denied – along with everyone else – so Jesus, this morning, I am not warming to this idea of denying myself and taking up my cross. Life is hard enough: what value can be gained by looking for extra trouble? Can you not bring us a more comfortable message?”
That is more or less what Peter thinks when Jesus begins to talk about suffering. It takes him by surprise. Peter has not sooner declared Jesus to be the promised Messiah, come to liberate his people, than Jesus starts to tell the disciples that the betrayal and death await him. As far as Peter and his friends are concerned, if a so-called Messiah gets himself killed, that is proof that he is not the Messiah after all. A dead Messiah is no use to anyone. “No, Jesus,” he insists in a private tete a tete, patting him on the shoulder. “Don’t be so pessimistic. That’s not the way to think. I realise it may be dangerous, but let’s play it safe. We can find a way round this.”
In Peter’s kindly advice, Jesus hears the temptation of Satan. Of course Jesus wants to avoid the torture of death. He has seen criminals and victims hanging from crosses by the road in Jerusalem. He has sung Psalm 22 where the physical and emotional torment of the psalmist is graphically portrayed. He senses it will describe his suffering: His body pierced. His heart melting like wax. His bones out of joint. His tongue sticking to the roof of his mouth. His strength dried up. His life pouring out like water. He can foresee vicious tormentors surrounded him; they will squabble for his clothes. He can imagine the overwhelming desolation of feeling forsaken by God; his dearly loved Father will seem far-away and silent. Jesus knows what is in store; he feels it in his bones with dread. But as Peter speaks, Jesus understands that running away is not the plan. So he calls out Satan’s cunning ploy – publically – in front of his well-meaning friend Peter and the others: “No, Satan. This is not God’s way.”
And Jesus goes further. He calls together the crowd who have followed him along with his disciples. These are the ones who have loved what they have seen Jesus do. He has poured out his life for them. So if there is a sign-up sheet for following him, they have their pens ready. “Yes, we’ll have more miraculous fish sandwich picnics. Yes, we’ll take more healing for blind eyes and shrivelled up legs and disturbed emotional states. Yes, we’ll welcome boat trips on Lake Galilee as long as Jesus is with us to calm any unforeseen storms. Yes, we’ll bring our families along for a day of story-telling and countryside hikes.” They are ready: “If any want to become my followers …” (“yes, please”, they cry – “we are up for it”), but then he continues, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.” They are stunned. They really did not think they would be asked to sign up for that.
But you see, Jesus is telling them, “If you want to follow me, it is a radical, risky choice. It is ‘for richer for poorer, for better for worse, in sickness and in health’ because life in this world is about all of these things. I go where the mess and misery is: will you join me?” You know I have had friends who joined Jesus’ band because he is loving and kind. They thought he would deliver a happy life to them. So when they ended up with a failed viva in their Ph Ds, or heartbreak from an unfaithful partner, when other Christians behaved unkindly or a cherished project nosedived – they can’t square their experience with their faith. The disappointment which ravages them is projected onto Christ. They feel let down by imagined promises that this fair-weather Jesus has failed to keep. They assumed that he would deliver a cushy, successful life. He would answer all their prayers their way. But that never was part of the deal. What he does offer, however, is the space to cry out our raw, angry “whys?” to him. That is what the Psalmist and Jesus both did.
But have we missed something? Something Peter missed too? That little phrase -“and after three days rise again.” It is tucked next to the shocking forecast of the Messiah’s death. So it is barely noticed. “And after three days rise again.” You see, Jesus the life giver, never runs out of life. When he pours out his life, it does not come to an end. God’s ever-flowing life keeps on flowing, keeps on gushing. Even the dying Psalmist comes to that sense amid his anguish and forsakenness: the God whom his ancestors trusted will somehow come close. Will somehow deliver. This God won’t despise his suffering. He won’t remain hidden. And so the psalmist somehow believes he will declare God’s name. He will praise him along with God’s people. Jesus knows that this reversal too is part of the story. So he looks forward to the Son of Man coming in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.
I am part of a Baptist church here in St Andrews. One of the things we are known for is the way we baptise: we are such dirty sinners, that we need a full bath. There is a tank under the carpet at the front of the church which we fill with warm water – and those who want to declare their faith in Jesus and commit their lives to him, go down the steps into the water and then backwards until they are completely submerged. It is a dramatic reenactment of a Christian dying and being buried with Christ who died and was buried. All the congregation peers into that watery grave as they go – but in all my time in the church, no one ever stays under. No one has drowned on South Street. And when they come up, sputtering sometimes and smiling, everyone erupts into clapping – because Jesus has made them alive and part of a family community, the church. They are not going to be carrying their cross alone.
The invitation of Jesus is the same today as it was to Peter, the disciples and the crowd: the invitation is to come to Jesus. In most cases, not to die, but to live differently. It is to leave our personal agenda and ambition behind. To shake off self-preoccupation and focus on Him. It is to take up his challenges. Walk in his footsteps along roads that you might not choose, which could break your heart. Follow him where he goes – to the poor, the victimised, the isolated, even the grumpy woman next door. Not to be seen. Not to be admired. But because you love Jesus. Because he has poured his goodness into your life and changed it around. Because you want nothing more than to be with him, for richer for poorer, for better for worse, in sickness and in health.
On January 8, 1956, the world was shocked with the news that Jim Elliot, grandson of Scots, along with his 4 friends had been killed by some warriors in Ecuador. This group were cut off from the outside world. The five men had gone in peace to share their faith. Jim had been pondering on these verses we have considered today: “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?” JIm knew the dangers. But his love for Jesus was greater than his fear. And so he wrote in his diary: “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.”
I remember being really moved by these words as a young person – not because I had designs on being a martyr – but because they had a deep ring of truth for me. You see I am a bit of a hoarder, and mean with it. My tendency is to hold on to things for a rainy day. So if I got talcum powder for Christmas, I would keep it safe for the time when I would need it. But decades later, I would discover the smell had vanished in the mist of years. I would hide away my chocolates in case I got no more – only to find that after a time they turn white and furry – and leave a bad taste in my mouth. I might buy lots of toilet paper in a pandemic and realise that there was room for nothing else in a cupboard. I could stay in my room, and never go out in case I fell down a rabbit hole. I could sit in my house and guard the door with alarms lest an intruder come in and steal my clutter. I might keep people at bay in case they hurt me. But is that really life? Is it living?
“Our God is a God who never runs out of life,” writes Barbara Brown Taylor. “To be where God is – to follow Jesus – means going beyond the limits of our own comfort and safety. It means receiving our lives as gifts instead of guarding them as our own possessions. It means sharing the life we have been given instead of bottling it for our own consumption. It means giving up the notion that we can build dams to contain the bright streams of our lives and letting them go instead, letting them swell their banks and spill their wealth until they carry us down to where they run, full and growing fuller, into the wide and glittering sea.”
There is a kind of freedom in that, isn’t there? Even in a pandemic. Pouring out life with Christ and for him. “We are no fools if we give what we cannot keep, to gain what we cannot lose.”