“Facing Fear, Finding Freedom” – Sermon on Sept 4, 2011
September 4, 2011
Scripture: Matthew 16: 21-27
From that time on, Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and undergo great suffering at the hands of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him, saying, “God forbid it, Lord! This must never happen to you.” But he turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; for you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”
Then Jesus told his disciples, “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 will find it. For what will it profit them if they gain the whole world but forfeit their life? Or what will they give in return for their life? “For the Son of Man is to come with his angels in the glory of his Father, and then he will repay everyone for what has been done.
Sermon: Facing Fear, Finding Freedom
by Rev. Doreen Oughton
Today’s reading picks up right on the heels of our last one, where Jesus asked the disciples who they understood him to be. Right after he promised that the Gates of Hell would not prevail over the gathering of followers – the church – that would be built on his rock, Simon Peter. He has let them know who they are called to be, bearers of his light and his way in a broken world. And now he has to prepare them for what is bound to happen, prepare them to carry on the ministry without his daily leadership. Because he knows, whether by divine revelation or common sense, that he is going to be killed. He knows the religious leaders have been plotting against him. He knows the things he teaches and the healing he brings challenge their authority and power, threatens their very way of life, the only way they’ve known. Of course he knows he is going to die.
But he also knows his Abba will have the last word, that out of that destruction new life, powerful life, a life that cannot be extinguished, will come. But Peter hasn’t got that far yet. He only hears that his Lord, the one he has just acknowledged as Messiah, will suffer and die. And that can’t be right… He rebukes Jesus, tells him he’s got it wrong. It couldn’t possibly go down like that. Certainly not while he’s the rock!
Jesus rebukes him right back, not a rock here, but a stumbling block, one who doesn’t understand God’s will and plan in the least. So he starts explaining what it really means to follow him. Pick up your cross, he says. Isn’t it interesting that he says that? He knows he is going to die, but does he also know already how he is going to die? Certainly the cross would have no religious meaning to his disciples at that point. It was, instead, known as the preferred method of execution by the Roman government. It was likely to strike fear and horror into people’s hearts, like the gallows or guillotine might to ours. These public executions were meant to scare everyone who saw them, and sometimes the road to Jerusalem would be lined with crosses bearing dead and dying bodies. It was indeed a scary and intimidating sight. It reinforced the idea that death was the worst thing in the world, and people would be wise to do whatever they had to do to avoid it. I wonder if Jesus’ use of this image, of picking up a cross, was not so much a foretelling of how he would die, but a deliberate challenge to something that was such a powerful reinforcement of a fear-filled, blind, clutching of the illusion of safety and self-preservation.
This, Jesus says, is the way of human-kind, not the way of God. Human vision is narrow, limited, self-focused, but God’s vision is expansive, generous and merciful. If we want to follow Christ, we are to let go, as best we can, to the way WE see and understand, and strive to get on the side of God. Of course we cannot do that alone, not with our very best thinking. And we are not asked to. We are asked to follow and trust Jesus. Now this might be hard when what Jesus is leading us to is the cross, an instrument of death. How can that be consistent with the notion of a God who creates, who gives the gift of life? Aren’t we to understand this gift to be precious, not just the lives of others, but our own life also? Is Jesus saying we are supposed to go out and get ourselves killed to show our commitment to him, to show our faith in God? When he says we must deny ourselves, does he mean we are to deny the value of our very life?
I don’t think so. The Gospel of Luke has Jesus telling his disciples to pick up their cross daily. More a pattern and attitude for living than a death wish. I do think he is letting us know – clearly – that there are things more important than keeping our hearts beating. Our lives are precious, but God is concerned with the quality of them, not just the fact of them. What Jesus is battling here is fear, the kind of fear that oppresses and limits and diminishes life. Because even if we take every precaution and live as safely as we possibly can, we will still die to these physical bodies. That is the way we are built. But we will also have lived very small lives, and fear will have been our god. Fear will have dictated what we did, what we stood for, dictated how we spent our precious life.
Jesus offers us another way. Instead of surrendering to fear, we can surrender to God. We can follow Jesus, and let him help us uncover our cross and grab hold of it. We can let him help us face the things we are most afraid of. Not so that we will die, but so that we will be set free. Perhaps it will hurt some. Perhaps it will hurt a lot. Jesus never promises a life free of pain. No such thing. But he promises us life that does not have to be limited and diminished by fear. We could deny that panic-stricken voice, the one that says there will never be enough, the one that says you could never be who you truly are.
In the days that Jesus led his disciples, the fear might have been standing up to the Roman government, or the corrupted Jewish leadership. It might have been fear of challenging the way things were, knowing what a backlash there’d be. And we might have some of those same fears now – fear of challenging the status quo, because of what might take its place. Or maybe our fears are closer to home. A fear of acknowledging a difficult truth – an addiction, an abusive relationship, a mental or physical illness that is taking over more and more. Perhaps you fear of a memory that can still leave you shaking. Jesus doesn’t say go out and look for a cross to pick up. He knows there is one right there by your feet. It is something that you may have tried to cover up and hide, but it still trips you up. Perhaps it is personal, perhaps it is a wider problem that has been niggling at you, calling to you to pay attention, but you have been afraid. No more, Jesus says. Deny that illusory voice of self-preservation. Your life is a gift, not a possession. It is meant to be shared generously, it is meant to flow outward, not be damned up or bottled into stagnation. Pick up your cross and follow. Because he will lead you, yes to the cross, yes to a place of pain and suffering, but also beyond that, to a new freedom and a new life you can only dream of. Set yourself free in Christ, lose your life to find it. May it be so.
