Mark 8:27-38
March 16, 2003
Sermon preached by Rev. Donald Ng at the First Chinese Baptist Church in San Francisco.
A couple of years ago, the casting director of a New Jersey theater company was receiving a lot of death threats. People were calling him up on the phone and threatening to kill him. It was all because, when the theater put on its annual Passion play, he gave the part of Jesus to a black man.
Some people voiced their objections by canceling their tickets. But others went further and threatened violence. They rebuked the casting director. A black Jesus was simply too different from their idea of what Jesus is supposed to be like.
The problem is that our idea of what Jesus is supposed to be like doesn’t always match up with the real Jesus. For example, we often assume that Jesus looks like the picture that we seeing hanging in Sunday school rooms or up there on the stained glass window—the picture of a rather attractive fellow with blue eyes and brown hair. Jesus probably had dark-colored hair, brown eyes, and dark skin. After all, that’s what most people who lived in the Middle East look like.
Peter Rebukes Jesus
Peter had a very clear idea as to what he thought Jesus ought to be like. Peter expected Jesus to be a hero. After all, Peter had seen how Jesus healed the sick and fed the hungry. After all, it was Peter who minutes earlier got it right by declaring that, “You are the Messiah.” Peter expected Jesus to be a celebrity.
The crowds following Jesus were increasing; he became more and more popular every day. Jesus was hot! Jesus was a rising star! In the eyes of his admiring disciples, the sky was the limit!
But then Jesus went and blew it. At least as far as Peter was concerned. Just as Jesus was about to break through from being a country teacher to well-known preacher, he turned to the crowd and said, “Very soon, I’m going to be arrested and beaten and killed. If you want to be my follower, this is the way you must also be willing to come.”
When Jesus said this, Peter took him aside, shook him hard and yell, “What are you doing? You finally have crowds of people following you around, hanging on to your every word! And what do you do? You start talking about suffering and death! You start talking about the cross! Are you crazy? That’s not what these people want to hear!” Peter rebuked Jesus.
What Do We Want to Hear?
When you were coming to church this morning, what were you expecting to hear today? I know that you didn’t come to hear about suffering and death. And God forbid, you surely didn’t come to hear about the cross!
I hope you came at least expecting to hear a good sermon. Most people think that sermons are too long in length and too short on solutions. (Not mine, right?) In 20 minutes or less, people want sermons that somehow provide resolution to life’s conflicts and answers to our tough questions.
Too often popular American Christianity presents the gospel as the solution to all our problems, the resolution of all conflicts, another technique for making nice people even nicer, successful people even more successful.
It’s like this, “My life was a mess. I was on drugs. Addicted to TV. Ate poly-saturated snacks. Then I found Jesus… and everything got fixed.”
No doubt there were many people following Jesus that day who were following him precisely because their lives were in shambles. They wanted to save their lives from all the mess. They wanted to make their lives better and more fulfilling. But this is not what Jesus is all about.
Jesus just looked at Peter. No, Jesus turned on Peter and rebuked him. Jesus said, “Suffering and death might not make sense to you. But unless I die, I’ll never really live. And the same is true for you. If you want that life that never ever ends, then take up your cross, and come and follow me.”
Mark doesn’t say this, but I suspect that after Jesus taught the crowd and his disciples on that day, the crowds around Jesus got smaller. The people’s expectations of Jesus were not turning out to be what they were hearing.
Taking Up Our Cross
For us to “take up our cross and follow him” has very little meaning in our reality today. We have little sense of how big or rough or heavy or deadly a cross is. Our crosses are beautifully crafted jewelry made from precious metals and gems hanging delicately around our necks.
Taking up the cross is not merely telling us to put up with the ordinary burdens that we face in life. It’s not for me to say, “Oh, my shoulder hurts. I guess that’s the cross I have to bear.” Or we might say, “My Chronicle delivery man keeps throwing my paper in the bushes. That’s a cross I have to bear.” That’s not what Jesus is talking about. The ordinary problems and annoyances that we run into every day are not what Jesus means when he speaks about crosses that he wants us to carry.
Taking up our cross is not being willing to put up with abuse just for the sake of being abused. In our country, a woman is beaten every 18 seconds, totaling about 3-4 million battered women every year. About 1 out of every 3 women that goes into a hospital emergency room is there because of injuries from domestic violence. And the sad fact is that when some of those battered women go to their ministers, they are quoted this part of the Bible and advised to deny themselves and just accept that abuse as the cross God wants them to bear.
When Jesus tells us to take up the cross, he’s not telling us to just put up with the minor annoyances that come into our lives each day. And he is most certainly not telling us to put up with abuse. No, when Jesus tells us to take up our cross, he has a different point in mind. Taking up our cross means that when we come to the point where God’s love truly fills our heart, we will do whatever God wants us to do, even to the point of giving our very lives. After all, isn’t that what Jesus did?
Human Things
We preachers are often afraid of causing a stir in the church. We like to be liked as much as you like to be liked. When we preachers come to a passage like today’s Scripture, we would rather not talk to you about denying yourselves and taking up your cross. Let’s be honest here, if you suffer and lose your life, who would be left to sign my paycheck?
Peter and we preachers have a lot in common. We were beginning to see how popular and successful Jesus’ ministry was becoming. Already we were imagining and calculating how our own popularity will rise by our association with this new hero. We had our minds set on the human and worldly meaning of success. Then, Jesus said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”
We like to domesticate the gospel, don’t we? We like to housebreak God by producing a gospel filled with honey to make the medicine go down easier rather than drinking “nick chai.” I can remember when I was sick and my mother would make me drink this awful tasting tea—“nick chai.” She said it was good for me. But in order for me to drink this bitter tea, I had this pile of brown sugar chunks on the side ready to sweeten the taste after every sip.
The gospel message of denying yourself and taking up the cross, to lose your life in order to save it, the fortunes of this life would forfeit your eternal life, and being ashamed of Jesus would lead to Jesus being ashamed of us, is “nick chai.” We preachers want to share a “user-friendly” sweet-tasting gospel that can be said as a catchy slogan on a bumper sticker or on a church bulletin board. For this kind of thinking, Jesus is rebuking us too!
When I refused to drink the “nick chai,” my mother scolded me and rebuked me when I resisted.
Whenever we try to make the gospel easier to swallow, simplifying it to remove the meaning of taking up the cross, and dressing up Jesus like an attractive fellow with blue eyes and brown hair, we are like Peter.
Rebuking Jesus
Peter was so much focused on helping Jesus become the hero he expected that Peter rebuked Jesus. To “rebuke” is a sharp reprimand to someone. It means I disapprove in what you’re doing. The word, “rebuke,” also carries the meaning of “who’s in charge.”
In the encounter between Jesus and Peter, Peter “rebukes” Jesus, and then Jesus turns around and “rebukes” Peter. The sharp point that Jesus makes to Peter is that Peter is to follow him, not trying to take charge of him. It is in following Jesus that I become who God means for me to be. It is in subjecting yourself and your life to Christ that you find yourself and the meaning of your life fully.
Jesus followed in the way that God wanted him to go, even to the point of giving his life on the cross. Similarly, Jesus invites us to do what God wants us to do, no matter how difficult or challenging it may be.
Just as Jesus rebuked Peter for being like Satan with his head on human things instead of the divine things, Jesus rebukes us today. Jesus is telling us that to be his disciples, it’s not going to be a life of more leisure and more success. Taking up our cross will mean sacrifice and a life of following Jesus. The rebuking Jesus wants us to not be ashamed of following him.
A man was visiting a hospital in India. As he looked around the room of diseased and dying people, he noticed a nun who was working on one of the patients. But as he walked toward her, he was overcome by the foul odor coming from the man’s wounds, and when he looked at the area that the nun was bandaging, it almost made him sick. He said, “Sister, I wouldn’t do what you’re doing for a million dollars.” The nun just glanced at him and said, “Neither would I.” Taking up our cross means doing those things that there isn’t enough money in the world to pay us to do. But we do them anyway because that’s what God wants us to be doing.
Divine Things
Peter’s mind was set on “human things,” such as the re-establishment of an earthly kingdom that would include the bloody repulsion of the Roman occupiers. The disciples will quarrel among themselves seeking their places of honor and power in their master’s kingdom.
But when Jesus emerged from the wilderness where he refused the earthly temptations offered by Satan, he set his mind on the “divine things” of God to become the Suffering Servant. When Peter rebuked Jesus for hurting his chances of establishing this earthly kingdom of overthrowing the despised Romans, the rebuking Jesus rebuffed Peter’s expectations and told him, “Peter, you are not in charge here!”
The citizens of this new Kingdom of God are to be servants, not masters. As a preacher who wants to be liked, I don’t want to say it. But Jesus 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 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.” (Mark 8:34-38)
There, I said it! Will I still get my paycheck?
When Jesus rebukes us and tells us to take up our cross, it is important for us to remember that the cross on Calvary is already taken. There was only room for one person on that cross. The title of Alpha and Omega is already taken. Jesus doesn’t ask us to take up every cross in the world, but only our cross. The challenge is not to sacrifice our selves to save the whole world, but to discover that place where our gifts and God’s needs in the world intersect. Perhaps at that intersection of life where our lives and gifts are crisscrossing with the needs of the world, we would find our particular cross.
When we take up our cross and go out into the world where the needs of people are found, we will discover that by losing our life, we will find it, by not being ashamed of being a Christian, Christ is not ashamed of us.
The rebuking Jesus is disapproving of us because he wants us to see God’s divine things and not just the human things.
The rebuking Jesus wants us to understand that we are not in charge but to follow him means that we are his servants and he is our only Master.
The rebuking Jesus tells us that carrying the cross will be foul with odors and taste like “nick chai.”
And during those times when I may be more like Peter than I want to admit because I want a religion that would make our lives easier and more successful, the rebuking Jesus will say to us, “Understand that when you set your mind and heart on God, you will have everlasting life.”
The rebuking Jesus is sharp and hard on us because he loves us.
Let us pray.
O Lord and Redeemer, lead us to understand the cost of discipleship is to take up our cross and to follow you. We know that there are times when we need to hear a hard word from you in order for us to believe God’s love is made evident on the Calvary cross. Grant us peace for in this very room we know that your presence is among us. Amen.