Jesus said to Peter, “Get behind me Satan! You are
setting your mind not on divine things but human things!” And this is reason
number one why Jesus would make a terrible rector. I have a couple of guesses
of what might happen if I pulled our Senior Warden aside and said, “Get behind
me Satan!” While I’ve never said, “Get behind me Satan” to anybody, I had a
great opportunity to do so this past week. Don’t worry! It did not involve a
parishioner…
I
was walking into the hospital when a woman noticed my collar and asked me to
pray with her. This is not unusual. I often stop and pray with random people in
the elevator or hallway at the hospital. I feel this is God’s way of helping me
remember what following Jesus is all about. Following Jesus is on God’s time
and according to God’s agenda – not my own.
Anyway,
I asked the woman, who was holding her two-year old daughter, what kind of
prayers she wanted me to say. She immediately responded, “I need money.” Fair
enough, I thought. She must be struggling with medical bills and needed food on
the table. The woman continued, “I also want God to make me rich and famous and
reach celebrity status.”
After I realized she
wasn’t joking, I struggled to figure out how to respond. Now, this would have
been the time to respond, “Get behind me Satan!” But I didn’t. I missed my
chance. Instead, I asked God to help me synthesize all of this into a prayer.
I prayed a good
Episcopalian prayer, “Lord God, giver of life and salvation, grant to your
beloved daughters health, wealth, and prosperity according to your mercy and
most gracious will and may your servants trust that you are doing for them
things far better things than they can desire or pray for through Jesus Christ
our Lord. Amen.”
While I did not flat out deny
her prayer request, I also tried to make it clear that God doesn’t grant us our
prayers according to our will but according to God’s own will. Ultimately, I do
believe in a God who wants his beloved children to be healthy and safe and well
provided for. And I also believe in a God who, through Christ, has given
humanity everything it needs to make this a reality.
But I am also all too
familiar with a world who gets in the way of making this prayer a reality, a
world who sets its mind on human things instead of divine things. I am all too
familiar with a world who is content on satisfying selfish desires, a world who
takes shortcuts whenever it can. Sometimes, without realizing it, these
shortcuts to health, wealth, and prosperity lead us down a road that goes nowhere,
these short cuts lead us down a road to emptiness, these shortcuts are the ways
of Satan.
Like the travelers on the
road to Emmaus, Jesus ventures down this road to nowhere, finds us, and says,
“Take up your cross. Those who want to save their life with lose it and those
who lose their life for my sake will save it.” Jesus is offering a way back, a
way that gets us off this road to nowhere and back on the road to life by way
of the cross.
And because Jesus does
not offer the shortcut Peter and the disciples had hoped for, because Jesus
does not recruit a rebel army to take back Jerusalem from Rome by force,
because Jesus doesn’t promise cushy jobs in a royal tower, Peter rebukes Jesus.
Peter can’t comprehend how the salvation of the Jews can come through one who
will be rejected and killed by the religious authorities. But who can blame
him?
The way of Jesus, the way of the cross doesn’t
make sense according to the human point of view. From the human point of view,
the road Jesus leads us on is filled with detours and potholes. The way of the cross seems foolish to the
human mind as Peter points out in his rebuke of Jesus. But thankfully we don’t
have to rely on the human point of view to get us home.
The way of the cross
shows us a God who does not conform to human desires or expectations. Our God
is not a politician. Our God will endure even the worst kind of evil this world
can muster just to keep his promise to be with us even to the end of the ages.
Our God will not be bribed into a popularity contest for ours is a God whose
commitment to truth is unwavering.
As the reformer, Martin
Luther would say, the human way prefers a theology of glory over a theology of
the cross. The theology of glory seeks fame and fortune and popularity while
the theology of the cross seeks justice and mercy and truth no matter the cost
– even suffering and death. And as Christians, we proclaim the theology of the
cross, we follow the way of justice and mercy and truth, a way forged in the
way of Jesus Christ – the one who is risen from the dead.
Even more, a Christian
takes up her own cross, a Christian pursues the work of justice and mercy and
truth in her own context. For a few, taking up the cross means a career change,
it means being a missionary or becoming an ordained person. For others, taking
up the cross means giving up a life of fortune to work for a non-profit. For
some, taking up the cross means giving up time to volunteer in the community.
But for most, taking up
the cross simply means being attentive to the need the suffering servant in our
midst. Our obedience to God in the way of Jesus means offering mercy when the
world is ready to condemn. Our obedience to God in the way of Jesus means
speaking against an injustice when we see it take place. Our obedience to God
in the way of Jesus means proclaiming truth when lies threaten to lead people
from the ways of God.
In our Bible study on
Tuesday, I asked the class, “What have you had to give up in order to be a
follower of Jesus?” Someone said, “I’ve had to give up a lot of my time.”
Another said, “I’ve had to sacrifice going on vacation.” I said, somewhat
jokingly, “a career on the PGA tour.” These are all relatively minor as they
relate to the price Jesus paid and the price many have paid to remain obedient
to the way of the cross.
However, our faith
demands you ask that question, “What do I have to give up in order to be a
follower of Jesus?” And like someone in our Bible study said and like Jesus
himself said, when we give something up to follow Jesus, we learn that we
aren’t giving up anything at all. Instead, we are gaining everything. We are
gaining the world Jesus died for us to see and be a part of. Those
who lose their life for my sake will save it.
The truth of the gospel,
the truth of salvation is truly a paradox. Instead of following our own
desires, we are called to follow the desires of God. But that doesn’t mean we
are called to be miserable. Rather, in my experience, following the desires of
God reveal to us that God’s ways really are better than our ways. Following the desires of God give us a joy
and an inner peace that human ways can never manufacture.
In my experience, doing
the things God desires are actually the things we ourselves desire deep down in
our soul for God made us in God’s image. Doing the things God desires help us
let go of our human desires because when we grow in the way of God, we die to
the insatiable need to find fulfillment in human wants and desires, in human
things. For in the end, what will it profit you to gain the whole world and
forfeit the life God prepares for you in Christ Jesus? Amen.
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