Mt 16:24-26
"If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. 25 For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it. 26 What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul?
Intro:
You are a kid. A young kid. It is winter. Snow blankets the playground… you are at school. It is cold out and you are all wrapped up in layers of coats, mittens, scarves. One of the kids from a grade or two above yours, one of the cool kids, comes and dares you to stick your tongue on one of the metal bars of the jungle gym.
Ever happen to anybody?
What did you do?
I’m not exactly sure why I thought of the time I got my tongue stuck to the jungle-gym bar, except that the first thing that jumps out at me in today’s reading is Jesus question, ‘what good will it be for someone to gain the whole world and yet forfeit the soul.
There is something troubling about that word…. Forfeit…
There will be consequences.
I’m sure I’ve suffered more troubling consequences in my life than getting my tongue stuck to the metal bar… but that is what I thought of…
And I got that strangely funny and frightening image of God leaving me stuck to the pole for all eternity.
Context:
This is the end of a story that is all about consequences though.
As uncomfortable as consequences are… I suppose we’ve got to deal with them.
Just a few verses back, Jesus will ask the disciples, who do you say I am? (A question we will revisit in a couple of weeks). Peter says, ‘the Messiah’ and Jesus praises him.
Then Jesus begins to describe the consequences of being the messiah… he will be crucified and Peter gets… afraid? I think Peter is afraid. And he chastises Jesus, tells him not to talk like that.
Peter doesn’t like the consequences, not for Jesus, not for himself.
You see we often think that Peter chastises Jesus because he doesn’t get it…
Because he mis-understands what the Messiah will have to go through
But I think Peter does get it… and doesn’t want to hear it…
He understands that if the Messiah must sacrifice and suffer,
So must the disciples…
And those are not the consequences of following Jesus
That Peter wants.
And he is right…
Right after that exchange Jesus launches into the challenging verses we read today…
Lay down your life, take up your cross…
Those are the consequences of following me, getting behind me…
Have you got my back? Jesus asks?
This is what having my back means; following me, going where I go
But not just going where I go, among the sick and the poor, the abused and forgotten
And then to the cruel and powerful who put them there…
But doing what I do,
Helping the poor and expendable,
And confronting the powerful, show them a new way
Challenge them to live a new kind of life
If you don’t, there will be consequences…
You think that by not following me,
Or by creating distance between us that you are
Making your life easier,
But you’re not
You are losing your life.
This is the uncomfortable assumption behind the question, what will it benefit a man if he gains the world and forfeits his soul… the assumption is that there are consequences to not following Christ.
Jesus really focuses our attention on the 1,000 pound gorilla in the room.
Does faith really matter, does devotion to Christ and his church really matter, ultimately?
‘The important distinction between the objectives of highly devoted Christian teenagers and their peers was simply that highly devoted Christian teenagers did not think about their actions or their futures simply in terms of what they wanted. They considered themselves morally bound to contribute to God’s purpose in the world. ‘ Kenda Creasy Dean
It is uncomfortable because we all have friends, loved ones, family members, perhaps even spouses, who do not have faith,
Or, if they do have faith,
Their faith is like the proverbial treadmill in the TV room.
It just sits there, without getting used for its intended purpose…
Nobody runs on it, its just a clothes hanger
And Jesus is saying, here,
And in many other places, that I have included in your devotions for this week
Jesus is saying that this is not really faith at all
And there will be consequences
And I don’t know about you, but I don’t find that comfortable.
Because my friends and relatives are good folks
And it makes me sad to think that they are risking consequences.
Even if we don’t want to go down the path of eternal damnation as the consequence,
We are still left with the suggestion that life lived without a relationship with God is
A wasted life… that the potential that we were created with lies wasted, unused
That we did not become all we could have become
Accomplished all that we could have accomplished
The consequence is that those who do not
Passionately foster their faith relationship
Are a mere shadow of the self they could have been
Through Christ.
And if we take Paul’s theology seriously,
Paul’s theology that suggests that the church is a diverse body, with different
Parts depending on one another,
If one part, one person, does not reach potential,
The rest suffer.
It isn’t so much about personal consequences…
It doesn’t simply affect me if I do not allow Christ to grow in me
It affects you, all of you,
It affects the church
And if the church is affected,
So is to is the world which waits for our witness
A witness that does not reach its full power
Because we have not followed Christ, picked up a cross…
The other evening Bert and I watched this show, Clean House.
It is basically is lighter version of Hoarders.
Hoarders is a show that documents the lives of people who cannot part with their belongings, to the point that it affects their health, they have no room at all in their homes, which are full of stuff.
Clean House is basically the same thing. A team of folks come in to help the person or family clean out all the clutter, and then give them a re-decoration.
In one episode, as the guests were trying to get a woman to get rid of some of her stuff,
She absolutely had a melt-down. Most do have a melt-down.
They cannot part with their stuff.
Anyway, she said to the host, ‘I thought you were coming to help me, not make me get rid of the things I love.’
And I thought, that is Peter.
When Peter chastises Jesus for the challenge of the cross,
The challenge for the disciples to put aside the idea of gaining,
And pick up a cross…
Peter is saying, I thought you were coming to help me, not make me get rid of the things I love.
And perhaps, just perhaps,
That is what Jesus question, What is the benefit of gaining the world if we forfeit our souls
Perhaps that is the moment of realization that Jesus is pushing us toward…
That we have to put aside some of the things we love, in order to pick up the cross…
Just because the woman loves the stuff, doesn’t mean it is good for her…
It was ruining her marriage, having negative consequences on her children…
This question of Jesus challenges a church that is so focused on self-help and self-esteem that it has lost its true mission, which is to see God's purpose done in the world
This Question of Jesus challenges a discipleship that is assumes it already knows the right answers to the doctrinal questions, but is not put into action in any intentional way
This Question of jesus challenges the church that is satisfied with 'be good' and
be nice' with a much more challenging goal, to accept the way of the cross.
These words of Jesus challenge a discipleship that treats the church as ok when it is convenient, but not all that important, not something to sacrifice for,
with a warning of the consequences of an apathetic faith,
the loss of life.
Perhaps that is what Jesus has the guts to show us…
That we need to make space for the cross
To put down some things we love, clean up the clutter
Give up the things that get in the way of fostering faith
Get rid of the barriers that are blocking us from our cross
In order to pick it up and follow
For it is only in the following Christ, all the way, that we will
Ever grow into the person we were created to be.
And it is only in the journey of becoming who were are meant to be
That Berean becomes the church god intended it to be
A church that welcomes the wandering to dine at Christ’s table,
Live in God’s Kingdom, and find a path with a purpose, the path Christ
Chose, the path of the cross
Renowned preacher, theology professor and storyteller Fred Craddock swears this happened to him: He was visiting in a home of one of his former students after graduation, and after a great dinner, the young parents excused themselves and hustled the kids off to bed, leaving Fred in the living room with the family pet-a large, sleek greyhound. Earlier in the evening Fred had watched the kids roll on the floor playing with the family dog.
"That's a full-blooded greyhound there," the father of the kids had told Fred. "He once raced professionally down in Florida. Then we got him. Great dog with the kids, that greyhound."
Well, sitting there with the dog, the dog turned to Fred and asked, "This your first visit to Connecticut?"
"No," Fred answered. "I went to school up here a long time ago."
"Well, I guess you heard. I came up here from Miami," said the greyhound.
"Oh, yeah, you retired?" Fred said.
"No, is that what they told you? No, no, I didn't retire. I tell you, I spent 10 years as a professional, racing greyhound. That means 10 years of running around that track day after day, seven days a week with others chasing that rabbit. Well, one day, I got up close; I got a good look at that rabbit. It was a fake! I had spent my whole life chasing a fake rabbit! Hey, I didn't retire; I quit!"
(found this Craddock quote in a William Willimon Sermon, but I forget which one)
Today, Jesus invites us to quit chasing fake rabbits
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