I had kind of a funny, contradictory experience this week as I was pondering the sermon for this morning. On Wednesday, I was invited to speak at the Lenten Lunch series at Second Missionary Baptist church. The topic for the series this year is “Living the Abundant Life through Christ.” So I spent much of the beginning of the week pondering what it means to live abundantly, and what kind of life does Christ want for us. However, alongside of that, I was also immersed in my normal sermon prep for this morning, which involved spending the week reflecting on this Gospel text from Mark, where Jesus rebukes Peter and tells him that those who want to become followers of Jesus must deny themselves, take up their cross, and follow. I don’t know about you, but Jesus injunction about denial and cross-bearing didn’t seem to have much to do with abundance.
Lent itself, truthfully, does not conjure up for me images of abundance. When I think of Lent, I think more about denial. Oftentimes in Lent we give up something, like chocolate or soda pop or playing Candy Crush on Facebook. The idea being that God wants us to practice self-denial, that giving up something helps us focus more fully on God, achieve a greater level of spiritual disciple. And in theory there’s wisdom in this. The early church often practiced asceticism as a means of drawing one’s attention closer to God. But in practice, or at least in practice in my life, this discipline of giving something up for Lent often becomes less about God and more about a second attempt at whatever New Year’s resolution I had that bottomed out by the third of January. There is temptation for me to turn the season of Lent into a six week long self-improvement endeavor couched in the language of spirituality. Like I need to be healthier, so I’m giving up chocolate for Jesus, despite the fact that the Bible says nothing at all about chocolate, as it didn’t exist in First Century Palestine. Lent then runs the risk of either becoming a chance to feel great about myself, “look how good I am at not eating chocolate, I’m super great, Jesus must really be proud of me,” or another opportunity to put myself down, “oh man, I gave in to the temptation to check Facebook last night, God must really be mad about me, I am such a failure.” Either way, Lent becomes more about me, about what I’m doing, about who I am, about how I’m being this great person, or not, then it is about Christ, who is the heart of this season of Lent. And it certainly doesn’t feel like abundance.
So I am so grateful to Reverend Wyne for having invited me to speak at their series, and possibly you should be grateful to Reverent Wyne as well, :) because looking at this text through the framework of abundance forced me to look at this text in a different way, to wonder what denying oneself might have to say about the kind of life Christ wants for us.
This reading from Mark comes from chapter eight, which is really a turning point in the Gospel. Up until this point, Jesus disciples had been traveling with Jesus through Galilee, learning all that Jesus had to teach them. They’d heard him teach, seen him heal, cast out demons, forgive sins. So finally, right before this reading, Jesus basically asked the disciples, alright, you’ve seen all this, now, who do you say that I am? And Simon Peter responded, “You are the Messiah.” Which is, of course, the right answer. But then we hear in this passage that Jesus, as he was wont to do, kept talking. And he started talking all about how he was going to undergo great suffering, and be rejected, and be killed, and then rise again. And Peter is like, wait a minute now! Jesus, I don’t know if you’ve noticed this, but we’ve got a bit of a movement going on here, and this talk about dying is really not going to raise moral. Let’s stick with the more helpful teachings, you know, maybe give them some food, or heal them, something like that. Crowds love that.
Jesus response to Peter is sudden and unmistakable, “Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things, but on human things.” For you are setting your mind not on divine things, but on human things. See, Peter knew Jesus was the Messiah. Peter knew that the ministry Jesus was doing was incredibly important and was changing the lives of thousands of people. Which may have been his problem. He got the importance of the work Jesus was doing almost too much. See, Peter was thinking about the movement, he was thinking about the good work Jesus was doing in the world in that moment. He was also, probably, thinking about himself. Thinking about how he, Peter, looked, being associated with this great healer and teacher. I think Peter got caught up in all that Jesus was doing and it caused him to think too small. Even the most noble of Peter’s ambitions for Jesus to do great work in the world were on too small a scale for what Jesus had in mind. Jesus knew that this great work that he was doing on earth, even things as huge as feeding five-thousand people, wouldn’t hold a candle to the vision God had for humanity. Peter was worried about the crowds gathered that day, Jesus was working for every person that ever lived, every person that would ever live. Peter wanted Jesus to stay in the salvation business long enough to get a movement off the ground to overthrow the Roman Empire, Jesus was laying plans to throw the very forces of evil out of power. Peter’s rebuke of Jesus was well-intentioned, but it displayed a faith that didn’t have any concept of just how vast the love of Christ for humanity and the vision that love gave Christ for the world. Jesus wanted more for Peter than Peter even knew to want for himself.
After rebuking Peter, Jesus called the crowd in with his disciples and said, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.” What we see in this passage is that abundant life is all about denial. Jesus is calling Peter and the crowd to deny themselves, because the vision Jesus has for them is bigger than themselves. This denial isn’t about suffering, it isn’t about self-improvement, it isn’t about the self at all. Denial is about setting all of the things that keep your hands full aside so that your life is open to receive the abundance that Christ has for you.
In this story from Mark’s Gospel, Jesus invited Peter, the disciples, the crowd, and us, to deny all the things that are smaller than God’s dreams for us, so that we are free to embrace the abundance God offers. Jesus invited Peter, the disciples, us, to deny all of the things that keep us from God, because God’s vision is so much bigger than we can imagine.
So what does this denial look like? It means that Jesus doesn’t so much care if we give up dessert, but Jesus does want us to be healthy, to get full life out of the good bodies that God gave us. And Jesus does care that we know that our value is determined not by how we look, but by how God sees us. It means that Jesus doesn’t worry about our Candy Crush addiction, but Jesus does care that we have relationships with people that support us, nurture us, and bring us life and joy. Denying ourselves is about Jesus coming in and interrupting all the things that make us that think less of ourselves than who we are, all that gets in the way of us being fully God’s child, all that keeps us from seeing ourselves the way God sees us, as precious, as valued, as Beloved children of God. Jesus calls us to deny ourselves, so that we can be more fully ourselves, more fully immersed in God’s abundant love.
But it’s not enough to just talk about what we need to deny, because Jesus did more than simply ask the disciples to deny themselves, Jesus did more than simply invite the disciples into this new life, Jesus went to the cross to rebuke all that held them captive and demand from the powers of the world that life. Jesus rebuked Peter, and then Jesus went to the cross and rebuked death itself, so that death could not have power over us. And because of what Jesus did at the cross, we know that nothing else can ever have power over us. In the face of death itself, things like Facebook games or food, or even big things like broken relationships or anger or heartache or grief, these things have no power over us, because at the cross Jesus rebuked all the powers of the world so that those powers would have no power over us.
Jesus Christ rebuked Peter because Peter’s understanding of Christ’s mission was keeping Peter captive. Jesus rebuked Peter because Jesus had more for Peter than Peter could imagine for himself. Jesus rebuked Peter so that Peter’s limits couldn’t get in the way of God’s limitless love for Peter. That’s how much Jesus loved Peter, Jesus loves us, that Jesus was not going to waste time when Peter, when we, missed out on the abundance Christ has for us. So no matter what it is that gets in the way of that life, be it death or power or just our own undersized expectations, Jesus will not stop until that power is rebuked. Jesus simply had too much love for Peter, too much vision for Peter, and too much love for us, to let anything get in the way of that love, that vision, that power. Amen.
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