This sermon is based on Mark 8:31-38 (Year B, Lent 2) and the story “It Will Be Okay” by Lysa TerKeurst, prepared for Two Rivers Pastoral Chare in NB.
Scripture
31 Then he began to teach them that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes and be killed and after three days rise again. 32 He said all this quite openly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. 33 But turning and looking at his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, “Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”
34 He called the crowd with his disciples and said to them, “If any wish to come after me, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. 35 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. 36 For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life? 37 Indeed, what can they give in return for their life? 38 Those who are ashamed of me and of 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 8:31-38 NRSVUE
Transcript
Little Fox was scared and lonely.
Little Seed did not want anything to change.
Who are you in this story? Little Fox or Little Seed?
Peter, I think, is just like Little Fox.
You see, things are scary in Judea. The country is occupied by a powerful foreign army. They tax the people and control the local government. They cast a long shadow over Israel, and Peter is right to be afraid.
Peter doesn’t want to hear about the Son of Man, the Messiah, falling at the hands of this power! Where is God’s promise? Where is Israel’s triumph? This can’t be, can it?
But Jesus looks at Peter and sees the Tempter in the wilderness, offering him earthly power over the nations. And Jesus silences Peter, “You’re not looking in the right place!” he says.
***
Now, here are others, others like Little Seed who don’t want the world to change because it is comfortable the way it is. Or, if not comfortable at least familiar.
The scribes and chief priests, the wealthy and the powerful. Why would they want things to change? They’ve found a balance of power with Rome, haven’t they? And who is this Jesus fella from that little backwater town wandering around spreading his rebellious teachings?
We can’t have that! He’s going to mess everything up.
But here is where our two stories diverge. Little Fox and Little Seed might be afraid, might not want to change, but they go to the messy dark place — to the lonely place. They, with trepidation, believe in the Farmer’s goodness and allow transformation to take place.
If any wish to come after me, 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.
It is in embracing the messy and terrifying recreation – or resurrection – that both Little Fox and Little Seed experience new life. A more abundant life than they even imagined for themselves.
Sometimes God accompanies us into the messy dark places of transformation – where life as we know it is utterly changed – we are not the same, we are not recognizable.
In that messy dark place, there are those, like Peter, who reject us. Who are infuriated that our transformation looks so different than how they would imagine us to be.
In that messy dark place, there are those, like the scribes and chief priests, who would mock and hurt us. Because we risk the vulnerable act of growth.
And, while in that messy dark place, there are those like Little Fox who accompany us. Who whisper gentle words to us. Who offer us the ministry of their presence—not knowing what is coming but that but the best thing we can offer a friend is a reminder that they are not alone.
***
To take up our cross, to take up the Jesus Way, is no easy thing.
I could preach to you a self-help sermon about all the good stuff that’s coming your way if you’re just willing to trade earthly things for sacred stuff.
But I think you could hear how hollow that sermon would be.
Following after Jesus is hard work.
Trusting that the Farmer is good, and the Farmer is kind, and the Farmer is always watching over us, is hard.
Breaking out of our seed and sprouting new life is hard.
And, yet.
And, yet, we choose the hard Way of Jesus. We choose to give up what we know and what is comfortable for transformation.
My daughter is four. At night sometimes she cries, and I go and sit on her bed and she tells me how her legs are aching. Growing pains. I sit with her, I rub her sore limbs, and I tell her “It will be okay.”
Our bodies, our souls, our very selves know the path of life abundant. We want to grow.
Even though it’s hard.
Even though it’s messy.
Even though it’s terrifying at times.
***
This week, may you feel those growing pains. Let them be a sign of your courage, of your willingness, your trust in God to make new in your body her kin-dom.
And, may you be for one another, a friend for that lonely messy place of recreation.
So that all might know, in the midst of their faith journey, that we are not alone. Thanks be to God. Amen.
