Sermon for the 15th Sunday after Pentecost
Proper 19 B  Lectionary 24 B
September 13, 2009
Texts:  Isaiah 50:4-9a; Psalm 116:1-9; James 3:1-12; Mark 8:27-38

Think back to a time in school
When you were being quizzed by the teacher,
Not one of those written quizzes,
Where you could hide,
But one of those times when the teacher was asking questions aloud
And she picked on you. 

Your heart started beating,
Your palms were sweating.
Would you know the answer,
Or would you look like a fool
In front of the whole class?

She asked a tough question,
You could hear the collective sigh
From the class members,
Glad that she had not asked them.

If, by some miracle,
You could answer the question
You were the class hero,
Partly because you spared someone else the embarrassment of failure.

But, on the other hand,
If the question sounded like it came from some other course,
And you didn’t have a clue as to how to answer it,
You wanted to crawl under your desk. 

John and I had many an experience like this
In our high school German classes.
Where we had a teacher who used drill sergeant techniques.

In this class, we lived in fear of being called on
And not knowing the answer,
Or even worse, giving the wrong answer.

The public humiliation
Was more than most high school students could bear.
This fear of being embarrassed was a good motivator
For making sure that you did the homework.

Because I had a great fear
Of teacher disapproval and class scorn,
I developed the technique
Of volunteering for questions that I knew the answer to.

This was a strategy designed
With the hope that it would help me avoid being called on later,
For some question that I didn’t know the answer to.

The downside to this technique
Was that I looked like the class goody two shoes.
No one seemed to understand
That I was merely exercising a survival technique.

Despite my strategies
I know that there were some days
Where I went from being the class hero
For answering some difficult question,
To being totally humiliated
When I couldn’t find the right German word,
Or I conjugated the verb incorrectly.

I’ll bet that you can remember some similar school experience
When you were on a high for one moment
And in the next second,
You were in the class doghouse.

In this morning’s Gospel
Peter experiences that same kind of high
Followed by a low, that was so embarrassing,
That you have to wonder
If he perhaps went off and hid for a couple of days.

Before we meet Peter in this morning’s Gospel
The disciples had accompanied Jesus
On a couple of his miracle trips. 
There had been the healing of the deaf mute
And the feeding of the 4000 in Tyre,
And the healing of the blind man in Bethsaida.

Now they are in Caesarea Philippi,
Out in a place where the worship of the Roman emperors
Was the usual religious practice.

And Jesus poses the first exam question to the disciples.

This first one is easy,
Because it only asks what other people are thinking.

Jesus asks the disciples,
Who do THEY say that I am?

The disciples are able to give all kinds of answers,
Ranging from Elijah (who was thought to be the pre-cursor to the Messiah)
To a resurrected John the Baptist,
Whom  some people thought was Elijah come again.

But then Jesus asks the really hard question,
Who do YOU think that I am?

And Peter, the bumbling disciple,
Who can’t seem to get out of his own way
Remarkably responds
“You are the Messiah,”
Or as we are used to hearing this
“You are the Christ”.

Peter gets an “A”
He is the hero!!
The other disciples look at him in awe,
And wonder how he knew that.

But then somewhat surprisingly
Jesus tells Peter not to tell anyone.

Think about it---
Peter has this great insight,
But he is not allowed to share it with anyone!

But then it gets even worse.

Jesus tells the disciples
That he is going to suffer and die.

Peter, who can’t bear the thought of Jesus’ death
Grabs him and yells at him.

At this point, Jesus grabs Peter back,
And says to him
Get behind me Satan.

In just a few moments,
Peter goes from being the insightful disciple,
The disciple with an A,
Who knows that Jesus is the Messiah,
To being Satan.

Peter fails the exam.
He misses the high point score question.
What a devastating fall!

Peter recognized that Jesus was the Messiah
But he hoped for something different,
Because his definition of Messiah did include Jesus’ death.

Peter was looking for glory,
And Jesus was talking about suffering.

You can tell from Peter’s response
That he really didn’t have a clue
As to what following Jesus was going to mean. 

And we don’t know from Peter’s reaction
If he was upset about Jesus predicting his own death,
Or if Peter was concerned about what it meant for Jesus’ followers.

Now stop for a moment and ponder,
How about us,
“Who do we think Jesus is?”

What do we think “they” say about today’s followers of Jesus?

There are those today who think of Christians,
As merciful and often as a source of help.
Just ask the desperate people
Who call the church,
Looking for food or help with rent.

Then there are the people
Who think that Christians
Are just holdovers from antiquity
Who have no clue how to live
In a post modern multi-cultural world.

Then there are the people
Who think that Christians
Are the source of the world’s problems.

How does living among people
With this range of opinions
Affect your own view
About what it means to follow Christ,
And about who you think Jesus is.

For you, is he merely a good man,
Sent by God to be
A role model for you in good living.

Or in faith,
Are you able to believe
What you confess weekly
In the Apostles’ Creed:
That Jesus is the Son of God,
Both human and divine?

What does Jesus’ being the Son of God mean for your own life?

What does it mean for your life
That Jesus did indeed suffer and die for you.

Even today, following Jesus does not mean a life of ease and comforts,
Free from hurts, pain, or suffering.
Does that reality conflict with your hopes and dreams?

Jesus does not call us to follow in the ways of the world.
For instances, the world tells us take care of ourselves first.
Jesus tells us to care of others first.

The world tells us to acquire, acquire, acquire.
Jesus says, If you gain the whole world, but lose your soul
What will you use to buy back your soul?

Does the discord between what Jesus calls you to do confuse or embarrass you,
As you try to live life in 21st century America.

If so, your confusion is, in a sense,
An echo of the discord that Peter felt
On hearing Jesus’ words about what was going to happen to him.

Although in this 21st century,
We are the beneficiaries of science, technology and improved health care,
In many ways we share Peter’s confusion and discomfort.
With the path that Jesus calls us to.
I think the Good News for us is that although Jesus rebuked Peter,
He didn’t abandon him.
In the next couple of verses of the Gospel of Mark,
We find Peter up on the Mount of Transfiguration with Jesus,
Witnessing yet another miracle,
God’s acknowledging of Jesus as his son.

And in the Gospel of John,
We hear, how Jesus, after his resurrection,
Showed enough love for Peter
To commission him to care for Jesus’ flock of followers.

Peter could stumble and fail,
But Jesus stuck with him.

Likewise, even when we are uncertain as to the details of Jesus’ identity,
And it what it means for us to be a Christian,
Jesus sticks with us.

Unlike my German class, or your school exam,
We don’t have to get it perfectly right.

Jesus’ expectation for you is that you believe,
And that you keep listening to God’s Word
And struggling with the meaning of who Jesus is,
And what it means to be a follower in our time.

Jesus calls you to follow,
To follow his ways even when they go against our cultural norms.

Yet following Jesus also means that there is grace and forgiveness.
God sent Jesus, as the Divine One, because perfection is not achievable by humans.

You are called to pray and reflect on Jesus’ question,
“Who do they say that I am?”
And the question for your own life.
“What does it mean for me to be a Christian in this time and place?”

You are not called to be perfect,
But rather to live a life marked by the cross.
The cross placed on your head in baptism.

Living that life is your response to Jesus’ call
Pick up your cross and follow him.