Sermon for Pentecost 16/Proper 19, Year B
St. Philips In The Hills Parish, Tucson, AZ
Vicki Hesse, September 16, 2012
Mark 8:27-38
27Jesus went on with his disciples to the
villages of Caesarea Philippi; and on the way he asked his disciples,
“Who do people say that I am?”
28And they answered him, “John the Baptist; and others, Elijah; and still others, one of the prophets.”
29He asked them, “But who do you say that I am?” Peter answered him, “You are the Messiah.”
30And he sternly ordered them not to tell anyone about him.
31Then 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.
32He said all this quite openly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him.
33But 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.”
34He called the crowd with his disciples,
and said to them, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny
themselves and take up their cross and follow me.
35For 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.
36For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life?
37Indeed, what can they give in return for their life?
38Those 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.”
I speak to you in
the name of one God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. + Amen
Jesus asked them, “But
who do YOU say that I am?”
When I thought about that
question, I remembered a story
that I heard about two
friends, Marion and Sandra.
They were school friends
who met on the street one day.
Marion had recently lost her husband, David.
They had been married for
about 34 years,
he had had a heart attack
and he had died.
About 10 days after he
had died, Marion
met Sandra along the street.
Sandra was not a close
friend but one who was very warm to Marion;
they had seen each other occasionally.
When they met, Sandra was
filled with remorse because
she had not contacted Marion when she saw
David’s obituary.
Sandra was highly
apologetic,
“I should have phoned
you, I should have come to see you, and
I don’t know why, but I
just want to say, I’m sorry, Marion.”
Marion said, “That’s alright, Sandra.
You know, when people
die, not everyone knows
what to say to those who
are bereft,
so please don’t feel
embarrassed about that…
it was a very sudden
death. We had not anticipated it.
He had had a massive
coronary and it turns out that
if he had lived, he would
have had a very restricted existence.
So, because he was such a
lively man,
maybe in a way that this
is a blessing.
We’ve been upheld by the
prayers of the church and
by the people who have
come to see us and
we’ll just have to go
through the grieving, you can’t go around it.”
Then Marion asked, “How about you, Sandra?”
Sandra said, “Oh,
everyone’s fine, Marion,
fine, yeah, fine,
all except my father.”
“Oh?” Marion said, “What’s up with your father?”
Sandra said, “Well, he,
um, died about 8-9 months ago.”
“Oh!” Marion said, “I never saw the notice of your
father’s death
in the newspaper.”
Sandra said, “No, we
never put it in – but he died a peaceful death,
he was about 85 and his
time was up and he went gladly.”
Then Sandra asked, “Do
you remember my father, Marion?”
Marion said, “ Of course I remember your father…
I remember when I would
walk down King Street
(a main street in the
town) and
I would look into the
butcher shop at the cross roads and
there would be your
father, when he worked in the shop,
with his pork-pie hat on
and a blue and white stripped apron
and his sleeves rolled up
and his arms up to the elbows in
mincemeat or kidney or
liver or whatever he was working on.
Oh! in fact, I can
remember your father
more easily that I can
remember my husband David.”
Now here is an odd thing
–
a woman’s husband has
died 10 days earlier and
she can remember another
woman’s father
more easily than she can
remember her own husband.
If we had time we could
discuss why that might have been the case
and might come up with
any number of possibilities –
a guilt associated with
the death,
unfinished business,
perhaps an argument, or
some reason of a block.
This is actually a more
common phenomenon
than we like to admit.
Sometimes when people die,
we cannot remember them.
Perhaps the reason was
because Sandra’s father was a man
that Marion only knew as the butcher on King Street.
She looked through, as it
were, a frame and
saw him at his work.
She had never seen him
fishing.
She had never seen him
bowling.
She had never seen him in
his Masonic Apron
(probably his wife had
never seen him in his Masonic Apron, either!).
She had never seen him on
vacation,
she had only seen him as
this man who worked in a butcher shop.
Now David, her husband,
she’d seen him in many guises.
She’d seen him in his
army suit.
She’d seen him in his
gardening suit because that was his first job.
She’d seen him in his
wedding suit,
she’d seen him in his
birthday suit,
she’d seen him when he
was in deep grief, as when
his younger brother, Tom,
died of pneumonia at age 14.
She’d seen him delighted
as when it was announced to him
that he had become the
father of twin boys.
She’d seen him in so many
guises – so what could she focus on?
Sometimes we imagine that
the people we know well
are actually the people
we know only in one context.
See, the people I know
best and that you know best
are those who will have
seen us at work and at play
and in different
situations –
angry,
or full of fun,
puzzled or
full of joy.
And when we see people in
a numerous ways, then,
we can say that we know
people well.
This is how God knows us
and relates to us.
God, through Jesus, has
chosen to relate to us person to person,
not as distant, far off
objects.
And we will have a fuller
understanding
of the one who calls us
“friend” if we have in our mind –
and in our experience –
a range of pictures or
images or characteristics of that one,
from which we can draw to
seek and serve the Christ in one another.
1
In today’s gospel, Jesus
asked his disciples,
“Who do people say that I
am?”
and they answered him, with
single-frame personalities –
“John the Baptist,
Elijah, one of the prophets.”
Jesus re-asked, “but who
do YOU say that I am?”
and Peter answered, “You
are the Messiah.”
When Jesus taught them the
Son of Man
must suffer, be rejected,
be killed and
after three days, will
rise again – then,
Jesus expanded the frame
of who he was.
Peter reacted by rebuking
Jesus;
this was not the Jesus he
thought he knew so well.
Jesus reacted by rebuking
Peter;
he was not accepting this
expansive frame.
Jesus said, “You are
setting your mind not
on divine things but on
human things.”
Jesus rejected Peter’s control,
Peter’s single-minded
context of who Jesus was.
Jesus expanded the frame
of who he was and
who the disciples
were, too.
Jesus explained that
to be a disciple of his meant
this:
“if any want to become my
followers
let them deny themselves,
take up their cross and follow me.”
Jesus set his mind on
divine things and
saw the disciples in an
expansive frame,
that they were called to
“take up their cross”
for the cause of God’s
kingdom.
2
Perhaps we can see ourselves
in this scene.
Perhaps we know Jesus as
the one who
shares communion with us
every Sunday
but if we meet Jesus on
Monday,
at the corner of River
and Campbell
begging for food or money,
we don’t know what to
say.
We want to rebuke that Jesus –
we have set our mind not
on divine things but on human things.
Perhaps we know Jesus as
the one who
holds a sheep with a
gentle smile,
but when we hear about
the Jesus who speaks truth to power
by saying, “get behind
me, Satan!”
we cringe, close our ears
and don’t know what to say.
This is not the Jesus who
fits into a nice, neat frame.
Like Marion who knew Sandra’s father just as the “butcher”
with the pork-pie hat and
striped apron,
we sometimes see Jesus
only in one frame –
as the one “up there,”
the one distant from us.
Or is he only that?
3
In today’s gospel,
Jesus told the disciples
about
God’s faithfulness to
redeem all of creation.
He told them what it
meant that he was the Messiah.
He refused to be
boxed-in.
He told them how it was
necessary
to be rejected, to die
and that then he will rise again.
Jesus told them that through
him, all of humanity –
even those in the
isolated region of Caesarea Philippi –
all of humanity, will be redeemed – that is,
liberated, healed and saved
–
that all of humanity will
know God’s love.
In the question, “But who do YOU say that I am?”
Jesus freely invited his
disciples to expand their frame –
to follow him in the same
manner,
to have their own
experience of God’s gracious love.
God, through Jesus,
revealed a
deep, vulnerable, and
intimate everlasting love
for all of humanity.
4
In this question, “But who do YOU say that I am?”
Jesus freely invites us
to expand our frame and
to follow him in the same
manner,
to have our own
experience of God’s gracious love.
In this question, Jesus invites
us to “set our mind… on divine things.”
In this question, Jesus
reveals God’s steadfast love of you and of me.
Jesus expands the frame
of who we are, as his disciples, too.
Each time we look deeply
into the eyes of our sisters and brothers;
each time we suffer, are
rejected and some part of us dies;
each time we share ourselves
deeply;
we increase our capacity
to know who Jesus is -
We broaden the frame of
Jesus and of ourselves.
We are transformed when we
follow as a disciple
in the footsteps of the one who calls us friend.
And each time, we can
recognize
how God is alive and
faithful and present with us in
our own suffering, our sacrifices
and our deaths.
This is where Jesus
reveals, again,
God’s unwavering love for
us and
is already resurrecting
new hope in our lives.
Jesus asks me, today, and you, today, “Who do YOU say that I am?”
When you answer this
question,
know that you are a
disciple of him who refuses to be boxed in,
who offered himself to
God’s will and
who reveals God’s deep,
abiding love.
When you answer this
question, think of who God says that you are:
Loved.
Know you are loved.
Amen
