Episcopal Church of the Incarnation

West Point, Mississippi

The Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost [Proper 19B]

Isaiah 50.4-9a Psalm 116.1-8 James 3.1-12 Mark 8.27-38

May the Lord by in my mind, on my lips, and in my heart,

that I may rightly and truly proclaim His Holy Word. Amen.

“But who do you say that I am?” This is the question Jesus asks His disciples, but more importantly, it is the question He asks each one of us. In the gospel account, the disciples–despite the fact that they have now accompanied Jesus throughout His ministry in Galilee, and have witnessed His miracles and received His teaching–still don’t really understand who Jesus is. They try to fit Him into whatever set of their own expectations they think might work. Peter does get it right. He says, “You are the Messiah,” but then makes it clear that he doesn’t understand what this means. Like the crowd in our lesson from last week, who say, when Jesus has healed the deaf and mute man, “He has done all things well [!],” Peter wants to focus on the signs and wonders that accompany the coming of the Christ, and so he takes Jesus aside and says something like, “You need to stop speaking of suffering and rejection, let alone dying. You are here to bring the good news of the redemption of Israel.” And what does Jesus do? He rebukes Peter in language that is strong enough to read, let alone receive: “Get behind me, Satan!”

Which brings us back to that question, “[W]ho do you say that I am?” Let’s put that question in the context of Mark’s telling, before we put it in the context of our own lives. In Mark, this whole lesson is the scene around which the entire story pivots. Up until this point we have heard of Jesus’ ministry of teaching and healing in Galilee, of the call of His disciples, and of His disputes with the Pharisees, but now the arc of the sixteen chapters of Mark changes direction, for Jesus Himself changes direction, and now sets His face toward Jerusalem.

Jerusalem: the holy place of God where Jesus will be betrayed and killed. Jesus says that He will rise again, but Peter and the others seize upon the issues of betrayal and death. Peter’s not listening, or if he is, he’s not paying attention, because if he’s paying attention he’ll realize that when Jesus speaks of rejection He is echoing what Isaiah taught long before, when he described the servant of the Lord as saying, “I did not turn backward. I gave my back to those who struck me, and my cheeks to those who pulled out the beard; I did not hide my face from insult and spitting” (Isaiah 50.6). What the Messiah, the Christ, the Anointed One of God does is not just open the ears of the deaf, loosen the tongues of the mute, make the lame to walk and the blind to see–indeed, raise the dead–but offer Himself for the redemption of His people, for us. And there’s a price. That’s what Jesus is saying; there’s a price, and if we are not prepared to recognize this price than we not working to be part of God’s plan.

Jesus describes the price, and He describes what is to be gained for this price, but note that in referring to those who turn from Him (who are “ashamed” of Him), He refers to “this adulterous and sinful generation” (Mark 8.38). “Sinful,” OK; we’re all sinners. But what about adultery? Why does Jesus seem to focus on one particular sin, one particular commandment? Here’s where we have to remember that Jesus is speaking to disciples for whom Holy Scripture only contains what we now call the Old Testament, and in the Old Testament what is the primary accusation that the Lord makes against Israel? That she has been unfaithful; that Israel has not kept the covenant which the Lord keeps, but has served other “gods”.

Jesus is making the point that if we don’t follow Him, we’re going to follow someone else, and this “someone else” is always by definition an idol, a false “god”. If we worship anything less than God, we worship an idol; we commit adultery against God, and the idol we most often seek to follow is ourselves. Jesus makes this plain when He says, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me” (Mark 8.34). Notice the construction of the sentence: We can’t follow our Lord unless we deny ourselves. We can’t follow our Lord unless we take up our cross (unless we assume the responsibilities of discipleship), by putting God first. That’s what following means–we’re not first.

Jesus describes discipleship in terms of self-denial, and self-denial is the very antithesis of our expectations. Self-sacrifice is also the opposite of what Peter had in mind for the Messiah; that’s why Peter took Jesus aside and rebuked Him for His counter –cultural message of the suffering of the Christ. We don’t like self-sacrifice, because we always define self-sacrifice in terms of a price to be paid. But the price for our redemption has been paid–paid by Jesus on the cross–and it’s this same Lord who in asking us, “Who do you say that I am” asks us to accept salvation, rather than to lose our souls by serving the idol of self.

Lose our souls: You see, the price of our salvation may be paid, but if we reject salvation the bill comes due to us. Look back at your bulletin insert. In the Bible translation we have today Jesus says “... those who want to save their life will lose it ...” (Mark 8.35), but in the Greek original of Mark what Jesus is actually quoted as saying is “... those who want to save their soul will lose it ...” “Life” makes the issue sound like an issue in this world alone. “Soul” makes it clear that what the Lord is talking about is not just how we live in this world, but how we will live in life-everlasting. That puts self-denial in a whole different perspective, doesn’t it? It raises, actually, the question about what Jesus means when He says that we can save or lose our souls.

Jesus makes it clear that we can give nothing whatsoever in return for our soul (Mark 8.37). We cannot buy salvation, and we cannot earn it. Being a “good” person, doing good works will not save us. Following Jesus will. But when we do really follow Jesus, when we place Him first and ourselves last, what do we find? We discover that between Him being first and ourselves last lie the rest of the people of this world. They are less important to us than God, but more important to us than we are ourselves, and when we can see the world through these eyes then we experience a world which is far richer, far more blessed, far more interesting, and far, far greater than whatever little patch of this existence we define and enclose with those short words, “me” and “mine”.

Denying ourselves is not to be equated with hatred of self. Denying ourselves begins with the recognition that we are not here, we are not who we are, and will not be called into life-everlasting by ourselves and by what we do. We may dislike many things about ourselves, and seek to change them with God’s help, but as negative a picture of self as we can be tempted to paint, the picture still contains a unique person, a unique soul created in the image and likeness of God, and for which Jesus died on the cross. “God shows his love for us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us” (Rom. 5.8).

Christ died for us. He turned His face to Jerusalem, knowing that “... the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed ...” (Mark 8.31). So when we are asked the question, “But who do you say that I am?,” let us ever be ready to proclaim, “My Lord; my Lord who I follow, by whom I am redeemed, in whom is true life, both now and ever after. Amen.”

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost; as it was

in the beginning is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.