Sermon: The Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost, 2011
August 28, 2011
Text: Matthew 16:21-28
In today’s Gospel reading, Jesus told his disciples that it was necessary for him to suffer and be killed. You notice, that that little revelation did not go over very well with Peter. He said, “Never, Lord! This shall never happen to you!” You see, Peter had plans for Jesus. He had a mental image of what the life of a disciple of Jesus should be like and it did not include being arrested or killed.
Look at this from Peter’s point of view. He, as well as the others, made huge sacrifices to follow Jesus. They’d essentially all quit their jobs and left their homes and extended families.
So I can certainly understand Peter’s reaction when Jesus told them that these terrible things were going to happen to Him. Peter would have been thinking, “I didn’t give up everything just so you can get yourself killed. I’ve got too much invested in this, just for it all to go to pieces.”
The suffering of Jesus is always a little hard to accept. Peter didn’t like Jesus talking about the cross because it didn’t fit with his idea of what the Messiah should be about. Peter would have been willing to sacrifice everything, as long as he thought the payoff would be worth it. We are the same way. I’d be willing to sacrifice your right arm – if I believed the benefit would be great enough.
But the Lord rebukes Peter as harshly as He does because we need to understand that dying is precisely what Jesus is all about. He came to seek and save the lost and he does that precisely by dying for the sins of the world.
And Jesus did not stop there either. Even if he would have gone so far as to say that He would die to save the world, as crude and off-putting as that is to us, we could still have adjusted to that. But Jesus did not stop there. Not only does Jesus need to suffer and die, but we too have to carry a cross.
When Jesus talks about us taking up our cross and following Him, it’s a statement of fact, that as you follow Jesus, the same world that hated and rejected Jesus, will hate and reject you. The more you resemble Jesus, the more the world will want to spit on you, even as it spat at him.
The bottom line is that all that other stuff is fleeting. Jobs, house, friends, family, reputation. What good does it do any of you to gain possession of the whole world, if you are at odds with your Creator? You can have all the money and toys in the world and taste every imaginable pleasure of the flesh, but if you do not have Jesus Christ, you are the poorest of men. And conversely, you can be the lowest, most worthless, insect of a man in the eyes of the world, but if you have Jesus Christ, you are a diamond, a star, a super nova. He who has Christ, though he has nothing else, is the richest man alive.
According to a recent poll, only 52% of Americans are satisfied with God’s job performance. About 10% actually disapprove of God and the rest, apparently, are somewhere in between. Aside from the fact that it is absurd for us to judge the Deity, why do you think it is that people are either “unsatisfied” with God or ambivalent? I think a lot of it boils down to expectations. People expect things from God which He has never promised to do.
Passages like today’s Gospel lesson often catch people by surprise. They don’t expect Jesus to say such things. They expect him to always be mister nice guy. Always smiling and making people feel better. So they come to church with a plastic smile on their face hoping to be made to feel better. And then, when home they go, the bills are still there, the kids are still rebellious, they’re still sick, and they’re still unhappy.
It’s pretty hard to come here and praise the Lord when it feels as if the world is stomping on your heart. It’s hard to come out of your shell on Sunday and put on your “praise the Lord clothes” and wear your “praise the Lord smile” when your insides are hollowed out by the problems of Monday through Saturday.
I think all of understand that the goal of being a disciple or follower of Jesus is not that your problems will disappear quickly and easily. The goal of being a disciple of Jesus is to have oneness with Him. Oneness with His cross. Oneness with His death. And ultimately, oneness with his resurrection. That’s why Jesus says, “Follow me.”
In your opinion, right now, what exactly are the benefits to being a Christian? Let’s do a little cost-benefit analysis. Are you willing to give up all your possessions to follow Christ? Are you willing to lose your family? Are you willing to lose all your friends? Are you willing to lose your health to follow Jesus? Are you willing to lose your life? Why or why not? What exactly does Jesus offer you that’s so valuable, even more valuable than your earthly life? You may just need to lose everything before you can gain the one thing you truly need.
In other words, what are you hoping to get out of this whole thing? When people turn to religion, it is often for the wrong reason. They may say they believe in God, but they don’t really want to have a relationship with Him. Because that might mean they’ll have to do something they don’t want to do, or stop doing something they like. They don’t want to commit. They just want Him to be there for them when they have a problem or need a really big favor. People are OK with Jesus, as long as He keeps His distance and doesn’t make any demands on our lives. Jesus then becomes just a hippy prophet talking about peace and love.
It’s easy to be a follower of Jesus Christ when He says things that we like to hear. Just like it’s easy to be thankful to God when all things are going well. But it’s not always like that.
If people want to rate God on His job performance, what would happen if God rated us? What would your job approval rating be in terms of being a parent, being a husband or wife, or being an obedient child? Have you loved your neighbor as yourselves? Do you have room to improve? All of us fall short of God’s standard for us. But my final note to you is this, though Christ calls us to live lives of service, our life is not dependant on how well we perform. Our life comes from the perfect life of Jesus and His death on the cross. In Jesus’ name. Amen.