Who do you say that I am?

Mark 8:27-38
27 Jesus 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?"  28 And they answered him, "John the Baptist; and others, Elijah; and still others, one of the prophets."  29 He asked them, "But who do you say that I am?" Peter answered him, "You are the Messiah."  30 And he sternly ordered them not to tell anyone about him.  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 want to become my followers, 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."

Reflection
Who do people say that I am? Our answer to this probably wouldn't be too different from that of Jesus' disciples back in the day.  Sure, we might say, "Our Muslim neighbors call you a prophet, our atheist neighbors call you a character in a story," etc.  We might even answer Jesus' second question, Who do you say that I am? in Peter's words saying, "You are the Messiah."
But, Messiah has a drastically different connotation for 21st century disciples than it did for those first disciples of Jesus.  For us, Messiah is Jesus.  For us, who have four gospels and a slew of other material regarding the life of Jesus, we know this Jesus to the one who suffered, was rejected, killed, and risen.  We know that his Messiah-ship wasn't about to appeal to those folks who wanted to save themselves, who thought they could right their own sins against God and neighbor.  Peter's perspective must have been different than ours.  He clearly didn't know that Jesus would suffer because Jesus has to tell him what's coming.  He clearly didn't know that he couldn't save his own life, Jesus has to tell him.

We are lucky to have a perspective different than Jesus' first disciples.

We come at this world, knowing that Jesus has suffered for us.  Then again, we also come at it being told, If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. This is a big cost of discipleship... This is something Peter probably understood better than we do.  The cross was a real instrument of suffering and death for these people. It was gruesome (if you can't picture it, watch the last bit of Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ, I can't imagine the cross was more glorious than that).  The cross was a real threat for the disciples if they followed Jesus as he overturned the rulers' concept of a Messiah.  Our "crosses" are different.

Some people might think we're weird for praying.  Some people might call us (or at least think we are) weak for laying our burdens down for God to pick up.  These are kind of general things which I've heard Christians (of varied denominations) claim as crosses in today's world.

What's harder (for me) than those things, though, is getting past this re-emerging notion that Christianity is about prosperity.  This notion that it is about glitz and glam.

Because I'm working a part-time-job (finally, yay!), I still get to catch some morning TV.  The channels that the antennae (yep, those exist in flat-screens) could get in yesterday were a Christian channel and a Spanish channel.  I opted for the Christian one, so I could understand it.  Boy, that was a mistake.  Between programs which had some shoddy theology (by that, I mean programs in which I was told that in order to be loved by God I had to do something...that's wrong), there was an offer.  I could go on a trip to the Holy Land--for under $4,000!  This trip included spas, special meals, seeing beautiful landmarks... It actually did look quite lovely.  But, after the commercial was over, I realized that there was no mention of visiting actual historic places.  There was no mention of deepening faith through remembering and learning of the sufferings and trials of the people who inhabited and have been driven out of this land.  NO! All the deepening of faith offered in this trip came from spas.  Is the message of Jesus the Christ, the Messiah, a message of vacation for the prosperous?  This, friends, is what we are up against: people who crucify the gospel again and again for prosperity's sake.  People who save their own lives of comfort, glazing over the reality of the world which the Messiah came to endure and bring to new life.

Oh, don't get me wrong, I'm sure we--you and, definitely, I--do a bit of our own which glazes over what's going on in the rest of God's Kingdom--You know, the world in it's entirety.  The world where people take advantage of one another (often unknowingly), where people try to save themselves.  Today, we are reminded by Mark's gospel that we are called out of that, to pick up the crosses (to pick up all the crap, hate, death, fears, etc. that exists) and follow Christ.  And, what does that mean, to follow Jesus?  I think it means to call each other out--like Jesus did to Peter  It means that when our brothers and sisters start to get a little too materialistic, we call them out.  Likewise, it means being called out--in last week's gospel message, a woman whose daughter had a demon called Jesus out when he said he was going to feed the kids before he healed her...the woman told him that even the dogs get the children's scraps.  Jesus changed his mind and told the woman to go because the demon had been cast out.  Jesus, the Messiah, took seriously what other people said.  He listened!  So, we should listen.  Taking up the cross doesn't mean that we are always the most persecuted, the most suffering, but it means that we recognize every gruesome part of life--we listen to people around us.  We recognize that we contribute to the gruesomeness of the world.  We recognize that because Christ gave his life for us, we are freed to give ourselves, our time, and our possessions for the sake of the gospel--for the sake of sharing in God's love.

Pay attention this week. In all your burdens and blessings, Who do you say that Jesus is?



My Prayer for Today
Suffering, mind-changing, faithful God, I give thanks for the freedom you give us to live in your world.  Help me to see that my suffering is not the only suffering.  Help me to look upon my neighbors--of wealth and of poverty--with grace.  Help me to remember that this grace is not cheap, that discipleship is costly.



Note: Vacations are good, I recommend them.  They can help you rejuvenate so that you can live more fully in God's world. However, take care not to miss out on what is going on in the world.  Don't vacation with ignorance of and disregard for where you're vacationing.  Learn there.  Take in more than a week of spas.  God's people are everywhere.