Promise

Charlotte Collins Reed

Christ Church Episcopal

September 16, 2018

19 Proper B

          Several years ago, a friend and I went to England at the request of our bishop to study the ordination process in the church there.  While we spent a good bit of the two weeks working on this project, we also had time for what we affectionately called our “Pew and Pub” tour.   One Sunday afternoon in London, we managed to make Evensong in three different churches and visit several others.  At St. James Church in Piccadilly, we found a remarkable mission statement posted outside the building.  St. James has vibrant outreach, a diverse congregation, and is very engaged in their community, all wonderful attributes in a church.  Their mission statement proclaims their values of inclusivity, the ability to question, and their solidarity with the poor and marginalized, all of which are common in church mission statements.  But what got my attention was the very last sentence.  At the bottom of the mission statement are these words: “We don’t mange this all the time, so we try again.”

          This morning, Peter has managed to give Jesus the correct answer to the question “Who do you say that I am?”   Peter says “You are the Messiah,” which is obviously the right answer.  Peter must be feeling pretty proud of himself.  The problem is that Peter has no idea what his words mean.  When Jesus tells the disciples that he will “undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again,” Peter objects.  Messiahs do not suffer and die, and Peter has no clue what “and after three days rise again” could possibly mean.  Peter has not only managed to get his understanding of the Messiah completely wrong; he has completely ticked Jesus off in the process.  “Get behind me Satan,” are words no one wants to hear.

          As hurt as Peter must be by Jesus’ stern rebuke, he does not walk away, nor does Jesus, in his anger, send Peter packing.  Instead, Jesus calls the crowds and the disciples together and begins to teach them, hopefully with some measure of patience, about discipleship.  How does one follow a messiah who will suffer, die, and on the third day rise again?  The answer is very different from the way one would follow a messiah who is successful by the world’s standard.  Jesus says “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.”

          Jesus has given the crowds, the disciples, and us three clear, if not easy steps to being his followers.  Step one: Deny yourself.  In other words, Jesus is saying “It’s not about you.”  Seek and serve Christ in all people.  Respect the dignity of every human being.  We don’t get to pick and choose, because following Jesus is not about us. 

Step two: Take up your cross.  This step gets confused with hoisting all of our burdens onto our shoulders and trudging off to follow Jesus.  This is the same Jesus who says in another gospel “Come to me all who are weary and carrying heavy burdens and I will give you rest.  For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”   Jesus is telling us to pick up the cross of Christ, the cross with which we were sealed in baptism and which is now our own cross.  Pick up the cross that proclaims the triumph of light over darkness and life over death. Proclaim the Good News of Christ with our words and our actions. 

Step three: Jesus says “Follow me.”  Being a disciple of Jesus is about following Jesus where Jesus goes, and Jesus goes to the sick, the poor, and those on the margins, working for justice and peace.  Jesus goes to the cross, not around the cross, calling us to follow, knowing that the cross will not have the final word.  Jesus calls us to follow, promising that he will go first, where ever our journey takes us.

          This morning, we will baptize Alexa Scheiferstein.  In baptism, she will be sealed by the Holy Spirit and marked as Christ’s own forever.  Jesus’ cross will become Alexa’s cross.  We will all reaffirm our commitment to follow Jesus with the promises of the baptismal covenant, promising to seek and serve Christ in all people, work for justice and peace, respect the dignity of every human being, and proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Jesus.  As Peter found out this morning, however, following Jesus is not easy.  The first two promises of the baptismal covenant recognize that fact.  First, we promise to continue in the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in the prayers.  We need each other, and we need the nourishment that comes from worship to be able to follow Jesus.  We cannot follow Jesus alone.  This is also why the congregation will be asked in a few minutes if we will do all in our power to support Alexa in her life in Christ.  She cannot do this by herself.  Secondly, we promise to “persevere in resisting evil, and whenever we fall into sin, repent and return to the Lord.”  The Baptismal Covenant assumes that we will not always get this right.  We are called not to walk away, but to try again and again and again.  We promise not to give up.  In the spirit of the St. James, Piccadilly mission statement, we won’t manage to keep all of these promises all the time, so we promise to try again.

          Jesus never said following him would be the easy path, or the most convenient, or the cheapest.  But Jesus does promise that being his follower leads to life.   And being a follower of Jesus means following Jesus.

                                                                             Amen.