Sermon Series: Follow Jesus
Sermon Title: TURN
Sermon Text: Mark 9.30-37
Sermon Style: Buttrick’s “Moves” (visuals here used on screen in worship)
Discipleship in Lent (Not Lint)
Today is the first Sunday of Lent – not to be confused with the word lint (that fuzzy stuff that clings to your clothes). Although the season in the Christian calendar does have a similar function to a “lint roller” because Lent is meant to be the time when we strip away all that is getting in the way of loving God & loving others – stripping away all of the “sin that so easily entangles and focusing our eyes on Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith.”
[LIVE EXAMPLE – brushing off my clothes with a lint roller]
Christians do a number of things during LENT to “strip away sin” and “pay attention” to God. We put ash on our foreheads, reminding ourselves of death and resurrection; we sacrifice through fasting things like social media or coffee, or if you’re really focused: bacon; we tune into Jesus’ plain speak about the meaning of discipleship.
One question hangs in the balance behind the scene during the season of Lent:
Will we turn toward OR turn away from the cross Jesus?
MOVE 1 – (9.30-32) Capice
Halfway through his gospel, Mark shifts from encountering Jesus to following Jesus, a turn that begins with confession and leads toward crucifixion. Up until now, we’ve been getting to know Jesus through healings, exorcisms, parables, and conflicts w/religious authorities. To this point in the gospel, the disciples consistently demonstrate a lack understanding about who Jesus is – knuckleheads who just don’t get it. Interestingly, this middle section in Mark’s gospel begins (8.22) and ends (10) with stories about blind men receiving sight, it includes Jesus predicting his death three times, and speaks plainly about how to enter the Kingdom of heaven. The Messiah is not supposed to suffer and die. It’s incomprehensible to them. Imagine if you’re on a soccer team getting ready to play in the world cup final and the best player on the team tells you that he’s going to play the game with his legs tied together.
They hear but don’t obey. If Jesus were Italian, at this point in the gospel, I imagine he’d be doing the same thing my mom does when she wanted me to not only hear but obey.
[Live example of mimicking my mom doing this].
She’d turn, look me in the eyes, and raise her hand to me, and bring her fingers and thumb together to make that classic Italian gesture, and holding her hand up in my face, making small circles with it – she’d utter one simple, powerful word: CAPICE?!? Which, literally is a question – “Do you understand?” but in reality, it’s more of a statement – “You’d better understand – or else!”
The misunderstanding of Jesus isn’t due to lack of information – they’ve been with him and by his side from early on. Yet one thing is weighing them down and clouding their minds – fear. The disciples have followed but their fear is holding them back from true discipleship. Fear has a way of blinding us to the obvious truth, doesn’t it? Fear of death, fear of loss, fear of the unknown. Science confirms the overwhelmingly powerful effects of fear. It clouds our judgment, keeps us from realizing our potential, and it can lead to mental and physical health problems. We pay close attention to our fear. Our direction is often dictated by our fear.
Our direction is often dictated by our fear. Click To Tweet
We must ask ourselves: How does fear of death, loss, unknown cloud our thinking? When God is trying to get through to us, how good are we at listening? Are we prepared to have our earlier understandings of things taken apart so that a new way of understanding can open up instead? Will our response be fear or faith?
The question of Lent hangs in the balance:
Will we turn toward or turn away from the cross of Jesus?
MOVE 2 – (9.33-35) – The Upside Down Kingdom
Jesus pointed plainly to the direction he was going – the cross. The disciples are beginning to understand that the cross is not Jesus’ direction, the cross is also the disposition of Jesus’ Kingdom. Discipleship without death is not possible. They’re not sure they want the cross, as we plainly see with their silent arguing about who will be the greatest in the kingdom of God. Jesus is on to them, though. You parents understand that when you walk into a room full of kids and it suddenly gets silent – you know that something bad has happened but nobody wants to snitch. YOU KNOW that THEY KNOW that YOU KNOW something is wrong.
What were you arguing about? (Jesus says). The silence is a dead giveaway that the disciples know that their conversation was out of bounds. Moreover, they KNOW they’re in trouble when Jesus sits down – a display of rabbinic authority – to teach them. “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.” Jesus then describes what the kingdom of God is like, and how its “reality” is construed differently than any human reign. Those who are most honored in the Kingdom are the servants and those who are least. This idea has been shown time and again throughout the gospel; the kingdom breaks into the world in the least likely of places. Jesus teaches an upside down kingdom.
This idea is not only counter-cultural to every cultural in the history of humanity, it is counter-intuitive to every human being. It’s a Kingdom where if you to receive you must give; to be forgiven, you must forgive; to live you must die. Effectively, Jesus is saying something like – “Look, think about what you would naturally want to do and DO THE OPPOSITE.” This, of course, reminds me of one of the best Seinfeld episodes of all time.
N’er-do-well George Constanza returns from the beach and decides that every decision that he has ever made has been wrong and that his life is the exact opposite of what it should be. George tells this to Jerry who convinces him that “if every instinct you have is wrong, then the opposite would have to be right”. His life improves instantly. Seinfeld was on to something biblical.
Conflict was present in the early church. One of the earliest controversies was between Jewish-Christians and Gentile-Christians (where the mission was most successful). This conflict mirrored the surrounding culture, where hierarchy was respected and prized, and greatness is measured by how many people one controlled.
The outward displays of “jockeying for position” are obvious – people seeking praise, wanting to be captain, pushing to be the boss, pursuing prestige, clamoring after riches. But inward attitudes of jealousy, gossip, bitterness, withdraw, and the like are all manifestations of looking out for “numero-uno.” Following Jesus involves the transformation of our character. Instead of seeking positions of power, Christian disciples are people seeking to make peace. Do we desire to be the greatest? How do we act when things aren’t going our way? Are our preferences more important than people? Do we seek shalom (well-being) for the others over our own desires?
The question of Lent hangs in the balance:
Will we turn toward or turn away from the cross of Jesus?
MOVE 3 (9.36-37) The Quickest & Surest Path to God
Jesus wouldn’t be Jesus if he didn’t try to make this point as PLAIN as possible with a parable, in this case, a living parable in the form of a child. “Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me…and the one who sent me (God).” Jesus’ followers have been quarreling about which of them is greatest. Instead of worrying about their own positions, they should be concerned for the weakest and most humble of the community, typified by these little children and in receiving those who are weak and humble, they are receiving Jesus himself. Jesus, not for the last time, uses a child as a teaching aid. Aside from normal family affection, children had no status or prestige and were a liability in the ancient world. Note that for this parable to happen, children were regularly present around Jesus. Jesus takes a child in his arms – an embrace symbolizing love and acceptance – and says, “This! This is what it means to follow me, to accept me, to love me.”
Sometimes the answer that we are searching for is already with us – right in front of our faces. It reminds me of a picture of the Kingdom we see right here in worship almost weekly when little Leyna Tyler leads us in worship with her spontaneous, joyful, uncontainable dance. From time to time, people have asked – does that bother you? Is that distracting? Should we tell her to stop and help her focus on worship? And I say, NO. We should follow her lead. I can think of no better example of worship. And our embrace of her worship offering is a plain picture of how God accepts all of us.
The refrain of a song that my Grandma sang with her Catholic choir echoes in my mind. “Whatsoever you do to the least of my people, that you do unto me.”
[LIVE EXAMPLE me singing this song and having the congregation sing it back to me]
The mission of God includes the care of needy individuals as well as the deliverance of people from oppression. These are central, not ancillary activities of the Christian life & mission. But this grace & acceptance doesn’t just extend to the young, the poor, and the needy. It’s easy, though, to go to the rescue mission, or on a mission trip, or work in the nursery and feel compassion for the “least of these.” However, the Christian call to love “the least of these” is incomplete if it doesn’t include the people we “love the least.”
Loving the least of these is incomplete if it doesn't include the people we love the least. Click To Tweet
One of the longest standing Christian spiritual practices is to receive EVERYONE as Jesus. This includes people of other faith or no faith at all, our neighbor, our spouse, the people sitting in the pew with us right now, and importantly – our enemies. In fact, you might say that the quickest, and surest path to God is to treat other people not only as Jesus would treat them, but treat them as if they were Jesus himself. There is no holiness but social holiness.
There is no holiness but social holiness. Click To Tweet
How much do we love God? That’s often hard to answer as an abstract question. Look around and ask, How much do I love the people in my life? The people I’m sitting with in the pews today? The people at work, school, or in my neighborhood?
The question of Lent hangs in the balance:
Will we turn toward or turn away from the cross of Jesus?
The Lenten Turn
It is easy to become discouraged in the midst of costly discipleship – especially when we survey the world and think the way of power and prestige, safety and security are easier. Jesus asks his disciples – asks us – to trust him, to have faith.
You see, the Kingdom of God can only be entered into and experienced by faith. There is nothing about it that we can seize for ourselves. Everything is grace. We experience the blessing of that grace by faith, trusting Jesus when he says: This is the way of the Kingdom, the path to God. FOLLOW ME.” Yes, it includes a cross – because sin is that serious of an obstacle and it must be addressed. Yet in faith, we know that death is followed by resurrection. If we don’t participate or if we resist God’s purposes are self-excluded from his triumph, unless we repent and amend our ways. The word repent means to make a u-turn, do a 180, and choose to follow Jesus into the Kingdom.
The question of Lent hangs in the balance:
Will we turn toward or turn away the cross of Jesus?