September 20, 2014
ON THE WAY: 2.The Narrow Way of Discipleship
Mark 8:27-38
Preface to the Word
He was a fairly typical young man, maybe 10 to 15 years older than the youth who are leading
worship today; full of confidence, energy and vision. He majored in business in college – got
good grades and had a knack for it, they said. No one who knew him was all that surprised when
he was selected right out of college for a corporation’s executive training program. That is where
they train bright young people to be the executive stars of tomorrow.
After a few months of his training, the boss took him along to a national convention related to his
work in the company. There he was supposed to get a firsthand look at life “at the top” of the
corporate ladder. Unfortunately, he got too good a look at life at the top. He noticed many
executives at the convention drinking heavily. He was told to “get a woman” from the supply of
those who had been hired for entertainment of the executives at the convention.
When the young man refused, he got the clear message that this was not what was expected of a
young man like him on his way to the top. A few days after they returned from the convention,
the boss called him in to set him straight. The boss said he was willing to overlook the young
man’s strange behavior at the convention, if it wouldn’t happen again. The young man told his
boss frankly that he would never engage in such behavior. When his boss asked him why, the
young man hesitated only a moment and replied, “Because I’m a Christian. I just don’t do that.”
Now in this real story, this young man who identified himself as a Christian was not some sort of
exemplary church member. He attended church fairly regularly, but only on Sunday. He was no
great student of the Bible and he certainly was no “holier than thou” type of person.
Yet in refusing to go along with the crowd, by standing up and saying, “No. I’m a Christian,” he
began a journey down a narrow path that few wish to walk. He decided on a course of action
that thrust him into the forefront of Christian witness, whether he knew it or not. A few weeks
later he was fired. It has now been nearly a year. He’s been looking for a comparable position
with another company, but has found none so far.
In a very real way, this man has taken up his cross and followed Jesus.
Scripture Reading: Mark 8:27-38 (Common English Bible)
Sermon
I.
A. Today is the first Sunday of an eight-week season of discipleship we are calling “Kingdom
Treasures.” We have been invited to consider what our Christian discipleship means and to
make some decisions about ways we can grow in our understanding of and dedication to
follow Jesus. Many of you have completed commitment cards with your choices of ways
you will engage God, one another, and life as followers of Christ for the next 8 weeks and
beyond. We are on the way…
B. Our scripture reading from Mark’s Gospel begins by saying that Jesus and his disciples were
“on the way.” Did you catch where they were on the way to? It says they are on the way to
some villages near Caesarea Philippi. But let’s broaden the scope a bit and set in on its most
distant setting. Where is the journey ultimately headed? Where does Mark and the other
three Gospels have Jesus ending up toward the end of their stories? You and I know because
we know the end of Mark’s story. He is on a path that ends in Jerusalem, on a cross planted
on a hill called Golgotha just outside the city wall– the place of the skull.
C. Jesus knew, as he walked down that narrow path, that there was just no way for him to be
faithful to the purposes of God and avoid the cross. In fact, according to Mark, Jesus told his
disciples that “the Human One (which, by the way, is a more accurate translation of the
Aramean phrase than “the Son of Man”) must suffer many things and be rejected..., and be
killed...” (8:31). That is where God’s path led and Jesus was willing to walk it.
But this isn’t just about Jesus. He called his disciples with the words, “Follow me.” This
scripture reading from Mark is meant to say to us would-be followers that there is simply no
way for us to be faithful to the purposes of Jesus and avoid the cross. He says it so plainly:
“All who want to come after me must say no to themselves, take up their cross, and follow
me.” (8:34).
II.
A. Let’s pause a moment to think about what Jesus means when he tells his followers to say no
to themselves, take up their cross, and follow him. The cross he referred to is something we
bear precisely because the decisions we make to walk the Jesus path, the narrow way. The
cross is something we choose to “take up.” The cross of Jesus was what the young executive
in training experienced when he was fired. It’s not, as people often say, some ache or pain or
disappointment that comes our way. Not to say that those aren’t burdens… but they are not
the cross we take up. The apostle Paul wrote in a couple of his letters about his “thorn in the
flesh,” some sort of unspecified physical infirmity that bedeviled him his whole life. He
prayed that God would relieve him from it, but Paul had to learn to live with it. He never
called this “thorn in the flesh” his cross. Paul’s cross was the humiliation, pain, and rejection
that came his way while because he was true to Jesus.
B. On August 5, 1993, the Good Morning America T.V. show introduced its fashion report with
these words – “Later today a word on the hottest fashion item of the summer... crosses.” That
was over 20 years ago, but crosses as fashion statements haven’t gone away.
One blogger on the internet began his comments with these words:
It has become very common in culture for people to wear Cross necklaces. Tons of
celebrities can be seen wearing them, kids at school wear them, and people get them tattooed
on their body with the one Bible verse they know next to it. Crosses can be earrings, big
diamond necklaces, and rings. The Cross has almost become a secular fashion statement.
But is that all it is?
On another website called “The Purse Forum” a person asks: Do you think it’s wrong to wear
a cross as a fashion statement? Should a cross only be worn as a religious symbol? What
would offend you more? There were numerous answers, but this one was fairly typical:
i'm catholic but i think crosses are fine as both a fashion statement and a religious symbol
(even though i know others think it's incredibly wrong to wear a cross as a fashion
statement).......crosses hold symbolic value for people who aren't religious and they're just
pretty.......i wear a small black/yellow/and white diamond cross and i love it.....i think i'd
wear it even if i weren't religious just cuz it's pretty
C. In the first century, the cross was the electric chair, the gallows, the firing squad; the cruelest
punishment the world had devised, a form of horrible torture used only for the worst of
criminals. For many today, including religious folk, the cross has morphed into a bejeweled
ornament, a pretty fashion accessory, a trinket worn as jewelry around our necks… not
something heavy-laid on our backs.
D. And because we no longer sense the horror and revulsion of the cross, we most likely don’t
sense its glory, either. You see, in today’s text, Jesus not only tells his followers that he is
going toward the cross, but he invites us to walk with him, promising us that where the
crucified are, there he is also. Following Jesus means we are walking, you and I, the way of
the cross.
But we are not walking that path of the cross alone. The call is to take up our cross and
follow along with Jesus. With Jesus. Not only has he walked down that road of the cross,
but he walks down that road again and again and again, whenever the faithful take up their
cross and follow him.
Having borne it before us, Jesus is able to bear it with us.
III.
E. OK. Let’s pause here again and do a reality check. How does this “taking up your cross”
stuff sound to you? Does it come across as good news or bad news? Why? I’m guessing that
it sounds like bad news to many of us because we live and breathe in a culture that does
everything it can to anesthetize any pain, that values pleasure more than sacrifice, and that
considers suffering of any kind as unfair and unnecessary. It’s bad news in a world that
teaches us openly or subtly to “go with the flow” and “go along to get along,” to “not rock
the boat” and “keep our heads down.”
F. But the gospel of Christ is called the “good news.” How is this cross talk good news? It's
good news not only because the cross represents what God has done for us in Jesus Christ,
but what God can do through us in Jesus Christ. This cross talk is good news because it
symbolizes the central reality at the heart of Christianity – death and resurrection, dying to
the old and being raised to the new – of being born again and being transformed by the
renewal of our minds.
G. In Mark’s Gospel, we follow Jesus on the path of death to resurrection. It’s called “The
Way” and is represented by the cross. It’s the story of Jesus’ journey from Galilee to
Jerusalem and where three predictions of his passion are paired with teachings about what it
means to follow him. Yes, Jerusalem is a place of death/endings/the tomb, but it’s also a
place of resurrection/beginnings/ the womb. The cross embodies the way – the path of
transformation and the amazing grace of being born again. The way of the cross involves
dying to an old identity and way of being, and being born into a new identity and raised to a
new way of being that is centered in God.
You see, the path Jesus takes us down is not only to the cross, but also to resurrection.
H. I began today’s message about a promising young man who refused to go along with the
expectations of his boss because he was a Christian. And because today we are blessed with
the faith and leadership of young people leading worship, I want to end with some comments
by Jim Wallis, head of a major spiritual movement of faith and justice called “Sojourners.”
Here’ some observation Wallis had of young people:
“I speak on college campuses all the time and find the students there signing up for service
projects like never before. We often reflect together on the reasons why and the most
common words I hear are ‘connection’ and ‘meaning.’ As I travel across the country, I find
middle-class young people volunteering in record numbers and putting in more time than is
needed for balanced résumés. I meet thousands of students who are venturing beyond
campus walls to tutor and mentor inner-city children, giving up spring breaks in the sun to
build houses for the homeless, and even taking a year or two after college to plunge into
tough urban neighborhoods and daunting overseas anti-poverty projects.
“I ask them why they are doing these things, sometimes at genuine sacrifice and even real
risk. It’s often hard for them to put their answers into words, but they always end up saying
how the time they spend with an inner-city kid or working with a poor family on their new
house makes them feel so much better – better about their lives, their faith, their future, or
their world. In many different ways, they talk about the connection they feel to people they
hadn’t felt connected to before. The connection feels healing and gives their life a sense of
meaning.
“...if you just work on getting your own life together you may never succeed at doing so.
There are always enough things going on in our own lives, families, and careers to absorb all
of our attention and time. But that may be the very trap that prevents us from really getting
our lives in order. Contrary to what the self-help logic implies, it is only the personal
commitment to move beyond ourselves and the narrow confines of our own little worlds
which can bring us the human fulfillment we hunger for.”
I. I imagine if you took a moment to visit with the youth in our CONNECT group about their
outreach projects and serving those in need, they would give you a similar answer. These
young ones, my friends, are not the church of tomorrow, but the church of today and they
have a powerful witness to share with us as we walk the way of Jesus.
J. On this opening Sunday of the Kingdom Treasure discipleship season I don’t know what you
came to hear today, but I do believe that on this Sunday, especially, it is crucial for us to
listen to our Lord as he walks the way to the cross. It’s essential that we understand he is
calling us, his disciples, his church, his friends, to walk with him. Whatever we attempt,
whatever we do, whatever we envision, whatever we hope for is connected with our taking
up our cross and following along with Jesus. The cross is not optional equipment for the
journey of faith, and we have faith it is actually the instrument of new birth.
K. I’ll close with a story that’s told by the Baptist prophet and writer, Will Campbell. He was
being shown a beautiful new church that had just been dedicated in a city that Campbell was
visiting. Proudly, the pastor showed him through the magnificent sanctuary. Pointing to the
large cross suspended over the altar the pastor said, “Can you believe it? That cross alone
cost over ten thousand dollars.”
Campbell muttered to himself, “Amazing! There once was a time when they would give you
one for free, just for being faithful.”