Grace and peace be yours from God our sovereign, and from our Lord and
savior, Jesus the Christ, and from the Holy Spirit who equips and
empowers us for choosing life. Amen
Last week our theme was we are the people of God, Called and Sent out for the sake of the world. This week that theme continues with “We are the
people of God broken and poured out for the sake of the world.”
In Mark’s narrative context, the world is not a good place, it is broken,
never the less it is the world that God so loved. Jesus, in the power of the
Holy Spirit, breaks into that world in order to scatter the seeds of the
kingdom of God. Jesus also calls and sends his disciples to participate in
and continue his mission of sowing seed. The world is the field upon which
the seeds of God’s compassion and distributive justice are sown.
More often than not, the seed of God’s word of liberating justice falls on
unproductive soil. Rocky ground, packed earth, weed infested soil, only a
little falls on fertile soil.
Never-the-less, God’s love for the world, God’s desire for the whole world’s
redemption is so great that we are called and sent to proclaim whether they
listen or not. We sew the seed knowing that the harvest is not up to us,
rather our task is to faithfully proclaim that whole radicle, alternative way of
God in hostile and unhospitable ground, with the promise of a harvest that
will indeed transform creation from hostile ground to fertile soil.
Today is a continuation of that theme. Today’s text is not about the seed,
but about the sowers, the one’s called and sent to proclaim God’s message
of distributive justice, compassion and neighborliness. It is about the cost
of Discipleship.
That message is revealed in this gospel text of the death of John the
Baptist. John, sowed the seed at the very cost of his life. John the
Baptist’s story captures that cost of discipleship in very graphic detail. John
is executed as an enemy of the state. He has received what Jesus
euphemistically calls a prophet’s reward.
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It is really quite surprising the number of passages in the Christian
scriptures that talk about the cost of discipleship. I cite just a few.
In Mark, in the second call to discipleship, Jesus says:
He called … 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. Mark 8:34
In the beatitudes in Luke Jesus says:
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Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude
you, revile you, and defame you on account of the Son of Man.
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Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, for surely your reward is great
in heaven; for that is what their ancestors did to the prophets. Luke 6:22–
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In Matthew Jesus says:
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Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me;
and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of
me; 38and whoever does not take up the cross and follow me is not
worthy of me. 39Those who find their life will lose it, and those who
lose their life for my sake will find it. Matthew 10:37–39
And in John:
11a
I am the good shepherd. 17For this reason the Father loves me,
because I lay down my life in order to take it up again. 18No one takes
it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. John 10:11a, 17–18a
The Apostle Paul adds: …
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For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God. …
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and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ —
if, in fact, we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him.
Romans 8:14,17
Dietrich Bonhoeffer in his book The Cost of Discipleship writes: “Whenever
Christ calls us, his call leads us to death.”
Today’s Gospel narrative, the death of John the Baptist, is strategically
placed between the sending of the disciples and their reporting back to
Jesus on what they had accomplished.
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Like the disciples, we are called and sent out into the world. Like John and
Jesus, and the countless witnesses since, we are called and sent to be
broken and poured out for the sake of the world. Discipleship is dying to
self and living for the sake of the world that God so loved.
Disciples are called to be the Salt of the earth. God’s called out people are
given as a light to the nations… but salt that has lost its flavor and light hid
under a bushel are of little value in the kingdom of God.
The author of 1 Peter says it well:
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But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's
own people, in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts of him
who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. 1 Peter 2:9
We die to self every time we choose to voluntarily give of ourselves, our
time and our possessions for the sake of others.
We do this with every glass of cold water we give to the thirsty, with every
piece of clothing we give to the naked, with every morsel of food given to
the hungry.
We do this through giving wells to African villages. Through giving mosquito
nets to those threatened with malaria. We do it through giving God’s global
barnyard, chickens, cows, goats and fish providing a life sustaining world
for those in poverty.
We do this when you stand in solidarity with victims of domestic violence,
and racial or sexual bigotry.
We do this through Nora’s house, through Loaves and Fishes, through
Carmichael Food Bank, Through A Community for Peace.
You do that every time you speak a word of compassion and grace to one
another gathered in this community of faith.
Let me be very clear about this business of suffering, this metaphor of living
and dying, of being broken and poured out for the sake of the world. We
are called to be little Christs in the world. Like Christ we are called to die to
self and live for others. The suffering and dying we do is sacrificial, like
Jesus, choosing a life of service to others. That is the suffering which God
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blesses. It is a very different kind of suffering than the suffering of
poverty or victims of violence or abuse. It is the suffering that comes
with standing in solidarity with those who are victimized by this world.
The world may reject and even despise us for such a message, but our
suffering in Christ, is our participation in the redemption of this world. It is
what we choose to do in the power of God’s Holy Spirit. And in choosing to
empty ourselves for the sake of the Gospel, we inherit life.
When Jesus calls the disciples to the cross he also proclaims to them a
word of life.
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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. Mark
8:34–35
Brothers and sisters in Christ, let us choose to be broken and poured out for the sake
of the world. Let us choose life.
Amen
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