14th Sunday after Pentecost

Grace be to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

Kelly was a woman in my last congregation. She had two small children. When she enrolled her older son in our church’s preschool, she was invited to serve on the preschool’s board. She agreed.

At the first board meeting of the school year, there was the typical awkward silence when it came to finding volunteers for the slots of president, vice-president, and secretary. After much hesitation and some cajoling from fellow board members, Kelly finally agreed to accept the position of vice-president.

Only later was she informed what all the vice-president was expected to do. For example, she was now expected to lead and organize all the fundraising activities of the preschool. Kelly had absolutely no experience in this area and, frankly, no interest. She felt betrayed.

So she did the job reluctantly and poorly. She was angry. The rest of the board was dissatisfied with her. The fundraising results suffered. And I am sure Kelly never again accepted a position on any board.

Don’t you hate it when you are asked to serve in any kind of capacity, be it paid or volunteer, and then afterwards are told what all will be expected of you? It’s not fair. It makes us resentful. It leads to poor job performance. In the end, everybody is the poorer for it.

Jesus goes the opposite route in today’s gospel. He warns his followers how hard it will be. It will involve self-denial and suffering and the cross. It will entail losing one’s life. As one commentator remarked, Jesus is the worst church planter ever. Who would want to join his outfit? And why?

Let’s start unpacking these questions with Jesus’ assertion that those who want to save their life will lose it. Those who want to control their lives end up hurting. Those who want to achieve their own goals by any means necessary end up broken. Those who buy into what our culture expects or idolizes, who seek approval or acceptance or accolades, very often get lost.

For example, think of great athletes whom we admired for their amazing accomplishments. Lance Armstrong recovered from cancer and won the Tour de France seven years in a row. Alex Rodriguez hit a record of home runs and he was on his way into the Baseball Hall of Fame. Both men were then found to be taking performance enhancing drugs. Armstrong was stripped of his titles. A-Rod didn’t get into the Hall of Fame and lost an estimated $40 Million while suspended. Both are now known for their cheating at least as much as for their accomplishments. When I googled A-Rod at the time, the fourth article that came up was about him saying the toughest thing was when he had to tell his daughter what he had done.

Armstrong and A-Rod and countless others had bought into the things our society idolizes, bought into them so much they cheated. And it ruined them. They thought they could gain their lives, but it ruined their lives.

That temptation surrounds us all the time. It is subtle and sneaky. It tells that that if we work hard enough, diet severely enough, spend enough money, wear the right clothes and make-up, go to the right schools, live in the right neighborhoods, belong to the right country club, have a certain online presence, marry a certain type of person, follow the right influencer, and on and on and on – then we will gain the life we imagined for ourselves. Then we will be in control. Then we will be safe.

Along comes something like the COVID pandemic to remind us how we are kidding ourselves. We are not in control.

And really, we knew that, didn’t we? We have experienced that no matter how hard we try, it’s never enough. We have been disappointed, by the relationship, by the illness that came back, by the career that ended, by the untimely death we had to mourn, by the sense of emptiness or isolation or rootlessness we experience. All our efforts at gaining our lives have left us exhausted and depleted and lost.

Let all that die, Jesus says. Stop trying so hard to hang on to things you simply cannot hang on to, to control things that simply are beyond your control. Stop trying to measure up, to look the part, to fit in seamlessly, to appear successful. Stop selling out your soul for the illusion of the good life.

Jesus invites us into a different kind of life.

In today’s gospel, Jesus and the disciples are in the town of Caesarea Philippi, a town built by the Jewish King Philip to honor the Emperor Caesar Augustus. This city was filled with the symbols of worldly power. Monuments, shrines, insignia, soldiers – everywhere you looked you saw the power of the Roman Empire.

There in that town, surrounded by those symbols of power, Peter confesses Jesus as the Christ, the son of the living God.

There in that town, Jesus affirms that Peter is right.

There in that town Jesus then tells his disciples that as the Messiah he will suffer and die and rise again.

There in that town, Peter rebukes Jesus and tells him that this can’t happen.

Peter and all the other followers thought they knew what “Messiah” meant: Someone like King David who would rally the troops and overpower the Romans and free the people of God and establish a righteous kingdom right there in the Holy Land. Talk of suffering and dying doesn’t fit into that picture at all.

Here is the problem with that kind of expectation: That new kingdom would not last for long. That kind of Messiah would have more power than the Romans and overthrow them and reign - until the next military hero with yet more power would come along and overthrow him. This kind of Messiah wouldn’t change anything. It would still be a violent, cruel, oppressive world. The only thing that would change now and then is who is at the top and whom that might benefit, but the system of power and might, oppression and exploitation remains in place.

Jesus opts out of this system altogether. He is not interested in retribution, violence, and hate. Instead, he comes with forgiveness and mercy and love. He feeds the poor and heals the sick and comforts the oppressed and gives everyone he meets access to God’s grace. He treats everyone like a beloved child of God who has dignity and value and who matters in the eyes of God. He gives people hope by sharing a gospel of equality and justice and liberation, by giving people hope and a vision for how things could be different.

Doing and saying all that made this country preacher so dangerous to the powers that be that they needed to kill Jesus.

Jesus opted out of the ubiquitous system of power and might, and lived according to a different principle of mercy and love, and that was enough to change lives and threaten to change the world.

Jesus invites us to opt out of the ubiquitous systems of power of our day: being the cool kid, being hip or woke, making a career – all these systems that pressure us to perform and to be who we are not really at heart.

Opt out, Jesus says. Let all that die. Stop trying to gain your life. Give up that kind of life and instead follow my lead, and you will find a different kind of life. Pick up your cross and follow me, Jesus says. Live a life that is shaped by the cross, the cross you were marked with at your baptism.

Paul does a great job of describing the elements of what such a cross-shaped life looks like. The passage from his letter to the Romans we read this morning is wonderful. He urges the believers to be peaceable, to be humble, to love one another – including enemies -, to be generous and hopeful. Remain energized and grounded in faith through personal prayer and congregational worship, and then live your daily lives; live in this world but don’t be shaped by this world; instead be shaped by the cross.

Jesus became too dangerous to the powers that be with his alternative way of life. Jesus’ followers continue the tradition of opting out of dominant cultural systems and living according to a different guideline, a different hope, a different justice, a different vision of God’s world. And time and again, those followers of Jesus have been a threat to established systems. Think of the civil rights movement. Think of the peace marches that brought down the wall in Germany. Time and again, followers of Jesus opted out of oppressive, unjust patterns of society and brought about change, change that resulted in freedom and justice, dignity and worth, joy and grace to countless children of God.

Once again, we followers of Christ are called to opt out of power plays and abusive systems going on today. We are called to opt out of white privilege. We are called to opt out of ruthless exploitation of the environment. We are called to opt out of unfair imbalances in the justice system. We are called to opt out of tax systems that benefit the super-rich and hurt the poor. We are called to opt out of 60-hour workweeks that leave no time for nurturing relationships. We are called to opt out of an image of beauty that leads to eating disorders and plastic surgeries. And on and on it goes.

Giving up these kinds of pressures to conform and instead grasping the life shaped by the cross, by forgiveness and mercy and love, that is Jesus’ call today. That is what will change the world so it better reflects God’s vision.

That takes courage and commitment. That takes disciples willing to confess Christ as the Son of God even in the presence of all the symbols of worldly powers. That takes willingness to let some of our old lives, old convictions, old priorities die, in order for the new life to emerge.

And that is why Jesus is so upfront about the challenge that is discipleship. He doesn’t want any halfhearted, resentful followers. His cause needs folks who go into this calling with their eyes open and their heart in the right place.

And this is also why people would want to accept Jesus’ invitation in spite of the cost: because we have experienced how exhausting and relentless and disappointing the old life has been, and we can’t wait to experience the new life Jesus holds out, a life leading to hope and joy, justice and equality; a life leading to the heart of God.

Let us pick up our cross. Let us choose the cross-shaped life, for the sake of our own souls and for the sake of all of God’s children. Amen.