God loves you and has a difficult plan for your life
Sermon for the 15th Sunday after Pentecost, year B
Bible reading: Mark 8:27-38
I hate Barack Obama. I don’t mean I don’t like his policies. I hate the person. I hate him. I’m gonna pray he dies and goes to hell.
These are not the words of a Muslim fundamentalist, or of a convicted criminal. They are the words of an American pastor, preaching to his congregation, the night before President Obama came to visit their city two weeks ago.
With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in God’s likeness. Out of the same mouth come blessing and cursing…. This ought not to be so.
Our tongue, which can be used to praise God and to bless people, can also be used to curse God and people. Our tongue shows what good or evil lies within us. Our tongue shows what hypocrites we are, saying one thing, doing another; saying one thing today, another thing tomorrow.
No one can tame the tongue, a restless evil, full of deadly poison. The tongue is a fire, which sets the whole course of life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell.
The day after the fiery preacher’s sermon one of his parishioners turned up to greet the President, carrying a high-powered rifle. Words have consequences. The words we speak, not only show the good or evil that is in our heart, they lead to people doing good or evil. Speaking hate perpetuates hatred and violence. Speaking love leads to healing and forgiveness, and reconciliation.
Words are not just sounds we breathe out. Words build people up in love or tear them down in hate or gossip. No wonder James said two weeks ago: be quick to listen, slow to speak
. No wonder James says today: Not many of you should become teachers.
No wonder it is required of those who publicly preach and teach in the church that they spend years listening to God’s Word and being taught, before they are ordained to publicly preach and teach God’s Word.
Today Jesus asked the disciples: who do you say I am?
Peter, who is always quick to speak replies with what seems a really good answer: You are the Messiah!
If his answer was so good why did Jesus sternly warn them not to tell anybody about him?
Could it be because Peter said the right words, but had a totally wrong understanding of their meaning? When Peter said you are the Messiah
, was he picturing Jesus as a King with great power, who would drive out all the enemies of Israel, and set up a new Kingdom where Peter and the other Apostles would hold positions of power?
Remember when Jesus was arrested Peter immediately grabbed for his sword to defend Jesus and attack. Remember that even after the resurrection Peter and the disciples asked Jesus: Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?
In other words when the disciples thought of Jesus as Messiah, they thought of him as little different than any other earthly ruler, except that he would defend their cause.
Listen to Jesus answer to Peter. The Son of Man must suffer many things, be rejected, be killed, and after three days rise again.
There’s nothing here about a Messiah who’s a powerful king with armies, with weapons, with a plan to violently overthrow the totalitarian government, and set up the kingdom of God on earth. Peter doesn’t like Jesus’ answer one bit, and rebukes him, and tries to talk Jesus out of this bizarre plan to allow himself to suffer and die. And Jesus in turn rebukes Peter: Get behind me, Satan, for you are setting your mind on human things, not on the things of God.
Like Peter, most people today do not wish to follow the true God, but a God we have made up in our own minds.
- We want to follow a God who is nice to us, but who deals harshly with our enemies.
- We want a God who gives us all the good things in life, who doesn’t allow any sicknesses to come our way, who is always there for us when we need him, even if that is only once or twice a year or even a lifetime.
- We want a God who allows us to live pretty much like the rest of the world, but when we die will take us to heaven.
- We want a God who winks at the way we use our tongue or our money, a God who doesn’t mind if we live together before marriage, or have a bit on the side after marriage.
- We want a God who doesn’t mind too much whether we worship him or not, a God who will build his church without us having to do much about it.
Jesus rebukes us, saying: Get behind me, Satan, for you are setting your mind on human things, not divine things.
Jesus tells us we’re dreaming. There is no such God. There is no such Messiah. Yes, God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life
, as the Christian tract says. But the plan is God’s plan, not the plan you have made for yourself.
The plan is the plan that God tells us in the truth of his word, and that God shows us in the life of Jesus Christ. A quick look at Jesus shows us that it is a plan filled with God’s love for you in Christ – love that is rejected; love that suffers; love that dies. Jesus does not love with hanky panky love, but with a love that is willing to suffer and die for you on the cross, to rescue you from sin and eternal death, and then set the pattern for your life of following Jesus.
Jesus calls us to follow him, and he does not leave us guessing or dreaming about what this means. You want to be a follower of me? Then deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow me
. Is this clear? Jesus calls us to follow him on his terms. Many of us want to follow Jesus on our terms: ‘I’ll come to worship when I can. I’ll give what I have to spare. I’ll help when I’ve got time. Surely I’m not expected to love my enemies?… to live like Jesus at work?… to share my faith at the sports club?’
Deny yourself, is to ask what God wants – and to do that even if nobody else is doing it, even if it seems too hard to do, even if you are laughed at and ridiculed for doing it.
A teacher was ridiculing the idea of God in class. Surely nobody believes in such an antiquated idea anymore. None of you believe in God, do you? There was silence until once girl answered, I do.
Many years later another girl who sat silently in the class that day succeeded in locating the girl who confessed her faith. I have just become a Christian,
she said. Ever since you confessed your faith in God before us all I have remembered you, and through that brave confession I too have come to faith in Jesus.
People who follow Jesus are sure to have a cross to bear. In our increasingly anti-God times, people are bound to ridicule if you follow Jesus seriously, not just saying you believe in Jesus, but living like Jesus in the world. Being baptised leads to a life of following Jesus. Saying I believe
leads to doing what Jesus says, otherwise we’re dreaming, not following Jesus at all, following a God we’ve made up. The Jesus we follow suffered and died for all the sin and hatred and evil of the world. God loves us and has a wonderful plan for our life – a difficult plan – which calls us to love rather than hate, to bless rather than curse, to suffer, like Christ, to save others. Amen.