Mark 8:27-38

Jesus went on with his disciples to the villages of Caesarea Philippi; and on the way he asked his disciples, ‘Who do people say that I am?’ And they answered him, ‘John the Baptist; and others, Elijah; and still others, one of the prophets.’ He asked them, ‘But who do you say that I am?’ Peter answered him, ‘You are the Messiah.’* And he sternly ordered them not to tell anyone about him.

Then Jesus began to teach them that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. He said all this quite openly.

And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. But turning and looking at his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, ‘Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.’

He called the crowd with 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. 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. For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life? Indeed, what can they give in return for their life?

Those who are ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of them the Son of Man will also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.’

Recently, I read an article about the potential joys and troubles of traveling with others. One of the stories was about a man named Stephen Garrido, who took a trip with his girlfriend of a year, a trip of a lifetime to Disneyland. He had high hopes for the journey. But apparently, even Disney isn’t always the happiest place on earth. Instead, it was a living nightmare Stephen said.

He learned his girlfriend was much too messy for a small hotel room and worse, extremely rude to staff at the hotel and restaurants. She found out that Stephen snored like a blender full of marbles. The trip ended with her cursing at him profusely and the two split two weeks later.

Getting an invitation or extending an invitation to travel with someone is a big deal. Mainly because I think traveling with someone is the best way to get to know them. The new experiences, stressors, and challenges reveal a new or different side of you and you see a new side revealed of someone else. So you are likely cautious when extending and accepting an invitation to travel.

Jesus and his disciples traveled together a lot, especially in this part of the gospel of Mark. Just in the last two chapters, Jesus had been in the desert, then to Bethsaida, Over to gennesaret, On to Tyre, then Decapolis, Down to Dalmanutha, and finally back to Bethsaida. I’d say from all of that, the disciples and Jesus likely learned a thing or two about another from all this travel. You’d think they knew each other pretty well at this point, but maybe not…

In today’s story, Jesus and the disciples are again traveling, this time from Bethsaida to Caesarea Philippi. And as they were walking, Jesus threw out a question, “who do people say that I am”. It doesn’t seem to have much context, but if we look back a few verses, Jesus was just berating the disciples for not knowing who he was: “do you still not understand? He said.

Are your hearts hardened, do you have eyes and ears and yet you don’t get it? Do you not remember all that I have done? Maybe he was concerned others were just as confused as his disciples.

They responded to the question with logical answers, but none were the answer Jesus had hoped for. “Who do you all say that I am” asking the disciples, thinking maybe after all the traveling and that stern talking to, they had figured it out. And Peter, acting as the spokesperson for all the disciples, says “you are the Messiah.”!

Ah there it is! The right answer. The disciples or at least Peters has it figured out, he knows who Jesus is. The Messiah, the Christ, the anointed one. This is the first time in the entire gospel, more than two thirds of the way through, that someone calls Jesus the Messiah, that someone seemingly understands who he is. And it’s that the best feeling, to be understood, for others to truly know who you are…

But immediately there was a problem. The messiah Peter had envisioned was not the same Messiah that Jesus would be. Peter had created this image, this idea, or ideal, of what the messiah would be and do, act and look like. And that wasn’t something only Peter had done… Many Jews expected and longed for a Messiah to return and restore Israel to all its glory. How that would happen or the kind of messiah the people hoped for, varied.

So when Jesus started revealing the kind of Messiah he would be and what would happen to him, well Peter just couldn’t take it. That’s not what he expected the messiah to be. To be fair, we don’t know exactly what Peter hoped for, but we do know it wasn’t a Messiah who would suffer, get rejected by the religious leaders, and then be killed. That much we know because Peter pulled Jesus to the side and let him know just how wrong he was.

But Peter’s expectations, whatever they were, were wrong or misguided or incomplete. And apparently not in a small way, since Jesus felt the need to call Peter satan, the tempter, and ordered him to turn around and get behind Jesus, because clearly Peter didn’t know what he was talking about.We do the same thing, no? We, too, create an ideal image of our Messiah, an idea of who Jesus should be and how he should act.

We want Jesus to be a judge who condemns all those we think are wrong and who models only what we think is right. We want Jesus to be our grant maker, who will give us the health and wealth we’ve wished for if we just lift up the right prayers.

We want Jesus to be a republican or a democrat, that way we can say “my preferred politician is more Christ like” when really we mean they are more like the Christ we have created for ourselves.

Yet, Jesus is rarely what we want him to be. And like Peter, we get disappointed, upset, and ultimately let down by this. The truth is our partner, our friends, siblings, parents, kids and coworkers, even our Messiah will never live up to or fulfill the image of who we want them to be.

If we hold them to some version we’ve made up for them, they will inevitably leave us angry, wishing they were more like this or that, and the relationship will suffer if not cease.

A deeper, more fruitful relationship can only occur when one sees the other person for who they really are and not who they wished them to be, Jesus included. Because Jesus isn’t always the messiah we want, but he is always the messiah we need. We need a messiah who meets us in our suffering. A messiah who knows what it’s like to face rejection and heartache and despair and share in that with us. A messiah who comforts the afflicted and afflicts the comfortable. A messiah who willingly lays down his life in order to give you a new one, full of grace and forgiveness and love.

I find great comfort in knowing that Peter didn’t fully understand Jesus. This man who had traveled all over Judea, who had seen the miracles, who used the right words, but in many ways still got it wrong. What I find even more comforting is that he still got the invitation to follow Jesus.

We don’t have to have it all right, we don’t have to understand everything about God or Jesus or the faith we claim. We can have doubts and questions and even wrong ideas about all of it.

The good news is that the invitation still stands! Jesus extends the invitation to follow him, to travel with him regardless of what we have wrong, or if we feel our faith isn’t deep enough or strong enough or sincere enough. He doesn’t say you need to have this understanding, or you have to know this, or even believe these things about him.

In fact, it is because Peter, the disciples, and the crowd don’t have it all figured out that Jesus invites them in the first place. Unlike you and me, Jesus isn’t cautious about who he invites because Jesus knows that if you really want to get to know him, you have to travel with him.

I hope we model this well here at Cross of Grace, especially on days like today, when we welcome new Partners in Mission. Hopefully, we have been clear, you don’t have to have it all figured out, or believe in every single thing we do, or know all the answers. We don’t! Because becoming a Partner in Mission isn’t about any of that.

Being a Partner in Mission is about accepting the invitation to travel with us. Today you are saying I am willing to take this journey of faith alongside you. And in return we get to say, Thanks be to God. We’re so glad you’re here because we are in for the trip of a lifetime.

We will undoubtedly learn new things about one another, we won’t get it all figured out, but we’ll ask questions and support each other along the way. And we’ll help each other aside the idea of the messiah we want and together we’ll follow the messiah we need.

Amen

Mark 7:31-37

Then [Jesus] returned from the region of Tyre, and went by way of Sidon towards the Sea of Galilee, in the region of the Decapolis. They brought to him a deaf man who had an impediment in his speech; and they begged him to lay his hands on him. He took him aside in private, away from the crowd, and he put his fingers into his ears, and he spat and touched his tongue. Then looking up to heaven, he sighed and said to him, “Ephphatha,” that is “Be opened.” And immediately his ears were opened, his tongue was released, and he spoke plainly.

Then Jesus ordered them to tell no one; but the more he ordered them, the more zealously they proclaimed it. They were astounded beyond measure, saying, “He has done everything well; he even makes the deaf to hear and the mute to speak.”

I spent some time, a week ago Friday, wandering around the art museum at Newfield’s, here in Indianapolis.

Among so many other things, there is an exhibit there called “The Message is The Medium.” It was closed, for some reason, but there was at least one piece of that exhibit outside of its confines and closed doors.

This piece of contemporary art is called “Who’s Your Tree?,” and it was created by a Korean artist named Nan June Paik. It consists of 34 old TVs, that flash seemingly random images of things that are quintessentially Indiana … images of the Indiana State House, the Indy 500, other pieces from Hoosier artists and, of course basketballs.

I can’t say I was all that moved or impressed by that one, so I kept looking and found some other artwork that seemed to fit the “Message is the Medium” bill. Like this one, called “Outside the Coal Mine” by a Black artist from Alabama, named Thornton Dial.

It’s a mess of artificial flowers, cloth, metal, wire, canvas scraps, found wood, paint can lids, industrial sealing compound, and enamel … on canvas. A quotation by the artist, about the piece, said, “I only want materials that have been used by people, the works of the United States, that have did people some good.”

It’s not pretty. It looks like a mess, on purpose. “Outside the Coal Mine.” The message is the medium.

But my favorite was a photograph of a work in progress … a piece of performance art, actually … called “Borrando la Frontera,” by a Mexican artist named Ana Teresa Fernandez.

In 2011, Fernandez set up shop along the border wall that separates Tijuana from San Diego, and she started painting the border wall with a pale blue color matching the sky behind it, which had the effect of making the wall seem to actually disappear. The artist means to encourage people to ask better questions about the geographic and political boundaries that separate us.

“The Message is the Medium.”

All if this made me wonder about today’s Gospel … and what in the world might Jesus be up to, if we pay close attention to, or focus particularly on, the “media” he chose that day: the laying on of hands, I mean; the fingers and the ears; the spit and the tongue, even; the sigh of deep breathing, and the sound of his words.

All of it’s incarnational, right? It is something much more than performance art, for sure. And it’s bodily. Physical. Tactile. And a little messy and gross and unsettling and beautiful. And I’ll come back to this in a minute, if you don’t mind.

Because there’s something else going on in this morning’s Gospel. And that’s the curiosity about why Jesus tells people, as he does often in the Gospels, not to tell others about what they’ve seen him do or what they’ve heard him say. It’s a long-disputed, curious quandary theologians have mused about for ages, called the “Messianic Secret.” Why does Jesus, over and over again, order his followers – like he does this morning – not to tell others about the miracles they’ve witnessed?

Some think Jesus didn’t want the attention, “because his hour had not yet come;” that the timing wasn’t right. Some suggest “his hour hadn’t come,” because he wasn’t ready to face the cross and his own crucifixion, just yet. And who could blame a guy for that?

I decided a couple of years ago that Jesus didn’t want people crowing about his miraculous healings, at every turn, because he knew not everyone gets the miraculous healing they long for, and bragging about your own can come off as prideful, selfish, and insensitive, in the wrong circles.

And this week I wondered about yet another reason Jesus may have told the people who watched this healing happen to keep their mouths shut, to keep his “Messianic Secret,” to themselves. I wonder if the reason for that … if the message, today … is in the medium. I wonder if that message is in the hands, the fingers, the ears, the spit, the tongue, the breath of his deep sigh of what he’s up to.

What if Jesus told his followers not to tell anyone about what they’d just seen, because he wanted them to go and do something about it, instead?

And maybe he meant spit and tongues and fingers and ears. I don’t know. (I kind of hope not, to be honest.)

But maybe the message in his medium was, somehow: “Get your hands dirty, people.” Maybe he meant get close, come near, be open, and not so afraid ... or so shy … or so timid. Maybe he meant don’t leave this all – or only – up to Jesus. Maybe he was calling for more than “thoughts and prayers” and more than all of our best intentions, too. Maybe he was calling for some of our blood, some of our sweat, some of our tears, some of our sacrifice, more often than we’re inclined to offer them up for the good of the cause … for the sake of the Gospel … on behalf of our neighbor.

Maybe the message we send about the faith we claim is in the medium of our lives – in what we’re willing to give up and give away, perhaps. (Is it generous and sacrificial, like Jesus asks us to be?)

Maybe the message we send about the faith we claim is in the medium of our lives – in if or how we’re willing to love and serve our neighbor. (Does our definition of “neighbor” include the least, the last, the lost – and not just those who live next door? And how do they know that we love them?)

Maybe the message we send about the faith we claim is in the medium of our lives – in how and why we cast our votes. (Do we do that with our own interests in mind or do we consider the needs and interests of others, too?)

All of this seems to be what James calls us to, just the same, when he suggests that a faith without works is dead. It’s something St. Augustine was after when he proposed we “Preach the Gospel at all times.” And that we “use words if necessary.”

The message of our faith is, indeed, in the medium of our lives. It’s in the physical, tangible, tactile, visible, measurable ways we love, serve, give, comfort, care for, and elevate the lives of those who need it most.

It’s in the money we share. It’s in the sacrifices we make. It’s in the time we offer. It’s in the love we prioritize and proclaim – not merely with thoughts and prayers or even in worship on Sunday morning. It’s in the loving actions those thoughts, prayers, and this worship bring to life … to others… and for the sake of the world, in Jesus’ name.

Amen