"You're Out of Control!" – Mark 8:31-38

Mark 8:31-38

“He then began explaining things to them: “It is necessary that the Son of Man proceed to an ordeal of suffering, be tried and found guilty by the elders, high priests, and religion scholars, be killed, and after three days rise up alive.” He said this simply and clearly so they couldn’t miss it.
But Peter grabbed him in protest. Turning and seeing his disciples wavering, wondering what to believe, Jesus confronted Peter. “Peter, get out of my way! Satan, get lost! You have no idea how God works.”

Calling the crowd to join his disciples, he said, “Anyone who intends to come with me has to let me lead. You’re not in the driver’s seat; I am. Don’t run from suffering; embrace it. Follow me and I’ll show you how. Self-help is no help at all. Self-sacrifice is the way, my way, to saving yourself, your true self. What good would it do to get everything you want and lose you, the real you? What could you ever trade your soul for?

“If any of you are embarrassed over me and the way I’m leading you when you get around your fickle and unfocused friends, know that you’ll be an even greater embarrassment to the Son of Man when he arrives in all the splendor of God, his Father, with an army of the holy angels.”

Excerpt From: Eugene H. Peterson. “The Message of Easter.”

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My best friend in high school was my partner for the in-car portion of our driver’s ed. class. So, for three Saturday mornings in high school, we jumped into a small red sedan with a “student driver” sign perched atop–warning the world to steer as clear as possible from the vehicle of destruction piloted by pimply teens and their hostage (I mean, instructor).

My buddy and I had the uncanny ability to make each other laugh, usually by doing nothing more than quoting lines from dumb movies. So that’s what we did those mornings in the car. One of us drove and the other sat in the back and tried to make the driver laugh. The instructor spent the time alternating between begging us to shut up and yelling at us to keep both hands on the wheel.

The last day of car time, the driver’s ed. instructor asked me to drive the 20 miles to the big city of Defiance, Ohio. Now, the thing about this big city, compared with the little village where we were from, was the number of stoplights: my hometown had three, Defiance had about a hundred more; so I didn’t have much practice with them. As I approached one of the many stoplight-guided intersections that day, no doubt laughing at something my friend had just told me, I noticed the yellow light and I sped up to make it through the intersection. But the light turned red a second before I got there, and before I knew what was happening, the car screeched to an abrupt stop in the middle of the intersection. We had not been in an accident and no one was hurt; rather, the instructor had slammed down on the brake pedal that was located at her feet on the passenger side of the car.

I remember just how incredibly jarring it felt to be in control of the car and then suddenly have no power over it. It’s quite similar to how it has occasionally felt driving in the snow this winter. I think I’m in control and then all the sudden I’m going in a direction I didn’t ask the car to go. These experiences of not being in control are frightening, confusing, and embarrassing.

Literally and figuratively, it feels like we don’t always know who’s driving the car. Which is why I appreciate this modern translation of of today’s gospel where Jesus announces to the crowd,“You’re not in the driver’s seat. I am.”

This may not strike many of us as good news. After all, we spend so much of our time and energy convincing ourselves we are in control of the vehicle of our life.

There are shelves of self-help books devoted to the idea of taking control of your life. They encourage assertiveness, demanding what you are due, and not allowing yourself to be a victim of other peoples’ successes and failures. It’s an attractive message to offer someone who feels beholden to and betrayed by the breezes of life.

A problem, however, is that our lives are not in our control. We can predict the events and outcomes of our lives tomorrow about as correctly as we can predict the weather. Or, more accurately, we can control the events and outcomes of our lives tomorrow about as well as we can control the weather. So why do we spend so much time and energy trying to convince ourselves that we could be in control, that we should be in the driver’s seat?

This is likely what motivates Jesus’ comment, “Self-help is no help at all. Self-sacrifice is the way, my way, to saving yourself, your true self;” which is a modern translation of, “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.”

What we have here is Jesus presenting us with layer upon layer of what sounds like bad news. First he announces that he will endure suffering leading to death, then he admits those who follow him follow him into suffering and death as well. He pleads for the crowds to embrace their suffering and live sacrificially. And he concludes with the warning that anyone who is ashamed or embarrassed to follow Jesus on this path will find God ashamed and embarrassed of them.

This is the first any of Jesus’ disciples are hearing about this. Up to this point they’ve been quite impressed with Jesus and his ability to heal, teach, walk on water, still a storm, and feed the multitudes. The disciples are thinking they’ve done well to hitch their wagons to Jesus’ star. Victory over their oppressors looks imminent. And as Christ’s inner circle, they assume they are set up for life. But then Jesus sets ‘em straight and bums ‘em out.

I’m inclined to think that if I had written Mark’s gospel I would have left that little episode out of the book. But it’s there, right in the middle of a book called a gospel (or “good news”).

So, why is it good news that this Jesus who embraces suffering and sacrifice is in the driver’s seat? Probably because if Jesus is in the driver’s seat, that means I’m not. And that’s a good thing.

Left to my own devices, I don’t live sacrificially. I don’t put others needs first. I wouldn’t seek out suffering, and yes, I would be embarrassed of a God who would demand anything different from me.

We have much to learn from Jesus – the one who came not to be served but to serve. We have much to emulate from Jesus – the one who chooses self-sacrifice over self-help. But that’s not the good news. The good news, is the truth that the one who came to serve and sacrifice did so for all of us who would strive above all things to be prosperous, strong, successful and influential. We are recipients and heirs of an unearned grace. The good news is that Jesus is in the driver’s seat.

I’ve had several conversations with people who tell me when they look at the world and see the suffering, pain, and injustice in the world they doubt whether a good God is actually in control. I’ve had the same thoughts myself, to be honest. But is the suffering, pain, and injustice in the world proof that God isn’t in control, or is it proof of how much damage we can cause when we pretend that we are in control?

The lie that American Christianity believes is that God promises an easy, carefree life where everyone respects us, admires us, and trusts us to lead the world into the promised land.

The truth that American Christianity doesn’t want to hear is that “to follow Jesus is to live lives of service to others, to serve rather than to control and dominate. It means the opposite of being proud of station and status for ourselves at the expense of others.”[1]

What would it look like for American Christians to admit we’re not in control, and that that’s a good thing? What would be possible if American Christians left our blind ambition and arrogance at the foot of the cross? What kind of relationships would be possible if American Christians truly believed we had something to learn from people who are different from us. Where might God lead us once we took our foot off the wheel?

Amen.

1. Michael Rogness, Working Preacher commentary on Mark 8: 31-38 (http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=2316)

"Reluctant Wilderness" – Mark 1 9-15

Mark 1:9-15

In those days Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan.  And just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him.  And a voice came from heaven, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased."

Now the Spirit immediately drove Jesus out into the wilderness.  He was in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan; and he was with the wild beasts; and the angels waited on him.  Now after John was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee proclaiming the good news of God, and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.”

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For those of you who know the temptation story of Jesus, you might have noticed that some things are missing from Mark’s version of the story. Mark leaves out some of the juicy details we get in the other Gospels, like when the devil tempts Jesus to turn stones into bread or to leap from the top of the temple to see if God’s angels would save him.

But, even though he doesn’t go into all the details – maybe especially because he neglects the details, but still bothers to mention Jesus’ time in the wilderness – we know something about it matters to Mark’s story.  This struggle with sin.  This dealing with the devil.  This wrestling in the wilderness.  All of it sets the stage, at the beginning of the story as something we’re supposed to notice. And I remember reading once that beginnings and endings matter in Mark’s Gospel.

But before we get into all of that, I want to cut to the chase about the notion of this “wilderness” stuff and what it might mean for you and me. I’d like to connect the experience of Jesus’ proverbial wilderness to whatever it is that finds us lost or lonely or scared or suffering. Let’s let Jesus’ wilderness represent our moments of temptation and trial, too. Let’s liken Jesus struggle in the desert to our own struggles with doubt and despair; our “dark nights of the soul,” if you will, or any of those moments or seasons of our life that make us wonder how or where or if God is everything God is cracked up to be.

That’s why it’s especially meaningful for us to begin our journey to the Cross – to begin this season of Lent – out there in the desert wilderness with Jesus. That’s why this struggle with sin, this dealing with the devil, this wrestling in the wilderness shows up like it does as we begin this Lenten walk to Calvary. And what strikes me as powerful, this time around, is that little bit of this already short version of the story that says the Spirit “immediately drove Jesus out into the wilderness.” Just after Jesus’ baptism, “The Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness.”

It reminds me that this was no walk in the park for Jesus, his time in the wilderness. It reminds me of just how human Jesus was. The fact that the Spirit had to drive Jesus into the wilderness, to endure all of that hunger and suffering and struggle and temptation, makes me wonder if Jesus entered into that wilderness with the same sort of reluctance, or hesitation, or fear with which we find ourselves entering into the many, various times or seasons of our faith’s journey that aren’t so easy.

And I love that about Jesus. Maybe it’s odd, but I love to think that maybe he wanted out. I mentioned a couple of weeks ago – when Jesus healed that paralyzed man and sent him off walking – that I like to see Jesus’ super powers. And that’s true. But I like to imagine, too, that Jesus wasn’t striding through life, striding into and through the wilderness of his struggle and temptation, like some super hero; like a boss; like a pompous, over-confident, sure-of-himself sort of Son of God. I’m okay with the notion that Jesus had to be pushed, that he might have passed off the torch of his temptation to the first willing taker, had there been one. And I like this picture of Jesus, because I feel more like that, more often than I’d like to admit.

I like to see that Jesus had to be driven into the wilderness; pushed out into the desert; goaded, against his better judgment, even, into those hard, holy moments of life as he knew it, because isn’t that what it feels like, for us, whenever the hard stuff comes?

When we, or someone we care about is sick, doesn’t it feel like we’re forced into that wilderness of worry against our will? Wouldn’t each of us choose otherwise, if we had the choice? None of us walks willingly into the fear and unknown of serious illness – for ourselves or for those we love – without hesitation, without frustration, and without lots of questions, do we?

And aren’t we driven into the wilderness of grief against our will, just the same? No matter how well-prepared we think we are; no matter how long in coming the death of a loved-one is, for instance, the sadness that comes with such a loss always feels foisted upon us; like a surprise; like a burden we can’t possibly bear; like an unfair, undeserved, indescribable loss.

And the same goes for most, if not all, of life’s struggles. They are forced upon us…we are driven into the difficulty they bring into our lives. Whether it’s sickness or death, relationship struggles, the trials and temptations of addiction, the quest for security with our work, the desert wilderness of those difficult times isn’t somewhere in which we’d choose to spend our time, if we were given the choice, most days.

And in the midst of it all, in the throes of sadness or struggle or whatever, some knucklehead who loves us – some knucklehead we love – might have the nerve to say something like, “God never gives you more than you can handle.” Don’t you hate that? I mean it sounds great, lovely, nice, kind, hopeful, even, stuck to your refrigerator on a magnet, or stitched to a throw pillow, or posted in a Facebook feed … “God never gives you more than you can handle” …

…unless or until you’re driven into the Godforsaken wilderness against your will.

Because I don’t think it’s really true. Because if God actually gives us any of these struggles in the first place (which I don’t believe is the case), they are sometimes more than we can handle. If the Spirit drove Jesus into the wilderness, than the Spirit gave Jesus more than he could handle – out there in the desert duking it out with the devil. But Jesus’ story doesn’t end in the wilderness, and beginnings and endings matter.

See, all of this reluctance and hesitation at the beginning of Mark’s story, remind me of that moment near the end of it all, in the Garden of Gethsemane, just before his arrest and crucifixion. In the garden, Jesus prayed really hard for God to take the cup of his suffering away from him, if he could. He wasn’t striding his way toward the wilderness of the cross like some super hero; like a boss; like a pompous, over-confident, sure-of-himself sort of Savior, anymore than he was wading his way into the wilderness after his baptism. And I’m grateful or that, too.

Because the hope of our faith is that, even though we’re not equal to the task…even though there are times and trials and temptations that really are more than we can handle… we’re never faced with more than God can handle. Even the worst illness; the most difficult struggle; the deepest shame; the greatest sin; the heaviest grief or loss or sadness; is never bigger than God’s grace for our life.

So that’s what the wilderness – and Jesus’ time in the desert – remind me this time around. We’re meant to enter into these days, however reluctantly it may feel, with the hope that we’ll be reminded of and blessed by God’s kind of love and faith and redemption, in the end. So, these forty days of Lent may feel like practice if things are fine and well and good, at the moment. Or these days may feel like a real-time walk in the wilderness, because we’re in the midst of something hard and heavy and beyond our ability to cope right about now.

Either way, because beginnings and endings matter, we’re meant to see – through the story and experience of Jesus, himself – that what begins as fear ends in faith. What begins in despair ends with hope. What begins as sin ends in forgiveness. What begins as death ends in new life. And all of this is God’s doing, not our own. All of this is thanks to God’s amazing grace, not yours or mine. All of this is because, even when we’re up to our necks in more than we can handle; hung out to dry in the desert of our despair; left to wander aimlessly in a seemingly endless wilderness, God never asks us to go it alone.

Amen