“To gain your life, you must lose it”

This is the second sermon in the Lenten sermon series on discipleship in the Gospel of Mark. The Gospel text is Mark 8:31-38.

So we’re “on the way” with Jesus, learning what it means to be one of his disciples. And we have not made it too far in Mark’s Gospel since we last met. Actually, today’s story from Mark picks up right where we left off last week. If you remember we were talking about how we respond to Jesus’ question, “who do you say that I am;” how we confess Jesus Christ with our lives. It was Peter who was the one to answer the question of Jesus. He proclaims Jesus to be the Messiah, which is the Hebrew word for what we know as the Christ. And Jesus responds in a rather peculiar way; he sternly orders the disciples not to tell anyone about him. And then he starts teaching.

Jesus tells his disciples that he is to undergo great suffering. He will be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes. He is going to be killed and then after three days he will rise again. Mark tells us that Jesus says this to his disciples quite openly, quite boldly, and that his plan does not sit too well with Peter. Now we are not told what Peter’s plans for Jesus are, but from the way Peter reacts we can infer that they are not even close to what Jesus has just taught them. Peter takes Jesus aside and rebukes him, begins to scold him. We don’t have the words of Peter, just those of Jesus who turns back to his disciples and begins to rebuke Peter. “Get behind me Satan!” Jesus tells Peter. “For you are setting your mind not on divine things, but on human things.”

This is the heart of the conflict for most of Mark’s Gospel; human things versus divine things. As we journey along the way with Jesus, this is where we are going to stumble and this where we are going to struggle. Where do we place our emphasis; human things or divine things? Or to put it in a different way; human values versus God’s values.

Now the disciples are a great example of what human values look like. The disciples are constantly striving for power, status, and personal gain. They assume that Jesus holds these same values. They argue over who is the greatest and they ask if they will get their fair share for following Jesus. We can only imagine that the reason Peter takes Jesus aside to rebuke him is because Peter does not like Jesus’ plan. Peter likes his status as a disciple of Jesus and he doesn’t want to give that up. Jesus’ plan does not fit with Peter’s human values. This talk of death from Jesus will not do, Jesus has to be corrected.

And doesn’t that sound familiar? Sometimes I think that when we look at the disciples of Jesus it’s almost as if we are looking into a mirror. The root of most of our problems can be found in a struggle for power and status. We conveniently assume that Jesus holds these same values. We wear the label of Christian or Lutheran with a certain sense of pride and we have tailored Jesus to fit our labels. We have placed our values on Jesus. We too sometimes try to correct Jesus.

But Jesus will not stand to be corrected. Jesus diagnoses the problem very quickly and tells Peter that his mind is not in the right place. That he, Peter has his mind on human things and not on divine things. Jesus turns the argument into a teachable moment, not just for the disciples, but for the whole crowd and for us. Again the words of Jesus jump off the page, out of the Gospel and find us along the way in our lives today.

“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.”

Jesus is calling us to live differently. He is no stranger to how the world works. He has seen the broken systems, the broken relationships and the struggle for status and power. And he knows that it is not how God intended life to be. Jesus is calling us to do the exact opposite of what our human values lead us to; we are called to give up our struggle for earthly power and status. Jesus is calling us to lose our life for his sake and for the sake of the Gospel.

But we try so hard to save our lives. We struggle for power and status and we don’t care who we leave in our wake. We try so hard to save ourselves. But at the end of the day this way of living gets us nowhere. Jesus tells us quite bluntly that we cannot save ourselves. If we try to do it all on our own we will end up losing. All of our struggle for power and status gets us nowhere in the kingdom of God. So Jesus offers us a new way of life. A life poured out for others and for the sake of Jesus and the good news of the kingdom of God.

When Jesus says that we need to lose our lives for his sake and for the sake of the good news, he is telling us that we need open our mouths and take action when we see injustice regardless of the cost to our lives. We need to put our hands and hearts into a lifestyle that is critical of a world where others are oppressed because of the color of their skin, their social status, or their level of income. Above all God values people taking care of people. Remember what we heard from the prophet Isaiah; the fast that God chooses is that we share our bread with the hungry, that we bring the homeless poor into our homes, that we do not hide from other people in our midst. Jesus represents what God values through the way he lives and the way he interacts with the people that he meets. Jesus meets the needs of those without power and without status; he will not let the religious leaders continue to oppress the poor and outcast, even if it means his life. Jesus loses his life for the sake of the good news and gives life to the whole world and he is calling us to join him along the way.

To be “along the way” with Jesus means that we are willing to lose our lives for his sake and for the sake of the good news. Personal status and power, self-preservation and quietly ignoring injustice, will not cut it anymore. We cannot save ourselves. But the good news is we don’t have to. God has already saved us through Jesus Christ and sets us free from the power of sin and death. We are set free from the struggle for power and status. We are set free to live differently. Through our new lives in Jesus Christ we can lose our lives for his sake and for the sake of the good news. So while you are on the way this week, how will you lose your life for the sake of Jesus Christ? How will you let the good news live through your life?