A Mind on Human Things

September 17, 2006 Text: Mark 8:27-38

Jesus had a lot on his mind.

Lutherans are adamant about the incarnation of Jesus. Jesus was God in the flesh. More than others, even, Lutherans insist that Jesus was 100% divine and 100% human at the same time. That balance is even. Not mostly divine and a little bit human. Not mostly human with a touch of the divine. Not a god in human disguise, walking incognito on the earth. Not a good teacher and radical blessed by God. But God and human both.

Not everyone likes this approach. You might think the hardest part would be claiming that Jesus was God. And for sure that was the issue during the life of Jesus, where people thought he was being blasphemous by claiming even a special connection—a family connection—with God. And maybe for you that is the hard part even now.

But after 2000 years of the teachings of church and tradition, the problem is often the opposite. In our liturgy and our classrooms we easily claim that Jesus was divine, son of God, sitting even now at the right hand of the Father, visiting us in our times of trouble and listening in heaven to our prayers. What often tempts modern Christians is to forget that Jesus was a person. That he did person things. Drink water, stub his toe, get annoyed, feel passionately, complain about the weather. Whatever it is that people do, Jesus must have done a lot of the same (in his time and circumstances).

There is nothing that Jesus skips over, nothing that he as God is too squeamish to do as unbecoming of a divine creature, nothing that he skips out on and avoids, even despair and death. We can say he knows us as we know ourselves and speaks for us as one of us and we let him advise us on our own lives and the state of the world.

These verses from Mark that we just heard are so full of hot topics of doctrine—Messiah, salvation, sin, for example—that it is especially easy to read them as pronouncements and theological truths. Sort of like a campaign speech, highlighting important points and issues. But I think we can just as easily read them as a story. A story about an important time and event in the life of Jesus, a man called to a mission. And that’s what I’d like to do today.

Jesus has reached a turning point in his ministry. Up until now he has been a teacher, a recruiter, and a healer. But it doesn’t take a genius to see that if things go on as they have so far, Jesus will be in big trouble. He speaks to his disciples, but it is almost as if throughout this passage he is really speaking to himself.

Who do they say that I am? he asks. Let’s not imagine this is a trick question posed by an all-knowing divinity, but an urgent need by a man wishing to know how he stands. They think I’m Elijah, they think I’m John the Baptist come back from the dead. They gather in big crowds around me and they talk about me even though I ask them not to. Jesus is famous, infamous, popular with the masses. He’s in demand.

And my disciples, what does this motley crew think? “Who do you say that I am,” Jesus asks them. “The Messiah,” Peter speaks for them all. You are the Messiah. They think I’m the king, the leader of Israel, the savior of the nation. In your imagination you can hear Jesus sigh. It is a good answer, but a hard answer.

The crowd thinks Jesus is a prophet, the disciples think he is a savior king. Either of these roles leads to almost certain death. Jesus knows he is going to be arrested and killed. And he tells the disciples so. Things are going to get bad.

But Peter can’t stand it. “Don’t let it happen,” he says in another account. Don’t do it. Jesus turns on Peter. Not very compassionate, here. He doesn’t say “there, there, Peter, what will be has to be.” He rebukes Peter, turning on him. And he calls to Satan, “get out of here.” Satan in the Gospels is the symbol for temptation, and it seems that Jesus is tempted. Is he tempted by those human things? Things like a long life with friends, perhaps, sitting on the porch with Peter years later, talking about their grandchildren, days at the beach and in business together. Things that people get to do, some of them.

There is a choice here, or at least Mark makes it sound that way. Jesus’ choice. And he puts it in those terms. “Those who want to save their life will lose it; those who lose their life for my sake and the sake of the gospel will save it.” A or B. The left fork; the right fork. A fantasy of a long and pleasant life. A near-certain short and violent mission.

Yet what kind of life would it be if he abandoned his call? If he chose the rocking chair over the cross. If he ignored his mission. What would it profit, he wonders aloud, to gain the whole world and forfeit one’s life?

Jesus is called by God and by the world to a mission. He sees sure risks ahead. He is tempted to avoid his call. Yet in the end he comes to understand—or you might say he always understood—that if he were to embrace that pleasant life he would have no life worth living. And so off he goes, meeting with Moses and Elijah in the next passage in Mark, and then on to the cross.

What Jesus does is a human thing. To choose between the one life and another is a human thing. To be at a turning point. To be called (though maybe not as Messiah) and to take risks (though maybe not to be crucified), to see danger, to be tempted to turn aside. These are human things. Jesus’ story here is a human story. Our story.

You have a chance to work on improving infrastructure in a developing nation / it will be uncomfortable and unhealthful / you are tempted to stay home. You are approached by someone begging on the street / you’ll have to give up a little time and money and it will be awkward / you are tempted to walk on by. You long to set up a studio and be a photographer / it will mean a drastic cut-back in salary that will affect not only you but your spouse / you are tempted to keep your old job.

Jesus says Peter (or is it Jesus?) is setting his mind on human things. Of course he is! Peter (or is it Jesus?) is human. It is a human thing to avoid pain and trouble and sadness and loss. It makes sense to do so.

But it is also human to feel called by God. To feel that there is a life for us that feels in synch with the universe. We know in our bones that we can be at peace with ourselves and others. That there is a way to live in trust and fearlessness. That we are destined not to be like Gods but to belong to God and loved.

Jesus calls the people in the reading an adulterous generation, a word that in the Bible usually means idolatrous. And it is not just Jesus’ generation that turns to idols, but every generation. No generation has been free from idols. The biggies: power, wealth, security, relationships; and all the little other ones. They are energized by our fear. Idols offer to keep us well and satisfied. They offer to keep death away. But idols lie. They don’t give us life. They take away our lives in service to them. If we try to save our lives through idols we will surely lose our lives to them.

“If any would be my followers,” Jesus says, “let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.” This is not an invitation to suffer. Why would God hope you would suffer? It is an invitation to spit in the faces of our idols, to hear the call of God, and to follow it, come what may. To turn our backs on fear.

What God wants for us is what we mostly deeply want for ourselves. We and God are related; we are made in God’s image. We share the same genes, so to speak; we are related by blood. What God hopes for us is what we most urgently and truly hope for ourselves.

Our lives are full of little turning points, times of choice. I put before you life and death, says Moses, choose life. Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, God asks in Isaiah, listen … to me, and [choose to] eat what is good. Follow me, invites Jesus, and claim your life.