Alongside
the Community Church of Durham
Sunday,
November 17, 2019
1.
In this particular moment, which is something
like the epicenter of Mark’s gospel, Jesus and Peter face off. And it’s tense. And the stakes are high. It all comes through in the reading,
right? These two friends. These two pillars of the movement. “Who am I—to you?” Jesus asks Peter, on the
way. “What do I really mean—to
you?” And when Peter answers, at least
somewhat correctly, “You are the Messiah,” Jesus silences his friend. Orders him to say nothing about it. Even though we know—having read the first
seven chapters of the gospel—that Peter’s probably right. “You are the Messiah.” Tell no one, Jesus says.
And right away—in this unsettling story space—Jesus
begins to teach again. Because really
that’s what Jesus is all about. And he
teaches them (and us) that there are consequences to these gospel choices:
compassion, mercy and justice. There’s a
cost to this kind of discipleship, and authorities on all sides will be
threatened by their loving. Suffering
awaits them all, he says. Rejection
around the corner, he says. Even death;
and yes, strangely, this bit about resurrection, new life, and hope.
This isn’t so much about the predictive power
of Jesus’ faith, as if that’s what makes him special, as it is about the
strange and controversial path ahead. It’s
a teachable moment. Jesus is preparing
his friends for conflict and controversy.
He’s awake and alert on the way, and he wants them to be alert too. Gospel love bears all things, believes all
things, hopes all things, endures all things.
It’s an all-in kind of love. What
Jesus seems to be saying—to Peter and (by extension) to all of us—is just this. Open your heart to God’s boundless love. Open your hands to one another and God’s
future. And bear God’s mercy, suffer for
God’s mercy, in confidence and community.
2.
Years ago, I picked up a little book called The
Promise of Paradox by the author and educator Parker Palmer. No doubt some of you have read his
stuff. Thoughtful theology. In The Promise of Paradox, Parker
Palmer talks about the contradictions in his own heart, in his own spiritual
practice, and (really) in every human heart.
He talks about despair, his own despair, and how it overwhelms his faith
sometimes. Just ties him in knots. It’s not so easy to believe, to trust, to
hope.
And then he talks about his commitment to
pacifism—as a Quaker and as a Christian—and how he questions that commitment
every time he sits down to write a check against his federal taxes. Knowing that he’s complicit in militarism and
violence. Wondering if he should be
among the resisters and why he’s not.
If it all sounds dire, if he sounds grim, he’s
really not. Parker Palmer seems to
embrace these very same contradictions, as inevitable opportunities for
discipleship, even as manifestations of grace in our lives. He writes that the way of the cross is about
faith and doubt, about hope and despair, about love and
loss. It’s a human path, and it’s
hard. And on that path we meet the God
of grace who loves us through every bit of the struggle and believes in our
capacity for conversion, compassion, wild mercy and witness. We meet that God, and we come to know that
grace. In the belly of the paradox
itself. And that’s the way of the cross.
3.
Going back to the story, by the way, Peter
seems to want a messianic shortcut, a way around all the messiness, a way
around the ambiguities and all that doubt.
Maybe this is why Jesus responds as he does, why he shuts him down at
this point. His own vocation is at
stake. Jesus knows that the way into
grace, the way into compassion, the way into the justice and peace of God—that
way is human and humbling. And it runs
through paradox and contradiction. It
runs through the cross itself.
So here’s one remarkable paragraph from Parker
Palmer’s book. I think it gets at the
power and potential of the metaphor, the symbol itself.
The cross—he writes—symbolizes that beyond naïve hope and beyond meaningless despair lies a
structure of dynamic contradictions in which our lives are caught...The very
structure of the cross symbolizes these contradictions. Its arms reach left and right, up and down,
signifying the way life pulls us between the conflicting claims of person
against person, the conflicting claims of life human and life divine.
Let me just pause here to note how honest, how
honest and insightful this is. That this
particular path pulls us, this way and that.
That this way of the cross acknowledges the contradictions in our lives,
the paradox of faith itself, the vulnerability of hoping after the manner of
Jesus himself. Yes, it’s a human path,
and yes, it’s hard. And yes, it pulls us
open, it pulls our very hearts and spirits open to the winds of grace. And that’s what Parker Palmer means, I think,
by “The Promise of Paradox.” He
goes on, in that same paragraph:
[After all] the arms of
the cross converge at the center, symbolizing the way in which God can act in
our lives to overcome conflict, to unify the opposition, to contradict the
contradictions! The cross calls us to
recognize that reality has a cruciform shape.
“Reality has a cruciform shape.” And I think this is where Jesus is hoping to
go with Peter. Jesus loves Peter. Jesus is counting on Peter. Jesus is drawn to Peter’s passion, to Peter’s
devotion, to Peter’s fierce hopefulness in the face of injustice and war. But he knows that Peter’s heart has to be
humbled to be open. And he knows that
Peter’s practice has to be patient to be tender. “If any want to become my followers, let them
deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.” “Reality has a cruciform shape.” Jesus is building a beloved community, a
movement of imagination and courage. If
Peter’s to serve that movement, he’ll have to know what it means to have his
life pulled open by paradox, to have his spirit shattered by contradictions. Then grace will find him and grace will claim
him and then Jesus can use him. In a
beloved community. Contradicting the
contradictions.
In just this way, the way of the cross unsettles our
certainties and invites in us a whole new kind of Christian courage. When I get up in the morning and choose to
put a cross like this around my neck, that’s what I’m thinking. That’s my intention. That Jesus and his cross unsettle my
certainties. That Jesus and his cross
unravel my assumptions. That Jesus and
his cross pull my heart as open as open can be—open to the winds of grace, open
to the vast wonder of God’s love, open to the beauty of my neighbor, open to
the humanity of my enemy too. When I put
a cross like this around my neck and go out into the world, I choose to be
unsettled, unraveled and open to grace.
And for me, at least, that’s the beginning of courage, the beginning of
service, the beginning of my witness in the world.
There are a couple of ways I see this playing out, even now,
in our own congregation, in this beloved community. For starters, we’re in conversation this fall
with an exciting community of indigenous leaders. How do we move forward together? What kinds of relationships will reveal a
more respectful and enlightened future among us? We have Kristin Forselius and Nancy Lambert
and Durham United to thank for an exciting and expansive series of events
around Indigenous Peoples Month. And
that series found its way to us Friday night as we hosted an event with our
friends Paul and Denise Pouliot of the Cowasuck Band of the Pennacook Abenaki
People.
If you were with us Friday night, maybe you felt it
too. How relationships pull us open,
pull our hearts open, to new visions and new partnerships. It isn’t easy and it shouldn’t be easy for
Christians like us to engage indigenous leaders and account for our complicated
past. But we listen to one another,
carefully. And we honor one another,
respectfully. And we begin to imagine futures not bound by the violence of the past, futures not limited even by
well-intentioned habits and assumptions.
Something entirely new, entirely fresh and spirit-driven is
possible. God is doing a new thing. Here, among us!
And then there’s this.
We’re making space—right here—for different kinds of Christian faith and
self-expression. While some of us are
skeptical of Christian orthodoxy, others find it empowering, grounding and
meaningful. While some of us resonate
with a kind of universalism, and struggle to relate to Jesus directly, others
experience in Jesus the richest and fullest expression of God’s passion for
justice and mercy. It’s a personal
thing, and a community thing, and a justice thing. And Jesus makes all that work together,
brings it all together in a religion of the heart. In this United (and uniting) Church of
Christ, relationships bring us face to face with paradox and
contradiction. We love one another, but
we pray in different ways, with different words, and different emphases. We share dreams and commitments, but we come
of out vastly different traditions and spiritual landscapes. And sometimes, not all the time, but
sometimes, we struggle to understand one another. How about that?! We’re human.
And you see, this too pulls us open, pulls our hearts open,
such that we are capable of seeing new horizons, such that we are animated by
new energies and new possibilities.
Sometimes that very process is going to unnerve us, and sometimes it’s
going to unsettle us in the very deepest places of our faith and even our
conscience. But isn’t that unsettling
the work of the Spirit herself? Isn’t
that discomfort part and parcel of giving birth to a new reality, a new
manifestation of God’s grace and blessing in the world? I think so.
Because, friends, it’s our calling as a community; it’s our vocation as
a church. To see one another through the
eyes of love. To cherish one another
through the experience of sisterhood, brotherhood, kinship. And if we dedicate ourselves to this, if take
up the cross in that spirit, if we love one another patiently and honor one
another as Christ’s own kin, well, then the Spirit will surely pull us
open. She will surely pull us open, and
sow seeds among us of creativity, service and bold, bold witness in an achy and
anxious world.
5.
Here’s the thing.
Jesus’ invitation to deny ourselves has nothing to with self-hatred or
self-destruction or even self-diminishment.
If you’ve ever heard that in church, if anyone’s ever tried to sell you
that nonsense, just forget about it.
Just let that nonsense go.
Because Jesus has absolutely nothing to do with self-hatred and
self-diminishment. Instead, and this is
important, he challenges the notion that my
self is the only meaningful center of my universe. Let me say that again. Jesus challenges the notion that my self is the only meaningful center of my universe. The center of that universe, Jesus says,
indeed the center of every universe, is God, the light shining in every life,
the heart beating in every breast and every cell and every song. In the beginning—God! In the end, in every last breath—God!
And when you see the universe that way, when you experience
the universe that way, when you recognize God at the very center of all that is
and will be, you are drawn at last into the work and witness of the
church. Praise for all God’s creatures
and creativity. Healing for every broken
life and every broken place. Justice and
liberation for communities and nations and children all over the world. You see, Jesus doesn’t dismiss the value of
your life; he insists on it. He
celebrates it. You are called not just
to survive this world, but to bless it.
You are called not just to use the world or consume the world, but to
sanctify it with your prayer and your love.
Jesus doesn’t dismiss the value of your life; he insists on it!
And that, my friends, is the way of the cross. That’s the life Jesus calls Peter to embrace,
and you and me, and the church in every generation. It’s not easy, and there will be tears along
the way. The contradictions are many,
and sometimes the paradox itself will break our hearts. But the grace that meets us will be sweeter
than anything we imagined. And isn’t that
good news? Amen.
