Sermon preached at Hope Lutheran Church, San Antonio, Texas. Based on Mark 8: 27-38.
Who knows that you are here? Perhaps you have a family member who knows that you attend worship on Sunday mornings at Hope Lutheran Church. Or maybe you have friends or neighbors that know that on Sunday mornings when you leave your home it is to go to church.
I know this however, if you have a cellphone with you, ATT, Verizon or Sprint or whatever phone provider you use knows where you are. From the data that they are receiving to provide you service, they know that you are here. Now, I am not an Alex Jones conspiracist, so I am not mentioning this to you for some outlandish reason, instead this “data” is why the technology boom of the last few decades have so impacted our world. That same device that we use to make phone calls, use as our map, phone book or even store have been a godsend not only for many of us but also for marketers. So, ATT, Verizon or Sprint know that on Sunday mornings you will be found at Hope Lutheran Church.
And so much more. Say you are searching online for a new pair of shoes. You surf through images of Doc Martens, wedge sandals and Ugg boots. You then decide to see what’s happening on Facebook. Suddenly, ads for Doc Martens and Ugg boots are plastered all over your page. And you will continue to see them until you search for something else, which will then take over your page and so on and so on.
It’s little wonder that we have begun to believe that marketers know more about us than we know about ourselves, and they know what we want even before we do from all the data from me and you! But did you know “data” is not just in our century?
When Jesus took his disciples to Caesarea Philippi discussed in the gospel, he gave them a couple of poll questions, but in this case it’s a survey not so much designed to gather information or data as an opportunity to define the brand of discipleship Jesus was looking for from them and, by extension, from us.
Jesus knew his disciples better than they knew themselves, and Jesus knew that their preferences for the kind of Messiah they were looking for --- needed refining and redefining. Here, in this largely Gentile region near the Cave of Pan --- which many people in the ancient world regarded as one of the entrances to Hades ---Jesus begins to turn his disciples’ attention from their needs and desires toward the way of the cross --- admittedly, a much tougher sell!
The gospel seems to begin that as they were walking, Jesus suddenly gave them the first survey question: “What’s the word on the street about me? Who do people say that I am?” (v. 27).
As they had traveled with Jesus through the villages of Judea and Galilee, it is safe to assume that the disciples had collected data, hearing the buzz, feeling the pulse of the crowd. The crowd had a variety of opinions and just enough data to begin forming a profile of this healer and teacher from Galilee.
One significant data point seemed to dominate the survey: The crowd believed Jesus was a prophet in the mold of John the Baptist, Elijah or one of the earlier prophets who dominated Israel’s history. To the crowd, Jesus was a kind of a throwback to an earlier age and perhaps, like John the Baptist and Elijah, he was in the model of a forerunner to the real Messiah to come. This was a radical interpretation of the data, but it wasn’t quite radical enough.
Many opinions about the Messiah’s role and mission were in circulation. We know from a variety of sources outside of the New Testament that Messiah wannabes had popped up before Jesus and would continue to do so afterward, each gathering their own group of followers and selling their vision of what God had planned to do through them. We still have that to this day.
The common thread of the data around the Messiah --- which means “anointed one” --- was that he would be a descendant of the Old Testament figure of David and restore Israel’s independence, bringing earthly deliverance to the earthly kingdom of Israel, a great nation to guide the other nations. This vision of a Messiah was also skewed by the bias of people looking for relief from oppression by Rome and years of foreign domination before the current regime. Therefore, it is understandable when people heard the word “Messiah,” they thought of someone who might be the modern equivalent of a new populist leader.
This is also why the crowd saw Jesus as a prophet and not a Messiah. He wasn’t acting like someone who wanted to cooperate with Rome, and thus his poll numbers would not seem to indicate that he would be a viable candidate “to drain the swamp” and restore the nation of Israel.
We recognize now that their view of Jesus is rather myopic, seen through the skewed lens of cultural and personal bias toward what a prophet and a Messiah might really look like. It’s no coincidence that in the story immediately preceding this one, Jesus heals a blind man who at first sees people but not with the full clarity of vision. Indeed, to him they looked like trees walking around (v. 24). It took a second application of Jesus’ healing hands for the blind man to finally see things clearly and in perspective. The crowd, too, needed a similar retooling of vision to understand the information about Jesus’ identity.
Returning to the gospel, Jesus then asked a follow-up survey question of his disciples, not what did others think --- “But who do you say that I am?”
Peter, an eager guy who today would be the first to participate in every online survey, gives his opinion without hesitation: “You are the Messiah” (v. 29). That seems like the right answer. The author of Mark has already told us up front that his gospel is “the good news about Jesus Christ, the Son of God” (1:1). “Christ” is the Greek rendering of “Messiah” and so it seems that Peter has grasped the message.
But like the crowd, Peter’s own bias gets in the way of understanding what that word, that title, means. Indeed, there is still great potential for misunderstanding until all the data is in, which is why Jesus “sternly ordered them not to tell anyone about him” (v. 30).
Instead, Jesus himself then begins to fill in the data. In the first of three predictions about his death, Jesus tells his disciples that he will be rejected, undergo great suffering and be killed, but then he will rise again after three days (v. 31). The author of Mark reiterates that Jesus said this “quite openly,” giving the information as clearly as possible (v. 32). But this new piece of information doesn’t fit Peter’s messianic profile, and he took Jesus aside and began to “rebuke” him (v. 32).
Peter was close to Jesus and saw some potential. After all, one who could feed 5,000 people with five loaves and two fish and then walk on water had to have the ability to be the kind of Messiah who would do great things and kick out the Romans. But now Jesus was talking about rejection, suffering and death. How can you be the Messiah if you’re dead? That kind of data made no sense to him, nor to the other disciples or the crowd.
It made perfect sense to Jesus, who understood the bigger picture of where things were trending. Jesus rebuked Peter’s rebuke with a stern word, one Jesus uses to cast out demons: “Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things” (v. 33).
In the rebuke of Peter, Jesus recognized the temptation to be the kind of Messiah that was all about polling numbers, the kind of Messiah Satan himself had earlier tempted Jesus to become (1:12).
Jesus is moving in a different direction --- one in which they and perhaps a few of us may want to go.
Jesus calls “the crowd together with the disciples.” This instruction is for everyone. It is a call to deny one's self, take up your cross, and follow Jesus. We have tended to psychologize this and make it over into something more in tune with 21st century life, such as interpreting “taking up one's cross” to mean putting up with one's circumstances in life. We have also taken this to mean putting up with abuse both physical, verbal and sexual.
Jesus makes it clear: It’s about the cross. “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me” (v. 34). To get behind Jesus is to get under a cross and walk on a road to rejection, suffering and self-denial. It’s a life of doing what’s right and hard, rather than wrong and easy with all the stumbles and falls that will mean. Following Jesus is not trendy and cool. And if it ever is, we’ve got the wrong Jesus. It’s following Jesus in a life lived on behalf of others: the poor, the marginalized, the “lepers” of our day and age. Those are the “divine things” Jesus wants his disciples to focus on, not the “human things” of popularity, prosperity and power.
To follow Jesus, in other words, is to embrace a downward mobility towards justice not only for all of us who have been cast aside but for all in favor of Christ’s preferences for all of creation. We know this because Jesus does not use the language of courts or politics, as we might expect. Rather, Jesus uses the language of economics: “For what does it profit a person to gain the whole world and to lose one's life? For what might a person give in exchange for that one's life?” (vv. 35-36).
All those biblical Greek words --- profit, gain, lose, exchange --- in that sentence are terms of the marketplace. A definition that is chilling and startling for us who live in the most powerful and wealthiest nation in the world but Jesus calls us to check a different box and follow a different, unprofitable life --- the way of the cross.
Jesus recognized that this isn’t a popular way, and that the world sees the cross as a weird and gross marketing strategy. It seems far easier to live blaming those of a different skin tone, class, sexuality and gender, but as Jesus reminds us those who are ashamed of him, his words and his way will feel the real sting of shame (v. 37).
It’s easy for those of us who are 21st-century disciples of Jesus to want to tailor our message and our methods to better fit market trends. I’d like myself and Hope Lutheran to be popular, trendy and have a lot of people following us. We’re tempted, like Peter, to answer Jesus’ question, “Who do you say that I am?” by making him into a Messiah who fits a profile and shows up on searches.
But Jesus won’t have it. There’s only one real answer to that question --- Jesus is the Messiah, the Christ, and he calls us to follow him to the cross. It’s the way of self-denial, self-sacrifice and self-giving. It’s not just about information; it’s about imitation. Yes, like those early disciples we may be clueless, need to be rebuked on occasion, but every day we have a new opportunity to answer, “Who do we say that Jesus is? ATT, Verizon and Sprint can locate us instantly, but it is up to claim that we are located on the path of the cross. Amen.