2/25/24 Lent 2 Sermon
Something Jesus says here flies in the face of I was taught about Christianity. Or at least in the face of what I thought I believed about one of the major goals of being a Christian. In Matthew 28 we’re given the great commission: “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”
My favorite verses in the book of Acts talk of the disciples testifying powerfully in great speeches that Jesus is the Christ and it talks about an explosion of people coming to believe and forming the first churches. And I distinctly remember being awe struck as a kid when I heard about Billy Graham and would see videos of the stadiums full of people that would come to hear his sermons and then come to accept Jesus Christ. And I went to summer camps growing up where I was told that the most important thing I may do is tell someone about Jesus, convince them to accept Jesus as lord and I could save them. I could save them. It’s a gross misunderstanding of who was actually doing the saving.
Admittedly, as I grew older I started to become more skeptical about evangelism - at least in that form. This skepticism piqued when I was in Seminary and attended worship at a church in Richmond that had what they called a soul box. Apparently what they would do is go out into the city and evangelize and if someone said they accepted Christ as their savior, they’d fill out a card and then at the worship service, they’d drop the card into this giant box that they called the soul box. And this represented all the people they’d saved. Thousands upon thousands they claimed. That they saved. That was their language. They saved them for Christ and then put their card that represented their saved soul into the soul box. It sounds like the makings of a great horror movie.
I’ve wondered for years if as Christians we’ve gotten a little out of hand, if not completely off track with evangelism. Last week in adult ed, we watched a video attacking the concept of the guy out in the street with the bullhorn telling people they’ll go to hell if they don’t accept Christ. I don’t really receive them on my car at the grocery store anymore but I do get tracts sent to the church mail about the importance of repenting and accepting Jesus into my heart. Kind of odd mail to receive as a minister of a Christian church but maybe they feel Presbyterians aren’t really Christians. And as tasteless and misguided as I find some forms of evangelism, I can’t argue against its biblical precedent.
And that’s why when I stop and really think about it, when I slow down and take my time reading this passage from Mark, I don’t really know what to do with it. Who do people say I am? Jesus asks. Well, some say you’re John the baptist, others say you’re Elijah, and yet others claim you’re a prophet, Jesus. And he turns the question around again. Ok. Who do you say I am. And Peter gives the same answer we give. You are the messiah. And he sternly orders them to tell no one. He sternly orders them to tell no one. Let me say that just one more time: He sternly ORDERS them to tell no one.
My heart pulls me in two directions this morning to essentially talk about the same thing - to take two different approaches with the same piece of scripture that arrive at the same conclusion. I’ll give you the more heavy handed one first and then I’ll move into the one I find more nuanced. The first approach is that the reason Jesus told them not to tell anyone is that he knew his identity would get him killed. And he was right. When people found out that Jesus was the messiah or that people were claiming he was the messiah, they decided the only way to deal with this weirdo, freak who was flying in the face of their religious understanding and social conventions was to kill him. As a whole throughout history, humanity has a poor track record with how we handle people that don’t fit our social norms and challenge our understandings of life and who we are as a people. Even Jesus had to hide his identity in order not to be killed because there were people who didn’t believe he was the messiah and took such offense at the claim that they would do that. They would kill him for it.
I’ve been wondering about that. I’ve been wondering about if that would bring me any comfort as a parent while I read stories this week about a teenager who’s the same age as my kids. In some respects they remind me of my kids. They didn’t necessarily fit into a box. They were different and not a conventional kid. And they were brave because as hard as being a teenager in high school is, it’s even harder if you don’t fit in and you feel like you’re trying to find yourself. And yet this kid had the courage to try to live as authentically to who they were as any 16 year old could. Then one day at school, they went into the bathroom. Even though they identified as non-binary, they went into the female restroom because that’s what they were biologically born as. And they were in there with another outsider - another transgender kid. And we don’t really know what happened except there was a group of kids who found this unacceptable that someone would dare to be different, that someone would have the gall to challenge social conventions around gender and live fully into who or what they identified as. And so these kids, these bullies, went into the bathroom and beat these other, different kids down. Just because they were different. And now Nex Benedict at the age of 16 is dead. And as someone who didn’t know them but has known plenty of kids like Nex, I find myself lost asking why? For what?
People can make whatever arguments they want to me about transgender people and homosexuality and the LGBTQA + community. And I’ve gotten to the point in my life where I no longer have any interest in trying to persuade people or convince them of something they can’t hear and honestly I don’t fully understand. But you can’t convince me that Jesus doesn’t love them - you can’t convince me that as someone who was killed over his own identity, he doesn’t understand and love them. And some people may argue that its a false equivalency to compare the messiah to a transgender kid. And some may go as far as to claim it’s heresy. But if it is, its’ an equivalency I’ll stand behind and a heresy I’ll gladly to trial for. Because you’ll never convince me that God’s heart didn’t break in that Oklahoma City High School’s bathroom this week.
Now the second, more nuanced approach to this scripture goes like this: What does it mean to claim Jesus is Christ and yet not tell anyone about it? What does it mean to follow Jesus and yet not say a word as to who he is? You know, like I wonder if when people meet me and don’t know who I am or what I do for a vocation, do they ever get the suspicion that I’m a Christian? This day in age, it’s almost become a dirty word. And I’ll tell you what, some days I look around and I think maybe rightly so in some cases…
And I’ve been wondering because a part of me feels like to claim, as Peter does, that Jesus is messiah but then not being allowed to tell people that… Well in some ways it says to me that there’s more to this - there’s something more to Christianity - than believing and telling people what they should believe. And if its not about belief and getting others to believe the same as me, then what is it about? And what does it mean then, to say that Jesus is the messiah? What does it mean to really believe that?
For me, to say that Jesus is the Son of God, to say that Jesus is the Messiah is to say that Jesus is the direct reflection of God here on earth. So, if we agree with Peter, if we aren’t just trying to give the correct answer as if there’s a test, but we’re trying to give the answer that we really believe and we say that. If we really believe that Jesus is the Messiah and son of God, then what that means is that if we really want to know who God is, then all we really have to do is look at the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.
How do we know God cares about poor people? Because Jesus cares about poor people.
How do we know that God is a God of love? Because Jesus is a lover.
How do we know that God is in the business of forgiving sins? Because Jesus forgives sin.
How do we know God is inclusive? Because Jesus is.
How do we know that God is a God of hope and a God of life and a God of reconciliation? Because we see that through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus.
How do we know God cares about Justice? Because Jesus cares about Justice.
How do we know God cares about immigrants and outsiders? Because Jesus didn’t just stay among his own people but reached out to Romans and greeks and Samaritans.
And how do I know that God’s heart broke in that Oklahoma City High school’s bathroom? Because God’s child was killed over what could be described as identity politics… And so I believe God and Jesus can relate.
If we want to know what God is like, then we look at Jesus. If we believe Jesus is the son of God, then we believe he is the direct reflection of God on this earth. If we want to know what it takes to have a relationship with God or what that looks like, then we look at how Jesus lived his life. If we want to know how to treat other people in this world, then we look at how Jesus treated other people. And if we want to know what’s truly important to God, then we look at what’s truly important to Jesus.
You see, if we truly want to answer the question Jesus asks us of who do we say he is with the same answer Peter gives, we may give the same simple answer. You are the messiah. You are the son of God. But the implications to that answer should be and are staggering and not easy. Because we have no excuse then. We know what it looks like to live a transformed life. We know what it looks like to live a life of Faith. We know what’s on God’s heart. Because we can see it through the life and teachings of Jesus. So we don’t have any excuse for it not to be on our own hearts.
I don’t know. I feel lucky to be here. I feel lucky that I’m pretty much preaching to the choir and I’m not too worried about Job security like I’ve been in other places to say this. But I think it just needs to be said loudly and clearly that there isn’t a way I look at it where Jesus doesn’t love and care about who society deems the least of these. When I read the Gospel, I come to one definitive conclusion: That Jesus has a heart for the most vulnerable among us and that to follow him means that I have to as well. And to be honest, at this point in my life, I don’t think I’d want to follow and I don’t think I’d be able to claim as messiah a version of Jesus that wouldn’t also view our transgender, nonbinary, or gay kids as anything less than precious children of God.
And I feel lucky that I can’t find a reading of any of the four gospels that would lead me to believe that Jesus doesn’t love and accept them. And if I want to be like Jesus, if I want to claim him as messiah and follow him, then I believe that we have a moral, ethical and religious obligation to love them, to protect them, to ensure they’re safe, and to help create and provide them a world and society where they don’t have to fear that going to the restroom will get them killed. If we’re going to claim Jesus as messiah, then we have to do what this messiah would do - to love who he loves as he loves them. To let our hearts break with what would break his heart. And to minister to those whom he would minister to and those who need him most. We have a moral, an ethical and a religious obligation to care for society’s most vulnerable. Period.
Just love people. Just love them like Jesus would. Its not that hard. You don’t have to understand them. You don’t have to understand the choices they make. You don’t even have to understand how and who they identify as. But just love them and protect them and be a safe place and person for them. Because I think that’s a big part of what claiming Jesus as Messiah means. Just love people and protect the most vulnerable. That’s it.
Amen.