Tom Momberg Sermon text Church of the Holy Communion

SUNDAY SERMON

THE JESUS WE DON'T YET KNOW
Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost, Year B
September 14, 2003

There I was. At a funeral. In a trailer park.

Someone else was the preacher. I had nothing official to do, except sing a bit of "Amazing Grace." I was there with a friend, whose job it was to preside over things: to say a few words, read some scripture, offer a prayer.

Now, I tried to support my friend in the best way I knew how: to watch, to listen, to be present to the God with us. But I want you to know, I was struggling. I was having a hard time finding the Jesus I knew.

When my preacherfriend finished the service, a man came up to us, a touch of alcohol on his breath. He said he wanted to sing something, if that was OK. He mentioned the death of Johnny Cash and launched into a rendition of "Precious Lord, Take My Hand."

Finally, he came closer to us. He asked, "do you know Jesus? Do you know him as your personal Lord and Savior?" The two of us, each in our own way, allowed that we did. He thanked us for letting him sing. We said our goodbyes.

As my friend and I drove away, I began to think about that question: Do I know Jesus? As my personal Lord and Savior? Yes. As God's beloved child? Yes. But…as the one who is found "in the least of these," these trailer park people?

Later my preacherfriend showed me a quote in a book about preaching the gospel of Mark. The preacher in the book says people were looking for this great Messiah, but then it's Jesus who comes, instead. That preacher says it's just like God to come "sliding out of some trailer park…." (Brian Blount, in Preaching Mark in Two Voices, p. 31).

Who is Jesus? That's the question posed to Peter and the other disciples. "Who do people say that I am?" Jesus asks. The disciples round up the usual suspects: John the Baptist, Elijah, some other prophet.

"BUT," Jesus demands, "I don't really care what OTHERS think or say right now. I'm interested in what YOU think, what YOU feel, what YOU know of me. So, who do YOU say that I am?"

We know the answer Peter gives Jesus. "You are the Messiah." Jesus is the Messiah, the Anointed One, the Christ. Jesus is the Savior of the world, the Lord of Lords, the Son of God. We know that.

In today's gospel account from Mark, Jesus orders them, sternly, not to tell anyone about their conversation. It's as if he were saying, Yes, that's right: you know me as the Messiah. Just keep that a secret for now. Don't tell anyone you know that about me. For now, there's something else about me I want you to know.

Then Jesus begins to teach them about another kind of Messiah, about the kind of Messiah who not only must suffer but also must be rejected, who must be killed and then, who will rise from the grave. How does Peter receive this teaching from Jesus? Not well. Not very well at all.

Peter tries to rebuke Jesus, to reprimand this teacher, for such a ridiculous - no, blasphemous - idea. Imagine, a Messiah, a Savior, a Child of God, who has to die! No way, Jesus. No way.

But Jesus says, "Way." And Jesus goes one step further, rebuking Peter, calling him "Satan," reprimanding in the strongest way possible the one who called him "Messiah." We hear in all this echoes of the words Jesus said to another disciple: "Have I been with you all this time…and still you do not know me?" (citation)

As human beings we know how hard - no, how impossible - it is truly to know someone else, even if we have known them and loved them and perhaps even lived with them for years. Jesus is saying to Peter, "you think you know me, Peter, but you don't. You don't yet know all of me. There's still more of me I want you to know."

So Jesus gathers together not just closest friends, but the entire crowd. Jesus tells all those followers, all who would share that journey, about the other part of their Messiah's true nature, a part of Jesus they do not know. It's the part about losing life.

This is NOT the kind of Messiah the people of Jesus' day wanted or expected. This is not the kind of Christ we want or expect. Human beings want a survivor, a victor, not a saving victim. In non-church language, we want a winner, not a loser.

And if we are to be disciples of Jesus, this means something even more challenging. It means that, if we are to follow Jesus, if we are to walk with Jesus, we will experience something of what Jesus experienced. To be disciples of Jesus means to lose our lives, for Christ's sake.

But what does this really mean? That's fine for Jesus, but what about us? What might losing life look like, for those who would be Christ's disciples, people like you and like me?

Most of us, of course, will never have to lose our lives literally. Martyrdom is just not in the cards for nearly all 21st century Christians, although it is for a few. And so our tendency is to think: Whew! Thank God! This teaching does not apply to me.

Yet, if we're honest, if we expand our thinking, if we consider how life is more than just physical existence, we know it does. Jesus calls us to lose our lives. But how?

As we search for God, some of us will get lost. Trying to fill the holes in our souls with something, anything other than God, we can easily get lost in distractions, compulsions, even addictions. Sometimes we get lost in the accumulation of things. Sometimes we get lost in another kind of accumulation, in loss after loss after loss. We may have just too many challenges, too many changes, too many deaths in our lives.

Some of us will get lost. Yet ALL of us will suffer losses in our lives. Loss is, as one writer puts it, "the pivotal human experience" (Monica McGoldrick). In her best-selling book of more than a decade ago, Necessary Losses, Judith Viorst puts it this way:

"When we think of loss we think of the loss, through death, of the people we love. But loss is a far more encompassing theme in our life. For we lose not only through death but also by leaving and being left, by changing and letting go and moving on….These losses are a part of life - universal, unavoidable, inexorable. And these losses are necessary, because we grow by losing and leaving and letting go" (pp.2-3).

This, I believe, is also the essence of the Christian message. The way of the cross is, as our Book of Common Prayer says, "none other than the way of life and peace" (p. 99). In my experience, taking up my cross and losing my life is about faith, about trust - about believing that, when I am lost, Christ will always find me; believing that, no matter what losses I face, I will learn, I will grow, I will find new life.

I don't know about you, but there seems to be one loss I seem to face over and over again. It is the loss Peter faces in today's story. It is the loss of "the Jesus I knew."

I have come to know Jesus as Messiah, as Savior, as Lord. I'll always know those parts of Jesus. And yet it has become necessary for me, again and again, in times and ways I can never predict, to lose, to set aside parts of Jesus, so I can know more of Jesus.

And this is the more of Jesus I keep facing: the Jesus of "the least of these, who are members of my family" (Matthew 25:40). It is the Jesus who is least like me. It is the Jesus I least know - and often least want to know. THIS is ALSO the Jesus whose deep desire is to be followed, to be journeyed alongside, to be known.

I have learned - I suspect you have, too - that to follow and join with the Christ in those who are least like us is to lose our lives, as we know life. To follow the Jesus we do not know is to lose our lives of comfort and certainty and control. In the words from our Gospel passage last Sunday, Jesus calls us to be opened, to open ourselves and to listen, to journey with, to learn from and even to follow those who are different from us.

This call of Jesus is, of course, unique to each person. For me, it means that, in addition to following the Christ in the people who are like me, I am called to listen to and learn from people who are not like me - for example: not white, not middle-class, not middle-aged, not male. I am called to listen to and to learn from and to know people of color and people who are poor. I am called to see Christ in children, in youth, in adults who are older and younger than me, in women. Jesus calls to me through people who live in trailers and sing like Johnny Cash.

I believe this is what it means for us to lose our lives for Christ's sake and for the sake of the gospel. The Good News is that, when we surrender our old life to Christ, we are assured we'll find a new one. And no matter what - no matter how many losses we suffer, no matter how lost we get, no matter how hard it is or how long it takes or how painful things become - Jesus calls us to trust. Jesus will encourage us and correct us and rebuke us and forgive us and love us, because we are God's beloved.

Sisters and brothers, we are disciples on a journey. We journey together as God's beloved. As we begin another year of church school classes and small groups here at Church of the Holy Communion, let us listen to and learn from and journey with one another, no matter how different we may be.

I close with a story about journeying with the Jesus we might not yet know.

Gail Sheehy, author of the landmark work Passages, which described the developmental stages of adult life, has written a new book. It's called Middletown, America: One Town's Passage from Trauma to Hope. She spent almost two years with residents in a town hit hard by the tragedy of September 11, listening to and learning from their ongoing journey through grief to hope.

Here's what one woman who lost a family member that day told Sheehy:

"The first time I went to Ground Zero was maybe two weeks after nine-eleven. I really didn't want to go. Somebody wanted me to go with them…..I didn't want to go with them. I walked away by myself because I was just in shock."

"And a man came over to me (someone I did not know). He put his arm around me. He didn't say anything, just stood there with me. About fifteen minutes. Finally he turned to me and spoke. 'I didn't say anything to you, because I know there's nothing I can say to make you feel better. My daughter died in Oklahoma City.'

"I will never forget that man as long as I live. He made such a difference that day. He…understood (something) of what I was going through at that time. I would love to track him down and bring back a little of that courage, a little bit of the hope he offered us that day. I just wish I knew his name."

The name is Jesus. We know Jesus. Or do we?

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