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Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Something Worse Than Suffering
Psalm 22:23-31; Mark 8:31-38
There's no nice way to get around it. This Lenten Season thing is plain unpleasant. Self-examination... Self-denial... Forty days and forty nights of divine tough love, with time off on Sundays for good behavior... Following in the footsteps of Jesus who spent forty days and forty nights of fasting, prayer, and temptation by the Devil to launch his Messianic ministry (see Mark 1:9-15 for details).
That Gospel passage was the text for Lent 1's sermon. For Lent 2, this week's story is another landmark temptation of Christ. This time it's his friend Simon Peter of all people who puts him to the test.
Jesus tells the disciples he's got to go to Jerusalem and keep a date with destiny -- his arrest, physical and psychic suffering, and finally a violent death.
Then Peter takes him aside and says, "No way! That can't happen! We won't let it happen!"
And Jesus answers, "Get behind me, Satan!" He calls his friend the Devil! Then he warns that his thoughts are not God's thoughts, but the product of warped human kindness. And now they've led him to side with Satan against the will of God. Yikes!
How often well-intentioned people end up in this position. Common sense vs. the mind of God.
We confuse goodness with niceness. We second-guess the probable outcome of a decision, a commitment, a determined desire to do the right thing -- and decide there must be a better, easier way to get from here to there. Or, maybe, getting there isn't such a good idea right now. Play it safe, we say; why sacrifice all the good you could accomplish in the long run by putting yourself in danger here and now?
From that starting point, my sermon somehow wound up with two widely, wildly, different stories to make this point: Following Christ means walking in his footprints, even (especially?) to the point of sacrificing your hold on life in order to save your spiritual life and bless the lives of others.
Story one: The 4th century hermit Telemachus dying as a martyr in a Roman gladiator show.
Story two: The 21st century video star Matt Harding dancing his way across the world to spread spontaneous joy.
Interested? Curious?
Listen to the GODcast!
(And then check out http://vimeo.com/1211060/ )
posted by Jack Buckley at
5:15 PM
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