Living the Essentials

 

PROPERS: PROPER 19, YEAR B

TEXT:       MARK 8:27-38

PREACHED AT ST. PAUL’S, MAGNOLIA SPRINGS, ON SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 15, 2024.

 

ONE SENTENCE:        The Gospel call is to a life of sacrifice and humility, and not a cudgel to overwhelm those we perceive as enemies.

 

 

            The gospel lesson from Mark has Jesus in the northern region of Israel, in the community of Caesarea Philippi, teaching his disciples with these words:

 

“If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it. For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life? Indeed, what can they give in return for their life? Those who are ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of them the Son of Man will also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.”

 

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            Tim Alberta is the son of an evangelical Christian pastor. He has written a book entitled, The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory – familiar words borrowed from the Lord’s Prayer.

 

            The book is a 400-page withering critique of the world he knows well – the evangelical church in America.  He questions its embrace of hard-right conspiracies and the politics which go along with those conspiracies. All of this displacing the gospel.

 

            He contends that the evangelical movement has discarded the essential teachings of Jesus in pursuit of conquering the culture, the nation, and the world. Power has become the primary motivator behind that movement. Conquest at all costs. No matter what principals must be sacrificed.

 

            His words are an exhaustive and valid critique. He supports them with in-depth illustrations from coast-to-coast. Much of the evangelical church has lost its way.

 

            But I’m here to say we have, too.  It is not just our evangelical brothers and sisters who have gone astray.

 

            We support a mainstream religion which comforts all and offends none. It does not challenge us or our culture. I recall when we, as a church, were proud to have four members of the Supreme Court and a President. We saw ourselves as the established church. We were interested in dominating culture, too. Those were heady times.

 

            It is important to remember that Christianity started as a profoundly counter-cultural movement. Outside of culture. In opposition to established religion. Our messiah butted heads with religious leaders. He fed the hungry. He ate with sinners and tax collectors.  He forgave prostitutes. He said his kingdom is “not of this world.” He died a criminal’s death.

 

            He taught us that true faith is practiced with welcoming the alien, feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, forgiving again and again and again, being humble, sacrificing and not conquering.

 

            Christianity is a way of being not a means of conquest. Our kingdom, our true home, Jesus tells us, is not of this world.

 

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            I have long contended that the church went off the tracks when Emperor Constantine made Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire in 313 AD.

 

            From that time has flowed catastrophes such as the Crusades, the Inquisition, the religious upheavals and wars in Europe, the Salem Witch Trials and others.

 

            It is time, once again, for the church to be a movement outside of the culture, and not a movement to conquerculture. 

 

            If the world is to be changed (and it will), it will be by our example. As the hymn says, “They will know we are Christians by our love.” Our power is in forgiveness. Our gift is generosity. Our currency is love… for everyone.

 

            We should be prepared to sacrifice, not win… to take up our cross and follow Jesus.