GEC-Sermon-2018-09-16 - Pentecost 17

Grace Church Sheboygan

Play Video Grace Episcopal Church Sheboygan, Wisconsin The Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost [Proper 19B2] Isaiah 50.4-9a Psalm 116.1-8 James 3.1-12 Mark 8.27-38 May the Lord by in my mind, on my lips, and in my heart, that I may rightly and truly proclaim His Holy Word. Amen. “But who do you say that I am?” This is the question Jesus asks His disciples, but more importantly, it is the question He asks each one of us. In the gospel account, the disciples–despite the fact that they have now accompanied Jesus throughout His ministry in Galilee, and have witnessed His miracles and received His teaching–still don’t really understand who Jesus is. They try to fit Him into whatever set of their own expectations they think might work. Peter does get it right (with God’s help!) He says, “You are the Messiah,” but then makes it clear that he doesn’t understand what this means. Like the crowd in our lesson from last week, who say, when Jesus has healed the deaf and mute man, “He has done all things well [!],” Peter wants to focus on the signs and wonders that accompany the coming of the Christ, and so he takes Jesus aside and says something like, “You need to stop speaking of suffering and rejection, let alone dying. You are here to bring the good news of the redemption of Israel.” And what does Jesus do? He rebukes Peter in language that is strong enough to read, let alone receive: “Get behind me, Satan!” Which brings us back to that question, “[W]ho do you say that I am?” Let’s put that question in the context of Mark’s telling, before we put it in the context of our own lives. In Mark, this whole lesson is the scene around which the entire story pivots. Up until this point we have heard of Jesus’ ministry of teaching and healing in Galilee, of the call of His disciples, and of His disputes with the Pharisees, but now the arc of the sixteen chapters of Mark changes direction, for Jesus Himself changes direction, and now sets His face toward Jerusalem. Jerusalem—the holy place of God where Jesus will be betrayed and killed. Jesus says that He will rise again, but Peter and the others seize upon the issues of betrayal and death. Peter’s not listening, or if he is he’s not paying attention, because if he’s paying attention he’ll realize that when Jesus speaks of rejection He is echoing what Isaiah taught long before, when he described the servant of the Lord as saying, “I did not turn backward. I gave my back to those who struck me, and my cheeks to those who pulled out the beard; I did not hide my face from insult and spitting” (Isaiah 50.6). What the Messiah, the Christ, the Anointed One of God does is not just open the ears of the deaf, loosen the tongues of the mute, make the lame to walk and the blind ...