When God Shows Up-3-4-12

The Reading: Genesis 17: 1-7, 15-16
When Abram was ninety-nine years old, GOD showed up and said to him, "I am The Strong God, live entirely before me, live to the hilt! I'll make a covenant between us and I'll give you a huge family." Overwhelmed, Abram fell flat on his face.
Then God said to him, "This is my covenant with you: You'll be the father of many nations. Your name will no longer be Abram, but Abraham, meaning that 'I'm making you the father of many nations.' I'll make you a father of fathers—I'll make nations from you, kings will issue from you. I'm establishing my covenant between me and you, a covenant that includes your descendants, a covenant that goes on and on and on, a covenant that commits me to be your God and the God of your descendants. And I'm giving you and your descendants this land where you're now just camping, this whole country of Canaan, to own forever. And I'll be their God."
God continued speaking to Abraham, "And Sarai your wife: Don't call her Sarai any longer; call her Sarah. I'll bless her—yes! I'll give you a son by her! Oh, how I'll bless her! Nations will come from her; kings of nations will come from her."

THE GOSPEL: Mark 8:31-38
He then began explaining things to them: "It is necessary that the Son of Man proceed to an ordeal of suffering, be tried and found guilty by the elders, high priests, and religion scholars, be killed, and after three days rise up alive." He said this simply and clearly so they couldn't miss it.
But Peter grabbed him in protest. Turning and seeing his disciples wavering, wondering what to believe, Jesus confronted Peter. "Peter, get out of my way! Satan, get lost! You have no idea how God works."
Calling the crowd to join his disciples, he said, "Anyone who intends to come with me has to let me lead. You're not in the driver's seat; I am. Don't run from suffering; embrace it. Follow me and I'll show you how. Self-help is no help at all. Self-sacrifice is the way, my way, to saving yourself, your true self. What good would it do to get everything you want and lose you, the real you? What could you ever trade your soul for? "If any of you are embarrassed over me and the way I'm leading you when you get around your fickle and unfocused friends, know that you'll be an even greater embarrassment to the Son of Man when he arrives in all the splendor of God, his [Holy Parent], with an army of the holy angels."
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When God Show Up: What Then? 3-4-12
God, we miss the mark over and over again. We just don’t “get it”. Open our hearts in new ways and speak to us in ways we cannot help but understand. May the words of my mouth and meditations of all our hearts be true and pure and pleasing to You. Amen.
It would be easy to ignore the section from Genesis today and just pretend that it just sort of happened into the bulletin as “filler” if you will. And I was tempted to do so. How many of you actually look to see if I am preaching about the scriptures in the bulletin or have gone off on my merry way to something else—no hands, please, either way, I don’t need to know. But God kept calling me to see the way that these two scriptures intertwine to bring us deeper understanding of each. The story in Genesis is pleasant and simple, certainly not like the passage in Mark. When I first chose the name of the sermon today, I must say I was thinking of poor Abram. Abram was 99 years old and had been faithful to God. And God shows up with bigger news. God will be in covenant with Abram and it will be quite a covenant indeed—a long full life (my goodness, he’s already 99) and a huge family. Our passage says this, “overwhelmed, Abram fell flat on his face”. I’m with Abram on this—flat on my face seems the appropriate place to be when “God shows up.” But God, apparently not seeing or stopping because Abram is now face down in the dirt, continues. “Abram, you are going to be the head of many nations and as a sign of the covenant, I’m going to change your name to Abraham.” Can you see it, Abram lifting up his head, spitting the dirt out of his mouth as God is declaring him to be the great parent of hundreds of people? God continues, as Abram, now Abraham slowly rises from the ground, “And because of this covenant, I’ll always be your God, and the God of all your descendants. I think we often forget when we read about the ancient nations of Israel, that this was a time of multiple gods, and those gods regularly waged huge wars and huge wars were waged in their names. The concept of one God always seemed to come as a surprise to everyone except God’s special servants. This moment, then is a big moment when it is recorded that this is the God for all time for all the descendants of Abraham. Sarai, Abraham’s wife, also receives a new name, Sarah, and she is blessed by God and told she will bear a son. Think of it—lives turned upside down, when God shows up. Have we not, too, been witness to the turning upside down when God shows up and speaks directly to us? But none of this could prepare us for what Jesus now says.
We fast forward though centuries of warfare, pilgrimage, and prophecy, and find ourselves at a particularly difficult place with Jesus of Nazareth. It is important to place this story in context. What comes immediately before our passage is the conversation between Jesus and his disciples regarding what was basically gossip about Jesus. Jesus asks them, and we spoke of this passage not long ago, “who do people say that I am” and, more importantly, “who do you say that I am?” Simon, is the one in this passage who brings the correct answer to the question. “You are the Messiah!’ In Matthew’s version of the story, it is easier to see the connection between the Old Testament passage and the New. Simon continues and says, “You are the Son of the Living God!” And now Jesus does something that clearly connects his covenant with the covenant of God with the people of God. Jesus changes Simon’s name. From here on out, Simon is called Peter, and it is just after this dramatic moment of a new name and new place of prominence in the story that our next rather unfortunate event occurs. Jesus, after determining who others think that he is, begins to tell us in his own words, exactly who he is. Jesus begins to explain things to his disciples: “"It is necessary that the Son of Man proceed to an ordeal of suffering, be tried and found guilty by the elders, high priests, and religion scholars, be killed, and after three days rise up alive." Mark records that Jesus stated this plainly, clearly and in simple words so that they would not miss it. Nevertheless, Peter, hopelessly lost in his love for Jesus and his wanting to protect him, grabs Jesus and protests. The older translations use the word ‘rebuke’ and, if you’ve ever been rebuked, particularly in public, you probably don’t want to go down that road again. All of a sudden, Jesus grabs Peter and says, “Peter, get out of my way—you and Satan get lost! You have no idea of how God works.” At this point, Jesus, more than a little angry, calls the crowd to join the disciples. Even in his anger, Jesus shows us undeniably that none are excluded from his message. His chosen few now lost in importance as those who were outside the inner circle are invited into the larger circle of Jesus’ reign. Jesus continually shows us that the Truth, the Good News, about himself and God is available for all and that no one has an “in” with God.
Unfortunately, most of us are not so crazy about hearing what Jesus says next. This is a hard passage and Jesus must have known that few would be able to hear and embrace what he is saying. But listen closely; in my revised version this is what I hear Jesus saying to us: If you intend to follow me, you have to get out of the way. I am the one who leads. Don’t run from the hard parts of life, embrace them. By following me, by accepting my cross as yours, you will learn how to take the broken parts of yourself and let them become whole. If you’ve tried before, you know by now that it takes more than just willing yourself to change; you must be willing to let me show you the way through sacrificing what you think is important in order to find your truest self. For what good would it do you, if you managed to accumulate all the power and accolades you thought you wanted if you lost your real self along the way?” And finally, Jesus asks us the crucial question, “Is there anything worth giving up your soul for?”
One night this week, I left a conversation with someone in the community feeling very, very “un-whole”. I imagine this has happened to some of you as well. Suddenly in the midst of studying the passage above, I knew immediately what I had done. I had allowed someone other than God’s Holy Spirit to tell me how to fix my broken parts. And, in the midst of it all, God showed up. Face down, I came to understand, yet again, that only God—the God who entered into covenant with us at the time of Abraham and reaffirmed and transformed that covenant through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ—can fix our broken parts, if they are truly broken at all; and only God can lead us to the truest sense of wholeness, through the graceful gift of being touched by the One who leads us faithfully.
This longing to be fully connected to God, through the saving grace of Jesus, is what makes this passage accessible to all of us. I believe that Jesus is indeed calling us to a life of sacrifice, but this is it not an, ‘o woe is me, how bad can this get’ kind of sacrifice. This is a sacrifice that gently and faithfully results in our discovery of who we truly are. This ‘taking up one’s cross’ means that we follow the will of God no matter where it takes us—that as we find ourselves able to expand our ministries that there will be those of us who will sacrifice one afternoon a week or maybe two or three to work in our food pantry, or minister to those in need of spiritual or physical food. And that those of us who are able may find ourselves called to support the work of this church in new and exciting ways. It also means that we sacrifice our best notion of who we thought we were for a life of humility—humility that knows that when God shows up—face flat on the ground is an ok response. We celebrate the God of the first covenant, the Christ of the second, and the knowing that when we are present to God’s Holy Spirit, at the oddest and best times of life, God, well, shows up. Amen and amen.