It's Just Offensive

WESTMINSTER PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH
September 17th 2006
Rev. Mark R. Bradshaw-Miller
“It’s Just Offensive”
Mark 8:27-38
In the Presbyterian Church, each person who is ordained as a minister of Word and Sacrament must submit a written statement of faith. I still remember the anxiety in preparing a written statement of my faith to present to the committee on ministry for my pre-examination. I remember that the committee took their work very seriously. I learned that a number of candidates were required to re-write their statements in order to pass. That is why I should have considered myself fortunate that they only asked me to make one change. However, I am still troubled by their request.
In my statement, when I wrote about the death of Jesus, I used the word execution instead of crucifixion. The committee said that I needed to use the word crucifixion because using the word execution might cause me trouble in my examination at the presbytery meeting. They suggested that I not do anything which might cause a stir so as not to get into any trouble. Even after making the point that crucifixion was in fact a public execution, I was finally told that it was too confrontational and would be offensive to some people.
I wish I could stand here and tell you I stood my ground. I wish I could tell you that I told the committee that the cross was offensive and as such refused to change my statement of faith. However, I decided to follow the path of least resistance and changed my faith statement so that no one would be offended. However, when I moved to Saint Louis, and was asked to submit my faith statement for this Presbytery, I added the word execution back into the document. This addition did not seem to offend anyone and I am still not sure what to make of that.
Our reading from Mark’s gospel begins with a very simple question. “Who do people say that I am?” Jesus seems interested in the word-on-the-street. However, he is after something else entirely and quickly turns the question to his followers. “Who do you say that I am?”
Peter is the only one to answer: “You are the Messiah.” Jesus responds by telling Peter, and everyone else, to be quiet. What happens next seems like an unrelated topic. Yet, this encounter has everything to do with Jesus’ teaching about the cross.
Peter mistakenly calls Jesus the Messiah. It becomes clear later that Peter believes the Messiah will be a mighty warrior. Peter was not alone in his belief that the Messiah was going to come and overthrow the Roman occupation and establish God’s kingdom on earth.
Nowhere in the Gospel of Mark does Jesus refer to himself as Messiah. It is almost as if he goes to great lengths to avoid confusion on this point. However, many followers of Jesus miss this point. So, when Jesus says: “that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again,” Peter’s protest makes more sense.
These claims had to seem like nonsense to Peter. It is out of his confusion and arrogance that Peter tells Jesus to be quiet. Come on Jesus, don’t you know that the Messiah is not weak. You are supposed to conquer and kill! Jesus must have just had a momentary lapse of memory. It is a good thing Peter was there to set him strait.
Jesus responds to Peter by calling him Satan. Then, he calls the other disciples and even the crowd so they will not miss this central teaching and make the same mistake that Peter has. Jesus says:
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?
Peter, and others, assumed that Jesus would act like the rulers of this world. They expected a Messiah who would say things like: “Bring em on,” or “Go ahead make my day.” Instead, Jesus talked about being killed. He went even further by saying that if anyone wants to be a follower they must pick up a cross and follow him.
The cross, in ancient Rome, was used for public executions. This form of execution was never to be used on Roman citizens. It was a means of social control and domination. Ultimately, it was used to not only to kill, but to humiliate, and guarantee tranquility. Jesus’ use of the cross was so offensive because it was never intended to be a symbol of faith or hope or eternal life. It was a symbol of political repression, torture, and humiliation. Jesus call to pick up a cross is nothing short of offensive.
William Willimon, the former dean of the Duke University Chapel, says that Christians in North America have lost touch with the offensiveness of the cross. He has even suggested that churches replace the cross with an electric chair in order to reconnect with the offensive reality of the cross. However, I think it might be easier to come to grips with the offensive nature of the cross when we take time to look at what the images of torture inflicted by the United States in Abu Grahib in Iraq. If we want to connect with the offensiveness of the cross, one only has to look at those pictures. This is the reality to which Jesus was speaking and that is why it was so offensive.
Jesus encounter with Peter and the others points to a struggle that all disciples must face. Will we follow the way of Peter and try to fit Jesus into our agenda or will we follow Jesus on the way of the cross? Too often the followers of Jesus have tried to attach Jesus to our pet projects, our traditions, our prejudices, our political parties, and even our wars. But each time we do this, we stand, not with Jesus, but with Peter – the one Jesus called Satan. The simple reality is that disciples are called to follow.
Being told to pick up our cross and follow Jesus can sound like more things to add in our already busy lives. But being a disciple, picking up our cross and following Jesus, is not about adding one more thing to our busy calendars. Instead, it is an all encompassing call to follow where Jesus leads. In the business of our lives, and even the work of the church, it can be easy to loose track of this call. If you hear the call to pick up your cross and follow as just another item on the unfinished ‘to-do’ list, then it may be time to put some things down. This morning we are going to have the opportunity to do this, at least symbolically.
At the end of the sermon you are invited to take the blank piece of paper in your bulletin and write down those things which may be standing in the way of picking up your cross. What is it that God may be calling for you to put down or cease doing or ‘let-go’ of in order to pick up your cross and follow? Whatever it is, or they are, write it down on the paper. When you come forward, lay the paper on the floor in front of the communion table. Then, pick up one of the crosses on the table and return to your seat.
These crosses are yours to keep. They have come to us all the way from Liberia. The crosses were once the casings from bullets used during the many years of conflict in that country. Christians in Liberia have taken these shell casings and fashioned a small crosses. It is a powerful symbol of hope which does not allow for the scandal of the cross to be forgotten. What was once an instrument of death, a cross and a bullet, have become a symbol of hope.
When Jesus invites his followers to pick up their cross, he is inviting all of us to pick up the symbols of death and domination and turn them into symbols of hope. What the Roman Empire meant for humiliation, torture, and death, Jesus has turned it into a symbol of hope. May these small symbols of spent bullets be the tiny reminder that death does not have the last word and that we are called to proclaim this message to the death dealers of this world. Amen.