Lent 2B, 25 February 2024. The Very Rev. Pamela L. Werntz

• Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16. Then Abram fell on his face.
• Romans 4:13-25. Hoping against hope.
• Mark 8:31-38. For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life?

O God all sufficient, grant us the wisdom, the strength and the courage to seek always and everywhere after truth, come when it may, and cost what it will.

Last week, on the first Sunday in Lent, we learned that the spirit of holiness can drive a very hard bargain. Jesus, perhaps, in order to understand his mission, was pushed hard into the wild for a quarantine. Then, upon hearing of John the Baptist’s imprisonment and picking up where John had left off, Jesus proclaimed the good news of the realm of the Holy One and taught  that the time is now to turn around (or, to change your channel to see and understand that love is the only way). This week we get a glimpse of why the good news was so dangerous.

According to Mark, the priests, bishops, and canon lawyers were, as they have always been and are still, quite risk-averse. (It doesn’t do us much good to translate those words for religious leaders in archaic terms of “elders, chief priests, and scribes.”) According to Mark, they would reject Jesus’ teachings; the Roman government would execute Jesus; and after three days he would rise again. (Anyone who has ever served on an Altar Guild during Holy Week knows that Jesus was only in the tomb for one full day. He was buried just before the Sabbath began and was raised up just as the next day was dawning.) Jesus said all of this quite openly, or as translator Sarah Ruden says, with confident freedom. [1]

When Peter took Jesus aside to argue with him, the word that is translated rebuke means to warn by instruction in order to prevent something from happening. (He didn’t want Jesus to get crucified.) Jesus then turned from a private argument with Peter to the group of disciples to counter warn Peter in front of the other disciples or learners. It sounds harsh to me that Jesus called Peter Satan, the accuser, when Peter was only trying to warn him to turn down the volume and not get himself (and them) arrested.

But Jesus responded by taking it up a few notches, by calling the crowds to join them for this teaching (so he’s shouting now). [2]

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?

Jesus is indeed talking about life and death, but the word that gets translated life here is psuche (or psyche):  the vital breath of life, the life force, what we would call the soul. Jesus was warning his closest friends, his students, and indeed the crowds of onlookers (and on-listeners) not to sell their souls for the lure of risk avoidance, of safety.

Remember what your life force is for: to love. As my favorite songwriter, Kris Delmhorst sings, “Have you asked the wildest bird to change his song? It’s the only one he knows. Have you tried to keep the river from the sea? Still that river flows. If not for love, what are you for?” 

But let’s back up a minute, because I always want to review what taking up a cross means. In Jesus’ time, the cross was the most unambiguous instrument of capital punishment, used on the lower classes, slaves, criminals, violence inciters, insurgents, and traitors to maintain the rule of Roman law, the Roman definition of peace. The cross was employed in theaters, in concert halls, on hilltops, and along busy roads as a kind of grotesque billboard warning anyone who might be tempted to subvert the dominant political, military, and economic order. If death on the cross was the most shameful kind of death that the Romans could devise (and it was), then willingly risking that kind of death for the sake of the Gospel was the highest form of life that Jesus could conceive of.

And what does for the sake of the Gospel mean? In Jesus’ time, it was defined by the prophet Isaiah: “Everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and you that have no money, come, buy and eat. Come buy wine and milk without money and without price.” [3] It meant, “to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and release to the prisoners.” [4] It meant repayment of debts and return of what had been stolen. It meant being “repairers of the breach and restorers of streets to live in.” [5] Living the Gospel meant subverting the dominant political and military and economic order that keeps poor people poor, sick people sick, unhoused people without shelter, and incarcerated people in shackles. Living the Gospel still does mean those things. 

Taking up a cross for the sake of the Gospel means voluntarily picking up and carrying a burden of shame on behalf of another, which will probably cause you to fall on your face and might cost your whole life, for the love of God. The thing is, none of us is getting out of this life alive. So the question is, on what will we stake our life? How will we spend our life? How will we spend it, because we actually can’t save it. 

The middle of Kris Delmhorst’s song reminds me so much of our Ash Wednesday ritual words, “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” It goes like this:

We blow like weeds upon the wind
We hold the ground, we drink the rain
We throw our seeds into the world
Before we go the way we came
If not for love, what are you for?

I want to say something about the way our Gospel reading ends today, because it feels like a huge pothole. In what sounds like the perverse opposite of the Golden Rule, Jesus says, “Those who are ashamed of me 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.” This weird one-upsmanship of who is more ashamed, of who feels so bad and wrong. When we studied this passage at our vestry meeting last Tuesday, some of us wondered if there were another way to translate the word shame here. Not really; the word can mean embarrassed or disgraced, called out or exposed because of misplaced confidence in someone or something. The word really is shame. If Mark’s Jesus is trying to motivate others with shame, I want to rebuke him; that is, I want to warn him with instruction to prevent something from happening, because shame is a terrible motivator with harmful and often deadly consequences.

Shame is a toxic motivator because, according to psychologists who study emotions, shame creates distance and limits intimacy and empathy. Shame interferes with cognition and right speech. When people experience shame, heads drop, eyes look down, shoulders slump, and we either say something inappropriate or awkward, or we lose the ability to speak altogether. When people experience deep and unmitigated shame, they avoid others and withdraw from (or are shunned by) the very communities that can help restore dignity and honor. The higher the level of shame, the more likely we are to hurt or kill ourselves and to hurt or kill others. I’m citing modern psychology, but ancient wisdom in the Talmud teaches: “Humiliation is worse than physical pain” and, “Shaming another in public is like shedding blood.” [6]

This difficult verse is often read in a judgy, finger-shaking way; but I believe it’s a misreading of Jesus’ life and love to glorify suffering or threaten eternal damnation on his behalf. If Jesus is sincerely trying to encourage his disciples and folks in the crowds to follow his way of love, however, it makes perfect sense to warn them of the costs and promising fullness of life, even and especially life before death, and to warn them against choosing self-preservation over the way of love. Shame is just not on the pathway to love. Yes, the stakes are high, discipleship is always costly when we follow what Dorothy Day called, “the reckless way of love.” The promise is a life of service to others, a life well-lived and well-loved. 

I wish today’s Gospel portion included the last verse of this story in Mark, which says, “And Jesus said to them, ‘Truly I tell you, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see that the realm of God has come with power.’” That’s why I think that this teaching from Jesus is about coming home to our true selves with the understanding that we were made for love. This is a teaching about life and death, yes; and it is a teaching about how there can be meaningful life before death. It’s a teaching about how it can be well with our soul in the midst of strife. 

The end of Kris Delmhorst’s song goes like this: 

1.  Sarah Ruden, The Gospels: A New Translation (New York: Modern Library, 2021), p. 31.
2. Mathew 16: 24-26.
3.  Isaiah 55 1-2. 
4.  Isaiah 61:1.
5.  Isaiah 58:12.
6. Donald L. Nathanson, Shame and Pride: Affect, Sex, and the Birth of Self (New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 1992), pp. 134-146.