Readings: Genesis 17: 1 – 7, 15 – 16; Romans 4:13 – end; Mark 8: 31 – end
Overheard in Waitrose. This comes from the website:
“Shopping in Waitrose in Hampton yesterday, I realised I have inadvertently become one ‘of those’ mothers…
Throwing himself on the floor having a full on tantrum in the fresh produce aisle was my 22 month old son- why? Because I wouldn’t let him have sweets, chocolate, a toy? No, no, this toddler was having a melt down because I wouldn’t allow him to open the ‘black pepper and rosemary infused olives’ right there and then. As he stamped his feet shouting ‘olives, now’ I felt like I was having an out of body experience as I heard myself say ‘sorry darling, you can have the olives as soon as we get home’.
Middle class suburbia has taken our souls.”
My own Waitrose moment came when I discovered that they stocked Balsamic vinegar in their essentials range. Possibly in Modena where it’s made, possibly in the rest of Italy it might qualify as an essential. But in Finchley??
Even the things we do regard as necessities, never mind the luxury items are well beyond the reach of much of the world’s population. This is why we need events like Big Brew Day. One of the reasons the Overheard in Waitrose website is such fun is that it points up the absurdities and petty snobberies of a world where we’re surrounded by luxury and choice. As long as we have the money we can indulge ourselves. Middle class suburbia can have our souls.
Our Gospel today cuts right across all of this. We’ve just heard it: “For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake and for the gospel will save it.” (Mark 8: 35- 36) As someone has put it “We only truly discover the life and love that God has to offer us when we let go [of] all the things we cling to so tightly in that small place of “I” and open ourselves to the people around us in compassion, understanding, and love.”
There are two groups of people in today’s Gospel. The crowd and the disciples. Those who just gather to listen to Jesus and those who decide to travel with him. Jesus called both groups to him before throwing out his challenge: “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me?” (Mark 8: 34). The challenge is also for us. So where do we see ourselves in this story? Are we part of the crowd, or are we disciples, following in the way of Christ? If we want to live with Christ we also have to die with Him.
It’s perhaps not surprising that our Christmas services are more popular than our Easter services. The crib service is the most popular of all. Everyone wants to celebrate the story of the birth of a wonderful baby, especially if children are involved. Rather fewer want to make the journey through Maundy Thursday and Good Friday – betrayal, trial, torture and death – before arriving at Easter Sunday. Like Peter we may recognise the wonder of God’s coming among us in Christ, but it’s our human nature, if at all possible, to avoid loss and suffering. We resist the dying which would make us most fully alive.
Recently I’ve been thinking about Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a Lutheran pastor and theologian of the first half of the 20th century. He was a prominent member of the Confessing Church in Germany which opposed Nazism. In the years leading up to the second world war he travelled abroad to work and study and could have remained in the USA and pursued a distinguished career in theology. In 1935 he returned to Germany to lead an underground seminary training pastors for the Confessing Church. In 1939 he accepted an invitation to teach in the United States. As a committed pacifist opposed to the Nazi regime, he could never swear alleigance to Hitler and fight in his army. However, despite efforts from colleagues to dissuade him, and after much inner turmoil he returned to Germany in 1939 on the last scheduled steamer to cross the Atlantic. He subsequently joined the Abwehr, a Germany military intelligence organisation which was also the centre of anti-Hitler resistance. His return to Germany cost him his life as he was implicated in a plot to assassinate Hitler. He was executed in Buchenwald concentration camp two weeks before it was liberated in 1945.
He was 39, engaged to be married, and the book which he hoped would be his life’s work was incomplete. For Bonhoeffer, following Christ meant letting go of all of this. To be fully alive, like Christ, meant losing his life. That is why his life, as well as his words, speaks so powerfully to us.
Even for Bonhoeffer following Jesus in the way of the Cross began with small steps. Many of his decisions required courage, but he could not have foreseen the end result. The same could be said of Abraham, who featured in our Old Testament reading today. Called by God to leave his home city and live a nomadic life, he was childless when he received the promise that he would become the ancestor of many nations. Neither Bonhoeffer nor Abraham could have lived their lives without the kind of faith which is prepared to step out into the unknown, to take risks. To really trust God.
So where do we see ourselves in this morning’s Gospel? Are we on the edge of the crowd, or right up close to Christ like Peter and the other disciples? Do we, like Peter, shrink away from suffering. I know I do. What might it mean for us to take up our cross, to lose our life in order to be fully alive with Christ? Perhaps we already know what this looks like because we have seen it demonstrated in someone else. The person who cares for a loved parent, partner or a disabled child. The one who volunteers quietly and cheerfully behind the scenes always giving generously of their time, not expecting to be noticed. There are plenty of ways in which people right here among us are following the way of the Cross. We don’t have to leave our city like Abraham, or return to our country in wartime like Bonhoeffer.
But for our souls to flourish we do have to be prepared to lose ourselves, all that we cling on to, so that we can become more like Christ – compassionate, understanding and loving to those around us. It will take a lifetime, many small steps. Sometimes we’ll feel that we’re going backwards or we’ve lost the way completely. But Christ will never let go of us. We only need to remain open each day to His presence. To keep turning ourselves towards Him in prayer. From time to time as we’re able to look up and to reflect we may catch a glimpse of the road behind. The journey won’t end this side of death, but we will be in a very different place from where we started.
Amen