September 16, 2012—Installation of Pr. Ingrid Skilbred
Mark 8:27-38
In the name of
Jesus. Amen.
“Christian’s the name—confessing’s the game.”
That’s a little too
cute, I realize--but it does get right to the heart of this gospel text.
To follow Jesus is to confess
Jesus. A church caught up in God’s
mission is always going public with God’s astonishing mercy in Jesus Christ.
This
morning, as we dive deeply into this story, we learn at least three things
about what such confessing looks like:
· We learn how chances to confess often
come on the margins of life, when we’re “in the thick of it.”
· We learn that confessing is more than
sharing information or passing on gossip.
· And most importantly, we learn how confessing
with our lips inevitably moves us toward doing costly deeds of self-forgetful,
self-emptying love.
1.
The
first thing we learn here is that confessing Christ often happens on the
margins, when we’re under stress or affliction. Most of the time confessing Christ isn’t something
we do while sipping tea in the parlor—it’s not an armchair exercise for persons who dabble in
religion.
No. Confessing Christ happens most often when you and I are in “the thick of it.”
Here in Mark
8, Jesus and his disciples are leaving the comfort of their own land and traveling
into the non-Jewish villages of Caesarea Philippi. Leaving the familiarity of home, they
venture out into alien territory, a veritable religious marketplace. Before they head off into this frontier
region, Jesus schools his disciples in the art of confessing.
We live in a
21st century religious marketplace.
Long gone is the day when we could assume everyone’s a church member or a
Christian. Nowadays it’s easy to rub
elbows with persons captive to other values, living out other scripts, following
other “gods.” What opinions they have
of Jesus (if any) are probably all over the map.
We’re also
living under unsettled economic conditions, enduring a contentious election
season, in a society that’s increasingly polarized, and in a church body wrestling
with all sorts of vexing questions.
Hot enough
for you?So, when the time comes, when someone pitches us a slow ball right over home plate!—what will we say? When it’s time for us to speak up for Jesus and his way of life—what words fall out of our mouths?
Pastor
Ingrid, God has called you here for such a time as this. You “get it”—that pastoring in the 21st
century is all about being ready whenever and wherever the opportunity arises
to bring Jesus into the conversation and make Jesus real in fresh ways. God has especially gifted you for making
vital faith-connections with persons in the first third of life and with the
families of those “first-thirders.” We
are glad that you are “in the thick of it” here at Christ the King!
2. The second thing we learn in this story from Mark’s gospel is that
confessing Christ is about so much more than sharing information or passing on
gossip.
That’s how it
seems to start out here in our text. Jesus asks his disciples for the local skinny—“What
are folks saying about me?”
It’s always
easy to speculate on what others are
thinking, right? We hear their words, watch
their body language, intuit their opinions.
And who doesn’t
enjoy passing on a little gossip—always, of course, juicing it up just a little
bit in the process?
So when
Jesus asks, “Who do people say that I am?”
The disciples are bursting with answers: Some say you’re John the Baptist—back from
the grave. Others think you’re Elijah,
who was taken up into heaven in a whirlwind.
Still others see you as the second coming of some other Old Testament
prophet.
But that
sort of talk isn’t “confessing.”
Imparting information, passing on gossip—that’s not “confessing.”
We get to “confessing”
only when we hear Jesus’ second question to his disciples: “But who do YOU say that I am?”
At this
point in the story an uncomfortable silence descends upon the otherwise-chatty
disciples. Because now they have to
“speak for themselves”—now Jesus is getting personal, putting them on the spot,
peering into their hearts, seeking their own response.
And they suddenly
get tongue-tied…all of them, except for Peter.
Never adept at biting his tongue,
Peter blurted out what he’d probably been thinking for quite a while: “You are the Messiah.” “Jesus, you are God’s ‘one and only’—you
are the one we’ve been waiting for.”
And of
course, Peter was exactly right! Peter
had Jesus’ identity down pat!
Pastor
Ingrid, I believe God has brought you here, not only to help these good folks
“get it right” about who Jesus really is.
But I
believe you are here to help them with their own confessing of Christ beyond
these four walls. For this congregation
doesn’t just need three great pastors…but rather Christ the King needs to form,
nurture, shape and send out 2100 confessors of Christ as you continue to be one
of the “growingest” congregations in our whole synod.
And you,
Pastor Ingrid, get to be right “in the thick of it”—helping these folks speak
up when someone pitches a slow ball right over home plate to them, modeling for
them ways to bring Jesus into their conversations.
Third, this beloved gospel story shows
how confessing moves beyond bold words, to costly deeds of self-forgetful,
self-emptying love. Because speaking up for Jesus inevitably leads to acting up like Jesus, out
in our world.
Confessing
Christ aligns us with God and God’s ways…and therefore setting ourselves against
everything that opposes God and God’s ways.
Confessing Christ puts our lives on the line. Our feet follow our tongues, serving God’s mission
to rescue and redeem a hostile, but hungry world.
Peter the
great confessor nailed it when it came to naming the identity of Jesus—but Peter “slipped on a banana peel” when
it came to naming the way of
Jesus—the way Jesus would act as our Messiah.
I think that’s
because Peter was smart enough to know that if Jesus truly was going to be a Messiah
only by way of the Cross…the same life-script would beckon all who follow this
Messiah, including Peter.
And that is how Jesus enacted the role of Messiah: he opted to give it all up, to toss it all
away, to let go of everything and open himself up to the very worst we sinners could
dish out. Peter couldn’t stomach
that—couldn’t bear to think of the cost—the “blood, sweat and tears” price-tag
of our redemption.
So Peter
quickly offered a counter-confession to Jesus—“God forbid!”
…to which Jesus
fired back just as strongly: “Get
behind me, Satan.”
“Stand
aside, Adversary…..I’m doing things God’s way, not the same old, same old human
way.”
So Pastor
Ingrid, as you take up your calling here at Christ the King, you will want to
avoid Peter’s path of least resistance.
You will, instead, help the people of this congregation learn how to
die--to let go of all that we might cling to and to give ourselves away for God
in the world.
This past
week at a retreat for Christian leaders from across our state, I heard one of
my ministry colleagues say something that has stuck in my craw..
“You know,
it really helps, to have died a few times already,” my friend observed.
Listen to
that again: “It really helps, to have
died a few times already.”
I don’t
think my friend was talking about near-death experiences in hospital emergency
rooms.
No, but
rather this Christian leader was thinking back over long years of life and work
that had included several reversals-of-fortune, times when she had to say
goodbye to certain jobs or securities or ways of being in the world. She referred to those experiences of loss
as times when she had died a little—yet still lived to tell about it.
What Peter
and the other disciples had to learn, and what we too are forever learning is
that with Jesus, dying doesn’t mean that life is over.
Quite the
contrary: with Jesus, dying is when a
better life begins. Dying to whatever
has its hooks in us marks the start of really living—no longer under our own
power, but in the uncanny strength that comes from God alone.
Pastor
Ingrid, God has brought you to this congregation to help these beloved ones learn
how we are always being transformed by God, even through the “deaths” that come
our way—all so that we might be ushered afresh into the new life that only
Jesus the Risen One so graciously gives.
Help us, dear Jesus, with these three
things:
To see you more clearly,To love you more dearly, and
To follow you more nearly.
Amen.
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