Preached to the Congregational Church in Exeter, U. C. C., on the second Sunday in Lent, March 16, 2003, by Michael L. C. Henderson, pastor.

Genesis 17:1-7, 15-17; Romans 4:13-22; Mark 8:27-35

If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves, and take up their cross and follow me.

                      –Mark 8:34

     When Jesus predicted his own persecution and suffering and death on a cross, and Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him, Peter's intentions were good. Peter was simply scandalized by what he was hearing from Jesus, and he clearly felt it was his duty as a disciple to say so.

     The Son of Man will be rejected by his own people, and suffer and be put to death like a troublesome mongrel dog — Well, we are still calling that a scandal today, two thousand years later: the scandal of the Cross. If our protest against the scandal is not as loud as Peter's, that's only because we have the benefit of hindsight: We know that the crucifixion is not the end of the story, we know about Easter, and this softens the grimness of it for us. Peter has no such cushion; his protest springs from genuine shock.

     Well, this is Lent, not Easter. Therefore, let's put Easter aside for now and try to take the Cross as seriously as Peter does, seriously enough so that we join in Peter's protest, saying God forbid, Lord! This can't happen to you! This can't happen to the Messiah, the Savior of the world!

     And for this Jesus calls Peter Satan, which is the name of the Evil One, the enemy of good, the enemy of God. But this is terribly alarming and hurtful to Peter, because Peter's only following his very best instincts! He is doing the very best he knows how to do.

     There are times when we can clearly see something malignant, something violent, some vicious, ugly force at work in the world or in ourselves, and we can accept that such a thing might be called Satanic, but a good man doing his best, how can there be evil in that?

     That's the puzzle that Peter presents us with, and it's not just an intellectual exercise, either. If good old Peter can be Satan and not even know it, then so can other good and decent people, like us, for example. We ourselves could be far worse than we think we are. So what is our own religion trying to tell us about ourselves here?

     At the very least the implication seems to be that there is more to a person like Peter or you or me than meets the eye. Peter is not what he appears to be. He needs to take a closer and more critical look at himself, what he is made of, how he works. He needs to read between the lines of himself, so to speak. And if we want to understand him, we must not trust our own first impression of him, either.

     Every single religious tradition that I know of, Christian, Jewish, pagan, native, you name it, does insist on this clear-eyed, critical self-appraisal, this awareness of the possibility that there are invisible and unnoticed but very real and powerful aspects of our human nature, whether saintly or devilishly or both, that must be apprehended and reckoned with.

     I myself have been lately on a roughly analogous journey of discovery. It is entirely involuntary and unexpected. I missed you all last Sunday because as Jane told you I had an accident in that surprise snowstorm ten days ago: My feet took flight in the fresh snow falling on black ice, and in the resulting crash to earth I fractured a rib. You can't see a broken rib. You can't splint a broken rib. There is nothing you can do to fix a broken rib. But you can feel it. You feel it so intensely that you cannot take for granted one single cubic centimeter of your supposedly constant and familiar body. Every touch, every movement, every breath, every mental meandering is fraught with surprises of such power that they can take your breath away. It has been a humbling introduction to many things that I did not know about my own innards.

     And in the process I have been learning a new way to live and move and have my being: Slowly. Very carefully. Taking no part of the mechanics for granted. Monitoring every moment and movement. Expecting to be surprised. Mindful of the process as never before, not since infancy. It amounts to a revolution in paying attention.

     Cling to yourself as you think you are, as you know yourself, as you take yourself for granted, and you will lose yourself. It will be taken away from you by force. It isn't all there is to you anyway, not by a long shot. Let go of it, on the other hand; let go of it with no matter what degree of reluctance, for the sake of an unfamiliar and perhaps even unknowable character of complex texture and elusive depth, and you will begin to learn to be human. This is God's will for us all in our spiritual pilgrimage.

     Abraham is famous for his faith, but if you read what the Bible says about him, both the Hebrew and the Christian parts of the Bible, you find that Abraham's faith was simply this: He was willing to let God show him who and what he was and why he lived. He didn't need to construct his own identity and purpose in life. He just paid attention, and in the process of paying attention he learned to live, and God was able to make things that did not exist come into existence in Abraham.

     Peter's experience is a warning to us that it's possible to recognize Jesus as the Messiah, and be devoted to him, but still not understand him, and let him down, and fail to follow him. Peter reminds us that the devilish denial of Christ isn't out there in the alien and the infidel, it lurks in the souls of the faithful. It is often said of religious people that they don't take evil seriously enough, they're naive and optimistic and unwilling to do battle with the forces of darkness. I would suggest to you on the contrary that they may be uniquely conscious of evil; they just don't assume it's all in the other guy.

     In that covenant God made with Abraham, as we read it, God made a bunch of promises. I will make you the ancestor of many nations. I will make you exceedingly fruitful. Kings shall come from you. I will give you and Sarah a son, though you are 99 and she is 90 and you're both as good as dead; I shall do such preposterous things with you that you will fall on your face and laugh. But what's the quid pro quo? What did Abraham and Sarah have to do in return; what promises did they make on their side of this covenant? Nothing. All they had to do was: walk before God. Which means: Remember, for the rest of your days, that every step you take, every move you make, every word you speak, every thought you think, you do it in the presence of God.

     Oh, and one other little thing, although this reading didn't mention it: Abraham was to be circumcised as the sign of his covenant with God, and all his male descendants likewise. I have to admit that I have not given a lot of thought to circumcision in my ministry, but now it occurs to me that circumcision is a little bit like a broken rib, in this sense: Society's taboos being what they are, it's pretty much invisible except to the person who has one. The only way the rest of us can tell is to notice which covenants a person is keeping or not keeping — what are the loyalties by which they live?

     Christ asks us to take up our cross and follow him. It's not like a flat tire or a broken rib, a thing that just happens to you and you have to live with it. You always have a choice about taking up your cross. You do it whenever you choose the hard truth over the seductive myth, or the faithful path instead of the successful strategy. You do it when you act and talk and think as if God really is a living and active presence in the world right now. You do it when you refuse to join up with the omnipresent bogus feel-good religion that puts God at our disposal instead of the other way around. It's not easy, but it can be done, and it's habit-forming, and we can help each other to do it. That's what a church is for.

     Amen