Kick Off Sunday: Are We Ready to Fail Big with Jesus?

Sermon from 9-16-18

Grace to you and peace from God our creator and from our lord and savior Jesus the Christ, by the power of the Holy Spirit, Amen.

I really enjoyed seeing all the “first day of school” pictures on Facebook for the last few weeks! Everyone dressed in their brand-new clothes, new shoes, wearing their new backpacks – some of which we just blessed! - filled with fresh notebooks, pens, pencils, and crayons. And just a few short weeks ago, stores were filled with schools supplies and all the college dorm essentials… everything you see in the “perfect dorm room” pictures can be yours at your local Target or Bed Bath Beyond!

my "1st day of school" pic

We’re coming into a new season, there are new classes and schools to attend, new initiatives at work, new routines at home. We try to put our best foot forward…  often, new clothes, new haircut, and new supplies help us feel like we can tackle whatever the new academic year can throw at us, right?

But a few weeks from now, those clothes won’t be AS new, crayons break, the pens leak, the notebooks get lost, or messy with juice spills and dog drool… the futon mattress has a rip, the rugs get dirty, and even though you just got those fancy new sheets and duvet – that’s fancy IKEA speak for comforter – you still have to do the laundry every couple of weeks.

Real life always seems to get to get in the way of our visions for these nice, neat, new beginnings, doesn’t it?  We have the best plans and make the best preparations… but usually life throws us a curveball – or two – and things don’t always turn out as nice as we imagined.

Though WE are at the very beginning of our program year, in this morning’s gospel we find ourselves in the very middle of things. The disciples have been following Jesus around for about half of the book of Mark by now. They’ve seen Jesus do some AMAZING things -  heal people, walk on water, and feed thousands. They’ve heard him preach the good news and tell stories about the Kingdom of God. They’ve seen him defy the religious authorities and risk everything to share the good news. And now we’re halfway through Discipleship 101 if you will, and Jesus decided to check their progress with a little surprise midterm exam, with JUST TWO QUESTIONS. Question 1 is: “who do other people say that I am?”

Interestingly, this is kind of a multiple-choice question. Some of them respond with “option A,” a return of John the Baptist, who had at this point been beheaded by Herod for his subversive preaching.

Other disciples go with option B - Elijah, considered by many the greatest prophet.  And still others respond with option C - always a safe bet – “one of the other prophets,” which, you know, covers the rest of the bases.

Ok, so Jesus started out with an easy one, since this is actually an opinion poll, and any answer is technically right. But there is a SECOND question to this exam, and this one is an ESSAY. The moment has arrived for Jesus to see how much the disciples have been paying attention in the last eight chapters.

Question number two is: “who do YOU say that I am?”

Which option will they pick? Option A, John the Baptist? B, Elijah, or C, one of the prophets? Or something else? Well, you should know the answer to that one! What did Peter say? (THE MESSIAH!)

Ding, ding! We have a winner! Confetti! Balloons! That’s right, Jesus IS the messiah! The one to save Israel! The one who has been foretold! High five, way to go Peter!

And then… Peter kept talking. Perhaps inflated with actually getting something right, Peter then goes beyond the scope of the exam and tries to BE the teacher and tell Jesus HOW to be the Messiah.

Peter says: “Now look here, Jesus. You are the Messiah, and that has nothing to do with all that other stuff you just told us. There will be none of that SUFFERING stuff, none of that REJECTION stuff, and ESPECIALLY none of that DYING stuff! Don’t you know our traditions, Jesus? The Messiah is supposed to ride into town on a big white horse and show these Romans who’s boss! No, no, Jesus. You’ve got this Messiah thing all wrong.”

To which Jesus responds, “Get behind me, Satan.” Basically, Peter, got a big fat “F” on his midterm.

We tend to be so hard on poor Peter, but we’ve all been there too, wanting to choose the cleaned-up version of Jesus. “Surely Jesus did not REALLY mean for us to welcome ALL people.” “Surely Jesus doesn’t REALLY mean for us to suffer and take up AN ACTUAL cross.” “Surely Jesus doesn’t REALLY mean for us to LOSE OUR LIVES for him, like actually die, right?” Right????

We tend to be so hard on poor Peter, probably because Peter is us. We would all prefer to live at the beginning of the story where everything is still shiny and new; or to skip all the way to the end, where everything is nicely wrapped up.

But we don’t live our daily lives there, at the beginning… or at the end of the story. We live in the middle.  And the middle is messy. And it totally stinks that there is no way to skip it or fast forward ourselves through it.

The middle is the shadowy place where you don’t know what’s going on, and nothing makes sense, and no matter how hard you try you can’t seem to make any headway. All your excellent preparations and your good intentions don’t count for anything, and honestly you have no idea if this whole mess is going to turn out OK or not, and it feels like you must be the only one stuck down here.

But you’re not alone down there. The mess in the middle is exactly where Jesus chooses to be.

Brene Brown, "Rising Strong"

The good news is that to be a follower of Jesus, we don’t have to have it “all together.” We don’t have to wait until we’ve picked ourselves up after a fall. We don’t have to wait until our schedules get less crazy. We don’t have to wait until our lives look more like the perfect dorm room in the newest IKEA catalog.

But the flip side is that following Jesus is not a path OUT of the messy middle, either, like Peter thought. Peter saw Jesus as a ticket right INTO the seat of power for some payback. But that is not the road that Jesus walks, and it is not the road that Jesus calls us to. The road that Jesus calls us to is one he himself followed to its very end: the road of self-denial for the sake of others, the road of losing oneself for another’s gain, the road that looks to the world like a road of shame and weakness, everything we all would much rather avoid.

Following Jesus may lead us directly through the valley of the shadow of death, but in truth, we could not have a better guide than the one who has walked this road BEFORE us, and who continues to walk this road WITH us. Even when, ESPECIALLY WHEN we fall flat on our faces.

Peter took a chance, opened his big mouth, and had a big fat fail. And Jesus had to know that this would not be the last time that Peter, and the rest of the disciples, would fail Jesus, big time. You may have heard that story about the rooster crowing? Another of Peter’s least shining moments.

But still, Jesus does not reject Peter. In fact, when Jesus says “Get behind me, Satan,” he’s telling Peter – not to leave - but to get behind him IN ORDER TO BETTER FOLLOW HIM. Get back in the line…. Stay in your lane, get out of the pilot’s seat. You can’t follow someone if you are not letting them, you know, LEAD.

In fact, good for Peter! He failed BIG… but at the same time he also got it right. Have you ever heard of something called a “Failure resume”? it’s exactly what it sounds like – a record of all the things that did not go well.

This year, while I HOPE that we aren’t going to do a LOT of failing… there are going to be plenty of things that are just going to fall flat, or even fail spectacularly. Not every one of my hair-brained ideas are going to get off the ground. Not everything we try is going to go well. But I want us to try. I want us to have a big fat Failure Resume. It’s going to be messy sometimes, and by the end, some of the things we hold dear might look a little different… or have died and resurrected into something new. But we won’t know until we embrace the middle, and lean into the chance that we might make mistakes and fail big.

So, let’s get ready to kick off a great year of … falling flat on our faces. Who’s ready to fail with Jesus? (let’s try that again!) See, we are already getting the hang of learning from where we fall! Thanks be to God, amen.