Sermon, 19th Sunday of Ordinary Time

“If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me…For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul?” (Mark 8:34,36)

Before he became the spiritual leader of all Anglicans worldwide, Rowan Williams was just your average, everyday bishop.  But he was a well-known speaker in church circles.  And so it was that on September 11, 2001, Williams was at a conference at Holy Trinity Church on Wall Street, just a few blocks from the World Trade Center.  As dust from the first collapsed tower began to seep its way into the building, some were convinced that they were going to suffocate to death.  Thankfully, police officers broke down a door, and escorted people out to a makeshift bus station; just a few minutes later, the second tower collapsed.

Williams later wrote a meditation on that day and its possible meaning called Writing in the Dust.  In that short book, he recounts being accosted on the street by an airline pilot on the morning after.  This pilot was a lifelong Roman Catholic.  But he was also deeply angry.  What the hell was God doing when those terrorists flew those planes into the two towers and the Pentagon; he demanded to know of the cleric.  Williams did the best he could.  We are not God’s puppets or pets, Williams basically explained, but partners.  God gives us all freedom.  And in Christ, God triumphs over evil, not by destroying it, but by enduring it, by outlasting it.  That’s all true.  But as Williams himself recognized, no human words could cover the enormity of the suffering, nor touch human hearts broken so deeply.  As Williams wrote, words weren’t enough for this man who placed a lifetime of trust in his God, only to discover that in a crisis, this God might seem useless.

Peter could relate to that shocked pilot.  He had given up his successful fishing business, and left his wife behind in Capernaum.  He had given up comfort and security.  He had been wandering from town to town behind this prophet, not knowing where he would be sleeping or from where his next meal would come.  But finally, the payoff is in sight.  Jesus has confirmed his greatest hope.  Yes, he is the Christ, the Messiah of Israel, who will inaugurate the kingdom of God here on earth, give Israel her freedom, and vengeance to her Roman oppressors.  All the hardship, the questioning of his sanity by his family, the ridicule of his neighbors, it’s all about to be redeemed.

But that lifting sensation in his heart, it was just a balloon that Jesus pops as soon as it’s inflated.  Here’s the plan, Jesus says. First, we’re going to Jerusalem.  Then the leaders of Israel are going to reject me, and then they’re going to arrange for me to be killed, and then I’ll rise again.  Peter and the rest of the disciples miss that last part, because everything they’ve read about the Messiah in the prophets has told them that God’s anointed, the Messiah of Israel, would the liberator of Israel.  But this would-be Christ is saying that he will confront Israel’s pagan enemies, and those enemies will deal with him as they deal with every other wannabe liberator, the cross.  And if anyone would follow Jesus to Jerusalem, then they had better be prepared to share that cross.  Just as Jesus confirms his claim to be the Christ, he sets himself up as a failed Christ, an unsuccessful liberator of his people.

You see, Peter and all the Jewish people had a very clear criterion of success by which to judge the success of any wannabe messiahs.  Had that wannabe demonstrated a power that could stand up to any enemy and then annihilate them?  Well, the disciples had seen Jesus walk on water, heal the sick, exorcise demons, make food for thousands of people twice.  Up to now, Jesus has had a very successful trial run as the Messiah.  But just as he lays claim to the title, he predicts failure.

But Jesus has a different criterion of success.  The world measures success by quantity.  We have lived in the “American Century,” because we’ve had the most money and the most military power.  In the Church, we have called the most successful churches “mega-churches,” with thousands filling sports arenas every Sunday.  But quantity is not God’s first criterion of success, but quality: the quality of our relationships with each other, the quality of our caring for each other, the quality of our love for each other.  This doesn’t mean that quantity is irrelevant to success.  The Church needs the financial support of her members.  And if nobody comes to a church, then there won’t be a church for anybody to come to.  But Jesus doesn’t want our money, our cold bodies.  More than anything else, He wants our hearts. And the way we give our hearts to Jesus is by giving them to each other.  If the quality of our heart-to-heart relationships is high, then the quantity will follow.  And that quantity will consist, first and foremost, of more and more hearts.

I once saw a documentary on PBS’s Frontline about the questions of faith and doubt that survivors and others asked after 9/11.  There is a rabbi who was moved by the expressions of love given by those in the towers and in the planes, on their cell phones to those they loved.  They were words of love, and they so moved this rabbi that he actually set them to the Jewish chants he had known since childhood.  Imagine these words as a Psalm:  "It's Brian. I'm on the plane and it's hijacked and it doesn't look good. I just wanted to let you know that I love you, and I hope to see you again. If I don't, please have fun in life, and live life the best you can. Know that I love you, and no matter what, I'll see you again."
 
When we are leaving this world, all of the things we have piled up in order to claim “success,” will be left here.  But the love we take with us, and the love we leave behind, that will be the mark of our success.