Extreme Living

Kids go through this with clothing; woe to the one who wears something that is not “in” this month. Such ones will be in for ridicule, sometimes covert but other times openly vicious.

Some have suggested that school uniforms might be easier to deal with than trying to conform with the peculiarities of the fashion mavens.

Go along and get along.

We don't hear or see Jesus following that advice, do we?

He puts himself on a path that no one else would have imagined would be the right path.

Lots of opinions were floating around about what Messiah would do when he came, and none of those ideas match what Jesus set out to accomplish.

In the popular imagination, the Messiah's victory was first of all a military one, defeating the Romans and kicking them out of Israel.

Jerusalem was to be regarded as the center of the world, and all the nations were to come flocking to worship there, under the organization of Messiah....and so on.

But Jesus will not conform to that expectation.

As we heard several weeks ago, Jesus went far beyond the bounds of expectation in dealing directly with a woman of Tyre, a non-Jew from another country.

Jesus, come now, you don't want to stir the ire of the Jewish authorities.

This is extreme behavior on several levels!

In the passage just before what we read in the gospel today, Jesus had traveled beyond the bounds of Galilee to the Roman, very pagan city of Caesarea Philippi.

It is there, at that place that had witnessed the worship of the gods of the underworld far longer than there are any written records, that Jesus asks the biggest question...”Whom do you say that I am?”

There, in that place that hosted a series of temples to the various deities, and next to the full display of all the trappings of the most powerful empire known at that time, Jesus poses the biggest challenge that his disciples than, or now, will ever face.

Is Caesar god? Or is Jesus?

Jesus, you're just too extreme! Come, be reasonable; you don't want to draw the attention of the Roman authorities, you might get yourself killed.

And so in today's gospel reading Peter reacts to what Jesus has been saying and asking of them by quite reasonably saying, ”May it not be so!”

But Jesus does not respond well to such reasonable talk; he rebukes Peter, “Get behind me Satan, for you are a stumbling block to me, with your mind on human rather than divine things.”

The gospel does not give us Peter's reaction, but we can easily imagine that he was startled and perhaps even offended: “I'm just looking out for your welfare, Jesus,” we could suppose him saying.

Jesus' path is extreme, because sooner or later, all the reasonable ways only lead away from God.

It is extreme action Jesus takes, because nothing less will save God's people from themselves and their sin.

The cross of Jesus is that extreme action, where Jesus faces the worst that humankind can throw at him, and is then raised to new life, thus setting the pattern and the possibility for us as well.

So we are called to engage in behavior that some call extreme.

Let's test out some possibilities:

(1)Extreme compassion: We have been hearing about the doctors and nurses who have been trying to stem the tide of the ebola outbreak in Liberia and other nations in western Africa.

These missionary doctors and nurses have put their lives on the line for the sake of caring for those in terrible need.

Yes, some of them have died; we've heard about the several who were airlifted to Atlanta where they could receive specialized treatment which has apparently brought them back from the brink of death.

But there have been some commentators who have complained loud and long about their work, how unreasonable it was for them to treat those patients, and that they got what they deserved in contracting the illness themselves.

Look at all the money it has cost to bring them back here and work toward a cure for them.

Those complainers don't have a clue that the motivation for the work of those doctors and nurses is not necessarily the desire for personal praise, but rather one way of following Jesus' example of extreme compassion.

(2)Extreme patience: Perhaps you remember with affection one of those teachers who sensed that you needed to hear the explanation about quadratic equations one more time, or who did not delight in covering your papers with red marks but took the time to help you shape the cursive letters accurately.

Perhaps there was a pastor or adviser who sensed that one of us needed to vent about a problem and could help us see how the 4^th or 5^th or 6^th, or any of the commandments and Luther's explanations of them can be applied to comfort and correct us.

They don't have to do these things.

It is often a drag to go through things again and again, but then we remember how patient Jesus has been in teaching the disciples a little bit at a time, and how often they seemed so dense.

Jesus does not give up and look for more likely candidates, but works with the persons at hand.

(3)Extreme forgiveness: We need only remember Jesus words at the cross, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.”

That is surely as extreme a thing as one could imagine him saying at that awful hour.

And the “them” is so inclusive: the soldiers who carried out the execution, the disciples who ran away, especially Peter who denied him, the weak Roman governor and the vain king who condemned him, the religious authorities who in hate and jealousy conspired against him, and all of us who act in these same self-serving and short-sighted ways

“Forgive them...forgive us, Lord, in this extreme way, because it is the only way we can live.”

It has often been observed that the one who hates is having himself for lunch.

We know that figuratively and also literally, as the doctors remind us about ulcers and heart attacks, and the like.

This does not mean becoming a doormat for whatever comes along; often our problems need firm and decisive actions, but not done in hate.

(4)Extreme faith: Someone has coined a word, “extremophile” that we can use to summarize all of this, literally, a lover of extreme things.

Such a person makes the claim that the world does not offer his or her salvation.

It is always a gift from outside, from Christ the Lord.

We see this being argued out in the public arena these days.

The other day I heard the Cardinal Archbishop of New York on the radio reminding the listeners that this nation's founding documents make the claim that our rights and freedoms are not granted to us by a government, but that they are ours by nature and from God.

It was an extreme political view when it was put forth in our nation's founding documents, and there are some these days who would like to see us become like other nations where the government has all the power and dispenses it where it sees fit.

Some would call this more reasonable.

But our call it not to be reasonable as the rest of the world sees it, but to make room where the witness of faith can win the hearts and minds of so many who are bereft of faith and hope.

As one writer has put it, strength and wisdom and faith are always to be found at the edges of the world's comfort; these are the challenging places where God resides.

We need to be honest with prospective members as well as ourselves; this life as a Christian is not easy, and it is getting harder all the time.

What we cannot say is: “Come to Jesus and your life will be wonderful, great, fantastic, and all your problems will be going away.”

Rather it is as Luther says in the Small Catechism, a daily dying to sin and rising to newness of life, and that will be a hard road to follow.

Michael Mauldin said, “I have problems now that I would never have had if I hadn't heard the news that Christ accepted me.

There is guilt that I've experienced that I would never even have thought about twice.

There is new purpose and fulfillment, but the struggle is going to continue.

We have so many lukewarm Christians or people who turn away from the faith because they have been promised an easy time.”

No it is not going to be easy, but ultimate victory is promised to us, because Jesus has already been to all of the extremes that Satan and the world could conjure, and he has defeated them all, and promises that same victory to us.

Let all who know this Good News say AMEN.

Please note: The preceding sermon is provided as a resource for the thought, prayer, and meditation of the members and friends of St. Mark's. It is the residue of a verbal event, and thus it does not have academic footnotes and other details that would be expected in a written document. The writer gladly acknowledges the prior thought and work of many Christians before him.