by Rev. Carole Horton-Howe
Please note that the following sermon text was provided prior to the audio recording. The two versions may differ substantially.
Detail from stained glass in the church of St Mary and St Lambert in Stonham Aspal in Suffolk; Photo by Kevin Wailes
Mark 8:27-38
Jesus went on with his disciples to the villages of Caesarea Philippi; and on the way he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that I am?” And they answered him, “John the Baptist; and others, Elijah; and still others, one of the prophets.” He asked them, “But who do you say that I am?” Peter answered him, “You are the Messiah.” And he sternly ordered them not to tell anyone about him.
Then he began to teach them that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. He said all this quite openly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. But turning and looking at his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, “Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”
He called the crowd with his disciples, and said to them, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it. For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life? Indeed, what can they give in return for their life? Those who are ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of them the Son of Man will also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.”
If you get the weekly email from the Episcopal News Service, you may have seen the story about a hospital chaplain inspired to find a way for doctors and nurses to better connect with their patients. A conversation with a doctor in Johns Hopkins’ Medical Center’s intensive care unit impressed upon Chaplain Elizabeth Tracey the importance of the question that Jesus asks today “who do you say that I am?”
“All of my patients are intubated, sedated and often prone, and there’s no family telling me their story. I have no idea who they are,” Elizabeth recalled him saying. Other doctors and nurses told her the same thing. Without a sense of the patient’s personality and lifestyle, without a personal connection made through conversations with family members, it was hard for doctors to make the right decisions about appropriate care and avoid putting the patient through unnecessary procedures. It made their work sterile.
That conversation inspired the program now known as TIMS an acronym for This Is My Story. Elizabeth identified patients who couldn’t speak because of intubation or another reason. She called their listed contacts and had 10 to 20 minute recorded conversations with them about the person they knew and loved. She asked patients’ families and friends about personality traits, relationships, hobbies, even favorite foods. Then she’d ask what they would like the medical team to know about their loved one.
Barbara Johnson tells Elizabeth that her sister Beverly in ICU bed 8 is one of four kids in her family, that she worked at the Smithsonian and was a tomboy. Even though Beverly’s petite, she can smack a softball over the fence for a homerun almost every time she’s at the plate.
Afterwards Elizabeth edited the interview down to about 2 minutes and embedded the audio file in the patient’s electronic record so any member of the care team can listen to it.
Initially there was skepticism. One doctor, who didn’t believe it mattered at all, agreed to try it with his patients, and within a few days, he was requesting it for all his intubated patients. Nurses told her they feel more connected to the patients after listening to the audio, sometimes discovering things they have in common, and giving them something to talk about with their conscious patients, even if they can’t reply with anything more than a smile. Not just projects, not just a diagnosis but a person seeing another person.
Despair, illness, fatigue, fear, skepticism, all transformed by the sharing of insights and willingness to see and listen. “Who do you say that I am?’ This Is My Story: Two minutes to set aside preconceived notions, to fill a void of understanding. It’s not like a lifetime relationship with family, of course, but it gives nurses and doctors something crucial to guide their care, to give them back touchstone with humanity that inspired them to be doctors and nurses in the first place. A teaching and a turning to a new understanding.
Peter expresses understanding today into the meaning of the life work of their beloved teacher. It’s a true act of faith. He had seen miracles done but that in itself didn’t prove Jesus was the Messiah. Jesus had promised to reveal mysteries to them and told them parables about the Kingdom but he himself never claimed the title. Peter had not heard the words that Jesus heard at his baptism “You are my Son, the Beloved.” The Transfiguration had not yet happened. This was Peter’s own affirmation of faith on behalf of himself and all the disciples accepting that he is the revelation of God.
Here’s the pivotal moment in this reading and in the Mark’s gospel: their eyes are open, their ears are open. Now they see, now they hear. And Jesus begins to teach them. Remember that there were very specific tasks that were expected of the Messiah. He was to be a warrior who would form a great army and crush the Roman oppressors in battle. That was their understanding of what salvation would look like. But Jesus begins to teach them the real meaning of his presence. It’s salvation through suffering, suffering as the path to new life.
Who do you say that I am? Just as he asked his apostles, Jesus wants to have that conversation with each of us. And I don’t know if he’d be overly impressed if our response is limited to the catechism. Yes, Jesus is our Lord and Savior, the son of God, the second person of the Trinity to whom we pledge our faith through the creed every Sunday.
Who is Jesus for you? Have you ever been asked that question? Have you asked it of yourself? It’s important because who you believe Jesus is shapes who you believe you are. Think about the physical things about you – where you live, what you wear, your possessions and what those things convey about you. They say a lot about you but are you your possessions? Who would you be if all those things were taken away? Would you still be you?
Think about your family and friends, how you make a living, where you work. If you did something entirely different would you still be you? Think about your life’s experiences and all the people who have been your neighbors, co-workers, classmates. Think about holiday celebrations, times of mourning and loss, marriages and divorces. We’ve all had many experiences but are we the sum total of them? We tend to get defined by all these things by others who make a superficial assessment of us. How do we find our true self, our self before God? Not who we think we are or who we think we’re supposed to be or who we might be. But our authentic selves, who we are for God.
Taking up the cross means taking away all the ideas imposed on us about who we think we are or who we’re supposed to be. We’re not our clothing, possessions, our homes, our work, or possessions. It’s not a light tweak our regular life just a little bit. It’s a full on letting go.
We have all suffered losses – loved ones, homes, health, and jobs. We know what it is to hurt. We know how vulnerable it feels with all our pretenses and protections stripped away. We also know what it is to emerge on the other side of that hurt. This is where Jesus pushes us today – to get out of our own way and to get out of God’s way. We have a tendency to hang on to roles and relationships and possessions and the things we have and let them define us. But taking up our cross means letting go, losing our beliefs so we can find an even truer faith.
Jesus said if you want to have a very meaningful life let me show you the way. Take up something holy and follow me. It might feel a little strange at first but together we’ll go amazing places. What would that look like to you? What is tugging at your heartstrings today? Where do your gifts and the needs of the world intersect?
We passed an important anniversary yesterday. It was 20 years since the terrible tragedy of September 11th. It’s important to remember that day and its’ victims. It’s also important to remember twenty years ago today - September 12th, and 13th and all the days the followed. The whole nation came together in strength to help support those who were suffering, to stand with them in their grief and hear the stories of those who were lost and the heroic efforts to save them. We carried each other’s crosses after 9/11. Carried them from death into life.
Following Jesus means receiving our lives as holy gifts to be given instead of guarding them as our own possession. It means letting go our usual resistance to God’s peculiar loving ways and following Jesus not into death but into life to be where God is. Amen.