Dear friends,
I give thanks to God for you. If the season of Lent–and the entire life of faith, really–is about deep listening, then you are the ones who help me to hear and respond to hard truths. Thank you.
Today’s worship service, in its entirety, may be viewed here:
If you’d prefer to listen to only the gospel reading and the sermon, you may do so here:
https://soundcloud.com/stacey-nalean-carlson/listening-for-love
Today’s sermon is based on Mark 8:31-38.
31[Jesus] 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.32He said all this quite openly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. 33But 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.”
34He 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. 35For 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. 36For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life? 37Indeed, what can they give in return for their life? 38Those 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.”
Beloved of God, grace and peace to you in the name of Jesus. Amen.
I’m probably a whole lot more like Peter than I care to admit. When Jesus rebukes Peter, saying you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things that hits home.
I heard that rebuke from Jesus in the words of Wendell Berry this week. They were included as part of a daily e-mail that I signed up to receive from Wartburg Seminary during the season of Lent. One of my former professors, Nate Frambach, shared Berry’s poem, A Purification. I’m going to read the whole thing and then I’ll share with you the part that stung.
At start of spring I open a trench / in the ground. I put into it / the winter’s accumulation of paper, / pages I do not want to read / again, useless words, fragments, / errors. And I put into it / the contents of the outhouse: / light of the sun, growth of the ground, / finished with one of their journeys. / To the sky, to the wind, then, / and to the faithful trees, I confess / my sins: that I have not been happy / enough, considering my good luck; / have listened to too much noise; / have been inattentive to wonders; / have lusted after praise. / And then upon the gathered refuse / of mind and body, I close the trench / folding shut again the dark, / the deathless earth. Beneath that seal / the old escapes into the new.
The sins the poet confesses are my own: I have not been happy enough, considering my good luck; I have listened to too much noise; I have been inattentive to wonders; I have lusted after praise.
My mind has too often been set on human things.
I can’t presume to speak for Peter, though I’ve certainly tried in the past to get inside his head. I do have to believe, though, that fear and grief were at the heart of his response to Jesus. How could he even begin to accept the road ahead for this one that he loved, this one he was committed to following? Great suffering? Rejection by the powers that be? Being killed? Could Peter even hear the words about rising again? How could he? Surely, time just stopped for him as soon as Jesus said that he would be killed. Surely, the fear and the grief rose up in him—the anger and the sorrow a deafening explosion.
Jesus was speaking a hard truth—a truth Peter couldn’t begin to accept—and Peter responded by rebuking Jesus. He tried his best to contradict the truth, to defend his own interpretation of how things should and would be.
Mark doesn’t tell us exactly what Peter said. I appreciate that that detail is missing, because it allows us to imagine how we might have responded to such truth from Jesus. It invites us to consider how we do respond to the naming of hard truths when they’re spoken to us. Can we listen? Can we hear? Or does that deafening explosion lead us to speak before we’ve even had time to hear all of what has been spoken?
Rev. T. Denise Anderson serves as Coordinator for Racial and Intercultural Justice with the Presbyterian Mission Agency. She writes, Hard truths trouble the waters of our understanding and challenge notions of what is real…The Lenten journey calls us to examine the things in which our hearts are invested. How important is comfort to us? Would we be willing to listen to hard truths and be changed by them even if it proved to be difficult? Or are we committed to the status quo because, though it may be imperfect, it’s at least familiar?
What was Peter’s heart invested in? A Messiah who would stick around and exert the kind of power that Peter thought was necessary for reform, for hope, for freedom? A Savior who would defend himself and his followers? A King who would force change and reward his most faithful servants? A life of security for himself and for those he loved?
What is your heart invested in?
Peter, though rebuked by Jesus, doesn’t stop following him. I give him credit for that. He could have shut down, given up, been so hurt and annoyed that he walked away. Instead, he keeps growing and learning on the way.
He’s the one who, at that last meal together, says to Jesus, Even though I must die with you, I will not deny you. He has finally accepted that hard truth that the Messiah will die. And, still, Peter’s not done being transformed. He says he won’t deny his Savior, but that very night he denies Jesus three times. And yet, when the day of Pentecost comes, it is Peter who has listened to God and who is able to interpret the events of that day: this is the Spirit of God poured out on all flesh.
It is Peter who is able to receive a vision from God, listen deeply, and then spread the good news that God shows no partiality—that Jesus Christ is Lord of all, that the divisions to which Peter himself once clung are done away with in Christ.
In time, Peter’s heart—more and more—becomes invested in the good news of God’s abiding and unconditional love for all people.
Lent is a season of repentance—a time to listen deeply to the hard truths God speaks to us. We pray for the Holy Spirit to be at work in us, to silence that roar of anger and sorrow and defensiveness so that we can truly listen and be transformed. And we trust, even, that our failings will be transformed by the power of God. I will keep coming back to that image from Wendell Berry’s poem—all the useless words, fragments, errors, contents of the outhouse, refuse of mind and body returned to the deathless earth where the old escapes into the new. We confess our sins. We acknowledge the hard truths we’ve refused to hear. We release all the refuse to God.
And we watch and listen—with anticipation—for new life to emerge. Amen.
*If you’d like to sign up to receive Wartburg Seminary’s daily Lenten devotions, you may do so here: https://www.wartburgseminary.edu/featured/lent-2021/
*Here is the devotion that inspired today’s sermon: https://t.e2ma.net/message/j4khtd/zs2fk1
*The quote from T. Denise Anderson was included in the Sanctified Art materials for this week’s theme: Again and Again We Are Called to Listen. Learn more about Sanctified Art at https://sanctifiedart.org/