A late Lent sermon - what do you want in a Saviour?

This was my sermon for Lent 2 - but although it's a Lent sermon (and a very Lent sermon in some ways) it's not one that should stay in Lent. And the last couple of weeks - Windrush, anti-immigration rhetoric - seem to have some resonance with the "othering" I was subtly challenging here.

What do you want in a Saviour? What does your Saviour want of you?

Sermon preached at St John the Baptist, Lent 2 25/2/18

Gen 17: 1-7, 15-16, Romans 4: 18-25, Mark 8: 31-35

What do you want in a Saviour?

Imagine you’re living in a world which is bleak.

You can never be sure you’ll make enough money to feed your family.

There’s no welfare safety net. No NHS. No food banks.

And decades ago, your country was invaded. The government gave in. And ever since, you’ve been an occupied nation. People in uniforms speaking a different language, far better off than you, lounging around barking orders at you and there’s nothing you can do to stop them.

What would you want in a saviour?

Perhaps someone to lead a rebellion, to kick out the occupying forces.

Perhaps someone to start a revolution that will change the way society works.

Perhaps someone to be in charge of a new government, that won’t give in so easily, that will put everything right.

Perhaps you don’t really know what you want – you just know that you don’t like the way things are and you want someone else to sort it out.

Just before today’s Gospel reading, Jesus had asked his disciples who they thought he was. And Peter had said “you are the Messiah!” God’s promised saviour!

And that was right. That was a good starting point. And building on that, Jesus started to teach his disciples – this is where we come in this morning – Jesus began to teach his disciples that he, the Son of Man, the Messiah, the saviour, would have to undergo suffering, be rejected, be killed.

Peter doesn’t like this. Peter knew Jesus was the saviour – but he wanted something very specific from his saviour. He wanted his saviour to sort everything out. And he was not prepared to hear that Jesus had other plans.

I think we’re more like Peter than we’d like to think.

We live in a world that can be quite bleak. The school shooting in Florida last week,  the flare up of violence in Damascus are just the last in a long series of awful things happening in the world. And closer to home the mess that the NHS is in... the number of people having to use the food bank... the disabled people who lose benefits, the sense that there is not enough money and too many problems.

Wouldn’t we like a saviour to come along and sort everything out?

And if we think like that... we, like Peter, are going to have to learn a hard lesson.

Because if that’s what we want from a saviour, Jesus is going to disappoint us.

Let’s hear again the kind of saviour Jesus is.

A saviour who is going to be rejected... not lead a rebellion.

A saviour who is going to suffer... not fight back.

A saviour who is going to be killed... not start a new world order.

And that’s only the first half of the Gospel reading!

The second half is even worse.

Not only is Jesus a suffering saviour... Jesus’ followers are going to suffer too.

Jesus’ followers have to suffer – otherwise they’re not really his followers.

To be Jesus’ follower you have to be prepared to deny yourself. To lose your life. To stand up for Jesus, the rejected, suffering, crucified Saviour – to stand up for him in front of the people who killed him.

In other words – Jesus is a Saviour who doesn’t come along and sort everything out. Jesus is a Saviour who calls us to become part of a great project of sorting everything out.

Jesus doesn’t say “believe in me, relax and I’ll put the world right.” Jesus says “believe in me, follow me, and live in the way I teach – because that’s the only way to put the world right.”

Putting the world right is our job – not Jesus’.

Jesus is the saviour who calls and empowers us to live radically in the world: creating a world that is more just, more fair, more kind.

And Jesus tells us that we shouldn’t expect to be popular if that’s what we do.

After all, that’s what he did – and he ended up on the cross.

But if we don’t do it, nobody else will.

And if we don’t do it, we can’t call ourselves Jesus’ followers.

This is a Lent message: a message about the demanding nature of following Jesus.

And it is demanding. Jesus asks a lot of us.

Jesus asks a lot because Jesus gave a lot – Jesus gave everything to be our saviour.

Not a saviour who parachutes in and sorts everything out – but a saviour who calls and empowers us to take part in our own salvation.

It was demanding for Jesus – it cost him his life. And it will be demanding for us – it will cost us something. But there’s one thing Peter didn’t seem to listen to, in Jesus’ description of the kind of saviour he is.

Jesus is a saviour who is going to rise again.

It cost Jesus his life to be our saviour. But Jesus rose again into a new and wonderful life.

So when we face the cost of being Jesus’ disciples, we do that from a new perspective.

Called and empowered and filled and inspired – already living Jesus’ new and wonderful, risen life.

In the power of Jesus, the suffering, crucified and risen saviour, we can take part in the salvation of the world.

And that is the only way we can really be Jesus’ followers.

So listen again to Jesus’ words.

“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.” And “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.”

Is Jesus speaking those words to you this morning?

Is Jesus asking you to take up your cross and follow him?

To find yourself empowered by his call and his risen life – to listen for where he wants you to bring his life into the world – to take part in the salvation of the world?