BLent2 Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16; Psalm 22:23-31; Romans 4:13-25; Mark 8:31-38 March 8, 2009 When I first got out of seminary I served at a parish that had a day school. The congregation had been formed in the late 1800’s. Its original church was a beautiful structure that is still standing on what is now property right next to the Alltel Bowl and the fairgrounds in Jacksonville, Florida. As that part of town changed and people began to build neighborhoods on the south side of the St. John’s River, the congregation put their parish hall on a barge and took it across the river. The school was formed in the 1950’s in a new part of town. When I got there it was the early 90’s. The school’s hey day had passed. The neighborhood had aged. Trendy apartment buildings that had been built in the 70’s had become older, ‘low-rent’ complexes. The Publix had closed its doors and moved further out toward the beach. The people who put children in private schools had moved out to newer developments. The school’s numbers were declining each year. It’s director was running on empty. So, in about 1993, when it was time for the annual event: ‘Episcopal School Sunday.’ I met with the director of the school to plan the morning. How did she want us to celebrate the children, their families, the faculty and staff in our Sunday worship services? What did she want us to herald? What banner to wave down the aisle during the procession? What student to speak? Did they have music they wanted to do? How did she want to go about showcasing the school that morning for members of the parish to see and appreciate what was going on? After all, the school was a ministry of the parish. She looked at me with wearied eyes and said, “There is nothing to celebrate. The teachers are negative, our numbers are dropping. The buildings and grounds need so much work. The parish isn’t involved. Nobody wants to help me.” A little later, a new head of school was hired. As she came on board, she saw the school with a different lens. She saw the buildings as a way to reach out to the community. She saw the wetlands at the back of the property – where nothing could be developed – as a wonderland – a living classroom brimming with learning opportunities. She came in celebrating the potential of the property and location. She came in celebrating the teachers, their loyalty, their potential. The teachers got to school one day and found the teacher’s lounge freshly painted. It had new curtains and a microwave and a slightly used sofa. Within a year or so the edge of the wetlands became a butterfly garden. A boardwalk was built through the wetlands and frogs and tadpoles and owls and egrets were regularly sited. Other schools came to use the ‘outdoor’ classroom, a nice large area built into the boardwalk. A summer day camp was begun for kids who could never have been full-paying students. The grass was greener. The weekly assembly was fun and rewarding. A new day had dawned in the life of the school and the community. In a way, this is what Jesus did when he arrived in Mark’s gospel. He looked at the people and their situation. And he showed them the world and themselves through God’s eyes. He unveiled for them what God wanted to see for his beloved people. He moved among fishermen and farmers - ordinary people. Ordinary meant you were part of 90% of the population that lived at subsistence level or below. Hunger and disease were part of every family’s life. In those days, every household knew sickness and death. Jesus came through and gave them health and wholeness. In those days, the norm was that you couldn’t be good enough to deserve your heart’s desire. So, you coped with life as it was. Then Jesus came along. As he talked and ate and lodged with these people, their very souls resonated, leapt, with the truth they heard. He showed them themselves in a new light. Life could be breathed back into a dying situation. Sin had no power over forgiveness. Scarcity had no power over abundance. Evil was banished when faced with the power of love. Jesus showed them that they were the object of God’s love and delight. As they followed him, old identities dimmed, and new ones came forth. The first part of Mark – the first 8 chapters is all about describing the arrival of God’s realm. Jesus came in proclaiming it and uncovering it. In the midst of healings, feedings, storms stilled, a new community was being formed. Only after this new community is taking root does Jesus remind his disciples of the world they still live in. Believe me, the new head of the day school did not get to walk on a primrose path as she worked to transform that place. She met with doubt and obstacles. There were school board members, parents, teachers who resisted her efforts. There were people who did not want change – who couldn’t see the vision. Who didn’t want neighborhood children using those classrooms or coming to the church. Who didn’t want to risk investing in the potential life she tried to show them. But you could say she took up her cross. Taking up her cross meant to bring God’s realm with her into the situation. Taking up one’s cross means to hold onto life, real life, to be alive to God and bearing this life, living this life, carrying this life through a world that that does not yet see it. To live in the intersection of two realities at the same time that is the place of the cross. There are some things that we think are the cross to bear – that are not. The way of the cross is not about suffering now for a future heavenly reward. - Not about becoming a victim - Not something we bear because we are human - Not bad health, annoying relatives, bad boss - Not self-contempt – not about renouncing self Walter Brueggemann says that Jesus’ good news is an invitation to re-imagine our lives… an invitation and summons to switch stories and therefore to change lives. So we follow him and bring with us our re-imagined world, our re-formed lives, even as we move with him through the old story that still surrounds us. Crucifer                                   Lucifer Bearer of cross                                   bearer of light Follower of Jesus                       reject Jesus – Peter is being Lucifer          Lucifer, get behind the cross, become a crucifer At the front of every procession that professes Christ, there is a cross. When we see it and bow to it and follow it, we are not bowing to the brokenness of the world. This cancer is my cross to bear. This economy is a cross to bear. No! The cross the new head of school carried was not the heaviness of a tired worn-out system, or the naysayers along her path. Her cross to bear was the beautiful possibility of God’s provision for children the school served. It was a vision of the potential of buildings and grounds, of parents and teachers to be a community of wonder and joy in all God’s works. A reminder of the beauty and glory God’s realm. The cross Jesus bore was God’s love for this world! God’s realm filled with all kinds of possibilities for life and abundance that was - and still is - rejected. Lucifer was a bearer of God’s light, who got so blinded by his own light That he could no longer see the radiance of God’s. Peter was blinded by a light, a reality of his own making And Jesus told him to ‘get out of my sight get out of my way, Satan.’ The new director of the school was a crucifer. We all are called to be crucifers. We are called to carry the love of God we have and know in Christ, to see the Lucifers of this world, offer them this love, and then tell them to get behind us.