Jesus warned his disciples not to be ashamed of him – but did he, perhaps, mean not to be ashamed of the way he lived his life?
Here’s a transcript:
I’m thinking that I’m grateful that we have a special guest to bring the message at Church of the Holy Cross this coming Sunday. Ben Anderson is an advocate for people with disabilities. He provides training and guidance for organizations that want to fully include people with disabilities in their services, in their work, and in their purposes. Ben and I met a few years ago — we’re not related, despite the last name — so I’m very glad that we could find a date while he and his wife, Dee, are visiting the Hawaiian Islands, and he could join us and bring us his wisdom.
I am also thinking about the eighth chapter of the Gospel of Mark (Mark 8:31-38). Our passage this week follows one of the better-known passages in the gospels: the one in which Jesus asks who his disciples say that he is, and Peter responded by saying, “You are the Messiah.”
Our passage picks up right after that. Jesus told his disciples what his Messiahship would look like, and it was not the great military and political and religious leader that they had anticipated. For Jesus, Messiahship meant deprivation. It meant humility, and in fact it meant torture and arrest and death — to be followed by resurrection, but I don’t really think Peter heard that part. He took Jesus aside and told him that that was not how it could go.
Jesus responded by saying, “Get behind me Satan,” one of the deepest cuts that he could possibly have offered to one of his friends.
Jesus went on to say his followers could not be ashamed of him. We tend to think of being ashamed of Jesus as being ashamed of the full story of Jesus, of being skeptical of the resurrection, of being skeptical of Jesus’ role in the Trinity, but Jesus raised the word “shame” just after he had talked about the shameful way he expected [people] to treat him. I think when Jesus talked about being ashamed of him, he was also talking about being ashamed of the kind of life to which he summoned his followers, one that did not pursue power, one that did not pursue wealth, one that did not pursue comfort.
Jesus summoned his followers to a way of life that placed others at the center, that sacrificed comfort, safety, life itself for the welfare of those around. And to be honest, as I look about the world of Christianity, I see far more people acting as if they are ashamed of that call than I see people who are ashamed of the miracles, or being part of the Trinity, or of the resurrection. We live as if we are ashamed of the way Jesus lived.
That might be the most shameful thing of all.
Can we do what Simon Peter and his friends did eventually, and follow Jesus down a road of compassion and caring and steadfast love? Can we live proud of the life Jesus lived and the death Jesus died? And in so doing awake one fine morning to a resurrection like Jesus’.
That’s what I’m thinking. I’m curious to hear what you’re thinking. Leave me your thoughts in the comment section below. I’d love to hear from you.
