Mark 8:31-38 9-12-21
Everybody
likes a winner.
Everyone
likes to be around the one who wins,
to
be seen with the one who is at the top.
We
give medals, prizes, recording contracts, trophies.
The
winners have the most money, fame, glory.
We
want to see the Gold Medalist, the Oscar winner,
The one with the Super Bowl trophy, The sliver cup.
Everyone
wants a long interview with the winner
how
did you do it? what was your strategy?
What
was your inspiration?
All
we want to know from the losers is
where
do you think you went wrong?
How
does it feel to lose?
Everyone says
it’s an honor just to be nominated,
or
to play in the finals,
that
they’re just honored that they got as far as they did.
But
we know that’s not true.
They
wanted to be the winner too.
Our
culture values winning, victory, being number one.
For
a lot of people, doing well is not enough.
We
have to win.
We
might not be involved in all this competition stuff.
But
this need to win still ekes into our personal lives.
Everything becomes a bit of a competition
and
even if we don’t need to be the best,
we
want to be on the winning side of the picture.
We
have to earn enough, sell enough,
get
good grades, get the good seal of approval.
Whatever
the measure of success is
in
our chosen field, we want to be on the winning side.
And
our Christians churches
have this same drive whether or not we admit it.
We
want to be the biggest or the best
or the truest, have the purest theology.
Or at least be on the winning side of things.
Europe in the middle ages seemed to have a competition
for who could build the biggest most ostentatious
church buildings, even though I understand
attendance in church, even at that time,
did not warrant the size of the buildings.
And they’ve
been gilding churches in gold for centuries,
not
because it’s the most efficient.
But
because it’s the most prized. It looks awesome.
And
today, mega churches are valued,
The
bigger the better. Their pastors are lauded
and
respected and interviewed on the news
as
if they have some special insight.
Their
church is big. They must be doing something right.
Churches
even try and sell the theology of winning
Joel Osteen who has one of the largest churches
in the United States, has written a lot of books
and his first and most popular is called
“Seven
steps to your best life now.”
Basically
a Christian way to win at life.
Christianity
is another way to achieve and win.
Peter
wanted this from the church,
Peter
wanted to follow a winner, the best.
He
thought that Jesus would be a success
and
recognized by everyone as such.
When
Jesus asked who people said he was,
Peter
says, “You are the Messiah!”
He
was very happy to be following the Messiah.
But Jesus
follows this up with a twist:
“Then he began to teach them that he
must undergo great suffering,
and be rejected by the elders, the
chief priests,
and the scribes, and be killed.”
Ooh. That
doesn’t sound like winning.
That’s
not even on the winning side of things.
I
don’t think the “seven steps to living
your
best life now” includes suffering, rejection
by
the powerful and being killed.
That
sounds lot like losing.
So Peter told
Jesus no, he must be wrong about this part.
Because,
of course, God only backs winners.
But
Jesus rebuked Peter at this
He
told him, not only that he was wrong,
but
all this winning stuff was Satan’s handiwork.
It
was Satan’s temptation of us, another way to divide us.
And God doesn’t just back winners.
God
backs losers too.
And
to stress the point Jesus told them
that those who followed him should be losers too.
At
the time of Jesus,
Greco Roman society was even more obsessed
with winning than we are now.
They actually worshipped victory.
Victoria, and the Greek equivalent Nike
(that the shoe is named after)
was the goddess of victory.
There were many temples in Rome
that were built and used in honor of Victoria.
She was worshipped regularly.
She represented Victory over death
and the way to have victory over death
was to be victorious in life.
To win battles and wars.
To achieve and win at life.
To be the best at everything.
That was to be blessed by the gods.
That was how you lived eternally.
Which
was super-cool for the rich,
and the healthy, and those born into privilege
or those who had attained a status of privilege
in Greco-Roman society.
But
for the rest of the people.
For the poor, or the disabled or the infirm,
or the ones who had fallen on string of bad luck,
it was not just sad and a struggle.
The gods had cursed them.
They had no victory over death.
Life was awful and death would be awful too.
They were shameful and ignored or shunned
by those on the winning side of things.
In
the early years of the Christian church,
Christians were scorned by others
because
their actions ran contrary
to
the values of Greek and Roman society.
Christians
spent their time with the losers.
Christians
helped the sick, they visited prisoners,
they
welcomed and fed the poor,
they
valued the life of slaves.
Winners
and losers did not spend quality
time
together in those days,
losers
were only there to serve the winners.
The Christians,
then purposely welcomed in the losers.
They
became part of their communities.
They
all shared what they had and gave away what they had.
So
that when you went to a Christian temple
you
couldn’t tell the difference between
the
winners and the losers.
So
how were you supposed to judge others?
How
were you supposed to know who it was
fashionable
to hang out with?
How
were you supposed to know who their
God
had blessed and who God had cursed?
It’s
like Jesus wanted to re-order all of society or something!
This was a
controversial horror to some.
But
it was also what made Christianity hugely
attractive
to others in the first century of the church.
Of course, we
quickly lost that part of our identity
and
we started gilding our churches and
writing
Christian books about winning in life.
But
slowly we have been rediscovering
Jesus vision for his disciples.
Jesus
isn’t looking for winners.
Jesus
is looking for losers.
Those
who give up their own time
and
their own money and sacrifice it to serve others.
Jesus wants
people who give up their own
victories
in order to see victories in other people.
Jesus
wants people who are willing to
lose
our own status and dare to be seen
around
the poor, the oppressed, the cast aside,
the
homeless, the mentally challenged,
the
immigrant, the prisoner, those that society rejects.
Jesus wants
people who don’t just give away things to others,
and
serve people at a distance,
but
dare to welcome other people into
our
hearts and our lives as equals.
If any want to become Jesus followers,
let them deny themselves
and take up their cross and follow him.
For those who want to save their life will
lose it,
and
those who lose their life for Christ’s sake,
and for
the sake of the gospel, will save it.
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