by Rev Greg Wooley
Today is AGM Sunday, a time when we review the year 2023 for Ralph Connor Memorial United Church. As our first year as an amalgamated community of faith, it’s been a significant year, to be sure. It’s also a day to lift up the calling of the United Church of Canada, adopted in 2022, to be a people of BOLD DISCIPLESHIP.
I want to keep the group focus that we will have in the AGM as we spend a bit of time with the 8th chapter of Mark’s gospel: to hear the words of Christ directed not just at me as an individual Christian, but to all of us, together, as a Community of Faith.
I state this explicitly, because today’s reading is so very personal. First, Jesus speaks of the suffering and rejection that are in his future; then Jesus and Peter get so frustrated with each other that the word REBUKE gets used not once, but twice; and then there is a call to self-denial, and the taking up of one’s cross. All of that is very personal. But the thing is, every time Jesus speaks to A disciple in the gospels, he speaks to all disciples since then. Every time he heals one person, every time he forgives one person, every time he challenges one of his followers, he calls each Community of Faith, each ministry of our “big tent”, and the Church as a whole to do likewise. The things he said and did then and there with those people, shapes our shared calling here and now, with the neighbours that are ours.
Admittedly, much of this 8th chapter of Mark reads more like something spoken by the early Church, than like a direct quote from the mouths of Jesus or Peter, and yet this rhythm in which Jesus says something harder than his followers want to hear, and they recoil from it, is still vital for us to engage as Church in the 21st century. Jesus’ companions experienced, day after day, the marvels of what he was saying and doing, the potential he saw in people and the big, just, egalitarian realm he not only described but embodied. Even though he was clearly making enemies along the way, it would have been reasonable for them to expect brighter days ahead with Jesus. Some, including Peter, even envisaged Jesus as the new leader, the awaited Messiah, of the nation.
But Jesus knew there was more to it. Although we have this nice big cross at the front of the sanctuary, I have to admit: if I imagine myself and the Church in the place of those disciples, in that moment when Jesus spoke of his sufferings, his rejection, his death, I am no more pleased than they were. For I adore the things Jesus said and did, his timeless parables, his teachings like the Beatitudes and the verbal exchanges like the one he had with the Samaritan woman at the well; and I have special Christ-moments in my life I want to just hold and enjoy, without all this downbeat talk of sufferings. I’d love it if Church life could just ride atop a positive wave all the time, if we could just do all the things he calls us to do with no problems and no pain and no conflict and, hey, no financial worries. Jesus started something transformative and amazing, and it makes perfect sense to want more of that and nothing but that.
So we compare the positive path that would be so, so nice, with this painful path described by Jesus and it’s not what we want. It’s not what anyone would want. We get it when Peter wants Jesus to stop talking this way.
And having sharply rebuked Peter for his desire to put survival of the program ahead of faithfulness to God’s never-ending commitment to active, transformative love, Jesus then says “If any wish to come after me, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me”. In its simplest terms, Jesus calls us, as Church, to let go of our ego and embrace the hardest aspects of his way. He calls us, not to safe, happy, socially acceptable discipleship that places us in a position of high regard the way it may have in days gone by. No, his call is to Bold Discipleship – to live radical welcome and life-changing community. He calls us to name and confront patterns of injustice that give some folks guaranteed advantage, while continually putting others behind the 8-ball. He calls us to notice and be present with any whose lives are systematically singled out and made more different by the powers that be. He calls us to be as bold in our choices, words and actions, as he was in his, and to be clear that THIS Is what Christian Faith is all about.
I do not look at any of this through rose-coloured glasses, and Jesus wouldn’t want us to. I know for a fact that I like it when things are happy, and wouldn’t it be just the nicest thing if being Church never put us in conflict with anyone else. Harmony is a reasonable thing to want. That’s not news to Jesus. Nor is it news to him that as human beings gathered together, all of whom are aging one day each twenty-four hours, there are limits to our capacity. Christ does not call us to ignore that, and he certainly doesn’t lay a guilt trip when we hit our limits. He does, however, invite us daily – as a Community of Faith and as a collective of ministries within that - to take big, bold steps toward his life of radical, transformative love. Love that is sturdy and steadfast. Love that includes tough things to achieve, like forgiveness and reconciliation and wholeness. Love that shapes us, to be a people and a place of safety and welcome for anyone who feels on the outside looking in. Jesus calls us to love, and love, and love. He warns us that it won’t all be happy and easy, but that doesn’t mean he intends it to be grim, duty-bound, and lifeless. We are called to embrace Christ’s own abundant life, and share that love-infused life broadly, joyfully, relentlessly.
As we gather as Church today to recall a year just past when some things went as we hoped and other things did not, as we envision a year already unfolding that promises changes and opportunities, we are called to be of good courage. To be not only disciples, but bold disciples. May that calling, in the name of Christ Jesus, in the shadow of his cross which acknowledges crucifixion and promises resurrection, inspire our steps. Amen.
© Rev Greg Wooley, Ralph Connor Memorial United Church, 2024.
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