Deeping Peace: Risky Wisdom
Mark 8: 27-38; Proverbs 1:20-2:12a
September 17, 2006

There is no such thing as an ivory tower. Wisdom is not gained by separating yourself from the everyday concerns of life. Wisdom is only available to us in the very midst of the busyness of life, in the cultural and economic heart of things. Wisdom that is of God is not shy or retiring or out of place around kitchen tables, board room tables, communion tables. She raises her voice, fully able to speak into the cacophony of competing voices and sounds. And the voice she raises is confronting, and persistent….because….God loves you…and wants for you the deep peace you so deeply want for yourself. God never gives up on you and is prompting you, inviting you, confronting you…forward!

Yet again and again, Wisdom’s advice has been ignored and scoffed at. People who think everything is "just fine the way it is" feel they have no need of God’s Wisdom and so when disaster strikes and Wisdom is sorely needed, she is nowhere to be found….so outside their usual ways of thinking and approaching the world, they cannot find her. The pattern repeats over and over again in our lives. We don’t pick up a cross…we cross our fingers that the oil keeps flowing, the stock market stays up, the poor don’t rise up in mass and demand a fair share, the abuse will surely stop soon, the environment will not succumb for a few more decades.....we cross our fingers it will be fine for a few more decades…till I’ve made my way through my life. If you live in these ways, instead of the ways of Jesus…the Wisdom of God…you are only as secure as the morning headlines or foulest mood of a family member or mud slinging distance of others, or the temperament of your boss. Don’t say you haven’t been warned. Wisdom tells your story in today’s story.

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What a mix of emotions the disciples must have felt. They had hoped, they believed Jesus was the one, the very one for which their culture had longed countless generations. Popular messianic hopes of that day awaited a militant figure who would bring deliverance to the nation and freedom from Rome. Conventional religious wisdom of that time awaited a messiah who would inflict suffering on the enemy while setting them free.

Jesus turns that worldly…that religious wisdom upside down. This clash of wisdoms comes to a head as Peter rebukes Jesus and then Jesus rebukes all of us. Jesus begins to explain the counter-intuitive, topsy-turvey way things are going to go. It will not be an easy road. The ways of conventional power…the palace coup, a show of strength, a preemptive strike, retaliation will not be the way. God does not get even. The way of Christ will involve some self-denial…better said today as the denial of the selfish…..and it will involve sacrifice but the kind of sacrifice in which, paradoxically, life is deeply honored and revealed. Like giving up some of your TV time, your second helpings, your lattes or cellphone and using this time and financial resources for those who have not time for TV or even a TV, no first helpings let alone seconds, no disposable income for what we routinely afford to do for ourselves.

There will be a revolution, but in order to see it and understand it a person will need to have their eyes wide open and focus on the ways of Jesus…the every day ways he lived….and then live it. This is a hard wisdom that we are asked to embrace. Faith, because this revolution works from the bottom up and from the inside out, doesn’t change things for us overnight…or does it?

God’s wisdom calls us to take risks serving on behalf of the well-being of all people and Jesus says two aspects of this turning toward God and others…embracing God’s Wisdom ….are self-denial and taking up one’s cross. Boy…how these two sayings of Jesus have been misunderstood and misused!

"It is your cross to bear," some people are told. "If you suffer, it is because you are bearing a cross like Jesus did. Deny your desire for wholeness and accept the suffering as your burden. Jesus said we have to lose our lives to find them. That’s why you’ve lost yours. Don’t worry. You’ll receive your reward in the life to come." ….or such words as these.

Too many suffering people in the world hear this terrible distortion of what Jesus said….people living in poverty, violence, illness, or loss…..you’ve heard it when you lost your job, your loved one, you faced hard financial times…you hear it when people are at a loss for words and are trying to make sense of injustice…or avoid it!

Jesus says, "Deny yourself, take up your cross AND follow me." Jesus is inviting his disciples…the community he addressed….to take a risk by joining him in a radical choosing of God’s way of life over a more conventional and safe but deeply alienating and disintegrating way of life. Another way of putting it might be, "Come on people. Let go of your fear. Let go of your personal agendas and look to the greater good. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and might and your neighbor as yourself. What good will it be if any of us preserve our lives but lose our very reasons for living…our integrity and deep peace? Safety won’t do us much good then. So come on. Take a risk. Follow me as I walk in God’s ways of wisdom that leads to abundant life….life beyond the things I have to the love relationships I need."

How? How do you pick up your cross and follow? How do you begin to begin?

Put your focus on divine things and not on human things. Focus on what works, what already is beginning to bring that peace…focus on the greater good as you become self aware.

Don’t get caught up in the responsibilities and worries and limitations of life, see through them to the underlying gifts, opportunities, feelings, desires, and holiness of life. God says the only thing for which we are really responsible is that our actions be based always in loving kindness…toward ourselves and others. Keep your integrity. Focus on the divine in things where you can as you can…in finite ways…not infinite ways. The little things we do often matter most! …like the tone of your voice, who you sit next to, if you vote, what you eat.

Where is your focus? Are you focused on the right stuff? The stuff that will truly bring you what most deeply desire? Is that a cross you carry on your shoulder or a chip?

Know how to tell the difference? A chip is all about and only about you! A cross is a focus beyond the self, including the self, but beyond it to the greater good of all.

Wisdom is out there….on the street corner of our lives shouting to us. And wisdom is in here…within us…in that still small voice we hear in the quiet as we let go of the busy-ness of life and allow ourselves to feel our lives and our longings.

It’s exciting to know all things are STILL possible for those who believe….it is still possible for you…no matter how you’ve chosen in the past, how many chips are lying on the floor around your feet, how many times in weariness you dropped the cross because you insisted on carrying it all on your own….God still offers you deep peace…the chance to come full circle…to come home. Together we pick up the cross and come home.

Deep Peace. Deepening Peace.