Fear

Well, I've been neglecting the blog. Not because I didn't have anything to write, but the week before reading week was full of doing as much homework as possible so we could go on vacation, and I certainly wasn't going to spend my vacation working on the blog, either. So I apologize, but a girl's got to take care of herself.

So the past couple of months at the church have been a whirlwind of activity for me. Between taking the girls to WYA, being on vacation, and the end of my time at St. Mark coming near, I feel like I'm missing out on a lot. Yet, at the same time, I'm doing so much on the weeks that I am there, even my week back after vacation. This Sunday, I wrote the prayers of intercession and taught Confirmation, and tonight I'll be leading the Bible study for the mid-week soup supper. Not to mention that I've preached, taught Sunday school, and gone to a bunch of meetings.

This weekend is the 30-hour famine, which is my big service project day. I've been working on this basically since November or so, because my one social ministry requirement was to create and execute a service project with the youth. We're going to be doing three: wrapping silverware for the Trenton Area Soup Kitchen, stuffing and tying pillows for children in Bosnia, and making tote bags for the children, as well. I'm excited to see what happens.

But besides all of the activity, I've had a lot of fearful moments. Some of those are overarching: I'm not ready to leave, and I'm scared of what's going to happen next year. Some of those are the kinds that have been going on the whole year: have I really done enough? Have I learned what I can? Have I made some sort of positive impact here? And then there are the random ones that have been happening over the last few weeks.

First, I preached, which is always nerve-racking. I was only mildly calmed by the fact that we've been talking a lot about God's work through the words of the sermon. God will speak even when I cannot, and God will help the listeners hear what God has to say, even when my words don't quite match that. I firmly believe this, and I'm glad that the pressure is off. That doesn't mean that I don't have some responsibility, though. Plus, the last time I preached, Linda and I met a few weeks beforehand and went over the sermon, I practiced in the pulpit, and we talked a lot about it. This time, partially because of busyness and partly because I think Linda was either testing or trusting me--probably both, we didn't do that. I preached on Sunday not knowing what her thoughts on the sermon were. That made me even more nervous, especially when we did sit down to talk about it. It turns out that I don't suck at writing sermons; I definitely still have some growing to do, but that's to be expected. Yet I was pretty nervous the whole time. What if it was terrible? What if it made no sense? What if I was preaching the wrong thing?

The other big moment of being nervous came this last Sunday night, when I was teaching Confirmation. When I taught the Apostle's Creed, Linda wasn't there one day because she was at an ordination, and the other two weeks she worked on stuff in her office. That meant I was all alone with five terrifying teenagers. I survived, and I think they even enjoyed the time. But this week, when I was finally comfortable teaching on my own, Linda came in and worked on stuff in the same room. All of  a sudden, I was worried again--What if I was teaching something wrong? What if I said something the wrong way and the kids misunderstood? What if nothing I said made sense and I ruined Confirmation for them? I had the same issue a few weeks ago when Linda dropped in on my 7/8 grade class.

Why am I so scared? I want Linda to tell me how I'm doing and give me feedback so I can keep doing what I'm doing right, and work on improving what I'm doing wrong. Yet I get so worried when she's there to hear it! I know that part of it is just fear that I'm making huge mistakes, but another part is my general distaste for hearing about my mistakes. I'm a recovering perfectionist, and I hate making mistakes. I beat myself up for them, and can't seem to forget them--even silly mistakes that I made back as a freshman in high school, for example. So most of my issue is that to have someone else tell me I messed up, even someone I trust, is really difficult. I'll definitely have to get over this, so I appreciate all that Linda does to help me get over this perfectionist streak--maybe one day I'll get there.

And more change

I really like when my education, field education experience, and real life come together. This week on my way home from church, I started piecing together liturgy and everything else that's going on right now. This week, we talked about how change works in a worship service/community. For those of you who don't know or don't pay attention, there are certain aspects of the worship service that are intended to remain the same for long periods of time, or even always. For example, we use the same confession and forgiveness for the entire season of Lent. On the other hand, we have certain portions of the liturgy that change on a weekly basis: hymns, certain prayers, etc.

The point of the relative stability in worship is for people to get used to the liturgy. Imagine walking into church each week and not knowing how the space will be arranged, what the colors of the banners will be, what kind of songs you'll be singing, what the structure of the service will be, etc. The point is not to terrify the worshipers, but to facilitate their worship. However, letting people get to know the liturgy too well can cause speaking/singing it by rite, rather than really paying attention to what they are doing in worship. For this reason, change is a liturgical aid. We can see the need for such change when we hear people recite the Creed or the Lord's Prayer. Are they really meaning what they say? Do they even pay attention to their own words?

I, for one, am all for change in liturgical words, space, and music. I think this mostly comes out of my formative years in church, when we were starting and building the mission congregation. We rented a building on Sunday mornings, and we set up for worship each week. Because of this, we were able to rearrange the seating, altar placement, etc. whenever we wanted to. This was great, but sometimes caused problems, like when Dad put the altar directly under a smoke detector and extinguishing the candles set of the smoke alarm. We were also fairly free with the liturgy, because no one had been around long enough to say, "But that's the way we've always done it!" There was a period where we sang the same songs for a month at a time, and other aspects of the service were changed.

So what does this mean in daily life? I made the connection on my way home from church. We don't change everything all at once for a reason. We might change the Creed and the hymns, but we keep the Eucharistic prayer the same. We change the colors of the banners, but we keep the altar in the same place. We do new readings, but the Gospel message never changes. People can accept some changes. People can latch onto the parts they know and learn the new things, without getting overly tired from the constant barrage of newness or bored because everything is the same.

Life is the same way. This is why I was freaking out a few weeks ago about everything changing at once. We're not prepared to have too much change at once. It's overwhelming and tires us out. But when we change one thing at a time, life is manageable. If I moved, but kept the same job and went to the same school, I would be a little stressed out, but it would be okay. Unfortunately, generally when people move, they also change jobs, schools, distance from friends, knowledge of the area, and much more. THAT'S why moving is so stressful. There's too much change. It would be like moving from setting 2 of the ELW to a praise and worship service the next week. We'd all be lost, confused, and worn out by the end.

So when I complain about hating change, it's because I'm at a point where too much is changing at once. I'm going to have to leave St. Mark, start CPE, lose my seminary friends for the summer, stop working, etc. What a mess. Sure, I'll get through it, but now at least I understand why change is so stressful sometimes.

Mark 8:31-38 Sermon

Sermon from yesterday:

            “Go away behind me, Satan!” Why would Jesus call his own disciple Satan? Peter is the same one who, earlier in this chapter of Mark, spoke for all the disciples when he said, “You are the Messiah, the Christ!” Now, mere verses later, Peter is Satan? Yet, as challenging as this statement is, we can see why Jesus is so upset. He has been telling his disciples little snippets of the story throughout their ministry. He has cast out demons, healed the sick, and calmed the sea. He challenges the authority of the chief priests, elders, and scribes. He rebels against the status quo. The disciples are not clueless about the way things work. People like Jesus get killed. People like Jesus, no matter how good-hearted, don’t get to keep preaching, teaching, and healing. They are taken away, tortured, and killed for being rebellious.

            More importantly, the disciples have seen the way Jesus radically changes the way people think about power. He eats with tax collectors and sinners. He called a bunch of fishermen to be his followers. Yet they still assume that Jesus, as Messiah, will be powerful, crushing the opposition and rising above all others. Jesus is right to be upset with the disciples. They seemed to finally understand his mission—they declared him to be the Messiah, didn’t they? So Jesus openly tells them all that is about to happen—everything they should have put together for themselves by now. And the disciples still don’t get it.

            When Peter takes Jesus aside to rebuke him, Jesus is not just angry about Peter’s misunderstanding or the audacity he has in rebuking his master. Rather, Jesus is revealing his humanity. Peter’s words of rebuke are the outward sign of Jesus’ inward torment. Although he knows God’s will, Jesus is tempted to run. He is scared about the prospect of the torture and death he is about to suffer. This is not something that will pass quickly and then he will return triumphant. Jesus is going to spend hours suffering on the cross. That is something that no human wants to face, although some may do so for the sake of others. Jesus is willing to take on the sins of the world and die to put those sins to death. That does not negate the temptation to resist, however.

            This is not the first time Jesus has been tempted. Last week, we read about his 40 days of temptation in the wilderness. Jesus is baptized and God says, “You are my son, the beloved. With you I am well pleased.” Immediately afterward, he is driven into the wilderness by the Spirit, where he is tempted for 40 days by Satan. Jesus is no stranger to temptation. He is, after all, human. There seems to be something different about Peter’s rebuking, however. Jesus uses the same words here that he does to exorcise demons: “Get out!” “Go away!” “You’re not welcome here!” And he says these things to one of his closest disciples. It seems as if Peter’s temptation is almost unbearable. How could one of Jesus’ own disciples try to get him to stray from God’s path? With the crucifixion looming, perhaps Jesus recognizes his own frailty at this point. His death is too near. The temptation is too strong.

            We, too, suffer from this temptation. In our baptism, we say that we renounce the devil and all the forces that defy God, the powers of this world that rebel against God, and the ways of sin that draw us from God. Immediately afterward, we profess our faith through the Apostle’s Creed. Yet none of this destroys the power of sin and evil in our lives. Daily, we must reaffirm our commitment against the devil and for God. Daily, we face the temptation to sin. Daily, we feel the crushing weight of evil in this world. It is easy to see—just turn on the news for a few minutes. There is no denying that there are powers in this world that rebel against God, and that we fall into the ways of sin with each passing day.

            We see this temptation on a daily basis. Some people give up certain vices for Lent. One year in college, I gave up all junk food. This included everything from soda to chips to candy. I even had a long debate with myself about whether I could have jelly, since it’s basically just sugar. The temptation to eat one of those delicious snacks stayed with me every day throughout Lent. The same is true of all temptation. We don’t just renounce sin and the devil and suddenly become free of temptation. It’s always there. Sometimes it’s just more powerful than others. The temptation to eat just one chip, the temptation to say that one thing you know will finally win the argument, the temptation to buy that one thing you know will change your life.

            The temptation to do our will, rather than God’s, is the greatest of all. Even Jesus felt it. Wouldn’t it have been easier for Jesus to just go back to his quiet life as the son of a carpenter? Couldn’t he have sent his disciples back to their homes and families? If they all snuck away, leaving their little group behind, maybe they could have avoided the wrath of the powers that be. But Jesus simply can’t give in to that temptation, no matter how nice it might seem. He says, “Whoever wishes to follow behind me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me.

For whoever wishes to save her whole being will lose it; and whoever loses her whole being for my sake and for the sake of the Gospel will save it.” Following Jesus, doing God’s will, is not about doing the easy thing. It’s about losing ourselves for the sake of the Gospel message. It’s about looking beyond the problems we face for a short time and toward the everlasting promises of God.

            Jesus, of course, overcomes the temptation to forsake God’s will and just go back to his simple life. And he calls all of his followers to the same right path. He is honest about the pain and suffering that happens along the way—we will have to take up our cross, we might lose our lives for his sake, we will be tempted. The way of the Gospel is not an easy path. Sometimes, we will have to shout aloud, “Go away behind me, Satan!” Yet Jesus also promises that he will not be ashamed of us if we are not ashamed of him.

            There is an even greater promise contained within this text. Somehow, Peter seems to miss it when he takes Jesus aside to rebuke him. Jesus doesn’t just talk about his suffering and death, he tells his disciples that, although it is necessary for the Son of Man to be killed, it is also necessary for the Son of Man to rise on the third day! How did the disciples not hear that? Why didn’t they recognize that the power of Jesus’ message is more apparent in the last few words than in all the suffering? Perhaps this is also what helps Jesus to overcome the temptation Peter lays on him. He is tempted to avoid the suffering, but to forgo the cross is to lose the resurrection. Without death, Jesus cannot rise anew.

            Jesus is also able to make this a teaching moment. At first, he has to wrestle with the present power of temptation. Yet once he tells Peter, “You do not think of the things of God but those of people,” it is as if he is free from the temptation. Certainly it is still there. We will see this in a few weeks in the Garden of Gethsemane when Jesus asks that God take away the need for his suffering. But there, as here, he remembers that God is in charge: “Yet not my will, but yours.” So renouncing Satan and the powers of evil is really a two-step process: first, we must say, “Go away behind me, Satan!” Get out of my sight, leave me alone, I will not be tempted by your false promises. Then we must cling to the things of God. We must say, “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done.” This is not about what we want, but about God’s plan. Jesus recognized that, and through his faith in God’s promise, was able to overcome many moments of temptation.

            We must not be too quick to move from the pain and suffering to resurrection, however. We are, in fact, in the season of Lent, a season of contemplation and preparation. Just as we cannot lose sight of the resurrection, we also should not gloss over the time of trial. There should be a balance. Jesus spent 40 days in the wilderness, being tempted by the devil. We, too, must learn how to wrestle with temptation. We are washed clean of the power of our sins, but that does not mean that sin no longer exists. Lent is a time for us to reflect on our sinful ways. Certainly, we can rejoice in our salvation. We can praise God for the great works God has done in our lives through Jesus’ saving act. But right now, we are still wandering in the wilderness. We are still tempted by the powers of evil.

            Moving too quickly from the pain and suffering of the cross to the joy of resurrection makes us lose sight of the reality of life here on earth. We must first dwell in the place of suffering before we can truly comprehend the power of new life. Only by seeing our own sin for what it truly is can we begin to understand the great work God has done through Jesus. Like the disciples, we tend to flee from the moment of suffering. We prefer to run away, to pretend we don’t know that guy on the cross, to doubt his power.

            We can look forward to the resurrection with hope and longing. Without the promise, we would be lost. But being in the place of suffering teaches us how much we rely on Jesus. It teaches us how little we can truly accomplish for ourselves. It teaches us to stop believing in the power of our own works. By fully comprehending our own worthlessness, we can begin to understand how much we really need Christ.

            Jesus did overcome the devil, the powers of this world, and the ways of sin. The good news is that Jesus’ death and resurrection give us new life. Daily, we are washed in the waters of baptism, dying to the temptations of the world and rising again to God’s will for our lives. This is possible only through Jesus’ death and resurrection, through his conquering of the powers of sin and death. We can rejoice in his saving work.

            Jesus rejected worldly powers, as well as the devil. With him, we can shout, “Go away behind me, Satan! For you do not think of the things of God, but those of people.” God’s plan is greater than our plan. God’s peace passes our understanding. God’s weakness is stronger than our strength. And God’s love covers all. Thanks be to God! Amen.