UCC Church of Charlotte

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Sermon, Sunday, March 8, 2009
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Sunday, March 8, 2009 8:52:54 AM
From:
Phil Hobson   
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To:
Phil Hobson 


Confounded 
Psalm 22:23-31 
Mark 8:31-38

Grace and Peace to you this morning.  Grace and Peace.

We are confounded, aren’t we?  
    
Nationally, we see and hear and read about the economy, and we are flooded with opinions and commentary and agendas of Wall Street and individual investors and politicos and others.  When we are overwhelmed with data and agendas, there is little room to sort out information and knowledge from the mix.  
    
And because of the state of the economy, we are ill equipped to deal with any of the other things that seem to confound us.
    
As a church we are often confounded.  We are inundated with ideas for mission or worship.  We are caught between what we know is right and what our neighbors might think if we actually did it.  We are flooded by the needs of those around us, overwhelmed at all there is to do.  And so, many of us are tired.  We show up to church not raring to go, but weary, weak and worn.
    
Some of that tiredness is because we are confounded by our families.  By those who know better but still do what they do.  By those who have been lost for too long.  By open conflict and by secret deals made that I won’t tell you about your problems if you won’t tell me about mine.  Secrets and hidden lives and half-told truths wear us out more than actual arguments.
    
As individuals, for all of these reasons and for very personal ones, we are often confounded.  Maybe we have been trying to live our faith and we keep seeming to miss the mark.  We set out to do good and somehow bumble it along the way.  Or we keep doing those things we know we ought not do, or we keep not doing those things we know we ought to.
    
If nothing else, we have daylight savings time to contend with.
    
This morning’s story is for a confounded people.  And at first, it may not seem like Good News for us, but hang in there.
    
Peter has been a faithful follower.  He stepped up when called.  He left his nets without a moment’s hesitation.  He has been zealous for the Lord since the word go.
    
And just a few verses ago, just a half a paragraph before this one, he is the one with the right answer.  Jesus asks them who people say that he is.  And they give him the latest gossip and scuttlebutt: “they say you are Elijah, or John the Baptizer, or one of the other prophets...”

    “And who do you say that I am?”  
    
The great question for his followers.  The great question of how will we understand who Jesus is?
    
And Peter answers, “You are the Christ.”  And in Matthew’s telling of the story, Peter is then called the rock on which Jesus would build his church.
    
He gets it right.  He has the right answer.  Unfortunately, his answer is merely correct.
    
One of my professors at seminary tells the story of his days as a student, and defending his position paper during his examination.  A position paper is the summary of one’s beliefs, the statement of where one stands and for what, the articulation of “this I believe.”  And he is there facing three of his professors, who question him about the paper, about where he stands, about his faith journey.
    
And one of the professors, one I had the privilege of learning from as well, states, “the problem with your paper is that it is merely correct.”
    
Now correct is a lot!  Correct is good!  Correct is wonderful!
    
But “merely correct?”
    
The professor giving the examination went on to say, “The problem is it is merely correct, you have not suffered it yet.”
    
It is one thing to have the right answer.  It is another to have lived through to that right answer and to know it deeply from experience.  And simply because we have suffered, doesn’t mean we have the right answer.
    
And so we get to this morning’s lesson.  Peter has just gotten the right answer, that Jesus is the Christ.  And Jesus goes on to explain to everyone there what that means, what will be happening to him.
    
And Peter draws him aside and tells him to knock it off.
    
Peter knows Jesus is the Christ, but doesn’t know what that means, and is confounded by the answer when he finds out.
    
Peter knows the right answer, but has not yet seen and felt and lived through what it will mean.
    
Peter tries to correct Jesus in private, but Jesus will have none of that.  He turns to the disciples and says, “Get thee behind me, Satan!  For you are a stumbling block.  You have your eyes set on the things of man, not the ways of God.”
    
One moment, getting it as right as can be, the next being called the Adversary, the stumbling block.
    
But in a faith that places such emphasis on forgiveness, this is how we grow.  We try, we get it right, we keep going, we get it wrong, we try again.  It is easy to get swept up in zeal and excitement and joy.  It is much harder to do so and keep discerning carefully what we should do and how we should do it.
    
It is easy to get stuck in one image, one aspect, one facet of our faith, and much harder to stay open to the fact that our knowledge is limited.
    
I met a woman once who knew that Christ had taken away her suffering.  By his stripes she had been healed.  She knew the source and power of what had made her whole again.  But as we talked about Jesus walking with people through the valley of deepest darkness (what the King James Bible translates as “the valley of the shadow of death”), she would have none of it.  No, Jesus had healed her, so there was to be no more suffering.  To claim Jesus would walk with someone through their suffering was a threat to her healing.  Either he took it away or not.  It couldn’t be that he took it away from some, and walked with others in the midst of it.  
    
She held this view with such vehemence that it soon became clear that any alternatives, any different ideas or images of Jesus, any different ways of knowing Christ was a threat to her fragile understanding and her own healing.
    
She had the right answer.  But neither she nor her answer was strong enough to allow for some of the other right answers.  And as we continue to grow in our faith, we learn that there is more than one right answer, more than one understanding.  And none of us have that final word, that final answer that answers all.

And sometimes if we hold the right answer too tightly, it can become the wrong answer.
    
Peter knew Jesus was the Christ.  But he wasn’t ready for all that it would mean.
    
How often do we get a hold of some of the truth of our faith, and then forget to stay open to what else is being taught to us?  How often do we imagine we are done learning and growing and being rebuked by one who loves us and wants better for us than we do for ourselves?
    
How often are we confounded?
    
That is the bare minimum of how often there is forgiveness, and another chance to try again, and another chance to learn and grow in our faith.
    
Thanks be to God.
Amen.