“Ready to Take a Chance Again”

The Yorktown United Methodist Church

Pastor Roy Grubbs

 

August 16, 2009                                                                                                          Romans 12:9-21
11th Sunday after Pentecost                                                                                      Matthew 16:21-27

  Gina, RJ, and I had a great time on our vacation.  Waking up late; eating at different restaurants; swimming, boating, relaxing.  We reconnected with Gina’s family and met some new people out in California and Las Vegas , where Gina’ parents live. 

But one of the things that caught my attention (as it always does) is the opulence in those areas.  Especially in Las Vegas (known as Sin City ), the gambling and the money is something very difficult to notice.  Don’t get me wrong, Las Vegas is a wonderful city to visit, even for families!  It has grown so much that there is plenty of good things for everyone to do.  But it is important to have our priorities set.  What is really important to us?  Where do we spend our time?  What do we do with the money we have been blessed with? 

I will never forget something I witnessed on one of my trips to Las Vegas .  As I was at the checkout lane in a grocery store, I noticed a woman sitting in front of a slot machine.  She had so many bags placed all around her on the floor.  And she had three small children there as well.  The children were whining, and complaining that they had been there too long.  One child mentioned that the ice cream was soft.  And one of them began to wander away.  Fortunately, the mother noticed; but after getting her kids all together again, she continued playing.  This woman was into the slot machine too much.  Her children were being neglected, her perishables were going bad, but yet she played on.  She valued that time with the slot machine over everything else important to her.

This experience has made me reflect quite a bit on what is important to me in my life.  Not just overall, but during each moment of my life.  We all have our “slot machines,” at least at times.  Haven’t there been times when we have mis-prioritized?  Have we always gotten it right?  How different are we at times from this woman at the slot machine?  I know that I have made mistakes.  I have put others before my family when I shouldn’t have.  I have put a football game or an object over spending time with someone else who may have really needed it.  I have even put other things, and people before God.   And I bet I’m not the only one.

We have all put ourselves before others at times.  We have all put ourselves before our family, even before God.  Life is hard.  Things happen.  We feel out of control.  We lose our way.  We begin to shrink in, become “me-centered.”  “I am the only one that really matters.  I’ll get around to helping others when I have got all my life is all put together.”  But often, we don’t get it all put together.  We don’t get all our ducks in a row.  Life continues to happen.  And just when things seem to get back to normal, something else happens.

That is why today’s Gospel Lesson may seem so hard.  If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves, take up their cross and follow me.”  Well thank you very much Jesus, but who needs that!  In times like these, it is hard enough just to keep the bills paid and food on the table.  Surely, Jesus must not mean us, not us in this difficult time, with so much stacked against us.  What could Jesus want from us?

In this passage, Jesus scolds Peter for his reaction when Jesus tells the disciples of his upcoming suffering, death, and resurrection.  Jesus responds to Peter harshly, “Get behind me, Satan!”  Why does Jesus respond in this way to Peter.  Wasn’t Peter reacting out of fear for Jesus?  Surely this wasn’t so bad.  Peter was concerned for Jesus and his life.  It is natural to want to keep everyone safe, to be safe.

The deep secret of Jesus’ hard words to us in this passage is that our fear of suffering and death, because fear of death always turns into fear of life, into a stingy, cautious way of living that is not really living at all.  The deep secret of Jesus’ hard words is that the way to have abundant life cannot be shut up and saved any more than fresh spring water can be put in a mason jar and kept in a kitchen cupboard.  Sure, it will remain water, and you can open it and drink it, but it will have lost its essence, its life, which is to be poured out, to be moving, living water, rushing downstream to share its wealth without ever looking back. 

Peter wanted to prevent Jesus from doing that.  He did not want Jesus’ life to be spilled, to be wasted.  He wanted to save it, to preserve it, to find a safer, more comfortable way for Jesus to be Lord.  What he forgot, apparently, was that Jesus’ supply of life was never-ending, that what poured out of him poured out of a source so strong, so fine, that the more he gave of himself, the more he had – a veritable geyser of living water sent to drench a dry, parched world.

Peter missed that part of what Jesus said, but so did I, the first few times I heard this scripture.  Listen again to what Matthew says:  “Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed and on the third day be raised.”  Did you catch it that time?  And on the third day be raised.  Peter missed that part and so did I.  We never got that far.  We got stuck on the suffering and death part.  We got that far and said, “God forbid, Lord!  This will never happen to you,” without noticing that after death, Jesus tells us there is life again, abundant life for Jesus and for all of us that can never be cut off!

You just never get that far if you let suffering and death throw you off the track, if you let fear of those things keep you from sticking your neck out, from taking the risks that make life worth living.  You can try to save your own life.  You can try to stockpile it, being very, very careful what you say yes to; being very, very careful about whom you let into your life, frisking everyone at the door, and letting only the most harmless people inside; and being very, very wary about going outside yourself, venturing forth only under very heavy guard and ready to retreat at the first sign of trouble.

You can live that way, but don’t expect to enjoy it very much, or to accomplish much, and do not expect to be missed when your safe, comfortable life comes to and end and no one notices that you are gone.  “For whoever would save his life will lose it,” Jesus says to his disciples, “and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.”

Living the life of faith is not about being a daredevil.  This is not a sermon about signing up for skydiving lessons or doing dangerous things for the thrill of it.  This is a sermon about living a life that matters – a life for Christ’s sake and about refusing to put our comfort or safety ahead of living a life like that; a life that pours itself out for others as a matter of course, al life that spends itself without counting the cost, knowing that there is always more life, even when our own life runs out, that our everlasting God provides.

There is a certain amount of pain involved in being human and a good bit more in being fully human, fully alive – especially in a world that counts on our fear of death and uses it to keep us in line.  Jesus’ enemies counted on his fear of death to shut him up and shut him down, but they were wrong.  He may have been afraid, but he did not let his fear stop him.  He did not get stuck on the suffering and death part.  He saw something beyond them, something as wide and glittering as the sea, worth every risk required to reach it, and he did not stop until he got there.

To be where God is – to follow Jesus – means going beyond the limits of our comfort and safety.  It means receiving our lives as gifts instead of guarding them as our possessions.  It means sharing the life we have been given instead of bottling it up for our won consumption. 

In Las Vegas , we had a chance to listen to a special song at a concert that drives this point home.  Barry Manilow’s Ready to Take a Chance Again.  Here are the lyrics:

You remind me I live in a shell, safe from the past, and doing' okay, but not very well.
No jolts, no surprises, no crisis arises: My life goes along as it should, it's all very nice, but not very good.

And I'm Ready To Take A Chance Again, Ready to put my love on the line with you.
Been living with nothing to show for it; You get what you get when you go for it,
And I'm Ready To Take Chance Again with you.

When they left me in all my despair, I just held on, my hopes were all gone. Then I found you there.
And I'm Ready To Take A Chance Again, Ready To Take A Chance Again with you, With you.

Maybe we have been living in a shell.  Maybe we have been burned by love or reaching out before.  We have two choices – to live safe, for ourselves; or to live a life that continues to pour out to others.  The choice is ours.  I pray that this day, with Jesus leading us that we all are Ready to Take a Chance Again.  Amen.


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