“It's All About Relationship”

A Lenten Sermon Preached by

The Rev. Jean Niven Lenk

at the

First Congregational Church of Stoughton

United Church of Christ

In the Gospel passage for this, the second Sunday in Lent, Jesus tells us that “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.” 

With these words, Jesus issues a challenge and a call to discipleship.  In recent Gospel lessons, we have heard Jesus call his disciples with the words, “Follow Me.”  But today, his invitation is sharper, more defined, and he uses words that no one wants to hear:  words like “denial” and “suffering.”  These words are not a strategy for church growth!  Indeed, Jesus had only twelve regular attendees – a lot less than we have here this morning!

We have come to associate denial with the season of Lent, and the tradition of foregoing chocolate or some other guilty pleasure is rooted in the history of Lenten penance and fasting.  But our self-indulgent, privileged culture doesn’t take kindly to denying oneself anything, and temptations to treat ourselves bombard us daily.

Even more unappealing than the thought of denying ourselves is the idea of suffering.  In this, we are not unlike Peter and his fellow disciples.  Three times in Mark’s gospel [8:31; 9:31; 10:33-34], including in this morning’s passage, Jesus predicts his own suffering and death, and each time, the disciples seem baffled, unable to understand or accept what Jesus is saying [8:32-33; 9:33-34; 10:35-37]. 

They believed in the image of a triumphant and prosperous Messiah who would come in power and glory and defeat their enemies.  The image of a suffering Messiah was too much for the disciples to accept, and even though 2000 years have passed, it has become no easier for the Christian Church to embrace the suffering servant as a role model.  We want a Messiah, all right, but we want Jesus as long as he will make life easier, more comfortable, more prosperous for us.  We want healing, comfort, reward, success. 

But Jesus offers suffering.  It is hard to build a successful church, some would argue, when the cross as the model of the Christian life.  In our culture, suffering is to be avoided all costs, because it can bring us an awareness of our own vulnerabilities.  We prefer to take control of our lives, to make it easy on ourselves.  We want lives of happiness and fulfillment -- not suffering.

But the paradox is that our moments of pain and struggle and loss can be turning points in our life, for they open us up to God’s transforming love.  Life events such as the death of a friend or family member, a divorce or separation, even a job loss can cause us to re-evaluate the meaning of our lives, to question our priorities, and to examine our values.  Such events can lead to our feeling and experiencing life from a deeper, fuller, more profound vantage point, for they open us up to the depth of God’s grace and love. 

And it can be in our loneliness and desperation, in the most heartbreaking moments of our lives, that we find God, that we can finally recognize the face of Jesus.  As we stand in our need and our brokenness, Christ reaches out to us -- and we are ready, finally ready, to say yes, yes, we want to have a relationship with you, God.

I know that the moments of my deepest sorrow have led to profound transformation, for it was in those moments that, broken and helpless, I was finally able to recognize and accept the healing love and grace of God – the God who brings life out of death, offers hope out of hopelessness, makes possibility out of the impossible.

And essential to opening ourselves up to God is opening ourselves to the love of God working through others.  We have had a number of new people coming into our church family over the past several months, and to all of you, it is my prayer that you will find a sense of family here with this worshiping community.  I pray that all of your find that this is the place you will come to be nurtured on your faith journey, to ask the difficult questions, to find faithful friends who will share in your laughter and your joy.  This church may indeed be the place where you celebrate some of your most joyous moments – the baptism of your child, a confirmation, a wedding. 

It may also be the place of profound sorrow, where you journey through illness or loss or the death of a loved one.  And it is my prayer that in this church family, you will seek and find arms to embrace you when the bottom falls out of your world.  Because you see, folks, it is all about relationship.  Whether Jesus is calling people like Peter and Andrew, or James and John, or Philip and Nathanael, or people like you and me, it is all about relationship -- with God through Christ and with each other. 

And our relationship with Christ and each other is based on the truth of who we are, not the façade we try to project to the outside world.  When we claim the truth of who we are – incomplete, needy, broken, suffering – that is the moment when we come to know the generous welcome and love of God.  And that welcome we receive from Christ becomes the welcome we can offer to others.

Jesus models God's desire for the way we are to relate to each other.  He doesn’t ask are you qualified, prepared, competent, deserving, or worthy.  Those are never the questions.  The question is: Are you ready?  Are you ready for a serious relationship?  Are you ready in the moment and from the place of your need?  And are you ready to accept others in their brokenness?

A friend of mind once told me that in her family system, she was the one who had the designated role of taking care of others.  Her mother would say, “Jennifer is the strong one.  Jennifer is the glue that keeps this family together.”  And well into her adult life, Jennifer’s spouse, her friends, and her neighbors came to see and rely on her in the same way.  They continued to support that myth that there was no brokenness in her life.  As a result, Jennifer felt the need to maintain the illusion that she had no weakness, had no need, had no suffering.  She was not given the space or the permission to reveal the truth about herself, to name and claim the brokenness in her life. 

A woman tells how she recently received a phone call from an old and dear friend, someone she had known for 25 years.  They live in different cities, but speak regularly by phone and get together three or four times a year.  The friend called the woman recently to tell her that after 20 years, she and her husband were no longer living together.  While the woman received this news with sadness for her close friend, she was shocked to learn that the couple had been separated for over a year and a half.  Her friend had kept the news a secret because she couldn’t bring herself to tell anyone.  Her shame was so thick that she couldn’t even share the news with her best friend.

I suspect that these kinds of stories are in all of our lives.  We live in a culture that promotes self-reliance and cultivates judgmental boundaries around what is “acceptable,” so we put up facades that tell the world we “have it all together” and that our lives are “practically perfect,” when the truth is that we are drowning and want desperately to cry out for help.  And when we retreat behind the lie of our facades, we put up barriers against the very people in the very places who want to love us and hold us in our brokenness.

So often, when people are going through difficult times -- when abuse or divorce or drugs enter their lives – they retreat from the very people who want to reach out to them.  Perhaps you know someone like this.  Perhaps it’s you.

The good news is Jesus shows us another way to live.  When our instinct is to retreat, God reaches out to us.  Christ’s love for us is so deep and real that he comes to us at the place of our suffering.  And when we are welcomed at the place of our pain, we can share that welcome with others in need. 

The question is, will we be a church that dares, like Jesus, to break the boundaries that keep us from being vulnerable and showing our brokenness to others?  Can we create a place of welcome where all people feel accepted and embraced, regardless of how they are treated by the world beyond these walls?  Can we create a place where all people feel safe and cherished and cared for, not just in times of joy, victory, and approval, but even more so in their sorrows, defeats, and rejections?

There is a broken person in each of us who needs to know God’s welcoming embrace.  May we have the courage to acknowledge and claim the truth about ourselves.  May we welcome Christ’s healing touch in our moment and place of need.  May we ensure that this is a place that reaches out to and welcomes others, especially in their times of need.  And may we all be conduits of God’s healing love and grace to each other, and to the world.  Amen.