A Fork in the Road
(Genesis 17:1-7; Mark 8:31-38)
(Genesis 17:1-7) When Abram was ninety-nine years old the LORD appeared to Abram, and said to him, "I am God Almighty; walk before me, and be blameless. And I will make my covenant between me and you, and will multiply you exceedingly." Then Abram fell on his face; and God said to him, "Behold, my covenant is with you, and you shall be the father of a multitude of nations. No longer shall your name be Abram, but your name shall be Abraham; for I have made you the father of a multitude of nations. I will make you exceedingly fruitful; and I will make nations of you, and kings shall come forth from you. And I will establish my covenant between me and you and your descendants after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your descendants after you.
(Mark 8:31-38) And he began to teach them that the Son of man must suffer many things, and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. And he said this plainly. And Peter took him, and began to rebuke him. But turning and seeing his disciples, he rebuked Peter, and said, "Get behind me, Satan! For you are not on the side of God, but of men." And he called to him the multitude with his disciples, and said to them, "If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it; and whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel's will save it. For what does it profit a man, to gain the whole world and forfeit his life? For what can a man give in return for his life? For whoever is ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him will the Son of man also be ashamed, when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels."
There is a wonderful poem written in 1916 by Robert Frost called The Road Not Taken. In that poem, Frost talks about the choices we have in life and why we pick the paths we pick. But, ultimately we have to choose one path. And in our "choosing," everything changes.
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as far as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
though as for that the passing there
Had worn them both really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I --
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
We come to intersections in our lives virtually every day, don't we? Some of these intersections are important and require us to be extremely careful. Sometimes the choices we make affect the lives of a lot of people. Others choices might not be quite so momentous - like which TV show we are going to watch. (Except on Monday nights - I am watching 24!) But, truthfully we constantly face decisions every day and ultimately have to choose one way or another. Like Frost suggests, we can't choose every road, or take all the options. Finally, we have to make a choice.
Well, what has drawn you down the road you are currently traveling? Why have you make the choices you have made in your life?
If you are like me, the answer to that is not easy. If you are like me, the road you choose often has to do with how easy it is to travel. I admit, prefer the well-worn path; the one that is wide and brightly lit. There is a lot less mystery about those roads - fewer hidden dangers. Maybe they are simply easier roads to travel - less debris to clear out of the way, fewer potholes. Maybe they have fewer hills and valleys for us to climb. And maybe we chose a road simply because it is the popular place to be - all our friends have taken it. There are lots of reasons that we take the roads we take.
But what about the other road?...The one that seems twisty and uncertain; the one that disappears into darkness; the one that looks hard and lonely, maybe even a bit dangerous. What lies down that road? We may tell ourselves that whatever lies at the end of that road may not be worth the risk. Or is it?
So, how do we choose, knowing that the rest of our journeys - and the final destination for that matter - depends on the path we take and the choices we make right now?
That is exactly the life-changing question the disciples were facing in the story we read this morning. They were at a faith crossroad. And it was time to make a choice.
You see, the road Jesus and his followers had been traveling was one of those nice, level, well-lit paths; there were very few bumps in the road. And ahead of them, the road continued to widen, straight and easy. It was clearly leading them on a journey of epoch proportions. Their leader had the answers. He knew the way and the disciples were more than happy to follow. What an exciting place to be!
But on this day, things took an unexpected turn. As they rounded a bend on their trip they came to an intersection. Well, it was hardly an intersection. It was just a narrow path that meandered off to right. In fact, it really didn't look like much of a path at all. It looked more like a rabbit trail. So, nobody paid it much attention… until Jesus started toward it.
The disciples stopped. They looked at the broad, easy road that stretched out in front of them. Then they looked down the little pig-path where Jesus was going and they asked, "Hey, Jesus, where are you going!? Where does that path go?" And Jesus replied, "This path leads to great suffering, to my persecution and eventually to my death. Follow me."
Well, now that's not exactly the destination the disciples had in mind. On the map of "Area Attractions" the chamber of commerce had failed to mark "persecution and death" as popular destinations. They didn't want to go there!! Ahead of them lay the Emerald City, Utopia, the Yellow-Brick-Road, leading to all that the world had to offer. The way they saw the future…it was glorious! But now they were faced with a different future -- one that didn't seem so joyful. This was an unexpected detour and a trip through the back country of hardships. It was not supposed to be that way!
And Peter, the one who thought he knew where they were going, spoke out and said, "Jesus, we're not going down there. And we aren't letting you go down there either. Come on; stick with the itinerary, Jesus." We know where we are going.
But Jesus would have none of it; "Get behind me, Satan!"
I imagine that, if I were to suggest that you came here this morning to take a detour or to journey down a shadowy and dangerous road, my guess is that most of you might find that a little bit disconcerting. I don't think most of us think about church as a place where we go to get disturbed or side-tracked. And I don't think we want our experience here to involve a whole lot "world-twisting." To be honest, I think we all have way too much Simon Peter in us for that. We like the easy way; the Yellow Brick Road.
The same things that guided Peter's decisions are the same things that shape ours as well. They are the things of the world. Just like Peter, our expectations of the Christian life are often based on worldly experiences. We come to this comfortable sanctuary, we arrive in our comfortable cars, most of us having eaten a good breakfast, and looking forward to a good lunch. We don't expect to come here this morning to be faced with detours or to have our plans changed. If you are like me you want to hear about a loving and gracious God who fits neatly into all the other aspects of our lives. We want God to accommodate us - not the other way around. We want to hear about an understanding and compassionate God, one who doesn't ask too much of us. We want God to let us continue down the roads that are easy, flat and pretty. "My yoke is easy and my burden is light." Those are the words we highlight in our bibles. Those are the road signs we look for along the way. And most of the time those are the only words we want to hear. We avoid words like "suffering and persecution." But, unfortunately, those are the words of Lent. It is the valley between the mountains. We have to experience sacrifice before we can get up on Easter and sing Hallelujah!
No, this is an altogether different story. I don't like this road. Too often, I also find myself repeating Peter's words, "Jesus, tell me that you are not going to be rejected, betrayed, beaten and killed. Jesus, tell me that I can just listen to your wonderful and wise teachings and it will be enough. Jesus, you should make your ways easy. You will get a lot more people to join the church if you leave out the part about the cross -- especially my cross."
"Get behind me Satan. You are setting your mind on the things of the world."
Peter and Jesus stood toe-to-toe at this cross-road of faith. Peter had his understanding of what the mission was all about… And Jesus had his. Peter had his ideas of how Jesus could best get his message to people. You know, the popular starched, televised Jesus who simply says what everybody wants to hear. Peter wanted to go for the ratings. In his way of seeing things, the first step is to attract a large audience with easy words; make it fun and attractive; paint it with bright colors and set it to lively music. Everyone would be on board if Jesus' ministry looked like that. But, whatever you do, don't cause any waves, don't make any enemies. And certainly don't ask people to sacrifice anything.
But the stinging words come back again: "Get behind me Satan. This message cannot be heard through soft ears, stuffed full of worldly cotton." Jesus didn't come to tickle our ears with easy words. Jesus came here to wake us up; he came to show us that we can make a real difference in this world and in the lives of people. But it requires the sacrifice of everything we hold dear. It requires making choices that are not always easy or popular. And it is not always the smoothest road.
Along this road we will be faced with choices -- Hard choices! We, like Peter, will be tempted to take the path of least resistance. We will be tempted to do something because everyone else is doing it - even though we know it's wrong. We will be tempted to laugh at a joke that is told at someone else's expense. Because if we speak up in defense of that person we might be labeled a fanatic or a kill-joy. We will walk right by someone in need, because if we stop to ask if they need help, they might just say, "yes." Those are the kind of life-decisions we are faced with every day. Those are the tough ones. Because to everyone else it may seem like a "little" thing, but each of those little things we do in life - or don't do - witnesses to the path we have chosen.
We have been given a charge by our Lord to be an agent for change in the world. But the world will never change if we don't decide to take a different view of what it can be; the world will never change if we don't decide to take that difficult road. That is the choice Jesus gave his disciples on that day. And that is the choice you and I face every day; today included.
The truth is that there have always been options and ways to get around the tough duty. We can always find excuses for avoiding it. But we don't come here on a Sunday morning in March because it is the easy thing to do. We didn't come here today to have our ears tickled into thinking that our lives are just A-okay. We came here to experience the life-changing Spirit of God, who has an annoying way of leading us places where we don't want to go.
There is a custom-made cross for each one of us and a road that we must take. Maybe that is a new way of thinking about the word, 'crossroad.' Maybe we should consider every road a Cross Road. Each road begins at the cross and we begin each day at a new cross-road. Which road will we take today?
"Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it. For the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life, and there are few who find it."
Which will we choose? As difficult as it may be at times, let's take the way of the Lord. Down this road the world is renewed…Down this road salvation awaits…Down this road we find life and the life is the light of all people. Let's take that road. And when we arrive at our destination we too can say that "we took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference." Amen