Lent II, Year B

Genesis, 22:1-14
Romans, 8:31-39
Mark, 8:31-38

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.

"Kill my neighbor! C - I - L my neighbor! Kill my neighbor!" That was what Eddie Murphy's character Mr. Robinson taught the viewers of Saturday Night Live about twenty years ago. Mr. Robinson was a send up of Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood. I loved it: none of that wimpy, cloying "Would you be my neighbor?", but "Kill my neighbor." Mr. Robinson taught us how to evade the police and the landlord. He was from a rougher part of town than Mr. Rogers, but he wanted to move on to better things: "'I hope I get to move into your neighborhood some day. The problem is that when I move in, y'all move away.' When Murphy later met Mr. Rogers face to face, it was reported, he did what most everyone else did. He gave him a hug." ⁽¹⁾ I am not cynical about that hug. I don't think Murphy was hugging Mr. Rogers because he was grateful for the material, because Mr. Rogers helped to make Murphy wealthy and famous. I think that Murphy hugged Mr. Rogers because of Fred Rogers' purity and gentleness which we associate with our first memories of life, with an innocence we have lost. We have never come to terms with the ways we've changed. We want the simplicity and trust and comfort. Mr. Rogers appealed to what was best in us, he had a rare calm and patience and humaneness and moral authority. "What shall it profit a man if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?" Mr. Rogers had integrity. His qualities are in stark contrast to what we normally find on television, which wants to gain the whole world and has no soul.

Nonetheless, the Television Hall of Fame, whatever that is, but apparently a respected institution, inducted Fred Rogers in 1999. He began his acceptance speech by saying, "Fame is a four letter word." And now that he had gotten the attention of a house full of the industry's most powerful and glamourous names, he asked them to think about their responsibilities as people "chosen to help meet the deeper needs of those who watch and listen, day and night." He instructed them to be silent for 10 seconds and think about someone who had had a good influence on them. And finally he said: "We have only one life to live on earth. And through television, we have the choice of encouraging others to demean this life, or to cherish it in creative, imaginative ways." ⁽²⁾

And then Mr. Rogers bid adieu: "May God be with you."

It is pretty easy to condemn television for the way it can corrupt and diminish our lives, for its irresponsibility, for the way it can de-humanize, but Lent is a time for us to consider our own responsibility for demeaning and de-humanizing life. The challenge Mr. Rogers put to the television industry we can put to ourselves: "We have only one life to live on earth. And in the way we live it, we have the choice of encouraging others to demean this life, or to cherish it in creative, imaginative ways." Lent is a time for us to think about that, for at least 10 seconds. How have we, how do we, demean life? What in our behaviour is uncivil, selfish, callous? How do we allow cynicism and skepticism and negativity to influence us? How do we spread around that kind of unpleasantness? How do we gossip and secretly rejoice in others' misfortune? How do we mistreat others?

When we think deeply about these questions, we know our guilt, and we become grateful for second chances. Really we've not been given only a second chance, but fifty, a hundred, a thousand, an infinite number of second chances. I have frequently misunderstood what God wanted from me - in those occasions that I even bothered to ask him and pray about it. I also know that I have not always done what I knew that I should do. My experience is that of everyone of us. Despite our mistakes, our weakness, our sin, God constantly sends us other opportunities to try to do better. He knows better than we do of our weakness, our sin, and he still loves us no matter what. He gives us new opportunities because our souls should never stop growing. Life should be a gradual process of sanctification, of growing in holiness. We never get it right; we always make mistakes. We hurt other people, and we hurt ourselves. The healthy response is to say that we're sorry, to confess our sins, to receive absolution, and to try to do better.

But we still have to come back to the question: Lord, what do you want from me? We are not always going to discern God's mind the right way, but we have to ask. Fred Rogers' challenge can help us discern God's will. Our choices and our behaviour can encourage ourselves and others to demean this life, or to cherish it in creative, imaginative ways. It's important to remember that we can rarely have absolute clarity about what God wants from us. God is a mystery. But God gives us second chances, and he can make good things from our mistakes.

The gospel this morning is about S. Peter's mistake. This dialogue between Jesus and Peter happens just after Jesus had given a blind man sight, and now Jesus begins to heal the spiritual blindness of his disciples. Jesus had asked Peter, "Who do men say that I am?" Peter had answered correctly, "You are the Christ." But Peter did not understand what that meant. Peter assumed that Jesus would become a mighty, worldly king, lording it over his subjects. Peter couldn't imagine that Christ, God's chosen, would be expected to suffer, to be humiliated, to be rejected, and to be killed. So Peter tried to correct Jesus, tried to save Jesus from himself, tried to make Jesus what Peter would have him be. Few of us would be naturally drawn to follow someone who accepts suffering and rejection, someone whose strength is made manifest in meekness and humility. We like fame and fortune, notoriety and celebrity; those are the people we're inclined to follow. We all sin like Peter and try to make God to fit into our own ideas of him; we all try to make God serve us.

"Who do you say that I am?" We should imagine Jesus asking us that question, for at least 10 seconds. It's hard to be honest how we would answer. Hopefully, over time we get better about it. It took Peter a long time to understand who Jesus was. Throughout Jesus' ministry, Peter really didn't understand, and he needed lots of second chances, and he gets second chances even after he betrays Jesus. For Jesus still loves Peter even though Peter had denied him.

At the beginning of his ministry, and then throughout his ministry - as in today's gospel, our Lord asked Peter to follow him, not to believe in him, but to be with him, to join him, to share his life, to grow with him as an apprentice grows with his master. Peter probably never understood why Jesus had to suffer and die, none of us ever does, but he must have learned something about the possible benefits of pain in our lives. That is not to say that we should ever seek pain or suffering, but when it becomes part of our lives it may be a means for our growth and for spiritual healing. Pain, suffering may remind us that this world is not all that matters, that this world is not all there is. It may liberate us from the tyranny of normal, everyday concerns. Suffering may actually remind us of God's love for us, that God is with us and for us even in life's greatest horrors. Later in his life, when Peter suffered persecution, and eventually death, he knew that his suffering did not separate him from God, but to the contrary it showed his oneness with Christ. Peter was taking up his cross; he had picked up his cross and followed Christ.

Cardinal Basil Hume, the Archbishop of Westminister at the end of the last century, wrote not long before his death:

I remember being told two things about the cross in our lives; both have been very helpful. The first is that the real cross is the one you have not chosen, the one that does not fit neatly on your shoulder. That is a very authentic cross, and very difficult to accept. The second was said by a Mother Superior to one of her community who was grumbling about the cross she had to carry: 'Don't drag your cross, carry it.' ⁽³⁾

Who do you say that Christ is? What does he mean to you? Are you serious about him, or are you embarrassed to follow Jesus? Will you deny yourself, your narrow preconception of God, and take up and carry your cross? Peter's answers to those questions changed as he went through life, and our answers should also change with time as we grow up and gradually become what God wants us to be. Peter and his friends learned from Jesus a new way to live. They had new standards for treating one another and dealing with life, especially when life was difficult, cruel, and unjust. They recognized God's grace and favour in meekness and suffering, in humility and gentleness, and it filled their lives with joy and strength.

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.

1. Daniel Lewis, 'Fred Rogers, Host of 'Mister Rogers' Neighborhood,' Dies at 74,' The New York Times, 27 February 2003.

2. Ibid.

3. Cardinal Basil Hume, The Mystery of the Cross, Paraclete Press (1998), p. 21.