"Walking with Death" (Mark 8:27-38)

So Jesus asked his disciples, “Who do people say that I am?” and they gave various answers… And then he asked them, “Who do YOU say that I am?”  And Peter answered, “You are the Messiah.”  You are the Christ.

We love that, don’t we!  It’s so clear, it’s so positive, it’s so confident … and for us modern Disciples, it’s the basis of our Confession of Faith which all members of the Disciples of Christ church affirm upon joining. 

This is good stuff.  It’s a core story of our faith.  It’s a story we share and repeat often….

But it’s only half the story.

Then Jesus began to teach them that he must undergo great suffering, be rejected, and be killed.

This, we don’t like quite as much. 

Peter didn’t like it, either.  Why bring that up, Jesus?  It’s such a downer.  You’re never going to get any followers if you keep talking like that.  That’s no way to grow a movement.  It’s no way to grow a church.

Peter, like just about everyone, didn’t like to talk or think about death.  He protested all this talk about death, and was told that he was setting his mind not on divine things, but on human things.

But death seemed to be on Jesus’ mind:  his own death.  He talks about his own death here, in chapter eight.  He talks about his own death again in chapter nine.  And he talks about his own death a third time, in chapter ten.

Jesus was always aware that death was waiting for him.

When I was a student at Chapman University, I took a course titled, “Sociology of Death.”  Professor Barney McGrane stood silently as we filed in on the first day of class, and then when the time came for the class to begin, he picked up a newspaper and began reading the obituaries, substituting names of students in the class for the actual names listed in the obituaries. 

“Danny Bradfield died in a traffic accident on September 3.  Funeral Services will be held next Tuesday at 1:00…”

Once he was done with that, he looked at us and asked, “Why would anyone want to take a class called ‘Sociology of Death?’”

At that point, I was beginning to wonder the same thing myself.

During the semester he had us read a book called Journey to Ixtlan by Carlos Castaneda.  I still have that book on the shelf in my office. It’s about a man who goes out to visit an old Yaqui Indian in Sonora, Mexico named don Juan, a man who – the narrator believes – can impart great wisdom.

One of the things don Juan talks about is death:

“Death is our eternal companion,” don Juan said with a most serious air.  “It is always to our left, at an arm’s length.  It has always been watching you.  It always will until the day it taps you.

“The thing to do…” [he said] “is to turn to your left and ask advice from your death.  An immense amount of pettiness is dropped if your death makes a gesture to you, or if you catch a glimpse of it, or if you just have the feeling that your companion is there watching you.

“Death is the only wise advisor that we have.  Whenever you feel, as you always do, that everything is going wrong and you’re about to be annihilated, turn to your death and ask if that is so.  Your death will tell you that you’re wrong; that nothing really matters outside its touch.  Your death will tell you, ‘I haven’t touched you yet…’ You need to ask death’s advice and drop the cursed pettiness that belongs to men that live their lives as if death will never tap them.”

I don’t know many people who live as don Juan lived, recognizing death as their eternal companion and wise advisor.  However, Jesus, I think, did live this way.

The gospel of Mark is only sixteen chapters long.  It takes up just 23 pages in my great-grandmother’s Bible that sits on my shelf.  That’s not really a whole lot of space to tell the story of our Savior. 

And yet, six of those chapters focus on Jesus’ death and the events leading up to it; and in the other ten chapters, Jesus talks about his death three separate times.

Yes, I think Jesus was aware of death’s presence.  He knew that death was his eternal companion.  He spoke about it often, even though the disciples reacted with fear when he did.  They even rebuked him, as if it were a demon speaking and not Jesus. 

The disciples were very afraid of death.

But not Jesus.  Every time he glanced over his left shoulder, he saw death standing there, just an arm’s length away.  And because of this… because he saw death standing there next to him…because he was aware of death’s presence… he was able to live fully.

He was able to live with his priorities in order, doing everything that God called him to do, everything that would give his life eternal meaning, eternal purpose, everything that would enable him to live and die with no regrets.  He was able to put his priorities in order, and not waste time with things and activities that, ultimately, are unimportant.

In a new book called Living the Questions: The Wisdom of Progressive Christianity, authors David Felton and Jeff Proctor-Murphy mention how patients in hospice care learn to live with death as their companion.  They write that hospice patients facing death often discover new life.  Hospice patients find that their lives are transformed, their priorities are reordered, and “many of the circumstances and choices that had crippled them before their diagnosis evaporated into new life.”

With an awareness of death as their companion, they discovered what was really important, and realized that so much of what they had thought was important before was actually quite petty and meaningless … Death helped them let go of all those petty and meaningless things.

Easter is about new life coming out of death.  DeWane Zimmerman, quoted in Living the Questions, says:  “The message of Easter is not simply ‘Don’t be afraid to die,’ but ‘Don’t be afraid to live – to live for those things worth dying for.”

Sister Helen Prejean has devoted her life to working with death row inmates.  Here’s what she says:  “[In the words of] St. Paul, ‘dying and behold we live.’  And it’s not just in the act of our death, it’s in the way we pour out our life.  You know, the giving, the expenditure of our life for the community, in love, is a form of dying.  And when we can be driven by love, when we can be motivated by love to give our lives on behalf of others and not count the cost, that, too, is a form of … resurrected life; that we are alive even as we give our life and we die.”

How often do you think about death? 

How often do you think about your death?

“Death is our eternal companion,” don Juan said with a most serious air.  “It is always to our left, at an arm’s length.  It has always been watching you.  It always will until the day it taps you.”

“Then Jesus said that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, be rejected…, and be killed…. If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross… For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life … will save it.”

Turn and look at your death.  Your death is there, an arm’s length away, always, no matter how much you may try to ignore it.

What is your death saying to you?  What is it saying about how you are living your life?  If death were to tap you today, would you be satisfied with what you’ve done with your life? 

What is death saying about how you are maintaining your relationships?  Have you placed more value in things that don’t matter than you have in relationships with people who do matter? 

What is death saying about how you are using all the blessings and resources which have been entrusted to you?  Would you be able to say that your life was a life that was rich toward God?

Death comes in many forms, and all of them make us afraid.  We don’t like to talk about any of them.  And yet, in whatever form it takes, death is our companion.

Death may take the form of losing one’s home.  It may take the form of losing one’s wealth or status in society.  It may take the form of losing the luxuries and comforts that we’ve come to expect.

Downsizing is a form of death.  We lose our old life, the life we had known, when we go from a big house to a small house, or when we go from a house to an apartment, or when we lose our car and are forced to rely on others or on public transportation to get around.

Losing one’s job is a form of death.  A good part of our identity is wrapped up in “what we do.”  When we lose the job that has defined us, that is a form of death.

Losing our church is a form of death.  We don’t talk about the death of the church.  We don’t like to think about the death of the church. 

If you’ve been around here for very long, you’ve heard it mentioned that the Disciples of Christ have started some 700 new congregations since 2001, and that we are making excellent progress toward our goal of establishing a thousand new congregations by 2020.

I love celebrating this!  What I don’t like talking about, though, is that in the same period that we’ve started 700 new congregations, some 800 congregations have closed their doors.  So even as new congregations are being born, other congregations are dying.

It’s not just our denomination.  Even the congregation known as the Crystal Cathedral is now, for all intents and purposes, dead.

Well, church:  maybe it’s time we looked at our death.  Go ahead.  Church, look at your death. 

Every time we talk about finances in the church, we know that death is right there next to us.  We can only spend more than we receive for so long.  When the money is gone, this church – at least as we know it – will die. 

That will happen, someday.  Maybe that day will be many generations in the future.  Or maybe it will happen much sooner.  But one day, it will happen.

So take a look, church.  Look at death.  Don’t look away.

Maybe you, like Peter, feel uncomfortable looking at death.  Maybe it frightens you.  Maybe you are ready to rebuke the preacher for even mentioning it…

Maybe you are setting your mind not on divine things … but on human things…

Church, look at your death.  Look at the image of death on your bulletin cover.  See death as a friend.  A companion.  A wise advisor who walks with you, helping you learn how to live.  What is death saying to you?  What advice does death offer to you?

If death were to tap you on the shoulder today, would you be satisfied with the life you’ve lived?  Could you say that you have sought justice, loved with kindness, and walked humbly with God?  Could you say that you succeeded in being a movement for wholeness in our community and our world?

Church, is there a way that death can help you discover new life?  With death as your companion, can you rediscover what is really important, and let go of all that is petty and meaningless?

Yes, death is our constant companion.  Death is all around us.

However…

We are people who believe in the resurrection.  We are committed to living out the resurrection in our lives. 

And so, we are not defeated by death.  With death as our companion, we discover new life.