Let me begin by telling you a story. I went down to Florida in early 2016. It was shortly after my dad’s death and my mother and brother and I made the trip to settle some affairs of my dad’s estate. He’d owned a modular home in a retirement community and we wanted to see about selling it.
While there, the pastor of the Methodist church my parents attended in Florida called on my mom. He came not only to express his condolences to her on the loss of her husband, but above all to retrieve my dad’s boat and trailer, which my mom had promised to give to him.
Now my mom has never been able to resist an opportunity to talk about her children, in spite of my repeated cautions. She told the pastor as much of my life story as time allowed. When she mentioned that I preached, the pastor’s eyes grew wide with interest.
“You know, he interrupted, “we have a special service in the Methodist tradition.” It’s called the John Wesley Covenant Service. In fact, we’re holding it this upcoming Sunday. We’d love to have your son be our guest preacher.”
This is one of the reasons why I caution my mom not to tell everyone everything about me. I really didn’t want to do the service, especially on only two days’ notice. What do I know about the John Wesley Covenant Service? I’m not even a Methodist, nor have I ever wanted to be a Methodist!
On the other hand, I was unemployed at the time and quite broke. I thought to myself: I certainly could use the pulpit supply fee the church would presumably pay me. So I reluctantly agreed.
After the service, the pastor approached me. I extended my hand forward, fully expecting to receive from him an envelope containing a check. Instead, he extended an empty hand to shake mine.
That weekend the pastor got a boat and trailer and a weekend off, and all I got was to play Methodist preacher for a day. Great deal for the pastor, not so good for me.
Well, preaching at the John Wesley Covenant Service in Sebastian, Florida at least afforded me the opportunity to revisit the subject of covenant. And that is what lies before us today.
Covenant is one of those important terms that we need to grasp. In fact, covenant is central to an understanding of Israel, of God’s people. If we miss “covenant” then we will not understand the Bible, which in fact comprises both old and the new testaments (covenants).
The term is drawn from the language of the state. Specifically, it reflects the political organization of states in the ancient near East. Powerful empires exercised authority over vassal states, which pledged their loyalty and obedience in exchange for the help and protection of the stronger party.
Israel’s God is thus compared to a powerful ruler who promises his help and protection to his people Israel in exchange for their loyalty and obedience.
In the ancient near East this political arrangement was ratified in a covenant.
Now covenant should not be seen in terms of the school bully who extorts milk money from the weakling in exchange for protection against the bigger kids. That is not how Israel understood her covenant with God. Rather, the covenant between God and Israel should be seen more like a marriage, which in fact is how the prophets Jeremiah, Ezekiel and especially Hosea see it.
We still speak of the love and fidelity that should characterize the marriage covenant. In this light, then, the covenant points to a very special relationship between God and God’s people.
It all began with Abram and Sarai. They are the first to be welcomed into this special relationship with God—and this will affect all those coming after them. That is, God’s covenant with them will include their offspring after them.
God promises to make Abram a father of many nations. God promises that kings will come from Sarai.
How can we even begin to conceive of the immense privilege conferred on this couple? That the God of the universe should choose Abraham and Sarah, and through them work out his redemptive purposes for the multitude of nations that come after them!
In the Bible often people are given new names to indicate how the divine activity in their lives changed them. One needs only to recall how Simon became Cephas (Peter), or how Saul became Paul.
But this special way of naming originates in God’s initiation of the covenant with the chosen people. Abram becomes Abraham and Sarai becomes Sarah. Their new names reflect the new status, the new identity, that God has bestowed on them.
It is worth noting for our purposes that in some church traditions the person who undergoes baptism can choose a new name. The new name reflects the new status, the new identity, that baptism confers.
For the good news that baptism proclaims is that God has included us too in his covenant with Abraham, with Israel. Indeed, this was the content of the mystery that the Apostle Paul proclaimed to the saints at Ephesus: that through the Gospel the Gentiles are heirs together with Israel, members together of one body, sharers together in the promise in Christ Jesus” (Eph. 3:6).
In this connection, we may also recall the words from our liturgy for the sacrament of baptism: “Through baptism we enter the covenant God has established. Within this covenant God gives us new life, guards us from evil, and nurtures us in love.”
As Gentiles, we were once without Christ, strangers to the covenant of promise, without hope, and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus, we are members of the chosen people, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that we may declare the praises of him who called us out of darkness into his wonderful light (cf. Eph. 2:12; 1 Pet. 2:9).
Through baptism we take on a new identity, whether we choose a new name or not. When we recall our baptism, we recall who we are.
Did we not see this last time in the life of Jesus himself? Through his baptism in the Jordan River at the hands of John, he came to know who he is. And in his time of testing in the wilderness, he stayed true to who he is, leaving for us an example during our times of testing.
Perhaps keeping this in mind will help us when we hear the call that Jesus issues today to those who aspire to be his disciples.
“If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me (Mark 8:34).
It’s a hard saying. That’s undeniable. Who can accept it? After all, the cross is an instrument of cruel torture and violent death. We recoil in horror from it.
But let’s be sure to keep in mind that it’s from within the security of the covenant that we hear the terms of this call to discipleship. God binds himself to his people and his people to himself. “I will be their God and they will be my people.”
Therefore, we are not to consider our radical obedience to Jesus’ call to discipleship as an achievement that earns for us God’s favor and acceptance. God already favors and accepts us. That is the deepest meaning and motivation of the covenant.
But God does mark out a way by which we are to live as his covenant people. We are called to be disciples of Jesus. We are to follow in his way, which is the way of the cross.
So what does all this mean? Does God want us to be reckless with our lives? That obviously wouldn’t be consistent with everything our faith teaches us about how precious life is, or how we are called to honor, celebrate, and protect it, from the womb to the tomb. To dishonor the creation is to dishonor the creator, who called it good (Mark A. Villano).
No, but the self that Christ calls us to deny is the self that craves, fears, controls, contracts and withdraws, and then needs to self-soothe and self-stimulate.
We all know this self, because remnants of it are still in us. It is evident everywhere in us and around us. It’s what the Bible calls the old self, the self that we inherited from Adam, the sinful and rebellious self that in its hostility to God does not submit to God, nor can it (cf. Rom. 8:7).
This is the self that has been crucified with Christ, but does not seem to have gotten the memo. This self reasserts itself, so that we don’t always do what we know is right, what corresponds with God’s will for our lives. On the contrary, we do what is wrong, what is contrary to God’s will for our lives.
For this reason, it is a self that we absolutely should and can deny, insofar as it has already been put to death with Christ in baptism, through which we entered the covenant God established.
Death is one side of the truth about baptism. “Do you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?” the Apostle Paul asks the believers in Rome (Rom. 6:3).
But the call is not only about denying, about letting go. It is about letting go in order to embrace something new (Mark A Villano). It is about exchanging the old self for the new self, the self that gives, loves, shares and expands, the self that does not need to self-soothe and self-stimulate, because it has found lasting peace.
New life is the other side of the truth about baptism. “We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life” as the Apostle Paul further explains (Rom. 6:4).
Don’t we all want to connect with this new life, this deeper kind of life? I believe there is this longing in us all. Therefore, let us submit to the dying and rising rather than fight it, as so many do. Let us give ourselves over to that denying, that letting go, that dying to self, so that we may see the spiritual fruit that arises. Let us follow the Lord on the way to the cross, so as to rise again with him, both now and later (Mark A. Villano).
“For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it” (Mark 8:35).
What could this mean? What could this be pointing to?
As followers of Jesus, we must see beyond the world in order to live well in it. Because there’s a way of living in this world in which we don’t see beyond it. That is the way so many people around us are living in it. The attitudes, the grudges, the fears, the attachments, the ambitions the toys, the tributes, the easy way out (Mark A. Villano). All these characterize the lives of people for whom this world is all there is.
But what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life (Mark 8:36)?
We could have everything this world says is important and still be miserable. We could have everything and it would still do us no good (Mark A. Villano). We can live this life in a way that wastes our life, of which we have only one. That is the awful weight that every fully awake human being must bear.
Alternatively, we could see beyond this world and discover its inner meaning. We can build our lives on an unshakeable foundation and learn to live well, even as we make bad decisions and mistakes along the way. Simply put, we can “lose” our life, one kind of life, in order to find a truer, fuller, deeper kind of life.
The disciple is the one who commits to walking the spiritual path. This path is not a weekend hobby. Nor is it a path to which we commit ourselves only during Lent. It is a path that runs through our work and play, our private and family lives, community and service, study and prayer 365 days a year.
Can you hear Jesus calling you to deny yourself, take up your cross and follow him?
Let us not be counted among those who are ashamed of him and his words in a world that has no place for either. But let us instead show up to be his disciples. For this is truly how we live out our baptism. Amen.