Bible Trucker Guy

Mark 8:31-38

Then he began to teach them that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. He said all this quite openly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. But turning and looking at his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, “Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”

He called the crowd with his disciples, and said to them, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. 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. For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life? Indeed, what can they give in return for their life? Those who are ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of them the Son of Man will also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.”

Last Sunday I got a call from my niece Leslie.  She was upset.  A lot of you know Leslie.  She often took care of Coda for us while we traveled.  Chris, her husband, is the driver of the semi sometimes parked in our parking lot.  Anyway, Leslie and Chris had apparently stopped at a “Christian Truck Stop” (EEK! Right?).  She basically described it as a version of our Appalachian Trail ministry… but for truckers.  They provide for free what truckers need along the Way… a free and safe place to park, free showers, laundry, and a free breakfast.  She said that when they had stopped there before it really WAS like our AT ministry in that whoever came was unconditionally welcomed and it wasn’t about attacking anyone who was different or about converting anyone.  Leslie was upset because THIS time it had been different. 

In the Gospel, Peter took Jesus aside to rebuke him because what Jesus was planning… was NOT how things were done.  This talk of suffering, rejection, and death did not fit with Peter’s worldview.  This wasn’t just Peter’s view either, it was how LOTS of people saw the world!  Peter knew both from history and his own life experience that suffering was not the way to get ahead in the world!  Rejection was not how anyone, EVER, had built a movement, let alone a kingdom, and he knew with 100% certainty that dying was NOT how anyone, ever, had become a king!  Based on not just Peter’s experience but on literally ALL of human history… Jesus just wasn’t doing things the way things had always been done before!

Back at the Christian Truck Stop, Pastor Mark who ran the place and some Bible Trucker Guy sat down with Leslie while Chris was taking his turn in the showers.  They proceeded to do to Leslie, what Peter had done to Jesus.  They told her she was doing her life all wrong!  As I talked with Leslie it became clear that Pastor Mark and Bible Trucker Guy’s view of the world was not radically uncommon.  It’s actually the way LOTS of the world understands things to work.  They believed their kind of Christianity was the only true religion and that was because, see, that’s what the Bible says and forcing people to their way of thinking was all for their own good.  

Their Christianity did not however include a place for people who identified by gender, sexual-orientation, or religion in any way other than the way they believed.  Leslie, who identifies as not exactly Christian and as not exactly straight told them their version of Christianity didn’t work for her AND it didn’t work for the people at her uncle’s church either where she had been welcomed exactly as she was!  To which they asked, “Are you sure your uncle and the people at his church are really Christians?”  

You laugh, and you should… but this is, in essence, today’s Gospel lesson!  In that story Peter and pretty much the rest of the world, had “set their minds on human things”… accepting the world as it had always been, insisting that Jesus MUST ALSO live and work that way, because that was the way the world must always be.  Jesus told Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”  

You see, Jesus wasn’t interested in the way the world had always worked before.  He wasn’t interested in those “human things” because they were terrible!  Human things had put the Jews over here and Greeks over there.  Men over there and women over here.  Free here.  Slaves there.  Rich got richer.  Poor got poorer.  Those same human ways are what Pastor Mark, the government of Oklahoma, Donald Trump, Tucker Carlson, and Vladimir Putin use to put cis over here and trans over there.  Right over here and Wrong over there.  Straight here.  Gay there.  When minds are set on human things people get divided.  With minds set on human things people who don't fit one particular box get bullied, imprisoned, and killed!  This past week leaders with their minds set on human things created a situation where a 16 year old trans student named Nex Benedict was beaten to death in a high school bathroom.  With minds set on human things Putin had Alexi Navalny killed in an arctic prison.  People who set their minds on human things divide the world.  Jesus wasn’t then and isn’t now interested in the world working that way!  

To that way of thinking, leading, and living, Jesus says, “Get behind me Satan!”  Jesus wants Peter, and in the next paragraph wants all of his followers, to set their minds instead on DIVINE things.  Because when we set our minds on DIVINE things, the world doesn’t keep working like it’s always worked.  When we set our minds on human things, we grab and hold onto all we can, believing more stuff equals more life.  When we set our minds on divine things we realize the more we give of our stuff and of ourselves, the more alive we actually become!  When we set our minds on human things we believe and live out a life of divide and conquer, using bullying, lying, violence, blustering, threats and death to FORCE our way on others.  When we set our minds on divine things we work tirelessly to surround ALL people with God’s infinite and unconditional love and draw together EVERY part of humanity just as they are, SO THAT WE CAN BE ONE AS GOD CREATED US TO BE!  THAT vision... of the world gathered together as ONE in all of its amazing diversity... it has a name.  It is called, the Kingdom of God and may God's Kingdom COME! Amen.