A Faith With A Cross At The Center”

Mark 9:2-13

Our family suffered a great loss this week.

Our kids’ uncle Fred died. Uncle Fred Rogers.

Now, Fred wasn’t a blood relative, but he may as well have been. When our kids were growing up, he was over to our house just about every day. Uncle Fred probably spent more one-on-one time with our children in their early years than I did as their father. I’m not proud of that. But I’m very glad the kids had uncle Fred.

I don’t know what it was about him that so attracted our children to Fred, but I do know that, late in the afternoon when Bethany was tired and cranky and causing all sorts of family turmoil, all it took was for that stupid little “won’t you be my neighbor” song to start playing on the TV. And she would suddenly become still – and human – again. And even as the kids got older - I remember when Peter was a senior in high school, and he’d come home from football practice bearing all the dirt and scars and bruises of manly battle – and Sandy went looking for him, to call him to supper, and there he was, laying on the couch with the TV on, visiting with his uncle Fred and the other wonderful people of Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood.

People like Mr. McFeely. I don’t know if our kids knew it, but Fred’s middle name was McFeely – named for his mother’s father who once said, “Freddy, I like you just the way you are.” And those words were so important to Fred that he repeated them often to the children who watched his show. And he memorialized his grandfather in the person of Mr. McFeely of Speedy Delivery.

And the other characters, too. Our kids loved Daniel Striped Tiger and King Friday XIII, and Queen Sara, and Edgar Cooke, and Corney, and X the Owl, and Henrietta Pussycat, and Lady Elaine Fairchilde, and Grandpere and his granddaughter Collette, and Donkey Hodie. And do you know that Fred Rogers provided the voice for all of those wonderful neighbors? And, of course, together they formed a chorus whose daily song was about how special each person is.

(Click the link to sing along if you have RealAudio!)

It's a beautiful day in this neighborhood,
A beautiful day for a neighbor.
Would you be mine?
Could you be mine?...

It's a neighborly day in this beauty wood,
A neighborly day for a beauty.
Would you be mine?
Could you be mine?...

I've always wanted to have a neighbor just like you.
I've always wanted to live in a neighborhood with you.

So, let's make the most of this beautiful day.
Since we're together we might as well say:
Would you be mine?
Could you be mine?
Won't you be my neighbor?

You know, when you think about it, this song that wooed our children sounds an awful like the song of the Gospel of Jesus Christ!

And those who know that my kids’ uncle Fred was also a Presbyterian minister probably understand as well that his primary mission in life was to try to connect children to the central power of this faith that’s so worth finding!

Do you know what it is? The central part of our faith? The part that makes our faith so distinctive, and so worth finding?

In our Scripture text, Peter and James and John are up on a high mountain with Jesus. Suddenly, Jesus is transfigured before them – arrayed in a dazzling bright light. And along with Jesus appear out of heaven’s mist two great heroes of the Old Testament – Moses, representing the Law, and Elijah, representing the prophets. And they’re talking about what’s going to happen when Jesus goes to Jerusalem.

Well, the three disciples – Peter and James and John – are simply overwhelmed by the beauty and power of the vision. Have you ever had a spiritual experience like that? If you have, you realize that you can’t help but get completely caught up in the excitement of the moment. The three of them don’t know what to do to respond, so they do what religious people sort of naturally do whenever the divine touches our world. They decide to build a shrine! In fact, three shrines. One for Jesus. One for Moses. And one for Elijah.

You see, its only human nature. We all have this tendency to make a religion out of our experiences with God. We seem to have this need to take our faith and institutionalize it, and memorialize it, and theologize it far above life itself.

Like us, Peter and James and John want to turn this wonderful experience into a religious monument.

But Mark tells us that God wants to turn it into something else.

God speaks. “This is my son, whom I love! Listen to him.”

And that’s when Jesus tells Peter and James and John that this faith that’s so worth finding is not about building shrines to remember great moments and experiences.

It is about going to a cross.

On Wednesday of this week, we will begin our annual Lenten journey. And it is such an important journey to take. The road of Lent leads us to the very center of our faith, and to the thing that makes our faith so distinctive in this religiously pluralistic world.

Someone recently asked me if I didn’t think that all religions lead to the same place. I said, “I hope not!”

Oh, I truly hope that my religion never leads me to the place where I think that hijacking airliners or blowing up abortion clinics is God’s will. I hope that my religion never leads me to the place where I learn to hate people because of their sexual orientation, or ethnic background, or even because they are my enemies. A lot of religions teach hatred, you know. Pure, unadulterated hatred disguised as the love of God. I hope that my religion never leads me to the place where I can find inner peace for myself – sort of have my own spiritual orgasm - while the rest of the world languishes and suffers. I hope that my religion never leads me to the place where faith is all about getting to heaven when I die, and nothing about what I do with my life while I’m alive.

No, all religions do NOT lead to the same place.

So you might ask, “Well, where does our faith lead?”

I believe it leads to a very distinctive place. Yes, there is truth to be found in every religion. And every religion has its contribution to make. But one of the things that distinguishes our faith from all other faiths is that it leads to a cross.

No other religion in the world leads there!

Over the next couple of weeks, during this season of Lent, I’m going to be preaching about the distinctive power and the meaning of the cross. We’ll be talking about the difference the cross can make in our lives as followers of Christ. But today, I want to just touch on one important aspect of this cross we are invited to journey toward.

The story is told of a young girl living in Britain during World War II. One day, she was in London with her family when the air raid sirens began to wail. All the people scrambled for the bomb shelters, and in all the confusion, she became separated from her parents. Swept along by the crowd, she found herself among strangers in the basement of a building as the bombers droned overhead and explosions rocked the city. The noise was awful as the bombs came closer. With each burst, brilliant flashes of light illuminated the dark shelter, followed by shock waves of tremendous force. She was absolutely terrified.

But then something remarkable happened. In the middle of the chaos, she heard her name being called. A voice was telling her that all would be well, and to not be afraid. And when she looked up, there was a bomb blast outside that lit up the place where she was hiding. And in that brief moment of brilliant illumination, a shadow was cast against the wall. It was her father, arms outstretched to her. But then, as quickly as the image appeared, it disappeared in the darkness.

When the air raid was over, the little girl found her parents outside, in the street. It turned out that they had been herded into a shelter quite some distance away. But even from there, her father had repeatedly called out her name, telling her everything would be okay, and to not be afraid.

“Yes, I heard you calling,” said the little girl. “But I saw you, too, in the shadow on the wall.”

And just then an old man who was listening to the conversation, knelt down to the little girl’s height and said, “No, sweetheart, the shadow was not your dad.” Then, pointing up to the spire of a nearby church, the old man said, “It was the cross you saw, holding out its arms to you!”

John 3:16 tells us that God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son. So at the very heart of our faith is the conviction that, at the cross, God opened his loving arms to all of humanity.

At the cross, you see, God forms a new neighborhood that includes ALL of us!

That’s a central conviction of the Christian Way. All of humanity meets at the cross, embraced in the loving arms of Christ. Not some of humanity. Not part of humanity. But ALL of humanity. We meet the world at the cross!

And our job as Christ followers is to go into the world every day trying to extend the arms of the cross as far as we can, and to as many people as we can. In a sense, we are asked to join the chorus of those who sing:

It’s a beautiful day in God’s neighborhood,

A beautiful day for a neighbor,

Would you be mine?

Could you be mine?

Won’t you be my neighbor?

You see, when we center our faith in the cross, our religion becomes a life of actively reaching out to others with the gift that is found in the cross – God’s amazing welcoming grace – with its offer of complete acceptance, complete forgiveness, and complete affirmation of the value and dignity of every person.

It is a faith that finds creative ways to say to people, “Freddy, I like you just the way you are!”

It is a faith that boldly conveys to others thoughts like, “Everybody is fancy!” and “You make every day a special day!” and “There’s no one else in the whole world like you!”

It is a faith that reaches out to homeless people, friendless people, lonely people, rejected people, and people no one else wants to make the invitation, “Would you be MINE? Could you be MINE? Won’t you be MY neighbor?”

It is a life of trying every day to extend and build not religious shrines and spiritual monuments, but God’s beautiful new neighborhood.

You know, I wonder if you’ve ever thought that the thing that most drew our children to Mr. Rogers was the fact that he lived before them and called them to the most important commandment of all - to love God with all you’ve got, and to love your neighbor as yourself.

This is the kind of compelling faith that reaches children. And their parents, too! I believe its a faith that is so worth finding!