Let me set the stage. Jesus has been on his successful and popular preaching tour through Galilee, and now takes his disciples with him on a final retreat before they head for Jerusalem. He wants to get their heads on right before they plunge into the dangerous vortex of politics and religion in the capital city. He plans to tell clarify for them who the Christ is, and what a Christian is; that the identity and mission of the Christian flows from the identify and the mission of the Christ.

It all goes terribly wrong.

We are, after all, a church which is geographically at a crossroads – at the intersection of our rural Rt. 149 and the Mid-Cape Highway, Route 6. We are, therefore, both a village church, serving the village of West Barnstable, and a church which is accessible to folk from all over the Cape, drawing members and regular visitors from as far away as Chatham to the east, Bourne to the west, and Mashpee to the south – and so a church called to respond to a wider constituency with wider concerns.

But we are also a church at the crossroads in many other ways. Unlike many churches on the Cape, which are filled almost exclusively with retirees, here we have a marvelous cross-section of ages, a diversity which includes retirees as well as young children, a vibrant youth population, young families, and empty-nesters. We have a diversity of folk from every economic niche, from corporate executives to two-worker households to welfare moms, from every political persuasion, from every possible family configuration, from a diversity of faith backgrounds.

And we are a church at the crossroads in another way as well. Coming off an incredibly successful capital campaign that brought to us a new pipe organ and a long-desired parking lot, in a new era of enthusiastic and productive cooperation with the Memorial Foundation and the Family School, in a time when we have had a wonderful influx of new leadership and new members and visitors, we stand at a crossroads where the past is behind us, the future stretches out before us, and we ponder what road we are being called to take.

Peter and his fellow disciples were standing at a crossroads as well. In the first part of the Gospel according to Mark, up until this point, it was all good. Up until this time, things had gone quite well for Jesus and his followers. Jesus had cast out demons, healed the sick, told lots of meaningful stories, attracted a large crowd of admirers.

I imagine Peter was getting a bit impatient. He’d had enough of a track record with this fellow Jesus to know that better things were up ahead, and he was ready to get started. And so when Jesus starts playing the ‘name-game’, asking his followers who they think he is, Peter is all over it: “You are the Messiah.”

Peter, the other disciples, everyone else, they knew who Jesus was. The Christ. The Messiah. The Anointed One. The Savior. The one who has revealed God’s reign in the form of strength and triumph. This was the one, they expected, who would at last begin the march on Jerusalem, there to kick some serious bootie and in triumph retake the throne of his ancestor David.

And to their horror, Jesus turns it all on its head. The clouds do not part, no shimmering legions of angels pour forth armed for battle, no sword of cold steel suddenly appears in Jesus’ upraised arm, no trumpet blast summons all to march on the capital. No, instead Jesus starts talking to them of rejection, of suffering, of death. Of the cross.

Peter is horrified. Jesus has surely taken leave of his senses. He muscles Jesus aside and reads him the riot act, no doubt reminding him about the stallions and the chariots and the flaming swords and all that good stuff that are components of a mighty victory, all prerequisites, according to the conventional wisdom, to hoisting the “Mission Accomplished” banner.

But Jesus will have none of it. His complete and utter rejection of Peter and the conventional wisdom he stands for is signified by Jesus turning his back on Peter, and by his quick and public rejoinder: “Get behind me, Satan!”

It is hard to blame Peter. We don’t like pain. We don’t run to sacrifice. We are not especially attracted to being uncomfortable.

The Rev. Will Willimon tells of an encounter he had with a student about an upcoming mission trip. “’You’re a great leader, you speak Spanish, and you care about the poor. You really ought to come with us to Honduras.’ She thought for a moment, ‘I don’t think so,’ she responded. ‘Oh, come on, it’ll be an adventure and we’ll have a great time,’ [he] implored. ‘I’m a bit surprised to hear you say working with the poor is your idea of a good time,’ she said. “To me, its hard and painful. I’m going to follow through with my plans to go to the Bahamas with friends.” (Pulpit Resource, September 17, 2006, p.53). Willimon had to give her credit for her honesty – she knew that following Jesus can have a cost.

A colleague of mine serves a church over on the mainland. He has been there a bit over a year, although he has been in the ministry for a couple decades. It is not like the church didn’t know what they were getting. He was right up front about it during the interview process – he believed himself to be called to be a foster parent, to take into his home young people who had nowhere else to go. He and his wife had been doing this for years, and while they had recently divorced, he intended to continue doing so on his own. A couple months ago, he ran into a young man, now over age 18, who had been a member of the Sunday school and youth group at the church for years. Now he was homeless, living in a car in the next town. The pastor decided to take him in; after all, the parsonage had the room, this was the sort of thing he had been doing for years, this was part of his calling. The church trustees called the pastor in. They were worried – and in the wake of all the clergy sexual misconduct unearthed in the past years, who could blame them? There was the potential for scandal – what would people say. There was a risk of liability – in this litigious age, anything could be claimed. They were, the trustees said, “uncomfortable.” They had a choice to make, they had come to a cross in the road. They could take it up and follow Jesus, or they could be comfortable. They couldn’t have it both ways.

Where are we, as a congregation, facing a cross in the road? What are we willing to risk giving up – or taking on – to follow Jesus in a life of service to others? You saw some of our brothers and sisters, of all ages, respond to that question earlier in the service. Recognizing the call to respond to the plight of homelessness on Cape Cod, they put their feet where their faith is by enlisting in the Housing Assistance Corporation’s Walk to End Homelessness. They were willing to risk not only the being uncomfortable, in the sense of having sore feet, but also in the sense of asking you to support them financially in their ministry – and for many of us, that means they were willing to make us uncomfortable as well, because few of us like being asked for money.

Where else are we, as a congregation, facing a cross in the road? What are we willing to risk giving up – or taking on – to follow Jesus in a life of service to others? What about one night out a month, one night away from family and home, one night set aside to advance a ministry here? If the Nominating Committee is to be believed, fewer and fewer of us are willing to make that sacrifice, to give up that night – we are desperately short of members for the Board of Material Resources (that’s buildings and grounds), for the Family School, the Deacons, the Board of Finance. What about a Sunday once a month to help Leah Grohe Rogers over in the infant/toddler room, so that young families might have an hour a week away from child care so that they might worship in peace? What about a weekly Thursday evening to practice with the choir, or a Tuesday to ring with the bell choir?

Where else are we, as a congregation, facing a cross in the road? What are we willing to risk giving up – or taking on – to follow Jesus in a life of service to others? More fundamentally, are we even willing to seriously ask ourselves, and each other, this question? Over the past years we have developed quite a bit of momentum here: new members have come flocking to join us and our welcoming, friendly congregation and fellowship groups; despite rising costs to maintain our facilities, we are growing in our ability to get back to a balanced budget; maybe talk of sacrifice, of risk, of taking up the cross will scare people away, turn them off, hurt the bottom line; maybe, just as Will Willimon’s reluctant and yet honest student chose Bermuda over the mission trip to Nicaragua, folk here will run from talk of sacrifice and head over to the First Congregational Church of Little Commitment, or St. Felicity’s of Cheap Grace.

Jesus tells us that if we are to be his followers, there will be a cost. In doing God’s will there can be consequences, consequences which in Jesus’ case included the loss of his life. And yet, Jesus tells us, discipleship is worth the cost, because you will discover life that is more valuable than the cost. In losing your life for the sake of the gospel, you will save it, you will gain life that is priceless and permanent. You will discover your true humanity, for true human fulfillment can only come through making a gift of ourselves to others.

Friends, to close as we began: we are indeed a church at the crossroads. The church always has been, and always will be. Because at our feet lies a cross, and the only question is, dare we pick it up? Dare we lose our life -- and so save it?

Let us pray. Precious Lord, take our hand, and give us the courage to bend over and pick that cross up, that we might walk upright through the waiting doors to your kingdom. Amen. -----------