March 18 and 19, 2000

A Womb with a View
Mark 8:31-38
March 18 & 19, 2000
David Beckett, D.Min.

It was one of those embarrassing moments. After shopping in a discount store I had waited in a long line. You see, I am the world’s worst line-picker. It never fails. I always seem to get in the lines where either one of two things happen. Three of the five people in front of me whip out their checkbooks to pay for their purchases which always takes more time, or the cashier picks up her microphone and announces, “Price check on register 7. I need a price check on Dr. Scholl’s deluxe bunyon pads.”

So there I was waiting through 3 checkwritings, 2 price checks, and a four year old who kept banging his cart into my shins! When I finally reached the cashier she totaled the amount. I opened my wallet and could not believe it. Not only did I not have enough money, but I didn’t have any credit cards! I had thought I had the resources to pay for what I wanted, but this didn’t change the fact that I didn’t have enough money.

In the gospel of Mark Jesus explains three times to his disciples that he will die and be raised again. Today’s text is one of them. Jesus wants them to know what it will cost them to be his disciple. Up to this time following Jesus had been pretty easy. There were the spectacular healings, powerful teaching, the popularity of the crowds, and unbelievable miracles. But now the way open to Jesus is one of suffering, rejection, and death. Jesus’ journey with the disciples is one that takes them away from the safety and growing acceptance of Galilee and leads them to the cross where fear and grief await them. Surely the disciples envisioned this journey to Jerusalem as a triumphal journey, not a death march. They never really understood the impact of Jesus’ words until after the crucifixion.

Not unlike you and me, the disciples were stuck in a “fetal faith” position, resting in the warmth of a protective womb. But unlike the physical womb, which is a place for growth, faith that remains “in utero” enjoys a no-growth/no-risk dependency. Fetal faith feeds off of a borrowed life and spirit, deriving all its nourishment second-hand from parents, pastors, friends, or spouses. A safe and protected fetal faith which refuses to mature towards birth faces all the restrictions of life in the womb. It has no voice. It has no capacity to lead. It must always tag along. It is forced to remain small and insignificant. Its growth is constricted by the walls of its chosen womb-tomb.

I don’t know how you came out of your mother’s womb. Did you come kicking and screaming? Did you make your entrance into this world with a whimper or a smile? In a spiritual sense most of us shrink from taking that first step that pushes us out of the womb and into the world. In the words of English poet Cyril Connelly, “We are looking for a womb with a view.” Window-gazing from within the safety and security of the womb allows us to become professional spectators of life. It is the “couch potato syndrome” taken to the extreme, where “couching” and “cocooning” become not periodic escapes from a chaotic lifestyle, BUT A WAY OF LIFE. Our living rooms become our wombs, our televisions, our stereos, and computers become our windows to the real world.

And so Jesus asks his disciples to venture forth from the safety of the womb into a world of suffering and death. He asks the same of you and me. What is it that keeps us from stepping out in faith? Perhaps there is no better answer than simple fear. We are afraid of the real world. We are afraid of suffering. We are afraid of death.

Sometimes our fear is rational. People who live in Alaska had better have some rational fear. Sometimes you need it to stay alive. In 1984 my brother and I were fishing the Russian River. We had heard a report of a bear in the area and were alert for any signs. A couple of guys approached us on the trail and we informed them of the bear sighting. They were pretty casual about it and one of them said, “That old bear is probably more afraid of us than we are of him!” “Yeah, right,” we muttered to each other under our breath. It wasn’t 30 minutes when we saw those guys running as fast as their legs could run back to the trailhead. Without stopping they shouted, “Look out! A bear is coming!” My brother said, “I thought be bear was more afraid of you than you were of him?” We couldn’t understand why they didn’t answer!

We need rational fear. It helps us be cautious and safe. But sometimes our fear is irrational. It is fabricated in our minds where we allow it to paralyze us into inaction. Albert Schweitzer, in his book, “African Notebook,” tells the incident of journeying to Europe with an African houseboy. It was the first time the young African had been away from the tropical climate. On the first cold morning his employer was awakened by the screams of the boy. The man rushed upstairs and found the boy in bed wailing as if he were going to die. He kept saying, “I’m on fire inside! I’m on fire inside!” The man soon realized the boy saw his breath coming out in the cold air and thought he was on fire inside!

When my daughter, Jenny, was in the third grade we were playing in the snow near our house in Soldotna. She had climbed onto a low level tree house. When it came time to come down she became frightened of the jump which was only 4 feet into a snow bank. She pleaded with me to help her but I insisted that she could do it. I knew she could do it because I had seen her jump that far onto hard ground before. There were tears and fears and moments when I felt like the worst father in the world. After several minutes of intense fussing she finally made the jump easily into the snow. When she landed a huge smile replaced her tears. Jenny realized that her fear had been irrational. She had allowed it to control and consume her, keeping her from venturing beyond the womb of that tree house.

Even those who appear to be out in the world may actually be nurturing a fetal faith. Wombs can take on a variety of shapes. We seek sanctuary from the unknown in our jobs, in our addictive, co-dependent relationships, even in our churches. The disciples certainly appeared to be out in the world. They had hiked all over Galilee and were now on their way to Jerusalem guided by Jesus himself. But their reaction to Jesus’ words about the cost of following him reveals that their faith in Christ was still umbilically bound to his ACCEPTABLE role as the popular healer, the wonderful Messiah, the strong, successful leader. Dazed by this new vision Jesus proposed of a beaten, humiliated, rejected, and crucified servant, the disciples retreated further into the womb of the dream-Messiah they had envisioned.

Jesus’ attempts to induce labor in his disciples failed to push them from their warm, self-designed wombs to confront the approaching tomb. It was not until they had experienced the terror of Jesus’ death and the wonder of the resurrection that the disciples were able to smash the windows of their wombs and deliver their fetal faith into the world. Freed from the constraints of the womb they were at last able to take up the cross and follow Christ.

One very, very important point. God never asks us to venture out in faith alone. There is a saying, “The will of God will never lead you where the grace of God cannot keep you.” There is no place outside of the womb we could go where the Spirit of God could not be there to strengthen and sustain us. Sometimes others will not be with us on the journey. But I dare say that most of the time there will be a fellow traveller who will walk with us. This is why God established the Church, because God knows that we need each other.

Author Erich Lindemann researched the lives of the survivors of the Coconut Grove fire in which 129 people were killed. He found that there were two kinds of survivors: those who recovered quickly, and those who recovered slowly or barely. The only difference he could find between the two was that those who recovered quickly found strength and support, not from counseling or therapy, but from a community of friends and family. These were the folks who called on them, kept track of them, wrote them, and loved them back. When you and I step outside the seclusion of the womb we are not alone. To be alive in the world is to be a part of a community. This is one of the greatest challenges and one of the greatest joys experienced in a follower’s life.

Jesus teaches us that there are three requirements to discipleship: deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow him. In doing so Jesus asks us to quit living under the illusion that we possess our own lives. He asks us to stop thinking that we can somehow neatly arrange our lives into a series of safe, controlled segments. The truth in Christ is that we are not our own. The truth is we can never insulate ourselves completely. The truth is that life is a continuous and sometimes hazardous journey.

This story has been told in many ways. A father and son were taking a walk in the woods one morning. The boy decided to climb a tree while Dad watched from below. Suddenly a thick fog rolled in. At his father’s command the boy began to climb down. When he reached the bottom branch he still could not see his Dad because of the fog. His Dad said, “Son, I want you to let go of the tree and jump into my arms. I am right under you.” The boy cried, “But Dad, I can’t see you! I’m afraid!” The father tried to calm his son, “Trust me, Son. Even though you can’t see me, I am here. And I will not let you hit the ground.” For a moment the boy wavered. Then it was love that overcame fear and he jumped into the fog and landed safely in his father’s arms.

There are times in our lives when God says to you and me, “I want you to jump in the midst of your fear.” There are times when Jesus says, “Take up your cross and follow me.” There are times when the Spirit urges out of our protective wombs. May this Lent be a time when we would count the cost, and make the leap of faith, knowing without a doubt that arms of Love will catch us.

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