I remember very well the first assignment I was given when I began my M.Div program many years ago. I remember it so well because it was such an eye-opener. We were told to do a “parish study,” to pick a local congregation, do a little research, interview the pastor and a few parishioners, and, most importantly for me, to look at its environment, its neighborhood, and the congregation’s relationship to its neighborhood.

That was the eye-opener for me. I had never thought of a congregation in connection with its geographical surroundings. Why should I have? I grew up in a church that, quite literally, was surrounded by cornfields. Not much ministry to be done in that context, is there? But in that assignment those many years ago, I learned something very important, that congregations, like it or not, or linked to their communities, even if, as is often the case these days, most of a congregation’s members do not come from the immediate vicinity.

That assignment has come back to me since I’ve arrived in Madison. Living downtown, walking to work everyday, being the rector of Grace Church is very much being a part of the community. I can’t think of my ministry in this place only as ministry among you, the members of Grace. I have other responsibilities, other tasks, among them being present as a priest and pastor in the heart of the Capitol Square. That I am here, that Grace is here on Capitol Square, has an enormous impact on what it means for us to be the people of God, the body of Christ in this place.

Geography is important. Last week, I pointed out the significance for Mark of the two miracles Jesus worked. Both were in Gentile territory; both were done for Gentiles. In today’s Gospel, Jesus and his disciples are near Caesarea Philippi. They are “on the way,” Caesarea Philippi was a place of great symbolic and political importance. It had been given to Herod by the Emperor in 20 bc, and built as a city to represent the connection between the two rulers. Herod built a temple dedicated to Caesar Augustus, his patron. In Jesus’ day, it was the capital of Herod’s successor, Philip’s kingdom. So it was a center of the political power of Rome and its local henchmen, the power of Rome, and the willingness of local figures to suck up to it. It is in this geographical political context that Jesus asks his disciples a question of enormous significance.

What makes this particular story so important for the Gospel of Mark is that for one thing, this is the first time that any of Jesus’ disciples call him the Messiah. Jesus asks his friends what people think of him, and they give him all sorts of answers–Elijah, John the Baptist, a prophet. Clearly, Jesus is seen to be a remarkable individual, perhaps even super-human, a reincarnation of a great religious leader. But it is Peter who responds quickly and confidently to Jesus’ second question, “Who do you say that I am?” “You are the Messiah,” Peter replies.

We tend to stop there, with Peter’s great confession, and focus on the meaning of the question, and of Peter’s response. But Mark doesn’t stop there. He tells us more, and as the story continues, we learn precisely what it means, both for Jesus, and for his disciples, to confess that Jesus is the Messiah.

That’s crucial for Mark’s gospel. It’s the first time a human being has confessed Jesus to be the Messiah. But he doesn’t stop there. He makes two additional points that are of great significance. First, he follows Peter’s confession with Jesus’ prediction that he will go to Jerusalem, be arrested, and be crucified. Second, he begins to tell his disciples what they’ve signed up for: “If you would be my disciple, take up your cross and follow me.”

Both of those points are challenged by the disciples in the coming chapters. First, Peter contradicts Jesus. No, he says, that’s not going to happen. In the coming chapters, we will see the disciples not understanding what Jesus has to say about his death and about what it means to follow him.

What was it that so bothered Peter? That Jesus predicted the Messiah would undergo suffering and death.  For Peter and his contemporaries were waiting for a Messiah to deliver the Jewish people from the occupying Roman empire. Apparently, when Peter identified Jesus as the Messiah, he hoped Jesus would be that deliverer. But for Jesus, messiah-ship meant something quite different.

But it is not just the notion of the Messiah that Jesus radically reinterprets. He also turns upside-down the expectations of what it meant to follow him. For if the Messiah was going to be a revolutionary, a political deliverer, then his followers would also be revolutionaries, fighting against the Roman occupation. But Jesus understands discipleship in very different terms.

For Jesus, to be a disciple means to share in his suffering and death.  Jesus put it quite clearly, “If you want to follow me, take up your cross and follow me.” Following Jesus means following him to the bitter end, expecting the same fate that Jesus knew was awaiting him in Jerusalem.

To follow the Messiah, to follow Jesus, did not mean sharing in his glorious victory over the forces of Rome. It meant just the opposite, to share in his suffering and death.

Those are hard words for us to hear. They seem far distant from our religious experience and from our daily lives. But, just as Jesus challenged Peter and the disciples in today’s Gospel, so too does this gospel challenge the way we think about ourselves and about Jesus. Jesus confronts our assumptions about him, he confronts our complacency, our everyday world and tells us, “Friends, that’s not what it means to follow me.”

Jesus stands in front of us, asking us, like he asked Peter and the other disciples, “Who do you say that I am?” But confession is not enough, empty words, no matter how profound, don’t matter. In the South, it’s something of a marketing ploy to identify oneself as Christian. Small businesses will put the sign of the fish in their Yellow Pages ad, or will put their faith up on their marquee. One of my favorites appeared just after 9/11. A bar I used to pass on my way to work advertised. God Bless America! Draft beer $1.50. Indeed. I’m sure one sees much the same in rural Wisconsin as well.

Peter’s words were easy, because he hadn’t gotten Jesus’ point about what he was about. Okay, Jesus said, you think I’m the Messiah? Well, here’s what that means. And when Jesus made clear what messiah-ship was, Peter turned around and said that he didn’t sign up for suffering and death.

Like Jesus and his disciples, we are “on the way. We come from all over the area, to this place to worship. Most of us do it for very personal reasons—because we have family or friends here, because we like the worship, or the preaching, the atmosphere, the programs. We may travel a few blocks, a few miles or many more. And I wager few of us really think about the connection between our lives of discipleship and this particular place. But we have followed Jesus here, and that matters.

Last week, I preached about the baptismal covenant, that it served as something of a job description for Jesus’ disciples. It’s easy for us to think of our selves as Episcopalians—for many of us, to call ourselves Christians is more of a stretch. We don’t want to identify ourselves, or be identified with the religious right. Even difficult is to think of ourselves as disciples. You will hear that term a great deal in the coming weeks, because for the next two or three chapters of Mark, we will be hearing again and again about what it means to be a disciple, to follow Jesus.

I can’t tell you how precisely to respond to Jesus’ demand to follow him. That is up to you. I can give you some suggestions, some guidelines perhaps. Discipleship is about responding to that call with concrete actions and with a desire to deepen your relationship with Jesus Christ.

There are many ways in which you might become more involved in Grace Church and in our outreach into the community. I encourage you to take advantage of those opportunities—serving in some capacity on Sunday morning, or volunteering in the Food Pantry. It is also important to continue learning about our faith and asking the hard questions. I hope many of you will participate in the Gift program with its in-depth examination of our relationship with food—questions of sustainability, hunger, and the like. We are also beginning our fall stewardship campaign and as you think about your commitment to Jesus Christ, your commitment to Grace Church, it is also appropriate to consider how that commitment might be reflected financially.

Yes, it is a hard road that Jesus walked, the road from Caesarea Philippi to Jerusalem. His disciples didn’t know what they were getting into. We know what lay at the end of that journey, and for most of us, such a fate is incomprehensible. Yet, for all that difficulty, we should think of ourselves as disciples, sharing the journey Jesus walked. It won’t look the same. The circumstances are radically different. But for the most part, the questions, the challenges are the same.

What does it mean to follow Jesus, to have followed Jesus to this place this morning? To confess Jesus is Lord, to confess with Peter that Jesus is the Messiah, is quite easy. To do what Jesus asks of his disciples, to take up a cross, and follow him to Jerusalem, is something quite different.

We have followed Jesus to this place, to Grace Church, this morning. It is our responsibility as his disciples, to reach out, as he did “on the way to Jerusalem.” To reach out to others, to those in the pews around us, to those in this community, to offer them healing, and hope, and bread for the journey.