Now when Jesus heard this, he withdrew from there in a boat to a deserted place by himself. But when the crowds heard it, they followed him on foot from the towns. 14 When he went ashore, he saw a great crowd; and he had compassion for them and cured their sick. 15 When it was evening, the disciples came to him and said, “This is a deserted place, and the hour is now late; send the crowds away so that they may go into the villages and buy food for themselves.” 16 Jesus said to them, “They need not go away; you give them something to eat.” 17 They replied, “We have nothing here but five loaves and two fish.” 18 And he said, “Bring them here to me.” 19 Then he ordered the crowds to sit down on the grass. Taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven, and blessed and broke the loaves, and gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds. 20 And all ate and were filled; and they took up what was left over of the broken pieces, twelve baskets full. 21 And those who ate were about five thousand men, besides women and children.

From that time on, Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and undergo great suffering at the hands of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised. 22 And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him, saying, "God forbid it, Lord! This must never happen to you." 23 But he turned and said to Peter, "Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; for you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things."

In the earliest period of the Church, the first generation of people who believed in Jesus had a big problem to overcome - and this is still a major stumbling block today. The problem was: If Jesus is for real, if Jesus really is the Messiah, the Christ, the Savior, why didn't he accomplish what the Messiah, the Christ, the Savior, was supposed to accomplish?

The Jewish definition of the Messiah was: the one, sent by God, who would make things better for the Jewish people. Jesus didn't make things better. After Jesus, things only got worse for the Jewish people. So Jesus was disqualified from Messiah-status on that basis alone.

This is the problem that lies behind Peter's rebuke of Jesus in today's text. Jesus tells his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem where he will suffer and die. Peter says, "That must never happen to you." Messiah's aren't supposed to suffer and die. They're supposed to go to Jerusalem and make the world right, or at least better.

Another problem that the first Christians had was that Jesus died by crucifixion. In the book of Deuteronomy, it says specifically, a section about convicted and executed criminals, for anyone hung on a tree is under God's curse. Since Jesus was hung on a tree, crucified, he would appear to be disqualified from being the Messiah on that basis too.

We see this problem in the accounts of Good Friday, after Jesus is crucified. Remember what the onlookers had to say? "If you are the Savior, save yourself. Come down from the cross." Prove it.

So the first Christians had these two problems. What kind of a savior is it who doesn't make things better? How could a savior be crucified?

How those early Christians dealt with these problems was to read the Hebrew Scriptures again, and to re-interpret and re-think what the Messiah was supposed to be like. Jesus was from God. That was given. But Jesus was a different kind of Messiah than most people wanted or expected. Jesus was victorious not by coming down from the cross but by staying on the cross. Jesus' purpose and mission wasn't to escape trouble, but to face trouble and go through it.

And not only was the Messiah different, but God was different in this new Christian view. God was not remote and detached from creation, above the reach of creation's trouble and suffering, but very close to and involved in creation and its suffering. Jesus, by being on the cross, with criminals who are cursed, shows God's love and solidarity with all people, including those who feel most cursed.

This is why Mother Theresa spent her life with the lowest of the low - not because she wanted to be a hero and a problem solver. She lived that way - she said - because that's where God is.

Most of aren't like Mother Theresa, but we can discover this same truth in our own little ways. Several years ago, my mother died. Her death was not a tragic event. She was 84. She suffered a lot over the years from depression. She had a form of Parkinson's disease. And she slowly got weaker and weaker, and found less and less to live for. I went to see her about two weeks before she died. I saw her life slipping away. I sat with her. There wasn't much to say. I fed her. I said goodbye to her for the last time. By the time, I couldn't tell if it really mattered to her whether I was there or not. She wasn't able to show that. Maybe she wasn't even able to feel that.

This is a common experience. Most of us know, or will know, what it's like to be with a parent or a friend at the end of his or her life. This is also an awesome, gut-wrenching, exhausting, experience to go through. I've been with a lot of people when they were dying. It's not like being with your mother.

Someone might ask, "Why would any one of us put ourselves through that? Why go visit someone who is dying, even your own mother? Why not do something easier? Why not stick with happier thoughts? That would be one option.

But being a Christian teaches us to believe that there's a reason to face unpleasant things rather than avoid them, and in this case, I found my Christian faith to make a huge difference. Being with my mother, at the end of her life, was not easy, but going through that with Christian eyes was a great blessing. The blessing was, I could see that I was not only losing my mother, but I was also entering a deep mystery. I could feel viscerally the presence of this Christian God, a crucified God, a God who is with us in the struggle, in the suffering of life. This mystery of, isn't something I can really explain, and it's not an experience I can give to someone else just by saying it's so.

But this is an experience we can have if we practice looking for it, and it's the most important thing we can experience. When we discover how our human love and suffering is actually part of God's love and suffering, we've found a real treasure. This is what all our Christian education and Bible study should lead us to.

You're probably wondering what this has to do with the sermon title. Imagine that you were offered the chance to escape all suffering and have only pleasure. The deal is this. A medical team can take your brain out of your head, place it in a vat with a saline solution, connect it to a blood supply, and attach electrodes to various parts of your brain. And by means of these electrodes, any pleasurable, glorious experience you want is yours because, with this technology that isn't so hard to imagine becoming available in the next century or so, these experiences can be played into your brain as easy as putting a CD into a CD player. You can be the home run king of the major leagues and hit the final grand slam homer to win the World Series. You can be the President of the United States and establish world peace. You can be a movie star, surrounded by adoring fans, winning an Oscar. You can be a concert pianist at Avery Fisher Hall in Lincoln Center. You can be the first astronaut to land on Mars. The right combination of hormones, and electrical impulses can be fed to your brain so that you will feel pure, unending pleasure.

Imagine such an option being offered to you. Would you take it? Some people probably would. Most of would hesitate, and say no thanks. Why would say no? Why should we say no? We would say no because that wouldn't be a lived life. It would be a false life. Real life is a mix.

In the communion service, in our Eucharistic prayer, we say the words, "Heaven and earth are full of your glory." Heaven and earth, including our imperfect, mixed lives, in their own mysterious way, are full of God's glory.