12th Sunday after Pentecost --- 31 August 2013

GOSPEL: Matthew 16:21-28
21 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." 24 Then Jesus told his disciples, "If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. 25 For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it. 26 For what will it profit them if they gain the whole world but forfeit their life? Or what will they give in return for their life? 27 "For the Son of Man is to come with his angels in the glory of his Father, and then he will repay everyone for what has been done. 28 Truly I tell you, there are some standing here who will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.

Then Jesus told his disciples, "If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.

• I know and you know that we've heard this Gospel line before. In fact, we've heard it many, many times.
• Of course, just because we've heard it before doesn't mean it isn't worth repeating. Which is probably why it is heard so often in our readings in the Worship service. The really important things bear repeating.
• By taking up our cross and following Jesus, we go the way of being transformed into the image of Jesus in the world around us... which is exactly what being a disciple of Jesus is about.
• This taking up of the cross is more than a way to handle the sufferings that all humans endure. The bumps and bruises, the stubbed toes and toothaches are, as Shakespeare put it, “the thousand Natural shocks That Flesh is heir to”, in other words, the pains and troubles every human has. Taking up the cross is far more than this.
• To be a disciple means to place ourselves in opposition to many of the values we may find around us. This will be hard, sometimes harder than we might think. Many of those things can be what the world around us says are important and will make us better people. Really, who wouldn't want that?
• In last week's Gospel reading, we heard Peter's confession of Jesus as the Messiah. This week, Peter is trying to talk Jesus out of saying that he will be the suffering Messiah, something incomprehensible to Peter and the other disciples. The Messiah was not supposed to be a sufferer. He was to be glorious and majestic and powerful and all those things and more as well. Being put to death at the hands of the authorities of his own people as well the foreign occupiers was not part of the definition of the Messiah. That was loser-talk and the Messiah was to be a winner - and so were his followers. So Peter says “God forbid it, Lord! This must never happen to you.”
• Jesus then calls Peter a stumbling block and takes him to task for looking at things from a human point of view rather than a divine point of view. Winning and losing is no longer the question.
• The difference between winners and losers is seen as no less important in our day. To suffer and especially to place ourselves in a position of accepted suffering is often seen as the way of the loser. Yet that is what Jesus tells us we will have to do to be his followers.
• To be a follower of Jesus is to have your daily life shaped and directed by the cross. There are ways of treating others that we will not engage in. There are ways of doing business and ways of speaking that we will not have any part of. There are ways that we will spend our time that will seem worthless and silly to some who do not share our values. We may be excluded from some groups or circles because of how the cross shapes our lives.
• Taking up the cross of Christ as our own will set us apart and that can often mean suffering beyond the normal and even the extraordinary pains of all humanity. It is at that time that any Christian disciple will come to realize that proclaiming “Jesus is the Messiah” or “Jesus is Lord” will bring with it a cost that we must pay to make those proclamations the cornerstone of our daily lives.
• One more thought – I don't think any of us would question that taking up the cross is accepting weakness since it is the weakness of God in Jesus that is the redeeming act for us. It is this very weakness that defeats the strength of the old trio that opposes grace – the world, the flesh, and the devil. For us, grace takes the form of the cross and the one nailed to it.
• We live in this world that has been turned upside- down by the grace of God and the sacrifice of Jesus. In the light of grace, what seems to be failure is shown to be victory and apparent loss has become a gift beyond all imagining or hope.
• If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.
• I know and you know that we've heard this Gospel line before. In fact, we've heard it many, many times. And some day... some day, it will sink in.

Holiday

To any who read this blog:

I will be on holiday for the next three Sundays, so there will be no sermons shared. Other things - articles, comic strips, and the like - that strike my fancy will be shared... I hope. I'll still be on holiday.

Enjoy yourselves and all of God's gifts.

John Goldsworthy

The Eighth Sunday after Pentecost --- 3 August 2014

GOSPEL: Matthew 14:13-21

13 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. 

Jesus said to them, "They need not go away; you give them something to eat."

• There is a lot going on in today's Gospel reading. Jesus appears distressed by the beheading of John the Baptist and seems to want to be off by himself to work through this. (The Gospel doesn't say that specifically, but we all know of sorrow and loss and know how it might be dealt with.) The crowd however seems to be unwilling to give him a break. Even in his desire to be alone, Jesus responds to their need: “he had compassion for them and cured their sick.”
• As the day wore on, that compassion came to mean feeding the people as well. The meal of bread and fish seems quite simple, but we don't hear of any complaints about the quality of the meal and amount came to be more than enough.
• In this passage, Jesus appears to go through many of the emotions any and all of us might go through. He is upset by the execution of his cousin and forerunner, John. He is exhausted by the demands of his ministry and needs time to rebuild his energy. He is moved with compassion for the crowd when he finds them waiting on the shore. He is more than willing to give them each something to eat from what was seen as a very meagre amount of food – 5 loaves and 2 fish for a crowd of 5 thousand men, besides women and children. (Why the women and children weren't counted is a discussion for another time.)
• There is some symbolism involved in the narrative. When Jesus give the disciples the loaves and fish for the meal, the words used are the same as are used at the Last Supper and in the Communion service – took, blessed, broke, gave. This reminds us of Jesus giving himself to his disciples for their growth and strength. Then the left-overs are gathered, there are 12 baskets, a perfect number and one basket for each of the 12 tribes of Israel or one for each of the 12 apostles. Each disciple will have enough of what Jesus has given them to share without running out.
• Even with this in mind, do we ever think of how ordinary Jesus actions really are? He is saddened and troubled by the death of John the Baptist. Might not we might feel the same way over the death of someone close to us? Jesus was full of compassion in the face of the need of the crowd for healing, teaching, and feeding. He even tells his disciples to give the people something to eat. Would we leave hungry people hungry in front of us?
• Starting with Jesus' birth, the Gospels assure us that salvation comes to us from what appears to be weakness and poverty rather than expressions of Godly strength and power. Yes, today's Gospel passage speaks of a miracle, but the miracle was not planned, nor was it asked for. It arose from the ordinary situation and one that Jesus seemed powerless to do anything about. ("They need not go away; you give them something to eat.")
• How we live our lives plays into this ordinary theme. We don't have to look for the amazing or the miraculous or the outlandish to see God. A cornerstone of the Lutheran understanding of discipleship is the finding of God and God's way in the ordinary. This is the point of living our lives and finding holiness and grace in whatever it is we do. There is no chore too menial or to low not to be done well and done with God's blessings. It is in the ordinary things of life that the grace of God shines through. Luther himself said: “Our Lord God has made His greatest gifts the commonest.”
• Even in the multiplication of the loaves and fish, Jesus took the ordinary and made it extraordinary. Jesus did not provide a meal of fancy rolls and rare delicacies from the sea; It was regular bread and normal fish that fed all the people. Of course, this is echoed in the words of Isaiah the prophet who speaks of food as a sign of the kingdom: Ho, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and you that have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy? Listen carefully to me, and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food.
• As we've seen before, what our Savior does has a great depth of meaning. His words and his deeds bring in the kingdom. Where he is, THERE is the kingdom. “As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be.” as the old doxology says.
• With Christ with us, around us, and even within us, our ordinary is changed and grace abounds like the loaves and fish. If Jesus could do that with somebody's lunch, imagine what he can do with our lives if we offer them?