A sermon preached at St Nicholas’, Halewood, on Sunday 31^st August 2014 (Trinity 11)

At a United Service for St Nicholas’ and St Mary’s, Halewood, and St Hilda’s, Hunts Cross.

Readings:

Romans 12:9-end

Marks of the True Christian

Matthew 16:21-end

Jesus Foretells His Death and Resurrection

The Cross and Self-Denial

Introduction

Peter gets it wrong…

In today’s Gospel, Peter gets it wrong. Which is a shame, because in last week’s Gospel (Matthew 16.13-20), he gets it so right:
Jesus asks, ‘Who do you say that I am?’

“Simon Peter answered, ‘You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.'” Jesus tells him that he is blessed, because this is not his own insight but has been revealed to him by God. And this is the rock on which the church is built.

So how can Peter get it so wrong, as he does in today’s Gospel?

“Get behind me, Satan!” Jesus says to him. You are an obstacle in the path, your thinking is not divine but very, very human.

You have to feel sorry for poor Simon Peter! One minute he’s built up, the next, knocked down.

At the end of last week’s Gospel, Jesus “sternly ordered the disciples not to tell anyone that he was the Messiah.” Why would he do that? Surely, if Jesus is the Messiah, everyone should know about it? Well, yes. But not yet. Not until we are very clear what sort of messiah Jesus has come to be. And that’s what we have today:

Jesus began to make it clear to his disciples that he was destined to go to Jerusalem and suffer grievously at the hands of those who hold power; to be put to death, and raised up on the third day (16:21). Now that makes no sense at all! Surely, the Messiah, has come to be King – to be the one in power, to be the one who boots out the oppressor. Not the one who suffers at the hands of the oppressor!

We shouldn’t be surprised that Simon Peter – and the rest of the disciples – find it hard to get their heads around this:
a suffering messiah, a powerless king.

The Passion of the Christ

In today’s Gospel we have the first of what we call the Passion Predictions in Matthew. But it’s more than just a prediction: Jesus isn’t just saying, ‘This is what is going to happen’. He’s saying, This is what defines me as Messiah. This is not going to be a mistake. It’s not an aberration. This is the kind of king I have come to be: God’s Suffering Servant.
And, as Christians, we believe that this how we define God: that God is not on the side of the oppressor, but of the oppressed. Not on the side of those who use violence in support of their aims, but with those who are on the receiving end of that violence. You might prefer a god like Jove, who sits on the clouds and flings thunderbolts about, rather than a god who finds himself on the end of the someone else’s thunderbolts, but that’s not what Jesus offers.

Disciples of the Christ

What does that say about what it means to be a disciple of Jesus Christ?

“If any want to become my followers,
let them deny themselves
and take up their cross and follow me.” (v24)

‘This is where I’m going. Now, who wants to come with me?!’

Now, to deny yourself does not mean to have low self-esteem. Nor does it mean giving up pudding. It is to do with how you define yourself. In Jesus’ day, your status depended very much on your family. “Who do you think you are?” You are your father’s child, as he was his father’s child. And that was pretty much fixed. In our day, we are defined by race, class, wealth and power.
Imagine saying, no –that’s not who I am. Who I am is defined by nothing other than my relationship with the one who carried the Cross for me. That’s who I am. No more and no less.

And we shouldn’t be surprised if that involves suffering. We are following the Suffering Servant. We are going where he leads, following in his footsteps.

Second half of life spirituality

I’ve been reading about spirituality in the second half of life. At the start of life, you have to find out who you are. In the first half of life, you need to prove who you are. It’s about striving. In the second half of life, you learn just to be who you are.

Richard Rohr (a Roman Catholic Franciscan Priest) says that this inevitably involves suffering. It’s not an answer to the problem of suffering, but in his view, we never make the transition to the second half of life without it.

For those who want to save their life will lose it,
and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.
For what will it profit them if they gain the whole world but forfeit their life? (Matthew 16: 25, 26)

Conclusion

What kind of Church?

The Church, built on Peter’s Confession of Jesus as the Christ, is, as Pope Francis, calls it, echoing his namesake, Francis of Assisi,
“… a poor Church, and for the poor.”

Jesus shows us a God who chooses, not the way of power but the way of suffering service. He invites us to follow him. A church that follows him will suffer and serve and live.

If we choose any other way, Jesus says to us, “Get behind me Satan”! But as we follow, Jesus promises that, at the end of the day, we shall have our reward.