Father Riley's sermon from October 22, 2017

20 PENTECOST - PROPER XXIV - A - 17   MATTHEW 22. 15-22

Today’s gospel passage follows three parables in succession in which Jesus has basically condemned the religious leaders of his day for failing to carry out their divine mission of being the light of God to the world. In doing so Christ implies that God was about to take the mission away from them and give it to the Gentiles unless they repented and recommitted themselves to the divine task that had been entrusted to them.

By the end of the second parable, the one of the vineyard, the Pharisees and scribes were conspiring against Jesus for they perceived that he was directing the parables towards them. The parable of the wedding feast, in last week’s gospel reading, was the straw that broke the camel’s back.

In today’s reading Matthew has the Pharisees and the Herodians, and unlikely duo, coming together to try and entrap Jesus into saying or doing something that they can use against him in a trail before the Sanhedrin or better yet before the Roman governor himself.

They begin the encounter with a compliment: “Teacher, we know that you are sincere, and teach the way of God in accordance with truth, and show difference to no one…” They then proceed to ask their question whether one should pay the Roman tax hoping to trap him with his answer.

However, Jesus knows what is in their heart and avoids the trap. He calls them hypocrites. They are carrying around in their pockets the hated coinage of a self-proclaimed god. The coin was hated by the Jews because of what was on it. It was stamped with the image of Caesar and the wording proclaiming him as “son of god…high priest.”

Any self- respecting first century Jew would have shuttered at the thought. Hundreds of years before, the prophet Isaiah had proclaimed to God’s anointed, King Cyrus, that there was only one true god. “I am the Lord, and there is no other: besides me there is no god…”

Rome, since 6 A.D., had imposed a head tax of about 25 cents per person on the population of Judea. It was regarded as a badge of servitude to Rome. The Pharisees objected to having to pay the tax. The Herodians favored the tax, for they were sympathetic with the family of Herod, who ruled the Jews as Rome’s puppet.

For Jesus to have sided with the Herodians would have alienated all who longed for Israel’s freedom; to have sided with the Pharisees would have laid Jesus open to charges of subversion. Jesus asks to see the coin and they produce it.

He out flanks them with his response. His answer has the effect of thrusting his answer back to his interrogators, for one must determine what is rightfully Caesar’s and what can be claimed by God alone.

Of course, the Pharisees answer the obvious when asked whose image is on the coin - Caesar’s. “Then you had better pay Caesar back in his own coin hadn’t you?” Meaning they should pay the tax. Then to their astonishment, he adds “and you had better pay God back in his own coin too!” More astonishment. What did Jesus really mean?

Was he saying that the kingdom of God is more important than the kingdom of Caesar?  He was not trying to give an answer for all time on the relationship between God and political authority. That wasn’t the point. He was countering the Pharisee’s challenge to him with a sharp challenge in return.

We can only fully understand what Jesus was doing when we see his answer in the light of the whole story. The kingdom of God would defeat the kingdom of Caesar, not by conventional means, but by the victory of God’s love and power over the even greater empire of death itself. However, that day was yet to come.

What Jesus is revealing in his response to us is who we are, what we are, and what we can be. Israel was chosen by God and entrusted with a divine mission. However, she had become corrupt and had lost focus. Maintaining the status quo was more important than proclaiming God’s kingdom and teaching how one is to enter it.

Thus, Jesus’ first sermon/ teaching was to echo John Baptist - “Repent, for the kingdom is near.” But they turned a deaf ear to his cry as they had done to John. The more Jesus taught, preached, healed and proclaimed the kingdom, the more they knew they had failed.

Instead of turning back to God and resuming the mission, they rejected him and sought a way to rid themselves of him so that things could go on as before. But God would have none of that, even if it meant His Son would have to die on the cross.

The coin, then, is symbolic. It is the symbol of what some work for, even slave for. The world has come to believe that the coin is a measure of our value, the symbol of our worth. However, the true measure of our value has to do with the likeness and the inscription born on our bodies and souls.

As Caesar has cast the denarius in his image, God has cast each of us in His own image. Our souls have been stamped with the divine image and inscribed with God’s name. At our baptisms we were reminded of this as the sign of the cross was traced on our foreheads with the words “you are sealed by the Holy Spirit and marked as Christ’s own forever.”

We may not be able to see that indelible mark as we stand before a mirror, but God sees it. It is there for all eternity. Neither can the world see the outline of the cross we bear. Our works testify to it. It is the things we say and do that are in accordance with God’s will that witness to the fact that we belong to Him and that our allegiance is to God and God alone.

The important word in Jesus’ response is “render,” it means more than just to give, but give back. Our dues to God and to man are alike for values received. To God we owe all and must pay all; though there are many things which are not Caesar’s, there are none which are not God’s. AMEN+

Father Riley's sermon from October 8, 2017

18 PENTECOST - PROPER XXII - A - 17    MATTHEW 21. 33-46

 

While serving with the Army in Germany many years ago now, I was fortunate enough to travel through the Rhine Valley. If you are not familiar with that part of Germany, it is Germany’s wine producing region. Vineyards dot the countryside much like the Napa valley in California.

 

In ancient Palestine for one to own a vineyard was a sign of wealth. It was not uncommon for the owner to be an absentee. Thus, the vineyard was rented to tenants who were responsible for keeping it up and producing the fruit the true owner expected to receive when he sent his servants to collect.

 

Today’s gospel along with the first lesson and psalm speak to the image of vineyards. In the first lesson, God is reacting to his disappointment in the house of Israel, which is His vineyard. She has not produced the fruit God was expecting. God expected justice, but saw bloodshed; righteousness, but heard a cry.

 

The Psalmist is crying to the Lord in time of distress. Israel sees herself as God’s vineyard; God’s planting, but now it is as if the protecting walls of God’s presence are gone, and enemies crowd in to strip the vine of its fruit and to up root it like wild hogs. The psalmist prays for the return of God’s saving presence.

 

In today’s gospel, Jesus is telling a second parable; one of a vineyard that has been lent to tenants. He is speaking once again to the chief priests and elders as he stands in the Temple. It is a follow on to last week’s parable of the two sons.

 

You may recall that when they were asked which son had done the will of the father, the religious leaders had answered correctly and thus convicted themselves. They do so again in today’s parable by giving Jesus the correct answer when asked what the landowner will do to the wicked tenants who dealt violently with his messengers and killed the heir.

 

Their answer is no sooner out of their mouths when they perceive that Jesus is speaking about them. They become angry and would like nothing more than to lay hands on him but are afraid of the crowd who regards him as a prophet.

 

God regards Israel as his vineyard, as his own planting and has now sent His Son to Jerusalem to confront the ones God has left in charge with His demand that they repent and turn from their refusing to follow Him and become at last what God has called Israel to be, the light of God’s world.

 

Unfortunately, it is a story of how Israel is going to refuse God’s demand. It is a story that shows the hard-heartedness or sinfulness of the people. It is a story that reveals that God’s Son will receive the same treatment as the prophets who preceded him. To the degree that the prophets are heard, they are rejected.

 

Jesus’ story, however, has a different ending. The rejected one becomes the chief cornerstone of the new foundation. In the first lesson, the prophet Isaiah makes it perfectly clear what God wanted, justice. In addition, he makes it clear what God received, violence. In the gospel lesson, not much has changed. Injustice and violence mark the response of the tenants.

 

When we stop and think about it, not much has changed in our own culture today. Injustice and violence seem to be our characteristic response in contrast to God’s overtures of care and love. Both Matthew and Isaiah are teaching us about hardness of heart and ingratitude to God. Both have to do with the choices we make in response to God.

 

God has made us in His image but some choose to present themselves in this world as anything but by the choices they make and by the things, they do and say. That’s why we have injustice and violence today. Evil exists. Not because God created it but because with the God-given gift of choice, some choose to rebel against God and to go their own way without any compassion or concern for others.

 

Las Vegas is an example of one man’s choosing to conduct evil. The secular press, the irreligious, the liberal minded can all claim that he acted out of this or that reason, but the bottom line is he chose to kill, wound and maim and in the end, he chose to kill himself.

 

No one made him do it. He made the choice. How sad. How unfortunate. How unnecessary. One man’s evil caused scores of lives to be lost and countless lives to be scarred forever, and for what.

 

Jesus confronts the leaders of God’s chosen people in his telling of these two parables as a means of waking them up, shaking them out of their lethargy, and re-orienting them to their divine calling. However, they chose to reject his demand that they become what God created them to be. In addition, they chose to reject Him whom God has sent and will eventually hand Him over to be crucified.

 

It is easy for us to stand back after hearing the parable and comment why God’s chosen would do that. Likewise, it is easy for us to listen to the reports coming out of Las Vegas and ask why anyone would choose to do something like that. None of us likes to think that Jesus is telling the parable against us, we are not like that. Yet the truth is we have all been guilty of acting without justice.

 

We are all capable of becoming violent, of living a life void of compassion, of focusing entirely on self based on the choices we make. Compassion keeps us human. To choose to be compassionate is dangerous, because it means we choose to live our lives in response to God’s overtures of care and love, instead of acting out of our own human will and emotions.

 

It is dangerous because to live with compassion runs crosscurrent with today’s society where it seems to be every man for himself. God, the compassionate one, longs for us to see things as God sees them. The religious leaders of Jesus’ day lacked compassion and Jesus called them on it.

 

They became defensive and their anger moved them to seek a violent way in which they could rid themselves of Him. Lack of compassion allows us to slip into evil; to contemplate and commit such violent acts as Jesus describes in the parable, and which befell Him on the outskirts of Jerusalem, and most recently occurred in Las Vegas.

 

However, the world does not have to be like that. In God’s eyes, we are his vineyard. We are His planting in the world. Like Israel, God expects from us a certain fruit: to do justice, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with our God (Micah 6.8), in other words to live a righteous life.

 

Righteousness is God’s gift based on our faith in Christ. It is a gift given in response to our choosing to live our lives in accordance with God’s will and in response to His Divine Love manifested most perfectly in His Son, Jesus.

 

To live a righteous life is to shun evil, injustice and violence and forgetting all  which may have been part of our former lives “strain forward to what lies ahead; to press on,” as St. Paul says, “toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus,” -  to share in His glory. AMEN+

 

 

 

 

Father Riley's sermon from October 1, 2017

17 PENTECOST - PROPER XXI - A - 17            MATTHEW 21.23-32

 

 In today’s gospel reading Jesus has re-entered the Temple a day after his having cleansed it by turning over the tables of the moneychangers and driving out the merchants. Now he appears to be calmly teaching when the chief priests and the elders of the people approach him and raise the question of by what authority he is acting the way he is.

 

“By what authority are you doing these things,” they ask, “and who gave you this authority?” What they really wanted to ask was “who do you think you are coming into the Temple and usurping our authority?” Only God or his Messiah could do that. Jesus does not answer them directly but rather he in turn asks them a question concerning John Baptist.

 

“Did the baptism of John come from heaven, or was it from human origin?” Both the elder’s question and Christ’ question require the same answer. If they were honest, it would lead them to confess that Jesus has come from heaven, as was John’s baptism. However, they waffle and respond that they do not know the answer to his question.

 

Jesus’ question, you see, would require them to take a stand on the role of John. They waffled because they were afraid to admit that perhaps they had been wrong about John. Maybe he was a prophet sent from God.

 

On the other hand, they were afraid to say John’s baptism was not God-sent for that would cause the people to rise against them. John had a good many followers and was quite popular with the man on the street.

 

Thus, Jesus’ question leaves them in a dilemma regarding the source of his authority. The religious leader’s ploy to judge Jesus ends up being one in which they are judged by their answer to his second question contained in the parable of the two sons.

 

Out of their own mouths, they condemn themselves when they answer correctly. Their own self-righteousness has blinded them to the continuity between John’s ministry and Jesus’.

 

God began a new thing with the coming of John and brought it to completion through Jesus. John had called them to repent; he promised the coming of the kingdom and the One who would baptize with the Spirit.

 

Now He had come and was standing in their very midst but they refused to acknowledge him as they had John. When they waffled and said, “We don’t know,” Jesus told the parable of the two sons. In the parable, Jesus is contrasting the chief priests and elders with the multitude of sinners who came to John to be baptized.

 

The religious leaders had every opportunity to know the will of God. They loudly professed that they did know it and said that they were forwarding their knowledge of it in preparing the people for the coming of the kingdom of God. Yet, they rejected God’s prophet (John) by refusing to cooperate with him as they would eventually reject God’s Son and crucify him.

 

But the sinners, who were open rebels against the laws of God, came and heard John, repented of their sins and were baptized. Even when the chief priests and elders had seen the positive effect of John’s teaching, they still refused to repent and believe.

 

Jesus’ response goes to the heart of the gospel message. What God calls for is repentance on the part of those who are in need of His grace and are willing to acknowledge their need. As God tells his people in the first lesson through the mouth of his prophet Ezekiel, “Repent and turn from all your transgressions… get a new heart and a new spirit…For I have no pleasure in the death of anyone,” says the Lord God. “Turn, then, and live.”

 

The proud, the self-righteous, the holier than thou are blinded and ignorant to the fact that they need to repent, and thus remain in their sin condemning themselves. It goes without saying that each of us is responsible for our own actions.

 

Blaming others for what they have done or failed to do is no excuse for personal responsibility. As St. Paul reminded us just a few weeks ago, we will all stand before the judgment seat of Christ and will have to give an account of ourselves.

There is a cure, however, for hardness of heart and that is the light of grace that opens our eyes to see that we are not perfect either in our relationship with God or with our neighbor. We are not always right.

There are things done and left undone in our lives that need to be remedied. There are certain aspects of our lifestyles that need to be changed along with certain of our attitudes.

Change is possible. We can repent and live! We can get a new heart and a new spirit. Jesus Christ is the source. As Christians, we need be doing more than just saying that we know what God’s will is, we need to be doing it.

We need to put our faith into practice outside of one hour of Sunday morning worship. We need to take to heart the words of the dismissal: “Go in peace to Love and Serve the Lord.” We need to be doing more than just keeping up appearances.

We need, as St. Paul says, to imitate him, “who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself…being born in human likeness, humbling himself and becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross.”

The gospel challenge for us today, in light of Jesus’ teaching, is to make sure we are responding to Christ, allowing him to confront us at any point in our lives where we have been like the second son and said “yes” to God while in fact going off in the other direction.

Rather, we need to be like the first son, who turned from doing his own will to doing the will of the father. It is one thing to know the will of God and quite another thing to do it. To do it requires that we empty ourselves of self in order that we might be filled with the grace of God.

Then, as the collect says, “run to obtain His promises that we may become partakers of His heavenly treasure; through Him whom God has highly exalted and given the name that is above every name, even His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. AMEN+

Father Riley's sermon for September 17, 2017

15 PENTECOST -  PROPER XIX - A - 17         MATTHEW 18.21-35

 

 Today’s gospel reading continues where last week’s gospel lesson left off. You recall Jesus had just given his disciples a lesson on how to deal with forgiveness and reconciliation in the church. When he had finished speaking Peter asks and answers his own question looking for Jesus to confirm his response. “Lord, if my brother sins against me, how often should I forgive him? As many as seven times”?

 

Peter’s question presupposes the reality of his rights and the limitations of his duties. Among the Jews, the number of times one should exercise forgiveness varied. Three times being the fixed number, in other statements seven. However, that was according to the Old Covenant. In the pre-Israelite period vengeance toward one who had done wrong knew no limits.

 

We see from studying the gospels that the duty of forgiveness occupied a large place in the teaching of Jesus. The spirit of revenge had cast a dark shadow upon the life of his own race and upon society in general. God’s people were awaiting a Messiah that would wreak havoc on Israel’s enemies and restore Israel to nation status.

 

Unlimited forgiveness, however, was to be the dominant spirit of the New Society Jesus was ushering in, a hard lesson to learn then, as well as now. Jesus uses a parable to illustrate his point.

 

Christ said that the Kingdom of God is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. He then told the parable of the forgiving king and the unforgiving servant. The parable tells us more about the nature of God than about the nature of the kingdom.

 

It seems obvious from the parable that receiving forgiveness and forgiving are related. Because God forgives us, we are in turn are required (obligated) to grant the gift of forgiveness to others. How can we learn to forgive? Can we learn to forgive ourselves and is forgiving ourselves related to our being able to forgive others?

 

Jesus says that true forgiveness comes from the heart. It cannot be merely lip service.

 

When I was growing up, I had a younger brother. He was exactly five years younger than I was. By the time I was ten or so, he being five, he wanted to tag along with my friends and me wherever we went and be involved in whatever we were doing. However, we did not want him, told him so, and would send him home.

 

Of course, he returned home crying and telling our mother how awful we had been to him and that we did not want him to play with us. And of course when I returned home I was confronted by my mother who told me I was to apologize to my little brother and tell him I was sorry and I did so.

 

Looking back on it now, I must confess, I am not certain it came from the heart but more out of fear of not saying so. As we grow older in life, we discover that we have all been stepped on at some point and felt abused, neglected, rejected and taken for granted and if we are honest with ourselves, we know that we have treated others in the same way.

 

Many times, we have apologized for our behavior and perhaps have been on the receiving end of another’s apology. But were we really being forgiven and were we really offering true forgiveness? Did it come from the heart or were we merely giving lip service in order to try to smooth over an awkward situation with the aim of maintaining a friendship or relationship.

 

“What if Joseph still bears a grudge against us…” Joseph’s brothers asked in the first lesson. We can always tell when we have been truly forgiven, that is, when once we have expressed our sorrow at having offended another, they accept it and it is never brought up again. It is as if it had never happened, or never been said and the relationship goes on as if it never did.

 

Likewise, we can know when the opposite is true, that is, when the other person never let us forget it. The key thing is not that we should therefore swallow all resentment and “forgive and forget” as though nothing had happened. The key thing is that one should never give up making forgiveness and reconciliation one’s goal.

 

If confrontation has to happen, as it often does, it must always be with forgiveness in mind, never revenge. The parable, then, needs little explanation. The lesson to be drawn is that the disciple who does not forgive not only causes grief to the community, but also incurs the wrath of God.

 

There is not one of us who does not stand in the same relation to God as the unmerciful servant to the king in the parable. We have all been the recipient of God’s unlimited forgiveness. Moreover, we have all been guilty of the same sin of with holding forgiveness.

 

Ill will and a revengeful, grudging spirit involve others in the consequence of our own sins. And when we with hold forgiveness we impose on God’s good nature without regard to the consequences. As St. Paul aptly reminds us, each of us will stand before the judgment seat of God and will be held accountable for things done and left undone.

 

Every time we accuse someone else, we are accusing ourselves. Every time we forgive someone else, we are playing forward God’s having forgiven us. Our obligation to forgive others is a practical rather than emotional obligation, and, if we do not perform it, we must expect to find those blessings forfeited. God’s forgiveness is probationary and may be recalled at any time.

 

Mercy is enthroned in the heart of God. Thus, it should be in ours. To forgive is to be God-like. Our hearts must be open to forgiveness, never closed. If it is open, able and willing to forgive others it will be open to receive God’s love and forgiveness.

 

It is only when our true relation to God is grasped that we come to think and act in a God-like way. Jesus established the New Covenant and the way of life, which will mark out the New Covenant, is forgiveness. The cross is proof not only of God’s love for each of us but the sign that the blood of Christ has reconciled us to God.

 

Here, Jesus makes it clear that if we want to continue to receive God’s forgiveness we have to be prepared to give it. It is a hard lesson to learn, but even harder to put into practice. Peter’s question and Jesus’ answer says it all.

 

If we are still counting how many times we have forgiven someone, we are not really forgiving him or her at all, but simply postponing revenge. What Jesus is saying with his 70x7 answer is, don’t think about counting; just do it. AMEN+

 

 

 

 

Shepherd Center needs and Morning Prayer

The Shepherd Center has need of household items like pots, pans, utensils, sheets, pillow cases; etc. Please help out the Shepherd Center.  Also, Jane Barnett has been conducting Morning Prayer every Wednesday at the Shepherd Center for over a year or two or three.  The service is, of course, open to everyone.  Please join us each Wednesday at the Shepherd Center at 10am for Morning Prayer.  The service usually closes with a special version of "Amazing Grace" sung by Eddie Sanders--you will love it!  At this Wednesday's service we were asked to pray for Mattie Davis--please keep Mattie in your prayers.

Father Riley's sermon from September 10, 2017

14 PENTECOST - PROPER XVIII - A - 17   MATTHEW 18. 15-20

 

 

As I said in last week’s homily, it has taken a natural disaster to divert our nation’s attention away from demonstrations of hate to ones of love. Some might say that God has intervened by focusing our attention away from confrontation to one of interceding on behalf of those in need.

 

For none of us likes confrontation, not really. It is always a difficult thing. Moreover, few of us do it well. As human beings, we have become creative in ways to avoid it, unlike those we have seen on the nightly news in weeks past who seem to enjoy beating up on each other.

 

Most of us can keep our feelings pent up inside of us. However, there are some who can do it for so long then explode. Sometimes we tell everyone we know about a problem we are having with another person except the one we think is the problem. It is a rare person who can open a tinder subject, discuss it reasonably, and the leave it alone.

 

Let’s face it most of us fight dirty. We hit below the belt by bringing up things from the past that have nothing to do with the present issue. The natural response of the one on the receiving end is to become defensive.

 

Reconciliation goes out of the window. Both sides dig in. What began as an attempt to address an issue escalates into an argument. We have seen it all too often and been a part of it ourselves in our relationships with others, whether family or friend.

 

If it goes too far, relationships are broken and friendships end without either party willing to reach out to the other in an attempt to make amends. Our pride keeps us from doing this. Reconciliation is a huge issue today. We clearly see the results of not doing it. The media will not let us forget.

 

Campaigns of terror abound, wars and rumors of war continue to grow, and divisions of race and culture in our own country manifest themselves in a divisive manner on a daily basis. We live in a divided country, and yes, even the Church is divided much, I am sure, to the sorrow of Him who died for it.

 

The prophet Ezekiel, in today’s first lesson realized the sins of his own nation. “Our transgressions and our sins weigh upon us, as we waste away because of them; how then can we live?” God gave him the answer: turn from your evil ways and live. As St. Paul does in his letter to the Romans, “owe no one anything, except to love one another; for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law.”

 

Sadly, many of us as Christians take a head in the sand approach and pretend there is no problem. We can refuse to face the facts, swallow our anger, or resentment, paste over the cracks and carry on as if everything is normal. On the other hand, we simply ignore and avoid the other person or the other group or issue and pretend it does not exist.

 

As Christians, we have come to convince ourselves that this is what forgiveness is all about. It means pretending that everything is all right, that the other person has not done anything wrong. But that is not it at all. Forgiveness does not mean saying it did not really happen, she did not really say that, or it did not really matter.

 

In either of those cases, you do not need forgiveness; you just need to clear up a misunderstanding. Forgiveness comes into play when it did happen, when he/she did say that, and it did matter, and you are going to deal with it. Jesus gives us a sequence in today’s gospel on how to put forgiveness and reconciliation into play, in other words, how to deal with it.

 

First, keep it between you and the one who has offended you. If you feel you have been offended then you be the one to initiate the action, but be prepared for the offender to offer a counter-accusation in which there may be some truth we need to hear. Above all, avoid becoming defensive.

 

If that does not resolve the issue, then take a witness or two who will serve as a realty check on your judgment. If you are right then they will confirm it.

 

If that does not turn the other person and move them to reconcile, then Jesus says we are to take it to the church.

 

If that fails the result is excommunication; a disassociation and separation - a permanently broken relationship.

 

Yes Jesus was giving his disciples a means of providing forgiveness and reconciliation for members of the church, ending with a disciplinary action that would be needed in the not too distant future if all else failed. However, the same sequence works for us as individuals in our relationship with other human beings.

 

Reconciliation is a hard challenge that confronts our world today, especially when one nation faces off against another and refuses to back down. The challenge exists in our own nation where our differences are being magnified by race and fanned by hatred and ignorance. It remains a hard challenge within our own families where politics, religion, and life-styles create a breach that sometimes result in permanent separation.

 

Hate and anger too often override love and forgiveness and we waste away as a people and a nation because of them. Thus, the prophet Ezekiel raised the question: “how then can we to live?” God in Christ gives us the answer: “Love one another as I have loved you.”

 

No one said it was going to be easy, perhaps that is why it is a rare thing to witness. However, Jesus’ warning about “binding and loosing” does not only apply to the church in her authority to pronounce God’s absolution, but to each of us in our relationships with one another when it comes to forgiveness.

 

If we fail to forgive we bind that person in their sin, and we bind ourselves to their sin, as God revealed to Ezekiel. However, if we forgive them, and become reconciled to them, then, we give them life, and we gain life; a life that is on based on love - the “new” life Christ gives to all through the merits of His life, death, and resurrection.

 

“Love does no wrong to a neighbor;” Paul writes, therefore “owe no one anything, except to love one another; for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law.” AMEN+

 

 

Father Riley's sermon for September 3, 2017

13 PENTECOST - PROPER XVII - A - 17  MATTHEW 16.21-28

 

What a difference a week makes in the life of the world we live in today. It took a hurricane to divert the nations’ attention away from demonstrations of hatred, anger and mistrust to one of reaching out with a helping hand to all those impacted by the storm regardless of who they are. Makes one stop and ponder what is really important in life doesn’t it?

 

In comparison last week’s gospel had Peter being rewarded by Jesus for having made his confession, although divinely inspired, of Christ as the king Israel had been waiting for, the long awaited Messiah, the Son of the living God. Jesus called Peter’s confession the “rock” on which he would build his church.

 

Here, just a few verses later the “rock” has turned into a stumbling stone. Jesus rebukes Peter for his human response to Christ’ announced destiny.

Where Peter had been the spokesperson for the others in confessing Jesus as the Messiah, he now becomes the unwilling spokesperson for Satan, as the devil did not want Christ to fulfill his mission and save mankind through his suffering and death.

 

Peter thought that he had Jesus figured out and what Christ’s next move would be, or should be. Going to the Holy City was going in the right direction. They should march on Jerusalem, pick up supporters along the way, choose the moment, take over the Temple, cast out the rulers and enthrone Jesus. That’s how it should be done. That’s how the Son of Man would be exalted in his kingdom.

 

That is not what Jesus is saying. Peter has his mind set on worldly power. That is not the way God will bring salvation to all mankind. God’s victory will come through suffering and death.

 

I “must go to Jerusalem,” Jesus said, “and undergo suffering…“ He will confront the rulers and authorities, the chief priests and legal experts in Jerusalem, but they, not he, will appear to win the battle. He will be killed. And on the third day, God will raise him from the dead.

 

Peter and the disciples failed to discern the connection between his death and the coming of the kingdom. They cannot figure out for the moment what Jesus means by this. This is but Christ’ first prediction of the Passion, others would follow. Obviously, it has diverted the disciple’s thinking. Jesus makes it clear what God’s plan is - without his suffering there is no redemption.

 

Moreover, this is not the first time Jesus has talked to his disciples about the cost of discipleship. They had already seen him rejected in his own village. Yet they see no connection between that and what will become of him in Jerusalem nor what will eventually happen to all of them, save one.

 

His mighty works and his teaching about God and his kingdom had kept alive their hopes of worldly power. Human reasoning based on worldly things can blind us so that we are unable to see as God sees. Like Peter, we sometimes think we have God all figured out and what it is God is up to, or should be up to, especially in regards to meeting our needs. Like Peter, we find ourselves in the wrong.

 

The recent confession of Peter and Jesus’ approval must have greatly strengthened those worldly hopes. It was expected that Messiah would reign forever, so the idea that Christ would die was perplexing to Peter and remained scandalous to the Jews even after the resurrection.

 

Jesus sets the record straight. The one who until now had been the teacher and the wonder-worker endeavors from henceforth to have them see him as Redeemer - the one who must suffer in order to save.

 

Having set the record straight, Christ now issues the call to any and all that would follow him. “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.” The cross is a symbol of suffering and self-denial.

 

We may not be called to physically suffer for our faith as Christians, at least not yet. Nevertheless, we are called to follow him and imitate him in denying our self for the sake of the love of God and the gospel. To imitate Christ and deny self is the way in which we witness to a fallen world that our allegiance belongs to him.

 

Our love of God has to be genuine as St. Paul says, and needs to be demonstrated in our relationships with other people. St. Paul gives us a blueprint of how this is to be done in today’s Epistle - by loving one another with mutual affection…blessing those who persecute us, and living in harmony with one another all of which depends upon our denying our self and our self interests.

 

When we think in human terms, as Peter did, we react in human ways rather then respond as Christ would. St. Paul warns against that too. “…do not repay anyone evil for evil… do not overcome evil by evil, but overcome evil with good.“ For too often, we choose to follow our own instincts based on worldly power. When we do we demonstrate the very opposite of the imitation of Christ.

 

To deny oneself is much more than to deny particular pleasures. It is, as Thomas Merton wrote, “to cease to become what I always wanted to be and become what God wants me to be.” Or, as St. Paul says in another place, “to die to self and live to Christ.” That is what it means to deny our self. That is what it means to take up our cross.

 

This is what Peter and the others would one day learn to do by surrendering their self-allegiance and giving all their allegiance to Christ. Self-denial is self-renunciation, not the seeking of the cross, but an acceptance of it in whatever form it may take.

 

The paradox of Jesus’ own life must be the paradox of the life of his followers. Self-discovery through self-surrender. This was the law he laid upon them because he had himself learned its everlasting validity. It is not impossible to live life selfishly, but what an impossible life it is.

 

We can’t profit by holding onto temporal things. If we do, the loss is in the eternal. To give up life is only to lose a lower and find a higher. There are no half measures in following Jesus. There are no short cuts to the kingdom.  Jesus did not attain glory without the cross and neither can we.

 

In every generation there are, it seems, a few people who are prepared to take Jesus seriously at his word, and who willingly take up their cross and follow him. What would today’s world look like if we all did? AMEN+