Last week and this week, without any effort on my part, were a tiny little sermon series and it was so awesome that I could be with the folks at St. Philip Lutheran in Raleigh for both weeks! This week we follow up on last weeks question of "Who are you?" by pondering... "How do you measure up?"
Like last week, the message was shared in two services and both are available for viewing. The earlier service with contemporary music (aka The Crossing) video is here. (Don't worry that the first slide says August 23... it is actually the August 30 video.)
The later service with organ and choir music is here.
The texts for the day are:
Holy Spirit come. Turn us to love in, through, and like you. Amen.
How do we measure up? That’s a good question, right?
Take Peter for example. Last week, in the verses right before today’s gospel lesson, Jesus was all over Peter with the praise. Peter became the ROCK – the foundation of the church! Impressive stuff.
Except that this week the ROCK – the foundation of the church – is accused of being Satan. By the same Jesus who called him the rock just a little earlier! I’m wondering if maybe that should be a warning for us about what happens when the needs and vagaries of the church become more important than the one in whom the church rests: Jesus.
That maybe the church can be so bad it is SATAN… but still be the church. Still be the one named by Jesus. Because it really is all about Jesus. And only Jesus.
Last week I asked WHO ARE YOU? It was all about how who we say Jesus is says a lot about who we are.
And sometimes (like, a whole BUNCH of the time) we get the details wrong, even when we are really clear on who we say Jesus is. Even when we know beyond a shadow of a doubt that Jesus is the Messiah. Even when we are ALL up into the church, and making sure services continue in the pandemic and we are being generous and doing good and caring for others and feeding our enemies.
Like Peter, we can still get it wrong. Because we just don’t know. Today, for example, I think Peter was being perfectly reasonable. He said Jesus! Yes! You are the Messiah!!
But Peter’s interpretation of Messiah didn’t quite hit the mark of who Jesus actually was. I mean, let’s be real. Jesus was talking about getting killed by the church officials who were all up into the politics of the day. The church that had sold its soul to the Romans. For safety, or some such.
Peter knew that Jesus was not about that life, but Peter thought, rather reasonably, that Jesus would put an end to that political stuff. Peter was part of the group that did not love the current government; he thought things should be different. In terms of today, we might say that Peter was a Democrat – a supporter of the party not in power - and he thought Jesus was a Democrat, too. And that’s when Jesus called him Satan.
This is a hard thing.
When the gospel presents me a hard thing, I go looking elsewhere in the lectionary. And today what I found was a lovely list of behaviors.
A really LONG list of things that I can perceive directly:
Love genuinely
Stick to what is good
Outdo one another in showing honor
Bless our persecutors (hmm… this is getting harder…)
Share in the joys AND sorrows of others
Associate with the lowly?
Live peaceably with all???
And there’s more! It really is a long, long list.
So, um, yeah. We could just do all that, right?
Like, definitely a checklist. I love a checklist. Maybe I’ll make a spreadsheet. So I can keep track of how things are going. How we are doing. You know, this would make a great checklist to know what’s going on with the soul of my (spouse, boss, child, …. Enemy…)
And there we are. Right into the trap. The trap that moves us from being the Rock of the church to Satan’s minion.
Because the question was who am *I*? Who do *I* say Jesus is? How do *I* live in such a way that others see Jesus?
But in the merest twinkling I have deflected away from myself – from the *I* - to judging others. I’ve taken my eyes off of Jesus to keep an eye on the scoundrels all around me.
Let’s have a little moment of silent honesty with ourselves right quick: did anybody else’s mind go to “ooooo yeah… so-and-so surely needs to hear that!”
Did you avail yourself of the opportunity to smack a little on your favorite classmate or co-worker or family member or political target?
I did. :(
And that, I think, might be what Jesus was calling out in Peter. Because Peter thought he knew more about Jesus’ path than Jesus did, just like we so often think we know so much about another person’s situation that we completely ignore our own.
And so Jesus started talking about some pretty strange things, like how he has to die and then come back and everybody will be repaid for what they have done.
That same idea shows up first in Deuteronomy, as God is giving instructions to the Israelites as they get ready to enter the Promised Land.
And again in Romans, today. And again in Hebrews. All in the same words: “Vengeance is mine, says the Lord. I will repay.”
And OH how we love to emphasize that REPAY! Like “wait until your God gets here, then you will get it!” Because we love some vengeance. But I think maybe that’s not the emphasis Jesus intended.
Jesus – the Messiah – is indeed coming back to repay everybody. It’s not up to us. It reminds me of an episode of All In The Family when Archie Bunker is very upset about Edith’s cousin being a lesbian. He said God didn’t like that and she should be punished. And Edith said “BUT YOU AIN’T GOD.” The devoutly Catholic Carroll O’Connor had put this verse right into that satirical tv show.
God will repay. Not us. Nowhere does God say that we have to police each other and make people behave the way we think God wants them to.
The message is clear… we are not to think we know how God will do things.
And as we see what Jesus did – like walking into that hornets nest that he knew would get him killed – we see over and over that God’s ways make absolutely NO human sense.
When Peter cuts off the ear of a soldier coming after Jesus (probably with his fishing knife) Jesus says “no, don’t do that, that’s not my way.”
And when Jesus does in fact die, without arguing or calling down legions or rallying his followers.
He just took the torture they handed him and never once sought vengeance. Because Jesus is the only human being who could ever actually live like it – who could leave the vengeance to God.
Do you know what God’s vengeance looked like? It looked like Jesus being Resurrected. It looked like Jesus loving his disciples – even that wacky Peter, who had acted an awful lot like Jesus’ enemy – after the Resurrection by feeding them fish and giving Peter a chance to declare his love three times, once for each time he had so bitterly denied Jesus just a few days before.
That’s what God’s vengeance looks like.
So when Paul says to give food and drink to our enemies when they are hungry and thirsty, that is God’s vengeance.
When we remove the power of racist policing forces and replace it with compassion for all people, that is God’s vengeance.
When we give up our own power and privilege so that others can live equitable lives, that is God’s vengeance.
But since it is God’s vengeance, we can’t even take credit! We cannot dip into pride about how great we are. Because all we are doing is a pale imitation of God’s actual vengeance.
On top of that, we cannot do it on our own. We just don’t have it in us. On our own we ARE NOT ENOUGH to leave vengeance to God, to consistently choose compassion, to let go of our fears and keep our eyes on Jesus.
Peter couldn’t do it when he got out of the boat to walk on water and what did Jesus do? Jesus reached out his hand and lifted him up.
But that only worked because Peter KNEW that Jesus was the Messiah, the Son of the Living God. Peter knew he could cry out and Jesus would be there. Because remember, who we say Jesus is tells us a lot about who we are.
In a few weeks Peter would go from denying Jesus, to confessing his love directly to Jesus, to boldly calling out those who had killed Jesus with compassion and truth and offer of redemption (NOT VENGEANCE). And 3000 souls were added to the church on that day.
When we can say, in truth and faith, that we know that Jesus is the Messiah, then we will look to Jesus in our suffering and brokenness and insufficiency and fear and we will rest in the Resurrection.
Like Peter we can say… Yes, Jesus, I believe you are the Messiah, the Son of the Living God and in your perfect, vengeance-free love I am redeemed.
And in that redemption we DO become enough.
Enough to live generously
To feed our hungry enemies
To outdo one another in showing honor
Enough to rejoice
To suffer patiently
To extend hospitality
We can live in harmony – even with the people that are criminalized.
We can associate with the lowly.
We can NOT CLAIM TO BE WISER THAN WE ARE.
Not on our own, not perfectly, but in Jesus. The Jesus who will reach out to lift us up out of the surf when we realize what mistakes we have made and cry out to be saved.
Because when we admit that Jesus is the Messiah we are redeemed from every error, rescued from the pain that our vengefulness brings into the world, transformed into people who look through the lens of love rather than the lens of fear.
We are transformed into someone who measures all the way up… in Jesus.
Amen.
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