August 24, 2008
The Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost (Year A)
Exodus 1:8-2:10 ; Psalm 124; Romans 12:1-8; Matthew 16:13-20
Today we continue our course through Paul’s letter to the Romans, text that can be read as an encompassing view of Christian faith. But first, in all honesty, I have to acknowledge that many students of the Bible have a hard time with Paul. His writing sometimes sounds a bit self righteous, judgmental and frankly, bigoted. But (and here’s my little secret) I love Paul, at least in part because he was so flawed, and so passionate… and I find his writings can be both insightful and quite poetic… some of his phrases touching my heart like nothing else I have ever read. I can relate to him, and his passion speaking through his flaws helps me to be more open to the gifts of some people who are otherwise very different than me… I’m pretty sure though, if he were alive and among us today, many of us might find him pretty tough to be around.
Many theologians studying the book of Romans mark our reading this morning as a change of focus for Paul. For the first 11 chapters he has outlined the theology of the emerging church; now, they say, he focuses on the ethics of Christian living. One author I read in preparing to preach this morning felt that Paul would be outraged by that description… for to him they are inseparably interconnected, “theology is worthless unless it makes a difference in how we live.” And part of that way of living is to be open, to have a willingness to open to a change in our perception of things, as God works in us to the good of his promise.
Paul starts this chapter imploring us to give our whole selves as a living sacrifice to God, not just in our daily practices of life, in how we worship or the things that we do… He tells us that God wants our whole selves… he wants nothing less than to bring about a transformation in each of us… to break open our hearts and minds to His ongoing revelation… to grow in faith and insight, so we may support and advance the community of believers that is the church. Paul understood that we are not created in isolation, and that as much as we might strive for individuality and independence, we are simply not designed to thrive, or even survive alone. We are meant to live in community; we are designed to need one another, each of us, every single one of us, blessed with passions and gifts, essential to the whole. And he calls us to an attitude of humility and thankfulness rather than pride…the knowledge that though we each have unique gifts to contribute, they are just that, gifts, and a part of the whole. He uses the metaphor of the body, a living organism, interdependent to be whole… the spirit of Ubuntu…”I am because you are”. And he knows that this isn’t easy...it wasn’t in his time, at the very beginning of the Christian church, and it isn’t now. Throughout many of his letters, he implores his listeners to stay together. And make no mistake that he was “preaching to the choir” as we say in our current vernacular… this book was a letter to the church in
And onto our gospel reading… Jesus takes his disciples aside as he begins his revelation of what is to come. He starts innocently enough, drawing them into the conversation… “Who do they say that I am?” Nothing threatening about that question… they have been with him through teaching and healing, travelling around the area, witnesses to stories and miracles…surely they have an idea of what people are saying. They do, and the answers are all over the map… John the Baptist, Elijah, one of the prophets maybe? …And then… another question… the question… “Who do you say that I am…?” A much tougher question indeed… How they answered came from their own context and belief system, developed from their individual and shared experiences… and the answer was important…because it not only asked them to reflect on what they believed, but also on who they are… deeply rooted in the Jewish tradition… if they were to truly believe that Jesus was the Son of God, the Messiah, as Peter replied in a moment of God-given clarity… then their world was going to change forever. If Jesus is the Messiah, a gift from God, the fulfillment of centuries of covenant and promise, if Jesus is indeed here to show us the very nature of God… then how we think and how we perceive the world changes. If we can be open, if we can admit to ourselves that we do not have all the answers, that no one does, but rather we, together in community, are part of the ongoing revelation of God…then God can break open our hearts, can reveal Himself in and through us. We can become, as one author put it, “carriers of the sacred” and we can go on, honoring the past while moving forward in faith, into the cross and into the light and get closer to the truth.
As you can imagine, I’ve been thinking a lot about conflict lately…It’s a hard place to find ourselves and an even harder place to be willing to stay… and I wonder if conflict isn’t a necessary part of growth in faith. Conflict is as old as history and I have to believe it happens for a reason, even in a community of faith such as ours. We are, all of us, good people, trying to live our lives faithfully and doing what we are called to do. And we are an amazingly wealthy parish, (and I’m not talking about money here) deeply grounded in faith and commitment, rich in gifts of all kind… every one of them essential to our life together in Christ … But we are also human, subject to an array of human experiences and emotions… sometimes we go along okay, but sometimes we feel unappreciated or threatened or wronged and we react out of fear or pain. And sometimes we simply get it wrong, sometimes we take the wrong path... Sometimes we just get caught up in our own stuff…
“Who do you say that I am…? I think it’s important to ask ourselves that question from time to time, as individuals and as a community of faith, because the answer defines who we are, what we long for and how we go forward together. And another question… “Is how we act, what we say, how we chose to be with one another, based in the love of God, his only son our Lord?
As I think about my faith journey over time, I find common themes emerge. “We all have a piece of the truth”… “If something is not about love, then it is not about God”…and yes, even “this Christian living is not for the faint hearted…” I have come to believe that in prayer, in reflection, in relating to others, these common themes help me to answer that question…“Who do you say that I am…? Our faith grows out of our context, our experiences and our relationships with God and his people. Mine will never look exactly like yours (and that’s a cause for celebration!) As Bishop Barbara Harris says, we are called to unity, not uniformity. And my life of faith, like yours, it will not always be easy. But if we are true to the process of growing in truth and in love, if we are truly willing to go to that place of courage and humility, to break open our hearts, to be still and to really listen and let Jesus reside there, He will come and take us, all of us, through whatever we face as individuals and as a community, deeper into the heart of God. God will break in to our lives, sometimes in small and seemingly insignificant ways, and there we will find our hope and our promise.
Amen.
The Rev. Maggie Geller
Church of the Good Shepherd