Sermon for Aug. 31, 2008
Sermon
St. Luke Lutheran Church – Aug 31, 2008
16th Sunday after Pentecost – Lectionary 22 – Year A
Primary Text: Matthew 16:21-28
The gospel text for today tells us that we are entering a period of change within the story of Jesus of Nazareth. Following Peter’s declaration that Jesus is the Messiah in our reading from last week we hear that Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem, suffer, die and be raised on the third day. We then hear Peter’s rebuke of Jesus. Telling him that he must not undergo this suffering and death. “God forbid it, Lord! This must never happen to you.”
And in a moment of passion Jesus declares “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.”
We often think that Peter must have forgotten what he just said. In last week’s reading we hear him declare that Jesus was the Messiah, the son of the living God. To our understanding, knowing the complete story, Jesus is completely right in rebuking Peter. To our ears Peter must have lost it to think that Jesus should not say that he must suffer and die, of course Jesus needs to suffer and die, if he did not die he cannot rise on the third day. Peter’s answer however is not merely based on his not knowing the complete story. He is hearing this as a friend of Jesus and also from his own context as a Jew. Anyone who hears a friend talk this way would say the same thing. To do otherwise would seem to be counter to that friendship.
Moreover, Peter is in fact doing exactly what a knowledgeable Jew of that time would say. To understand Peter’s outburst we need to know what a Messiah is in early Jewish thought. Our own religious understanding has taken Messiah to mean a redeemer or deliverer, and we connect it directly to Jesus Christ, Christ being the English transliteration of the Greek word for Messiah, christos. We think of messiah, and death and resurrection in the same thought. But in the original Jewish meaning, a messiah was a great leader coming to lead Israel back to glory. Along the lines of a mighty ruler like David returning, or a great prophet like Moses or Elijah. This helps us to put it back into perspective. If someone would come up to us and say that they were going to be the next great leader, but first they need to get into a lot of trouble, and then get killed, I know I would probably react how Peter reacted. In order to be the Messiah and lead the people of Israel, Jesus cannot die, how can he lead if dead?
Jesus declares to Peter that by doing this he is setting his mind on human things not divine things. Peter is concerned about his own interpretations of how a messiah should act, not how the Son of the living God understands a messiah to act. Peter does not understand that it is through Christ’s death and resurrection that he and us will be redeemed and delivered.
In our own ways we too are like Peter, we declare that Christ is the Messiah, but then do not understand how he works in our life. We look to our human ways to accomplish things and ignore how God is calling us to act. In his book, Mere Christianity, C. S. Lewis talks about the natural law, that he later states comes from God, saying, “These, then, are the two points that I wanted to make. First, that human beings, all over the earth, have this curious idea that they ought to behave in a certain way, and cannot really get rid of it. Secondly, that they do not in fact behave in that way. They know the Law of Nature; they break it. These two facts are the foundation of all clear thinking about ourselves and the universe that we live in.”
Human thought tells us it is much easier to think only of ourselves. If we keep all of our money ourselves we would be much better off. If we use all of our time on our own projects and desires and so would be better off. However, God asks us to give to those in need, to volunteer our service where it is needed. We are called to become as Martin Luther said, little Christs to our neighbor, giving of ourselves. But all of this is in light of Christ giving all for us. Jesus tells us that we must deny ourselves, pick up our cross and follow him. The life of the Christian is in fact contradictory to what human thought tells us. Focusing on human thought makes us say take, take, take, but Christ says give, give, give. For it is not up to what we have or even what we have done, it is through Christ’s giving of himself in complete love that we are redeemed.
We see Christ say that in order to save our lives, we must lose it, and those who lose their lives for his sake will find it. It is through our service and the giving of our time, possessions and life that we begin to see how Christ gave of himself to save and redeem us. Through our service, we can begin to understand truly the divine thought of how a messiah should act.
Peter also does not understand how it is that Christ can be raised on the third day. He forgets the divine nature of Christ, seeing only his own interpretation of the human messiah, not the Messiah, Son of the living God. And so to his human thought, rising on the third day is an impossibility. There is one great difference in our understanding and Peter’s understanding. Peter views what Christ says through his lens as a Jew living in the 1st Century. We often do the same thing during Lent, we think that we ought to be somber and miserable because Jesus is moving towards his death and we look to the cross and see only death, we do not see the resurrection that follows. So, while it is important to view Lent as a period of reflection we must also remember that unlike Peter, we know the end of the story. We know that Christ’s statement of rising on the third day is not one of impossibility, for nothing is impossible in divine terms.
St. Luke Lutheran Church – Aug 31, 2008
16th Sunday after Pentecost – Lectionary 22 – Year A
Primary Text: Matthew 16:21-28
The gospel text for today tells us that we are entering a period of change within the story of Jesus of Nazareth. Following Peter’s declaration that Jesus is the Messiah in our reading from last week we hear that Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem, suffer, die and be raised on the third day. We then hear Peter’s rebuke of Jesus. Telling him that he must not undergo this suffering and death. “God forbid it, Lord! This must never happen to you.”
And in a moment of passion Jesus declares “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.”
We often think that Peter must have forgotten what he just said. In last week’s reading we hear him declare that Jesus was the Messiah, the son of the living God. To our understanding, knowing the complete story, Jesus is completely right in rebuking Peter. To our ears Peter must have lost it to think that Jesus should not say that he must suffer and die, of course Jesus needs to suffer and die, if he did not die he cannot rise on the third day. Peter’s answer however is not merely based on his not knowing the complete story. He is hearing this as a friend of Jesus and also from his own context as a Jew. Anyone who hears a friend talk this way would say the same thing. To do otherwise would seem to be counter to that friendship.
Moreover, Peter is in fact doing exactly what a knowledgeable Jew of that time would say. To understand Peter’s outburst we need to know what a Messiah is in early Jewish thought. Our own religious understanding has taken Messiah to mean a redeemer or deliverer, and we connect it directly to Jesus Christ, Christ being the English transliteration of the Greek word for Messiah, christos. We think of messiah, and death and resurrection in the same thought. But in the original Jewish meaning, a messiah was a great leader coming to lead Israel back to glory. Along the lines of a mighty ruler like David returning, or a great prophet like Moses or Elijah. This helps us to put it back into perspective. If someone would come up to us and say that they were going to be the next great leader, but first they need to get into a lot of trouble, and then get killed, I know I would probably react how Peter reacted. In order to be the Messiah and lead the people of Israel, Jesus cannot die, how can he lead if dead?
Jesus declares to Peter that by doing this he is setting his mind on human things not divine things. Peter is concerned about his own interpretations of how a messiah should act, not how the Son of the living God understands a messiah to act. Peter does not understand that it is through Christ’s death and resurrection that he and us will be redeemed and delivered.
In our own ways we too are like Peter, we declare that Christ is the Messiah, but then do not understand how he works in our life. We look to our human ways to accomplish things and ignore how God is calling us to act. In his book, Mere Christianity, C. S. Lewis talks about the natural law, that he later states comes from God, saying, “These, then, are the two points that I wanted to make. First, that human beings, all over the earth, have this curious idea that they ought to behave in a certain way, and cannot really get rid of it. Secondly, that they do not in fact behave in that way. They know the Law of Nature; they break it. These two facts are the foundation of all clear thinking about ourselves and the universe that we live in.”
Human thought tells us it is much easier to think only of ourselves. If we keep all of our money ourselves we would be much better off. If we use all of our time on our own projects and desires and so would be better off. However, God asks us to give to those in need, to volunteer our service where it is needed. We are called to become as Martin Luther said, little Christs to our neighbor, giving of ourselves. But all of this is in light of Christ giving all for us. Jesus tells us that we must deny ourselves, pick up our cross and follow him. The life of the Christian is in fact contradictory to what human thought tells us. Focusing on human thought makes us say take, take, take, but Christ says give, give, give. For it is not up to what we have or even what we have done, it is through Christ’s giving of himself in complete love that we are redeemed.
We see Christ say that in order to save our lives, we must lose it, and those who lose their lives for his sake will find it. It is through our service and the giving of our time, possessions and life that we begin to see how Christ gave of himself to save and redeem us. Through our service, we can begin to understand truly the divine thought of how a messiah should act.
Peter also does not understand how it is that Christ can be raised on the third day. He forgets the divine nature of Christ, seeing only his own interpretation of the human messiah, not the Messiah, Son of the living God. And so to his human thought, rising on the third day is an impossibility. There is one great difference in our understanding and Peter’s understanding. Peter views what Christ says through his lens as a Jew living in the 1st Century. We often do the same thing during Lent, we think that we ought to be somber and miserable because Jesus is moving towards his death and we look to the cross and see only death, we do not see the resurrection that follows. So, while it is important to view Lent as a period of reflection we must also remember that unlike Peter, we know the end of the story. We know that Christ’s statement of rising on the third day is not one of impossibility, for nothing is impossible in divine terms.
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