Loading...Sermon August 27, 2017
The Rev. Rebecca S. Myers, LSW
The Church of the Nativity and St. Stephen, Newport, PA
Twelfth Sunday After Pentecost, Track 1 Year A, Proper 16
//lectionarypage.net/YearA_RCL/Pentecost/AProp16_RCL.html
He said to them, ‘But who do you say that I am?’ Matthew 16:15
Many of you probably saw the wonderful movie, Schindler’s List, based on the true-life story of Oskar Schindler and the way he rescued many people who were Jewish during World War II. There are so many stories of people who resisted the evil happening at that time. One lesser-known person was Irena Sendler.
Irena Sendler, who died in 2008, at the age of 98, lived in Warsaw, Poland. She was a social worker. When she was 29, the Nazi regime occupied Warsaw and built a wall around the part of town where the people who were Jewish lived. Disease ran rampant. Irene Sendler told the soldiers guarding the gates that she was a nurse and thus could go into the area and provide treatment and relief.
Three years later, she realized that the Jewish people living in the walled area, known as the Warsaw Ghetto, were going to be killed by the Nazi regime. She began a process of trying to help people escape. After helping approximately 500 people get out, she joined forces with a resistance organization. She focused on saving children. They got children out of the ghetto in boxes, bags and suitcases and often took them to Catholic orphanages and gave them a new identity.
Irena wrote each child’s name and the names of their parents on small pieces of paper, which she placed in jars and buried in a friend’s garden. She hoped that after the war, the children could be reunited with their parents.
She was eventually captured by the Nazis and placed in prison, where she was tortured and nearly killed. She survived and after the war, dug up the jars and began trying to reunite the children with their parents. Unfortunately, most of the parents did not survive the holocaust. She is credited with saving at least 2,500 people, more than any other person did.
In our first reading today, from Exodus, we hear of women who also resisted the evil of their time. In our previous readings, we learn how Joseph, after having been sold into slavery in Egypt, became a high government official and was able to save his family during the time of starvation. Eventually, the Egyptians forgot about Joseph and enslaved the Israelites who had settled there.
The Israelites were becoming numerous, which worried Pharaoh. If there were an uprising, the Egyptians would be outnumbered. So Pharaoh devised a plan to curb the numbers of the Israelites. He ordered that all of the male children born to the Hebrews, should be killed by the midwives.
Two midwives, who may have been over the others or leaders of the midwives, disobey Pharaoh. They allow the boys to live. They are brought in front of this powerful man and tell a lie, saying the Hebrew women do not call them until after the baby is born. Then Pharaoh decrees that the boy babies should be drowned.
But the mother of Moses, who is believed to have been named Jochebed, hides Moses for about three months. When she realizes she can no longer hide him, she makes the basket out of reeds and puts him in the basket on the river. She tells Moses’ sister, Miriam, to watch to see what happens. Pharaoh’s daughter bathes in that part of the river and finds the baby Moses. Even though she knows he is a Hebrew baby and should be killed, she disobeys Pharaoh and decides to adopt the little boy. As was common practice, she hires a “wet nurse” to feed and care for Moses. With the quick thinking of Miriam, Jochebed is hired to be the wet nurse for her own son and cares for him until he is about 3 or 4 years old.
These women resisted the evil imposed upon them during their time, just like Irena Sendler resisted the evil in her time. They resist evil and stay reconciled to God, rather than the oppressive forces of the world.
In our Gospel reading today, Jesus is in many ways asking the same of his disciples. When I visited the Holy Land, we went to Caesarea Philippi. I believe I’ve talked about it before. It’s such a beautiful place. The roaring Banias Springs are nearby. The place was one of worship to the Roman Gods, containing niches and worship places for them. It’s in the midst of this vivid representation of Roman life, culture and values, that Jesus asks the disciples about who they think he is. He is asking them whether they will resist the pull of the world…or the evil of the world or the oppressive forces of the world…or whether they will follow him.
What Jesus is asking couldn’t have been easy, however, the disciples have come this far. They’ve heard the Sermon on the Mount as related in Chapters 5-7 of Matthew. They’ve heard him expand the commandments, so that it’s not only wrong to kill someone, but even being angry with someone or having a temper can be sinful. He has told them to “turn the other cheek” and to “love their enemies.” They are even supposed to pray for their enemies.
He has taught them about the proper way to give generously and how to pray humbly. He has warned them about hypocrisy. He teaches them not to worry about tomorrow. He tells them to be careful of judging others and to “do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”
He’s performed all kinds of miracles, which are awe-inspiring and a little scary at the same time. He also is incurring the wrath of the religious establishment of the time, which was dangerous.
In short, Jesus is overturning the rules that governed the disciples’ world at that time. He’s upending the foundation upon which they’ve built their lives. He’s telling them that the world as they thought it should be is oppressive. He asks them if they can truly resist what the world has taught them is good and right. He says what they’ve been taught is wrong and only leads to death. What their families who loved them and whom they loved, did not teach them correctly. What Jesus has taught them is the truth and the path of abundant life, and they must resist much of what the world calls them to.
And isn’t that our challenge – resisting the pull of the world? Aren’t we challenged by truly following Jesus? I know I am. Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about Jesus and the rich young man or lawyer, depending upon the Gospel you read. The one where Jesus tells the man to sell everything, give the money to the poor, and then come back and follow Jesus. I look at my home and think how a family of 4 or 5 probably once lived in it. It has 2 bedrooms after all. Yet, today, I alone live in it. And if people come to visit, after a couple of days, I’m glad to have the house back to myself. I imagine in parts of the world, my home is considered luxurious. And I think about what it might mean to sell it and everything in it.
Then, there’s the part about giving the money to the poor. I get all caught up in who might be deserving or how in the world will we ever end structural poverty or how what I’d get is so little and I do need a place to live.
In 12-step recovery programs, they talk about “going to any lengths” to get free of an addiction. I think about what lengths I’m willing to go to to follow Jesus. Where is the point at which I say, Jesus, what you ask is just too much. I can’t go to any lengths to follow you. I can do a lot, maybe even 75 or 80%, but I’m not sure I can do that 100%.
So I study and pray and question. I participate in acts of justice and resistance to the world. Tomorrow I will be marching in Washington, DC on the 54th anniversary of the 1963 March on Washington where The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. gave his famous “I Have a Dream” speech. I’ll be marching with other representatives of faith communities…Rabbis, ministers, Imams. I’ll be resisting the world that denies people their voting rights, economic opportunity, healthcare, and provides unequal treatment in the criminal justice system.
It’s a relatively small action and I feel led to participate because of what I’ve been taught about following Jesus Christ throughout my life. Alice Walker in her book, Possessing the Secret of Joy, seems to understand what Jesus was trying to help the disciples understand in that place of Caesarea Philippi. Jesus asked them to resist the world they knew, so that they could have lives of fulfillment, purpose and joy. Or as Walker concludes “Resistance is the secret of joy.”
Amen
