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Sermon August 30, 2020
The Rev. Rebecca S. Myers,
The Church of the Nativity and St. Stephen’s
Thirteenth Sunday After Pentecost, Proper 17, Year A, Track 2
http://lectionarypage.net/YearA_RCL/Pentecost/AProp17_RCL.html
Audio Link: /documents/August_30__2020_Service_Audio_Only
Video Link: https://youtu.be/DNoGVWmvXmk
Then Jesus told his disciples, ‘If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it. Matthew 16:24-25
Please be seated.
In the crypt of The National Cathedral, is a small chapel, known as Resurrection Chapel. There is no natural light in this chapel; however, the walls and dome above the altar give brilliance to the room with their mosaics. On the walls, six mosaic panels depict the interactions Jesus had after he was resurrected. The red, gold, yellow and deep blue in the mosaics shine in the quiet, dark space.
When I lived in Washington and went to church at the Cathedral, I often went to pray in the various chapels there. I’d spend my whole Sunday there. I loved my work and life and also felt a pull and tug from God about a new direction. One Sunday as I was sitting in one of the chairs in the Resurrection chapel and drinking in the mosiacs, I heard the message, “I will resurrect your life.” I knew my life was going to shift in even more dramatic ways.
“I will resurrect your life.”
Now, I’m not sure I felt like my life was in need of death or that I was living a life that needed to die. Yet, the experience was powerful and filled me with hope.
In our Gospel today, Jesus tells his followers that he must go to Jerusalem; that he must experience great suffering at the hands of the government and religious leaders and ultimately will be killed by them. Then he says that on the third day, he will be raised.
Peter is outraged, don’t you think? Why would anyone do that? Why would anyone willingly experience great suffering and death? Why would anyone openly challenge the power structure of the time? Why not hide out? Why not play it safe?
Jesus strongly rebukes Peter’s thinking, doesn’t he, providing a phrase most of us have memorized, “Get behind me Satan!” Jesus tells Peter he is a stumbling block.
How confusing. He was only trying to protect his friend, wasn’t he? Peter is a good and loving person. He just proclaimed Jesus as the Messiah and Jesus said Peter was a rock and that Peter would build the church. How could he ever be compared to Satan? How could he ever be a stumbling block to building the community Jesus envisioned?
Then Jesus says ‘If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it. (Matthew 16:24-15)
The audacity of Jesus. Take up a cross! That was a symbol of a most horrible death at the hands of the state and those in power. Willingly take up a cross – choose to suffer? Choose to die? Choose to challenge those in power? Those choices are the way to life?
Can’t you identify with Peter? He must have felt like the whole world had gone bonkers. That maybe Jesus had gone bonkers. He must have been so confused about what he was supposed to do. What we do know is that he kept following Jesus right to Jerusalem.
What we do know is that Jesus directly challenged those in power during his time. He went right to the seat of power during a feast that drew many people from many nations to Jerusalem. Jesus’ teaching and message of how to live the best life for all of us was so powerful and so needed, that nothing would stop him. It was so powerful and so needed, that it had to be brought to and challenge the very seat of power during his time.
And so we find ourselves in this time and this place. Are we stumbling blocks to the community Jesus taught us to create? A community where people can love God, love their neighbor, and love themselves.
Jesus asks us to willingly take up our cross. Jesus tells us that living his teachings can bring great suffering. In other words, once we say we will follow Jesus, and take up that cross, we will feel uncomfortable. We will probably feel confused. We will probably not be sure what to do next. We may even make some mistakes along the way. Maybe, like Peter, we’ll get so scared that we deny Jesus for a time.
We have plenty that challenges us now – the pandemic, a major election, and protests. Were you as heartbroken as I was this past week by the shooting of Jacob Blake in Kenosha Wisconsin and the response to it?
Doc Rivers, current coach of the LA Clippers of the National Basketball Association said, “It’s amazing why we keep loving this country, and this country does not love us back.” He’s not the first Black person to ever say this. I sure wish he would be the last who needs to say it.
Jesus knows that when we follow his teachings, we will not be embraced by the world. We will challenge the world.
Jesus knows we will be tempted to be safe…to not make that journey to Jerusalem…to keep living the life we are living. Jesus knows we’d rather be comfortable than uncomfortable. Jesus knows we are not always thrilled to have our own lives upended.
And Jesus gives us a choice. We choose whether to take up that cross and follow Him. We don’t know where it will lead. We don’t know what we might experience along the way. We do know we will feel uncomfortable and challenged along the way.
Luckily, we have each other and this community to help us. We have our Episcopal Church with its members to help us.
And what Jesus promises, for those of us who will follow him, is that our lives will be resurrected! Something will die and we will gain our lives! We will gain our lives and our souls and that is more precious than anything.
Amen
