Centered on Jesus Matt. 10
G&P
When Michigan residents Christine Bouwkamp and Kyle Kramer got married in the spring of 2007, they held a wedding reception that was anything but traditional. Instead of hosting a formal dinner, they held a simple reception at their church where guests were invited to help distribute food to people in need.
In the weeks leading up to their wedding, Christine and Kyle had decided they wanted to begin their marriage with an act of service to Christ. With that goal in mind, they figured out how much money they would have spent on a more extravagant reception and instead used that money to purchase five thousand pounds of food for those in need. The week of the wedding, the couple spread the word that a truck with free food would be at the Vineyard Christian Fellowship. Immediately after they exchanged their vows, Bouwkamp and Kramer put on aprons marked "Bride" and "Groom" and joined their wedding guests in distributing food to 100 neighborhood families.
When asked about the charitable act, the happy couple simply said they wanted to "bless God for blessing us with each other."
Van Morris, Mount Washington, Kentucky, and Brian Lowery, managing editor, PreachingToday.com; source: Anne Cetas, "Serving Together," Our Daily Bread (June 2008
A blessing. Imagine for a moment that this event was more common place. It is difficult, is it not. Because it goes agains the convention of the day. The Wedding day is the Brides day, it is about her. But not for this couple, they wanted all to know what their faith was all about.
This story echoes the text from Matt.
32 “Therefore whoever confesses Me before men, him I will also confess before My Father who is in heaven. 33 But whoever denies Me before men, him I will also deny before My Father who is in heaven.
34 “Do not think that I came to bring peace on earth. I did not come to bring peace but a sword. 35 For I have come to ‘set a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law’; 36 and ‘a man’s enemies will be those of his own household.’[b]
37 He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me. 38 And he who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me. 39 He who finds his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for My sake will find it.
What kind of world is Jesus painting for us this morning? The key to understanding what Jesus is teaching this morning is the word “Deny.” In the greek, it means a whole list of things:
Failure to claim completely Jesus Christ as your savior.
Failure to do justice for; the neighbor
Failure to acknowledge Jesus Christ in how one makes decisions in everyday life.
Failure of humanity in seeing Jesus Christ as the total Truth of God.
It is not just a matter of turning ones words around. It is a matter of where my life and your life are centered. It is not a matter of who we put first on our list. Or second. Or third.
Jesus wants us and teaches us to throw those kind of lists out. They are not helpful. Rather Jesus gets our attention by bringing family into the equation. Because in Jesus the family will be redefined. Those who follow Jesus will see their families with new eyes, they will see forgiveness work in restoring the relationship. They will see the neighbor as part of the family.
In Jesus, we will be able to love father and mother with the love of God, we will be able to love our sons and daughters with the love of God. We will be able to love our enemies with the love of God in Jesus Christ, crucified and risen. Totally turning the conventions of the way the world works upside down.
You see a bride and a groom putting on aprons to serve the poor the wedding feast. This compassion of Jesus touches us with faith to see and to live with Jesus at the center of our life.
But we are still human. We are pulled in many directions. We do forget.
We do leave that compassion of the crucified on the front seat of our car with the bulletin for the day. We go back into the world refreshed but also forgetful. Because we fall back into what we know best, to be the harassed and helpless sheep without a shepherd.
Why is this? Why is it that we forget this compassion of the crucified so easily? We get distracted. We see eggs going for almost $3 a dozen and we wonder where it is going to end. We see gas leapfrogging past $4 a gallon and wonder how we are going to balance the home finances. We hear of those making the laws in Washington taking kick backs and receiving special treatment on their mortgages that the average citizen could never dream possible. It is so easy for us to fall into the cynical life. It is so easy to live a life of blame and victim. Or play the role of politics today in which you do not seek to reconcile with ones enemy, but rather to destroy them by publically killing their character and family.
When this happens we grow a part, community is broken because when we are a victim and find blame in others, it becomes impossible to trust others, the very glue of a community.
When Beth Moore and her husband, Keith, spent time in war-torn Angola to draw attention to tens of thousands of malnourished people, they were changed forever. "I learned something in one of the rural villages that will mark my teaching and response to the Word of God,"
Beth says. "As we stood there, trying to absorb the sights and smells of living death, our new friend, Isak Pretorius, said, 'One of the most frustrating things is that in villages where they received seed, they often eat the seed rather than planting it and bringing forth the harvest.' I couldn't get the statement out of my mind and suddenly had an answer to the question I most often ask God: Why do some people see the results of the Word and others don't?"
Beth continues: "Why have many of us read books on forgiving people, known the teachings were true and right, cried over them, marked them up with highlighters, yet remain in our bitterness? Because we ate the seed instead of sowing it."
Beth Moore, Stepping Up: A Journey Through the Psalms of Ascent (LifeWay Press, 2007); submitted by Van Morris, Mount Washington, Kentucky
But then we see a glimpse of the compassion of the crucified one in a wedding celebration in which we see not the Bride as center but rather the neighbor. We see neighbors rescuing neighbors from flooded houses in Austin, MN and Cedar Rapids Iowa. We see glimpses of the Compassion of the Crucified in the hands of those who reach out to an elderly neighbor and into a rescue boat. The seed is being sown.
For when we are touched by the Grace of Jesus Christ, we are changed, our eyes are opened to see the presence of God's Holy Spirit here and now. Bringing healing of the heart so that we can stay on the journey of grace. SO that we can continue to see others who need the hug of the crucified one and have their cynical heart healed.
This past week, we were at funeral in Moorhead for the father of a close friend. I did not know Jon's father, but I knew Jon. We go back 33 years in friendship. We set aside plans and we went, no question about what we were going to do. The service was one of celebration for this father had lived in the grace filled compassion of the crucified one.
The grandson got up to sing, “On Eagles Wings.” He had a tenor voice that soared like the eagles. He sang to this group of 30 some who had gathered at the funeral home for this service. As he sang, the emotion of losing his grandfather began to overcome him. The emotion was so great that he began to falter, tears welled up, his throat closed.
I felt for him. I started to sing the song in my heart, hoping that my feeble prayer would help him finish the song. A moment later he lifted up his hand as part of his singing and his voice stopped, and the community of believers who had gathered began to sing the song without missing a note. We had all been singing that song in our heart and on our lips for this grandson who loved his grandfather so much. We all sang the chorus and the verses from memory as the Holy Spirit moved in that place that afternoon. It was one of those moments in which you say, Wow, the Holy Spirit has moved us with the compassion of the Crucified One.
There were tears on all of our faces as we picked up this child of the crucified with the compassion of God in song and prayer. We were all touched. We were all filled.
Come and receive the grace filled compassion of the Crucified One, Jesus Christ.
Amen
October 02, 2006
Compensation
G&P...
Phyllis Elshof was running a few weeks ago when something snapped in my left hip. One minute she was loping along, the next she was yelping in pain. She had to hobble home.
Within days, that tiny hairline break at the top of her femur threw her entire body off. Her left hip hurt, sure, but so did the right one. When she biked, her knee started screaming. By the time she was evaluated by a physical therapist, she was hugging banisters to negotiate stairs, trading heels for sneakers, and chugging Aleve.
What in the world was happening?
"Compensation," said the therapist. Her right hip hurt because she was covering for the injury in the left one. Likewise, her left knee hurt from diverting stress on her hip. The entire band of muscle stretching from her left hip to her knee had even tightened to protect the injury.
How like sin in our lives. You think one broken area isn't a problem, but you soon find yourself covering for it, and before you know it you are suffering in other areas as well. Sin always requires "compensation."
Phyllis Ten Elshof, West Chicago, Illinois
In the text this morning Jesus gives us a warning and a promise. He goes right to the heart of the matter. How are you and I conducting our lives in regards to ourselves and to our neighbor, especially those in our community who are most vulnerable? He begins with a good word about those who were not a part of the followers of Jesus who were casting out demons in Jesus name.
Whoever is not against us is for us. Whoever gives you a cup of water to drink because you bear the name of Christ will be by no means lose his reward.
We are okay up to this point. But now Jesus gives us stern warning. If anyone one of causes one of these little ones, as he points to the children, to stumble into sin, if would be better that your feet were placed in a vat of wet cement and you went to swim with the fishes. If your hand is used to hurt another person, it is no good to you or anyone else, cut it off. If your foot is used to walk away from someone in need, it is no good to you or anyone else, cut it off. If your eye looks on as sin is happening and you do nothing to help the neighbor, it is no good to you or anyone else, pluck it out.
For it is better to go into the kingdom of God maimed, than not at all!
Now if I am a disciple listening to these words, I am thinking that I hope that he means this as a metaphor or parable. Because I need my hand, and foot and eye. We do not want to be maimed because of our sin and our stumbling, this is what sin means, we stumble. There must be a better word.
Jesus is straight with us. It is a warning that our conduct and how we live our lives matters. It is a warning that if we live our life in a sinful way that hurts others especially the children among us, there will be grave consequences. Left to ourselves, we will sin, we will use our minds and bodies to cause sin and stumbling among us. Left to ourselves, the darkness of our time will only get darker. Left to ourselves, death will reign.
During the nine months Erik Amundsen spent at a Bible college in Quito, Ecuador, he learned more than what was taught in the classroom. The 18-year-old from suburban Chicago also discovered the risk of flirting with danger.
On February 5, 2005, Erik and some of his fellow classmates visited a bullfight in the outskirts of the Ecuadorian capital. When the stadium announcer invited those in the stands to enter the ring in an attempt to get as close to the bull as they could, the adventure-loving teen responded. Convinced he could sneak up behind the bull, touch its hindquarters and then bolt back to the stands, Eric approached the beast from behind.
Before Eric even touched the bull, the animal sensed his presence, turned around and charged. Erik defended himself by extending his arms in front of his body. Upon impact Erik was catapulted on top of the bull’s head. The animal proceeded to throw the boy to the ground, and Erik landed on his neck. Before he could stand up and run, the bull charged him again, this time goring him in the right leg.
Erik was rushed to a Quito hospital for treatment. For two days he was unable to get out of bed. For two weeks he was unable to walk. For a month he could only walk with the aid of a cane.
“I was foolish to think I could get away with it,” Erik told his pastor. “I guess I just thought I could get close and then and run away. I was wrong.”
Greg Asimikopoulos, Naperville, Illinois
Left to ourselves, we can be just plain stupid.
But don't leave until you hear the promise. The promise is Jesus who brings balance to our lives so that we do not have to compensate. He brings the promise of forgiveness so that we do not have to lose our limbs and eyes. He brings the promise of reconciliation so that we can live in harmony with one another. This promise is more than just a promise somewhere in the future, but a promise that becomes a hope through the reality of his death and resurrection. Because Jesus does not want to leave us to ourselves! Because we cannot live that way, we will surely die without Jesus in our life, healing and forgiving us for the journey.
There is a cell phone commercial on TV in which there is a mother and a daughter who seem to be fighting. There voices are raised in what seems to be anger. They are ranting and raving at each other. But their words do not match what we perceive is argument.
“I love you and this is why I gave you this.”
“I know you love me and I thank you very much.”
“You are doing great in school.”
“I will be home by midnight.”
It is a total inversion of what we expect to happen. It is so good, I can't even tell you what cell phone that they are selling.
Jesus in his ministry was always inverting the way society lived. I want you to hear this warning that Jesus gives to his disciples and us inverted.
If anyone takes these little ones by the hand and teach them about God's grace and how to live it in the world, the angels in heaven will sing. If your hand causes you to reach out in grace to a neighbor, this grace will come back to you ten fold. If your foot causes you to walk across the street to help someone in need, know that Jesus walks with you. If your eye sees someone who has not heard the gospel, you will share it as the Spirit gives you the words to speak.
This is the salt of the kingdom of God. It gives flavor to the actions of the community of faith. It gives the needed preservation of the rich words of Grace. When we are hurt by what we have done or that others have done to us, it brings healing of the heart through the grace of our crucified and risen Lord Jesus.
I remember reading a story not long ago about the "elevated" in Chicago--a train that when it comes into the downtown, it's on a high track. A young man was riding that train day after day as a commuter. And as the train slowed up for the station where he got off, he could look through an open curtain into a room of a building and see a woman lying in a bed.
She was there day after day, for a long time, obviously quite ill. He began to get interested in her since he saw her every day. Finally he determined to find out her name. He discovered her address, and he wrote her a card, assuring her that he was praying for her recovery. He signed it: "The young man on the elevated."
A few weeks later, he pulled into the station, and he looked through that window and the bed was empty. Instead there was a great huge sign:
GOD BLESS YOU, MY FRIEND ON THE ELEVATED!
William Hinson, "A Breath of Fresh Air," Preaching Today, Tape No. 114
That is the kingdom of God in Jesus Christ breaking in on this world, bringing hope and the good news of Jesus for life now and life to come.
Friends, come to the altar and be renewed in your faith by the grace of Jesus. Bring your wounds and heartaches and leave them at the altar and receive grace, grace that brings new life in all that we do.
AMEN
Service Leads to Greatness
SERMON – September 24, 2006
Mark 9 “Service leads to Greatness”
G&P...
My family had gone down to Laguna Beach, Calif to see my great Aunt Hazel. This was in the mid-1960's. My great Aunt was prolific artist in this little artisan beach area south of Los Angeles. We always went to the beach when we were there. Our favorite place was a beach called “Sharks Cove.” It was a sandy beach framed by rock formations that jutted out into the ocean. The currents were farely safe there. We would boogie board and body surf in the waves as they came rolling in.
Now I remember this day for several reasons. First, there was a platoon of Marines there from Camp Pendleton doing some last R&R before shipping off to the southeast asia. There were great guys and some really good body surfers. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a small plane come into view. It was a Piper Cub two seat plane. We watched it for awhile, and then we noticed that it was trying to land on the ocean. Then we noticed that it didn't have pontoons on which to land on the water.
This plane was in trouble and was trying to come as a close to the beach as possible. It crashed into the sea about 75 yards from the beach and the surf began to tear apart the plane. Now I am 11 years old at the time, standing in the water dumbfounded. But I watched as this platoon of Marines spraing into action. Some of the dads on the beach had gone to get the rope from the emergency shed, one had gone to call the emergency folk, and the marines went out into the surf to rescue the pilot and his passenger.
They were able to tie a rope to the tail of the plane and begin to pull it in as others tried to get the passengers out onto the beach. Everyone worked together, marines, dads and moms, and the fire departement rescue guys. No one cared for their own safety, everyone's thoughts and efforts were focused on the passengers of the plane. Now I do not remember the outcome for the passengers, whether they lived or died, I remember them being lifted into the ambulence and taken away in a hurry.
Soon the craziness of the moment had passed and people began to resume what they had come to sharks cove to do. It certainly wasn't to rescue people from a downed plane. But what kept that memory alive is the fact that for a moment in time, no one thought of only themselves. No one thought that maybe they shouldn't be flying up their and they can fend for themselves. The words that I remember my parents saying: It was fortunate that so many people were at the beach that day to help them, including the platoon of men serving our country.
Service and sacrifice go together in the language of the christian. Often without thinking, we open our hands to serve. It is apart of what it means to be a follower of Jesus Christ.
This is where our text for this morning leads us. For his followers have been arguing along the way about who is the greatest in this group. I suppose one could name any number of people. But Jesus doesn't care for that kind of word in this group. O, he knows that it is the prodominate word in the culture. For all want to be the greatest, because then they would be served by those who were not so great. This is what the Romans and gentiles believed and practiced and to a certain extent so did the Jews. It was cultural.
But Jesus is about to turn that culture and that world upside down. He takes a small child and puts him in his lap. The greatest in the kingdom of God shall be the least, and the least shall be the greatest. Pointing to the child:
“Whoever welcomes one of these little children in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me does not welcome me but the One who sent me.”
Jesus is teaching a whole new ethic. No longer will one live to be served. But the one who follows Jesus will learn to serve even the least in the kingdom. Not only will one serve but also welcome in that service so that as one welcomes the least, they welcome Jesus and they welcome Jesus then they welcome God into their service.
This is a whole new teaching and it contradicts the the way the world worked then and even the way it works now. O, we might understand that we should serve and love God. Even the gentiles knew this. But when one throws in the neighborhood to love and serve, we start to draw the line. When we begin to look at the world as a global community that is getting smaller and smaller, we see that some things have not changed since the time of Jesus.
The way we kill our neighbor has not changed, we have become more sophisticated in the way we kill. But death is so prevalent now in our world that one cannot watch even a minute of news without hearing of it. Evil is here and it must be named as such. Such evil only brings death that leads to more death.
TO follow this path will only lead to more death that gives only death. There is no life that comes out of the killing of the children in Darfur, Sudan or the murder of a mother in Stillwater as her children run for help. There is no life that comes out of the negative ad campaigns that try to destroy one candidate so that the other will look good to the voters. And the neighbor is not served. And the world is not better off.
Jesus takes a different road. It is a road that leads to the cross. But before he goes to the cross, he teaches us about the whole genius behind service. TO serve out of love is to lift up the one the person is serving. It is to put your playtime away and pull two passengers out of a plane that has crashed into the surf, with no regard for yourself. You just do it because that is what you were created to do: serve.
Why is it that we feel so good after we have done something for someone else? Why is that the quilt ladies gather each week year after year, decade after decade to sew old material into warm quilts? Its not because of the coffee break, the coffee and banana bread hit the spot. It is because there is something enate in each of us that moves us to serve out of love and sacrifice. Jesus taps into that part of us that was put there at the moment of creation. He shows us how to serve, how to move beyond ourselves and reach out to others.
Sometimes we would like to serve, but we get caught. I received an e-mail that goes something like this:
> I decide to water my garden. As I turn on the hose in the driveway, I look over at my car and decide my car needs washing. As I start toward the garage, I notice that there is mail on the porch table that I brought up from the mail box earlier. I decide to go through the mail before I wash the car. I lay my car keys down on the table, put the junk mail in the garbage can under the table, and notice that the can is full.
So, I decide to put the bills back on the table and take out the garbage first. But then I think, since I'm going to be near the mailbox when I take out the garbage anyway, I may as well pay the bills first. I take my check book off the table, and see that there is only one check left.
My extra checks are in my desk in the study, so I go inside the house to my desk where I find the can of Coke that I had been drinking.
I'm going to look for my checks, but first I need to push the Coke aside so that I don't accidentally knock it over. I realize the Coke is getting warm, and I decide I should put it in the refrigerator to keep it cold. As I head toward the kitchen with the Coke, a vase of flowers on the counter catches my eye--they need to be watered. I set the Coke down on the counter, and I discover my reading glasses that I've been searching for all morning.
I decide I better put them back on my desk, but first I'm going to water the flowers. I set the glasses back down on the counter, fill a container with water and suddenly I spot the TV remote. Someone left it on the kitchen table. I realize that tonight when we go to watch TV, I will be looking for the remote, but I won't remember that it's on the kitchen table, so I decide to put it back in the den where it belongs, but first I'll water the flowers. I pour some water in the flowers, but quite a bit of it spills on the floor.
So, I set the remote back down on the table, get some towels and wipe up the spill. Then I head down the hall trying to remember what I was planning to do.
At the end of the day:
> the driveway is flooded
> the car isn't washed,
> the bills aren't paid,
> there is a warm can of Coke sitting on the counter,
> there is still only one check in my check book,
> I can't find the remote,
> I can't find my glasses,
> and I don't remember what I did with the car keys.
>
> Then when I try to figure out why nothing got done today,
> I'm really baffled because I know I was busy all day long,
> and I'm really tired.
>
> I realize this is a serious problem, and I'll try to get some
> help for it, but first I'll check my e-mail
Ever have days like that! I do. We discover that there is a need to re-focus our life on the One thing that is important. That one thing that brings life. That one thing that opens our eyes to see Jesus in our life right now. It is a grace that loves us even though we might spend our days like this. A grace that resurrects us out of the death of this world and into new life now and to come. A grace that moves us from the monotony of lost days and into a living faith that makes a difference in the world right now.
Buckwheat Donahue—a resident of Skagway, Alaska—is planning a journey from Key West, Florida, to Nome, Alaska. Started in October, 2005, Donahue walked 5000 miles and paddle 2,000 miles across North America. His intention is to raise funds for building a medical clinic in Skagway. 327 days later he walked into Skagway raising $60,000.00. His congregation gave an offering of $10,000.00 which prompted Buckwheat to give out a great howl of joy.
Donahue suffered congestive heart failure in 2003, and if he had been in Skagway the absence of a medical clinic would have rendered his survival questionable.
In addition to raising money, Buckwheat Donahue intended to use the journey as a way to raise awareness about heart disease and another ailment he suffers fromdiabetes.
He is influenced by Jack London’s words: “The proper function of man is to live, not to exist. I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them. I shall use my time.”
“That’s what I want to do,” Donahue muses. “I want to use my time.” Choked with emotion, he adds, “And I’d just like to share it with other people.”
Sherry Simpson, "Buckwheat's Long Road Home," Alaska Magazine (July 2005), pp. 36-39, 73; submitted by Ted De Hass, Bedford, Iowa
In that story we see a glimpse of God at work. A glimpse of the one who created us and redeemed us. So that has Jesus Christ is crucified, he takes all of our mistakes and our wanting to be the greatest unto himself. For his death leads to life, out of the cross we see resurrection. We are given the power to be the neighbor who cares, and serves.
Out of that experience came the drive to live, and not only live, but make a difference in his living. This is what is meant by life coming out of death, this is what it means to be a follower of Jesus Christ. TO be touched by the grace of Jesus Christ in the heart and to live our lives in no other way than to serve in Love.
AMEN
September 18, 2006
Grace in Jesus
SERMON – September 17, 2006
Mark 8 “Jesus – Messiah”
G&P...........
When I born according to the witnesses that were present, namely my mother and the nurses and doctor, I had quite a bit of trauma coming into the world. My mother tells me that at one point my heart became very faint, the umbilical cord had wrapped around my neck and the longer the labor, the more I was choking. Now the doctor did what he needed to do along with great nurses and I came into the world a bit blue, but alive none the less.
This could explain why at times closed places give me the Willy's. But when I was born I was given any identity. My parents named me Paul after the apostle, and Thomas the middle name of my mothers father. Hadland came with the territory. But I was named. Then in December on the second Sunday of Advent I was named again.
This time I received another identity. Child of God. At Minnetonka Lutheran I was baptized into God's name: Father , Son, and Holy Spirit. I had two identities, though they would grow into one and the same identity. Sunday School was apart of the plan and so was church. We worshiped as a family, always sitting half way up the aisle on the pulpit side.
I was a child of God. Then things began to change. I applied for and got my first job as a newspaper boy for the Duluth Herald, an afternoon route with 96 papers, on the steepest streets in East Duluth. I remember battling dogs on that route, the ankle biters were the worse. The owner once told me, “Oh, she never bites.” as the little penny dog had a hold of my canvas paper carrier. She did let go on the third approach as I swung my bag around, she landed in 4 feet of snow buried and yelping for the owner to come out. Tips came in the form of dimes in those days. I hated collecting the bill, but I became known as the paperboy. Another identity.
I had to get a social security number at that time so that taxes could be taken out of my small salary. I was now a number in the system, a national number that would come up again when I had to file for the draft at the end of the Viet Nam war. My draft number at that time was 086. Not a good number to have, but the draft was done just as I was graduating from High School.
I was a graduate of Duluth East high school. But life came to me in my involvement in the church at First Lutheran by the lake. No matter what I was doing, no matter what identity I had whether it was canoe guide in the BWCAW or student or pastor. The one identity that stuck and remained always the same: Paul Thomas, child of God.
This is who I am and you have the same identity: Say your name, and all say “Child of God.”
That is your identity. You probably have much more colorful stories than I do. But the bottom line remains, we belong to God in and through Jesus Christ.
This brings us to the scripture lesson for this morning. Jesus has his disciples around him, they have walked up in to the region of Caesaria Phillipi which lies north of the sea of Galilea. This is gentile country, this is a culture that worships idols and gods such as Pan the god of the under world. Jesus addresses his disciples in a very pointed way:
“What are the people saying about me? My Identity?”
The disciples have all heard the scuttle butt.
“Some say that you are John the Baptist, others say that you are Elijah, and some say that you are one of the prophets.”
Then Jesus looks into their hearts and asks:
“Who do say that I am?”
Peter, brave Peter, Peter who cannot keep his mouth shut says:
“You are the Christ of God, the messiah!”
Jesus tells them to hold this in their hearts and not breathe a word to anyone, yet. Then he tells them that he must suffer at the hands of those in power and be put to death and on the third day rise again.
Peter cannot handle this word, it is a tough and difficult word and it makes no sense for Jesus to die. He grabs Jesus and tells him that this cannot happen.
But Jesus confronts Peter:
“Follow me, Peter, and be centered on the things of God. Satan, be gone!”
He called the whole crowd together:
“Anyone who intends to come with me has to let me lead. You are not in the drivers seat, I am. Don't run from suffering: embrace it. Follow me and I'll show you how. Be centered in God your creator who saves. What good would it do to get everything that you want and lose you, the real you? What could you trade your soul for?
Pick up your cross and follow me.
The disciples are bewildered at this teaching, but they stay the course with Jesus. They indeed will see him come into his glory as he dies on the cross. They will see and finally understand as he stands in that locked room on the night of resurrection as he shows them his hands and his side and feet, the marks of his glory.
Jesus has an identity that he wants all of us and the world to know about. He is the savior of the world. He is your savior, he is your Lord. He is the messiah of God so that we might know how to love God and each other. He is the one who continuously breaks into our lives with forgiveness and grace. He is the one who challenges our thinking like he did Peter, always showing us how we can live grace in our lives. How we can be forgiving people who are living out the forgiveness that Jesus has given to us in our first identities, child of God.
But there is work being done in this world right now that wants to steal our identities. There is a whole industry begin created right now to help stop Identity Theft. People we know in this community have had their worlds turned upside down because someone got their identity out of trash can or a computer in the bank. This evil wreck havoc with our lives. They have to change everything and it can take for years.
There is also an evil that wants to change and destroy our lives as well. I think about these monsters who steal children and make them believe that their parents do not love them. The girl who was held captive by a very sick man in Germany for 8 years until she was able to escape, tells such a sad tale. There is evil out there that must be confronted with the gospel of Jesus Christ and put to death.
But there is also that which lies within each of us that must also die, that must also be put to death. I grew up with the mantra, Don't get mad, Get Even.! That must die, that tendency within each of us for revenge, must die. That tendency within each of us to hold onto to our anger as a badge of hurt must die. That tendency to blame others for our situation when the solution lies within our own abilities. We must die to the way the world lives, eye for an eye, a bomb for a bomb, a death for a death. We must open our eyes to the grace of One who called us by name even before we were born, to the grace of the One who rejoiced in heaven with all of the angels at the time of our baptisms, to the grace who opens our eyes to see each other as people for whom Jesus died and was raised.
In a sermon on truth-telling, Bill Hybels recounts a story told by Brennan Manning in his book The Ragamuffin Gospel.
Brennan Manning quite courageously admits that 25 years ago, he had a drinking problem. He voluntarily entered a 28-day treatment program. Early on in the treatment program they had to sit in a circle with a leader and tell the truth to themselves, and to the other people in the group, about the extent of their drinking.
So they went around the circle and they all told the truth, except for one business guy named Max. When it came time for him to reveal the extent of his drinking, he said, "I never really drank that much."
They said, "Max, you're in an alcoholic treatment center for a month. You weren't sipping cokes. Tell the truth to yourself. Admit it."
He said, "I'm being honest with you. I've never really had all that much to drink."
They had signed affidavits to be able to get information. Max had signed one, too. They could glean information in any way they so desired. So they had a speaker phone in the center of the circle, and the leader of the group said, "I'm going to call the bartender close to your office and we'll just find out."
So they called the bartender and the leader says to the person on the phone, "Do you know Max So-and-So?" The guy says, "Oh, like a brother! He stops in every day after work and has a minimum of six martinis. Man, this guy drinks like a fish! He's the best customer we havea prolific consumer of alcohol."
The rest of the people in the group all looked at Max. And now here's a moment of truth. Max tells the truth to himself. He says, "Yes, I've had a lot to drink."
A little later on in the group, they asked everyone, "Have you ever hurt anybody, a friend or family member, while you were drunk?"
Some people said, yes, and they described it. Other people said, no. They tried to get at the truth, and if that was the truth, that was the truth. They get all the way around to Max, who says, "I would never, ever hurt anybody. Not when I'm sober, not when I'm drunk. I have four lovely children. I'd never hurt my wife, I'd never hurt my kids."
The leader says, "You know, Max, we don't believe you. We're going to call your wife." As soon as Max's wife starts talking on the speaker phone, Max starts breathing heavily. He knows something's coming that he has been unwilling to face.
The leader says, "Mrs. So-and-So, has Max ever mistreated you or anyone in the family when he was drunk?" And she said, "Well, yes he has. It happened just this last Christmas Eve. He took our 9-year-old daughter shopping on Christmas Eve, bought her a new pair of shoes; he's a generous man. On the way home, our little girl was sitting in the front seat enjoying her new shoes, and Max passed the bar and saw the cars of some of his buddies.
"He pulled in. It was a cold, wintry day, 12 degrees, with a high wind chill. He made sure all the windows were rolled up snugly. He left the car running so that the heater was blowing, and he said to our 9-year-old daughter, 'I'll be right back. You just play with your shoes; I'll be right back.'
"He went in the bar and started drinking with his buddies. He didn't come out of the bar until midnight. In that time, the vehicle had shut off and the windows had become all frosted over and locked up tight so she couldn't get herself out of the car. When the authorities opened up the car and rushed her to the hospital, she was so badly frostbitten that her thumb and forefinger had to be amputated. And her ears were so damaged by the cold that she'll be deaf for the rest of her life."
The wife describes this to the group, and Max falls off his chair and starts convulsing on the ground. He just couldn't bear telling himself the truth about what he had done. He couldn't face it. He was going to live the rest of his life in some fantasy world of denial about what he had done.
Bill Hybels, “Telling Yourself the Truth” (4-14-02); submitted by Gino Grunberg, Gig Harbor, Washington
It was in that moment of dying that his life began to change. It was in that moment of dying to his past that his recovery became real. It was in that moment of dying to all the hurt of the past that enslaves us that he was being raised to new life. Oh, he made amends, he would walk a tough walk, but it was in that moment of dying that grace became real.
We gather around the altar this morning with all the stuff that we need to die to. Jesus calls us to give it to him, so that we might know resurrection, that we might have that taste of heaven in the body and blood of Jesus. Come to the altar and die and be made alive again in Jesus.
This is the power that of grace that keeps us centered on the one who brings life now, and life to come in the resurrection. Grace that sustains us in times when we cannot take another step. Grace that centers us always on the One who gives us life in Jesus' name.
AMEN