The Rev. Neale L. Miller

Sermon for August 31 (Hurricane Gustav evacuation)

 preached September 7, 2008

Texts: Matthew 16:13-28

Title: “Going Divine”

              If Peter happened to be a stock trading on the stock exchange the unpredictability of his rising and falling would force the officials of that institution to remove him.  Up several points one day, only to fall sharply the next. The stock market frowns on that kind of volatility.

              I cannot think of a single person in the scriptures whose life embodied such extremes as Peter’s did.  First disciple chosen by Jesus, he would earn the distinction of being Jesus’ chief of staff, first among equals. Emboldened perhaps by his status, Peter was not one to shrink back from a challenge, even if the challenge be judged daring, even reckless.  Case in point, just weeks ago we treated the lesson where Peter made his abortive attempt to walk on the water, a chastening experience for any proud man, and Peter was definitely a proud man.

            Peter’s stock, of course, would fall farthest on the fateful night Jesus was arrested and condemned to death. “Though all become deserters because of you, I will never desert you…Even though I must die with you, I will not deny you.” His bold and audacious words turned out to be no more than that, bold and audacious words. 

           If Peter were a stock trading on the stock exchange the officials would have to remove him.  Too much volatility.  Yet despite his reckless and ill-advised actions and rhetoric, Jesus kept him around, didn’t he? Though Scripture doesn’t reveal Jesus’ motives for doing so, we do know that there were times when Peter’s stock traded very high. One such instance arises in our lesson this morning.  Jesus put the question, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” The disciples were quick to report the word on the street, “Some say John the Baptist, but others Elijah, and still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.”

             Word on the street was one category of information, of course, but Jesus was even more interested in a second, more pertinent category of information.  “Who do YOU say that I am?” [repeat] It is perhaps the most important question a follower of Jesus can ever be asked to answer. The thoughtful Christian might want to ask for an extension, a little time to ponder that question. Not Peter.  “You are the Messiah [he spontaneously declared], the Son of the living God.”

             His correct answer didn’t earn him a pile of money, a trip to some exotic locale, or free tickets to a popular Broadway show; instead he received a blessing, a blessings whose worth only Peter and Jesus were in a position to calculate. “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven.  And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it.  I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.”  Wow!

                Scripture records some notable examples of blessings being bestowed; Isaac upon Jacob, Jacob upon the sons of Joseph, David upon Solomon, but there is none to rival the blessing Jesus bestowed on Peter.  “You are the rock upon which I will build my church.”  “I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven.” Peter’s stock never traded higher, yet Peter and Jesus’ alone could place a value on it.

              Certainly a great honor for Peter.  No pedestal higher than the one on which he stood.  But then there was the responsibility that came with such honor.  Even the impetuous and brash Peter might have paused to reflect upon what Jesus had gotten him into. Could the same man whose vulnerability was exposed in that incident on the sea, and elsewhere in Jesus’ ministry, manage the great responsibility Jesus placed in his hands?  Did he really want the keys of the kingdom? 

           Jesus was the kingmaker.  He was responsible for placing Peter on the pedestal. It was he who sent Peter’s stock soaring. Even if Peter himself did not know the strengths and aptitudes he brought to a position as lofty as Jesus assigned him, certainly Jesus must have known Peter’s heart.

              “You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it.” Even if Peter himself was unsure of his fitness for such a test, certainly Jesus MUST have known, and if he truly did know Peter’s fitness, or non-fitness for the test, why would he set him on such a lofty pinnacle only to see him fail?

                Oh yes, we come to the failure part. Jesus felt the hot breath of Satan on his neck, but when he turned around Peter was the only one there.  Jesus felt the hot breath of Satan before. Jesus had seen Satan.  Matthew, but also Luke and Mark, tells us that Jesus had a face to face with Satan immediately after he was baptized.   

                As Jesus did to Peter, so Satan had done to Jesus.  The offer was a set of keys, though in this instance not keys to the kingdom of heaven, but keys to “all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor.” What Satan offered was a temptation befitting the Son of God, the only condition being that Jesus transfer his allegiance from God to Satan.  That, of course, was the deal breaker.

                I would ask you to note the words Jesus uses when he sent Satan packing.  “Away with you Satan! for it is written, ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.’”  Mismatched against the powers of God, we are told that after Jesus made his declaration of faith, Satan left him.

               So how was it that ol’ Satan took another stab at beguiling Jesus? Satan spied another opportunity.  Why not use Peter to snare Jesus? Fact of that matter is in Jesus’ eyes Satan and Peter were indistinguishable so long as he was being tempted to ignore God’s will. 

               Jesus’ reaction to temptation was swift, “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.” And what grievous deed had Peter committed to provoke that cutting outburst? To the neutral observer, none at all. Peter did what any one of us might have done if we heard that something terrible was about to happen to a friend. “God forbid it, Lord.  This must never happen to you.”

But Jesus took Peter’s protest to a place Peter never intended it to go. This rock upon which Christ would build his church became in Jesus’ eyes a stumbling block. Peter’s offense? He had set his mind on human things, not divine things.

               It was precisely those human things that Satan had offered Jesus after his baptism, “all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor,” while the divine things to which Jesus pointed were worship of and service to God alone. Peter’s all too human reaction to the news that Jesus would suffer and die was in Jesus’ eyes not some heartfelt protest in response to an unthinkable reality, but instead was deemed an insidious attempt by Satan to subvert God’s will by manipulating Peter, his nearest and best friend.

              The mind naturally settles on human things, their all too present and pervasive demands too present and pervasive to be ignored. What Jesus, Paul and the prophets before and after them offered was another way of seeing reality, reality as it is represented under the sovereign reign of God.    

              Though the rhetoric of the political campaigns this election cycle, as with so many of its predecessors, is excessive, if not over the top, I can think of at least one positive result to emerge. The candidates identify realities that are frequently underexposed. They identify societal problems that need addressing. The troubled economy, the fragility of Social Security, our unhealthy reliance on foreign oil, a broken health care delivery system, the outsourcing of jobs to foreign lands, the shrinking middle class, and so on and so forth. And I haven’t even gotten into the wars and potential wars that drain our assets and keep our nation on a state of alert.

              Yes indeed, the rhetoric of the political campaigns produces at least one positive result. It forces us to account for our limitations, our inability, resourceful and wise as we may, to be the true masters of our domain we are so inclined to think we are. It exposes our pride, the pride that keeps us preoccupied with what we can accomplish, and what we want for ourselves.

             But wait, in his plea to God that Jesus not undergo suffering and death, Peter wanted nothing for himself.  So why would such an unselfish, caring act earn Jesus’ rebuke?  I would submit that it was because Jesus valued obedience to God’s will above any personal prerogative or advantage.

               In protesting Jesus’ fate at the hands of those who would torture and kill him, Peter was, in effect, tempting Jesus to assert his will in opposition to God’s will. In his all too human desire to spare his brother pain and suffering Peter called on God to fix things. “God forbid it…this must never happen to you.” Peter was putting his personal agenda ahead of God’s agenda.

              We Americans have our agendas.  We are fixers.  Identify a problem, and find a way to solve it.  The various political campaigns propose answers, but year after year they come back to us voters outlining extensive laundry lists of things that have yet to be fixed. Don’t get me wrong.  It would be great to fix the health care crisis, to guarantee all people a living wage, and to stop global warming. But when in our ambition we marginalize or forget about God entirely and proceed to place fixing our problems in our own hands we may well, quote our lesson, “gain the whole world but forfeit the life” God intended us to live.                             

             “God forbid it…this must never happen to you.” Peter was putting his personal agenda ahead of God’s agenda, and for his part Jesus wanted Peter to know that that would not work.  “You are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.” Truth be told, from Peter’s standpoint the human things that concerned him, the hard cold facts that Jesus would suffer and die, were much more immediate and pressing.

              The challenge Peter and the rest of us face, is reprioritizing so that divine and human things achieve their appropriate status. But practically speaking what does that mean on the ground where daily life is lived? Specifically what does that mean having come through the recent trauma (I think most of experienced some sense of trauma in the evacuation)? It does not mean that we set ourselves about building levies that will protect us from all the bad things that life might dole out.  Nor, on the other hand, does it mean that we simply adopt an attitude of “what will be will be.”

            To set our minds on divine things means cultivating a relationship with God, the divine, through such spiritual disciplines as prayer, Bible study, and dialogue around faith issues. Basically to set our minds on divine things is not to exhaust ourselves trying to prevent the storms of life from crashing down on us, but to cultivate the life sustaining awareness that God is more real and greater that anything those storms shall ever dole out. No, the God who did not manipulate events to preserve the life of his own son, does not manipulate events in nature and in life to accord with our best interests. 

            To set our minds on divine things is to do as Jesus did. To set our minds on divine things works out to one thing, trust in the God who created and sustains us. In his reflections on trust in God, Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury, writes the following, “God is to be trusted as we would trust a loving parent, whose commitment to us is inexhaustible, whose purposes for us are unfailingly generous; someone whose life is the source of our life, and who guarantees that there is always a home for us.”

                 How real and compelling that desire for home is when we are forced out of our homes. We all experienced that desire in one way or another in these last days. Yet these homes we currently occupy cannot offer the sanctuary our God is prepared to offer. They are provisional.  One home is eternal, and that is the home God has prepared for us. And as we cultivate the habit of trust, the true dimensions of that home, and the Lord of that home, will be revealed. AMEN.  

PRAYER         

              O Lord, bountiful in love and mercy, we give thanks for this opportunity to gather in you house once again.  Dispersed and thrust out of our familiar routines for the past week, we welcome this pause, this time where we may be at full stop to catch our breath and enjoy the freedom of simply “being” without the obligation of “doing.” Calm our agitated spirits still immersed in the events of the past week, still attempting to cope.  Grant us patience and wisdom, O God, as we deal with the particular challenges that the suspension of our work, school, and other routines has caused.               Abide, O Lord, with our friends and neighbors across the region who bore the brunt of the recent storm.  Be a source of strength to those who are most vulnerable, the children, the elderly, and the poor. Grant stamina to those who continue the process of recovery, that they may meet the physical and mental challenges that they continue to face.

              Abide with aid workers who have moved onto the scene of devastation, the Red Cross, FEMA representatives, and all those who serve through the many faith communities and other aid agencies who have mobilized to help.  We pray for the men and women who work for the various utility companies, those who maintain the vital water and other infrastructure services upon which citizens rely.  Abide with the various city, state, and federal officials who have responsible for disaster recovery. We pray for the people who work for the weather service, and the meteorologists who disseminate their reports. We thank you for all persons who bring their unique and much need skills and aptitudes to the scenes of disaster.

              Even as we lift up people impacted by the recent storm, and the people who are managing relief and recovery efforts, we pray for those on the eastern seaboard who have been impacted by a more recent storm.  In your mercy preserve your people from the devastation that could occur as a result of the series of storms forming in the Atlantic. We pray for all people who find themselves in harms way, appealing to you for relief from the relentless forces of nature.

              Lord, even as we pray for relief, we accept with gratitude the gifts of thy grace that we daily receive.  We thank you for friends and family with whom we are privileged to share this life.  We thank you for meaningful work and enjoyable leisure.  We thank you for good books and music, the recreational activities in which we participate.  We thank you for the sports we enjoy. 

              O God, continue to strengthen your church that we may be faithful to the vision that Jesus inspired.  May we learn to live the gospel in the world, aligning our lives and values after the example of our Savior. When we are unfaithful or disobedient, O God, do not remove your Spirit, but inspirit us to make those changes that are consonant with your holy will.

              Lord, we pray that as a new church year begins we may bring a new attitude to our ministry, a renewed commitment to being the church you are calling us to be.  We pray for each member of this congregation, that each may feel a new connection with you, and experience new enthusiasm to bring to the life and outreach of our ministry. 

              We thank you for those your providence has directed to us.  We thank you for Lewis, our new music director.  We thank you for the gifts and background he brings to our ministry.  We thank you for Alicia, our Young Adult Volunteer, who will share in our common life and work for the next year.  We continue to thank you for Maura and the gifts she brings to our ministry.  O Lord, we have been richly endowed.  Grant us your favor that we may continually use our endowments to your glory.

              A body of with several members we serve together under our Savior Jesus Christ. In striving, celebration and in sorrow we are one, and as one we pray for those we know and love who have special needs…