Sermon for the Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost, September 3, 2023

Jeremiah 15:51-21+Psalm 26:1-8+Romans 12:9-21+Matthew 16:21-28

This is where stuff, as they say, gets real, at least according to Matthew's account of the life of Jesus. It's all fun and games until someone starts talking about getting arrested and killed.

Up to now, it may have seemed like one great adventure for the followers of Jesus. They had abandoned their jobs and left their old lives behind them. They were given the power to heal and cast out demons (Ch. 10).  They loved it when Jesus stuck it to the man, challenging the religious authorities and those who collaborated with Rome. I imagine they thought they would be on the winning side of a revolution, a new world order.

The thing is, they were. It just didn't look like they expected it to look.

Now Jesus is talking about being arrested and executed. It's the first time they hear this from him, but it is not the last. You would think that by the fourth time he says it ten chapters from now, they might have understood the message, but even then, Peter is promising never to desert him to which Jesus responds, "Truly I tell you, this very night, before the cock crows, you will deny me three times" (26:34).

But here, this first time, Peter isn't making any promises; he's telling Jesus to knock it off. You can hardly blame him. Who wants to hear a friend talk about dying? It's the last thing we want to talk about, and Peter has just made his statement of faith that Jesus is the Messiah, and he's given the keys to the kingdom, and maybe he's thinking that he is sharing leadership with Jesus now.

But Jesus says, "Not so fast, friend. You have no idea what you are saying, and if you try to dissuade me from this path I am on, you are a stumbling block to me. Get out of the way, Satan. Take a seat."

Each time Jesus predicts his death, however, he also predicts the resurrection. I'm not sure that his listeners ever get that far. They get stuck on the death part. Even if they hear him say it, who is going to believe that a dead man can come back to life? But he is trying to prepare them for what life following in his footsteps will truly cost them. They have to be willing to lose their lives in order to truly live. They must be willing to take up their cross.

It's a phrase we hear a lot from some people, like having a difficult child is a cross to bear or being a Cleveland Browns fan is a cross to bear. But the kind of cross Jesus is talking about is a cross of sacrifice, one that can lead to physical death, yes, but also a death to self, of thinking that it's all about us.

Let love be genuine; hate what is evil, hold fast to what is good; love one another with mutual affection; outdo one another in showing honor. Do not lag in zeal, be ardent in spirit, serve the Lord. Rejoice in hope, be patient in suffering, persevere in prayer. Contribute to the needs of the saints; extend hospitality to strangers.

Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them. Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with one another; do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly; do not claim to be wiser than you are. Do not repay anyone evil for evil but take thought for what is noble in the sight of all. If it is possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. (Romans 12:9-18)   

When Paul wrote these words to the people in Rome, he has told us what the kind of sacrificial living Jesus talks about actually looks like. I often use a paraphrase of these words for a blessing at the end of our liturgies as a reminder that we do not conform ourselves to the ways of this world. We do not put ourselves and our needs above those of everyone else; we do not respond to hate with hate. That's not the Way of Love that we promise to follow.

Many of you know that my grandfather was a Southern Baptist minister. Twenty years ago or so, my uncle - my father's brother - took a notebook out of his father's belongings labeled "My Best," the twenty-five sermons my grandfather considered his finest preaching, and Uncle Jack had these edited and bound and gave a copy to each of the Ellis grandchildren. It is a treasure of mine.

One of the sermons contains a story about my dad when he was about eight years old, playing in the back yard of their Sherman, Texas, house, and making all kinds of noise with his friends, as you might expect. Granddaddy wrote that "all of a sudden, there was a calm." Here's how he tells it:

Mrs. Ellis (that would be my grandmother) suspected that something had gone wrong and went immediately to investigate. When she arrived upon the scene, she saw her baby boy (my dad was the youngest of four) standing in a belligerent attitude with a rock in his hand and one of his little playmates was making a hurried exit out the back gate. She soon calmed the storm, and they were back at their games again as though nothing had happened. She said nothing to Leland (that's my dad's name) at the time, but that night before she put him to bed, she had a little heart-to heart talk with him. She explained that she was so happy for him to have his friends over and play in the yard or in the house. It was just what she wanted him to do. But she suggested that he did not want to be losing his temper and throwing rocks at his little friends. She said that it would hurt her and his father and said, "Do you think that will please the Lord?" He said, "Well, if one of these boys hits me, the Lord is not going to find me standing there doing nothing."

Maybe my 8-year-old father had not quite grasped the concept of rendering to no one evil for evil, but he was a child, and these are lessons that hopefully we learn as we grow. That the Christian life is not about getting our way or fighting back or hoarding all the things we can lay our hands on. It's about bearing with one another even when that seems impossible to do.

Taking up our cross is not about some personal struggle we face; it's about a way of living that says that everyone we meet is as beloved of God as we are. That we are in this together. That we will strive for justice and peace on the earth as we promise each time we renew our baptismal covenant.

Four times, Jesus predicts his suffering and death. But don't miss what he promised on the other side of that. Our work is to live faithfully, walking the Way of the Cross which is the Way of Love. In a couple of weeks, we will read a little later in Paul's letter to the Romans the same words that are part of our funeral liturgy

We do not live to ourselves, and we do not die to ourselves. If we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord; so then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord's. (Romans 14:7-8)

Thanks be to God.