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Jesus said to His disciples in today’s Gospel: 29…“But who do you say that I am?” Peter of course answers in saying that Jesus is the Messiah. Messiah means literally the Anointed One. Set aside and appointed, consecrated by God for mission, ministry. As we know, Jesus’ mission was to bear the Cross to indeed make us “right” again with God the Father. Peter and the disciples however, were having a hard time as we know, with what Jesus would continue to challenge and reveal to them…
The
Reformation battle-cry that has echoed for over 500 years has been that
wonderful epiphany, conversion-fed heart-knowledge that St. Paul would
pastorally share in his letter to the Romans. This great realization is our most
daunting discipleship challenge: “1Therefore, since we are justified
by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 2through
whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand; and we boast in
our hope of sharing the glory of God.”
For
nearly two thousand something years after that statement of “Justification by
faith, through Grace;” we have gone to battle either for the Word or honestly… against
it. Human creatures that we are, we
still can’t truly come to grips with what Christ has called us to be. We act more often like Shakespeare’s Hamlet: “To
Be, Or not to Be?” That’s been our question we’ve avoided in truly and
truthfully answering… Or when we have
thought that we have answered God’s call and commissioning over our lives; we
still try to do it on our own terms!
In
fact, living more intentionally into or “unto ourselves” (& its gospel…)
over and above the Will of God has become a new kind of justification. Not for the better, mind you, at all but this
is where we are. Whoever said discipleship was going to be easy though? It is a constant SPIRITUAL process of
accountability in thought, word and action: reflection, confession, repentance
and renewal. We will always be children, period. This we must humbly remember deeply in our
hearts as we struggle to sojourn our way into the world BUT NOT BE of it!
We have
made the notion of righteousness on many levels, both a “Pandora’s box” of
misunderstanding as well as a limited, confining, “exclusionary” world
revolving unto ourselves. This world
revolving around the self has even written up and firmly established itself
with “BAD theology.” BAD is a label,
this is human nature to label but what does it entail? BAD theology that is?
Most likely a recipe of the following: No (need for) laws, No accountability,
No Grace, No-need for redemption, universalized subjugation and lastly No true
purpose to be a disciple to anyone or for anyone except the self.... Welcome to the “Modern, Progressive” world!
If we feel
that we have “arrived,” I think God must be deeply saddened by our resolve! I
started thinking about this after the text study I am in every Saturday
morning. Each and every Saturday, my
pastoral peers and I gather and share our week as well as share with each other
areas we feel we need each other to grow in and be prayerfully shaped by to be
and become even more transformed to live and love for both God and neighbor.
This
week in particular I was spiritually challenged not to cave into the temptation
of returning graceless behavior in the face of arguing with someone about their
perspective on pastoral leadership theology.
As we know all too well sadly in our human response as the “church” in
the world, we are all fairly divided. Some divisions as well are fueled by
intolerance and prejudice in the “guise of justice…” All these divisions are man-made brought on
upon the adversary’s divisiveness placating our discipleship journeys with
convenient “doors” and politically-open “windows.” I caved in and returned their graceless
behavior in the form of graceless sarcasm.
Being
screamed at on the phone and hearing all kinds of hateful horrible things about
what this person labelled me and “my kind” hurt and frankly pushed those
buttons. My graceless response was in the form of erasing their “presence” in
one of my ordination pictures. It was
fabulously sarcastic and yes… it did make “me” feel good for a little while… but
who did it truly serve? Satan, that’s who!
Why couldn’t I have simply said, I love you my brother but we just have
to simply say we agree to disagree, plain and simple and said Good night and God
Bless?
Jesus
asked His disciples a fairly simple question on one level but on another level
it is our lives’ constant challenge: If
we don’t KNOW really who Jesus is in our lives actively, how can we be truly
and truthfully living into who we really are?
This is especially if we do hold any sense at all that we have been
saved by Grace… if we hold any sense of real faith at all in anything else
BEYOND ourselves?!
We are
children of God, we were given the breath of life by God the Father, creator of
all things seen and unseen. The soul is the unseen aspect of the core of what
makes us who we are—SPIRIT. It is the Spirit that gives us life in more ways
than one. The law of the Gospel of Grace
is the fruit of our lives lived as children of the New Covenant. Being gracious, loving compassionate
ministers of the Gospel is radical… for we are to crucify our Old Natured ways
of doing, thinking and being and humbly be transformed, shaped into the New
Nature creations God intended for us to BE.
Wherever
you are on your discipleship journey, taking up that cross with an enduring
hope that surpasses all understanding from the world around you, IS where God
wants you to BE and become for the sake of His Gospel. For our undeserving
sakes, Jesus reveals the future of the road He must travel. As we know from last week, right after that
Baptism by John, Jesus travels into the wilderness to be tempted but endures
and moves on, forward with God’s plans!
This past
week also saw some blessings, for the new ministry before my feet may not seem
like ministry to some but yet is another growing edge experience God has placed
uniquely before me at the cross-roads to experience. I started working at the flower shop our
music minister runs. Every Thursday and
Friday, I am working with God’s beautiful creations flowers of every kind of
shape, form and colors… What has been
the ministry here is not only getting to know Debra better but seeing and
experiencing her hopes and dreams for ministry in sharing vision and mission
together for the future of our community here. She is Church of the Nazarene
and I am Lutheran. So what, that’s what,
none of that has come up whatsoever since we have only talked about Jesus,
living into faith and loving neighbor.
It
doesn’t matter where you are, but it does matter to KNOW whose you are and
where He wants you to travel. It is not a journey to complete necessarily on
your own, either. I know I am not yet
where I would like to be… I would love to be doing chaplaincy
and church planting 24/7! But God has me here and now, for a reason & I
have to trust, have confidence in His timing to live into a Grace-shaped Hope. St.
Paul says it best: “3And not only that, but we also boast in our
sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, 4and
endurance produces character, and character produces hope, 5and hope
does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts
through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.”
Jesus’
Words speak to our continual battle: “If any want to become my followers, let
them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. 35For
those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life
for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it. 36For
what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life? 37Indeed,
what can they give in return for their life? 38Those who are ashamed
of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of them the Son
of Man will also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the
holy angels.”
Indeed
what can we give in return for our lives?
If we deny Jesus’ Cross—in more ways than one in the fruit of our lives
lived… The only “glory” we will produce is our own destruction and the
construction of the adversary, ruler of the world’s throne.
AMEN
March 1st, 2015; 2nd
Sunday of Lent; Year B: SOLA Lectionary
Sermon By Rev. Nicole A.M. Collins
Psalm 22:23-31; Genesis 17:1-7,
15-16; Romans 5:1-11 & Mark 8:27-38
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