Our cross today

Matthew 16:21-28

²¹From that time on, Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and undergo great suffering at the hands of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised. ²²And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him, saying, “God forbid it, Lord! This must never happen to you.” ²³But he turned and said to Peter, “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.”

²⁴Then Jesus told his disciples, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. ²⁵For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it. ²⁶For what will it profit them if they gain the whole world but forfeit their life? Or what will they give in return for their life? ²⁷“For the Son of Man is to come with his angels in the glory of his Father, and then he will repay everyone for what has been done. ²⁸Truly I tell you, there are some standing here who will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.”

Get behind me Satan.

Could Jesus really be addressing these words to Peter?

Get behind me Satan.

Peter, the disciple we read about last week to whom Jesus offered the keys of the kingdom, the disciple on whom Jesus said he would build the church.

Peter, who walked on water.

Peter. who recognized Jesus as the Messiah, the Son of the living God.

Peter, now being told by Jesus: Get behind me Satan.

What on earth is going on?

I’d like to challenge us all, today, with the thought, that what was going on with Peter is what assails all of us every day.

Peter was simply not taking the challenge of following Jesus seriously enough.

Peter had not counted the cost of following Jesus.

And so, once Jesus starts to reinforce the teaching, a teaching he has promoted from the beginning, but which his disciples have not taken seriously, once Jesus starts to elaborate on that teaching - that discipleship involves hardship, his disciples try to deflect him and brush off his abrasive call to sacrifice.

It’s a very human trait – to try to make light of challenging circumstances – a useful coping mechanism – one that we all employ from time to time.

But Jesus needed his disciples to wake up and appreciate just how much was being asked of them.

Jesus needed them to fully grasp the cost of discipleship.

As I studied this text this week, I was forced to smile.

Because it struck me that, really, here in this gospel reading, is everything we try hard to steer clear of in the church.

For instance, I’m always banging on about us being a welcoming community.

An accepting community.

A community that shares joy and sorrow and that is supportive through all that life brings.

A community founded on the love of God.

A community that celebrates the joy that God gives and the light that God brings into the darkest corners of our lives.

So – if I was to write an advert for Castlehill Church – it would be along the lines of:

Come and be part of a real, fun loving, friendly bunch of people, who, together, are learning to love and serve God.

Each week, as a benediction, I exhort all of you to go to love and to serve God by loving and serving each other.

This week’s gospel, however, had me wondering about that.

For in this gospel, Jesus is not telling his disciples about the fun they’ll have.

He is not telling them about the friends they will make.

He is asking them to take up a cross.

, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. ²⁵For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.

What kind of invitation is that?

It’s certainly NOT the kind of discipleship that we advertise.

And THAT, says Jesus is the problem.

Faith is NOT a walk in the park.

Discipleship is NOT easy.

And perhaps the reason Jesus was so harsh with Peter was because even Jesus, himself was tempted to take an easier route.

Even Jesus might have preferred to continue on the adventure he was embarked on with his disciples.

Surely, together, they could have sustained that for a bit longer, had some fun, retained the adulation of the crowds and upped the ante with the authorities.

But Jesus knew that that was not God’s will.

Jesus knew that there could be no happy ending.

Jesus knew that the ONLY way was the way of the cross.

And, however tempting it might be to give all that a body swerve, Jesus knew there was only one way to achieve the salvation of the world – and that was – by his death on a cross.

But, for us, that IS THE GOOD NEWS.

Jesus obedience, his persistence, his refusing to be turned aside from God’s mission, his going all the way to the cross, means that we, as Jesus’ followers today, have no need to look for a cross to carry.

Discipleship, for us today, while not an easy task, is nothing compared to what was being demanded of Jesus.

Discipleship, for us, IS encapsulated in the benediction we share every week – loving and serving God by loving and serving each other.

Discipleship calls us to obediently give of ourselves in serving our neighbour.

But we must never underestimate the cost and the effectiveness of such service.

We are not being asked to die – Jesus has already done that for all of us.

But we are being asked to live lives dedicated to serving God and those around us in love.

And, you know only too well that that is a task that is much more difficult than it sounds.

That kind of discipleship involves truly loving even the most unlovable folk we encounter in every day life.

It involves us loving and serving the grouchy, the miserable, the ungrateful, the down right awkward folk we encounter every day (and that’s just our fellow Christians!)– all in order to be obedient to Jesus’ call to take up our cross and follow him.

No, we don’t need to go looking for crosses to take up – we are presented with them every day – and Jesus calls for us to be obedient in responding with love to every challenge we encounter.

THAT is discipleship.

So, maybe the kind of advert we’d like to promote to encourage others to join us in God’s mission here in Castlehill Church doesn’t sound so bad.

Maybe it is Ok to advertise ourselves as a welcoming community.

An accepting community.

A community that shares joy and sorrow and that is supportive through all that life brings.

A community founded on the love of God.

A community that celebrates the joy that God gives and the light that God brings into the darkest corners of our lives.

But maybe you and I need to wake up to how much it takes to BE that kind of community.

It is EXTREMELY hard work.

It will not come easily.

It will take a lot of effort.

But, together, we can be obedient to Jesus’ call to be disciples.

So - Let’s write that advert for Castlehil church:

Come and be part of a real, fun loving, friendly bunch of people, who, together, are learning to love and serve God.

And let’s take that benediction seriously: to go to love and to serve God by loving and serving each other.

For the glory of God.

Amen.

Ready or not

Readings:  1 Kings 19 v 9-18

                Matthew 14 v 22-33

All of us need different things when it comes to taking time out.

Some of us enjoy activity to help us relax.

Others enjoy doing nothing.

Some folk relax just by being free of routine and deadlines.

Others like structured breaks.

For some, a change is as good as a rest.

For others, only getting completely away and doing something different – will provide rest.

But we all need, at some level, to escape and feel the difference.

When we encounter Elijah in our Old Testament reading this morning, he was in need of a break.

Elijah had just achieved a massive victory over the prophets of Baal.

He’d won a major battle.

But then he discovered that the queen, Queen Jezebel, was out to kill him.

There was no time for him to celebrate his victory or to take time out to celebrate success.

Instead, Elijah was fleeing for his life.

And the strength and the faith that had seen him through one major crisis deserted him as he faced the next.

So he fled.

Trying to put as much distance as he possibly could between himself and the queen who, literally, was after his blood.

And so he finds himself about 300 miles away from where he had destroyed the 400 prophets of Baal.

And finds himself on a Holy Mountain, a place revered as a place of God.

It is as he hides away on that mountain that Elijah encounters God.

Not dramatically.

Not, as you might expect, in a mighty wind, or in an earthquake or in a ball of fire.

But in a deathly silence.

That is how God chose to appear.

In silence.

Elijah, worn out after such a long journey, fearing for his life, had to be still to encounter God – in the silence.

My first question of this story is:

Did Elijah have to flee to this holy mountain to encounter God?

Or could that silence have stopped him in his tracks and soothed him at any point on his journey?

Perhaps an interesting question for us today:

What are the conditions under which we encounter God?

Do we need to be in a particular place?

Do we need to be in a particular frame of mind?

Do we need to be rested?

Do we need to be desperate?

To encounter God.

And my second question is:

What effect does meeting God have on us?

Before God is revealed to Elijah in this story, God asks him: what are you doing here?

And Elijah answers:

"I have been very zealous for the Lord, the God of hosts; for the Israelites have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword. I alone am left, and they are seeking my life, to take it away." 

But once God is revealed to Elijah in the silence, God asks him the same question: What are you doing here?

And Elijah’s response is no different:

He answered, "I have been very zealous for the Lord, the God of hosts; for the Israelites have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword. I alone am left, and they are seeking my life, to take it away."

Elijah, who is filled with God’s spirit.

Who has already achieved incredible feats in the name and power of God, is seemingly unchanged by this encounter.

He is still weary, still fearful, in spite of all that God enabled in him and through him.

Like so many of us.

Confronted by God in different times and places, in different ways.

Yet, often, unchanged by the encounter.

How often have we thought:

If only God would just give me a sign.

If only God would be a bit clearer.

If only God would give me a nudge – one way or the other.

But would it really make any difference?

Would we really be any the wiser?

How often have we chosen to ignore the prompting of God because we’re not convinced, or the timing’s not right, as we see it, or because we’re just not ready for that particular message?

We idealize how and when the Living God might show up in our lives – so much so – that we fail to recognize how often we are in fact in that Holy presence.

Our gospel reading continues the theme of rest, of escape.

Jesus sent the disciples off in a boat to escape the crowds and he spent some time by himself in prayer.

Of course we all know and have probably heard many a sermon on the rest of this story – when Jesus catches up with the disciples by walking on water to reach them.

Often, we focus on Peter, the disciple who left the boat and walked on water.

Whether Peter’s actions were acts of bravery or of foolishness is open for debate.

But there is even more going on in this gospel story.

At this point in their ministry together, Jesus is recognized, by the disciples, as the Son of God.

Why?

Because he walked on water to reach the disciples in the boat.

The disciples, terrified, not by the wind and the waves – they were fishermen, after all – the disciples, terrified by the sight of someone walking on the water, on discovering that the one who comes to them is Jesus, in that moment, recognize him as the Son of God and worship him.

The ARE changed by their encounter with God, with the Son of God.

Their fear leaves them and they begin to worship.

What a result!

And their journey continues…

The reason Jesus and the disciples were in the boat was to cross to the other side and carry on their ministry.

By the time the disciples got there, by the time they crossed the water, they were forever changed by their encounter with the living God.

They now knew who Jesus was – the Son of God.

And that encounter propelled them on

So which encounter resonates with us this morning?

Do we long to encounter God in quiet and reverence?

Or do we want to see God in the storm that is our life right now?

And would it make any difference either way?

Are we prepared to be challenged and changed by knowing God, however revealed?

Or have we lost the will to love and to serve because life is too hard?

We have been privileged this morning to hear just a brief update of our young folks’ trip to Romania – I’m sure there are lots more stories to come. (some not for telling here!)

A story that started out as a simple wish to help out by donating weekly tuck shop profits.

A story that grew.

Until that helping out at a distance was no longer enough.

We give thanks for all who have been inspired and enabled to go on this trip.

For leaders and for young people.

What is certain is that each of them will be changed forever by that experience.

By encountering new experiences, by encountering a very different culture and, whether they knew it or not, by encountering God in the people by whom they were welcomed and whom they served.

Because thank God, it’s not about when we are ready.

God appears anyway.

God appears and changes everything, using us to share the love of God and to live in the light of that love.

God changes you.

God changes me.

And, together, we go on to make God known throughout the world, starting right here.

May we be open and may we be surprised and empowered by encountering God this week, in the silence or in the storm.

Thanks be to God.