Sermon (Dcn. Sue); 13 Pentecost/Proper 17A; Matthew 16:21-28
I know a lot about grass. The kind you mow. I’ve been mowing lawns since I was nine years old. That was when I was 4 foot 10 and weighed 89 lbs. My parents bought a self-propelled mower. I looked like a rag doll being tossed around by the machine in front of me. As I grew up and self-propelled mowers got lighter, not by much, and I gained muscle, not by much, they were easier to manipulate, but not by much. Practice, patience, the right tools, and entrepreneurial spirit afforded me a small lawn mowing service. It kept me busy all summer long until my later 20’s. There were a lot of “Sue, Sue, Sue” moments too when I failed to do the right thing. Like, my lawn always needed to be cut, and I seemed to forget about it.
One day in my mid-teens, I was reading an organic gardening magazine where fish ponds were featured. My mom had a big yard, and it was summer, I had nothing but lawns to mow and time on my hands. You know where this is going, I started to dig a hole.
My cousin had built a beautiful pond on his property, and I thought I should too. Like Forrest Gump running across America, I dug a huge hole in the back yard. Mom thought I wouldn't, after a day or two, I might give up. But three weeks later, I had an equilateral triangle 4-foot sides in front of the purple lilac shrubs. It was 2 feet deep. My mom was like, now what?
I needed my cousin to help with the concrete form and mix all that concrete, and I'd paint it with dry lock. And so it happened, he made the forms and his kids' mixed and poured concrete. The pond was perfect.
But the rest of my family was saying, "Susan, Susan, Susan." While they mixed and poured concrete, I was away on a Youth Event trip for a week. How convenient for me. That was a lot of work. I consistently lost sight of the completion of the project and did what I love to do. Dig.
And you know when Mom shakes her head, and says, “Don’t do that,” and you proceed, she will be calling you by all three of your names, you are in deep manure.
In today’s gospel, we have Peter, Peter, Peter. What are we to do with Simon Peter, Jonah’s son? Some days he’s on track. You are the messiah!! Other days he steps out of a boat thinking he can walk on water like Jesus, and today, well, he’s Satan.
Jesus has been alluding to the discord that the Scribes and Pharisees and Jesus’ teaching, healing, and miracles. Jesus knows, as the Messiah of God, he, in complete obedience to will do what lies ahead. Suffer, Die, and three days later, be raised. Within 13 verses in this chapter, Peter’s gone from being with it to needing a scolding.
Here comes the scolding, we have heard Peter called Peter, Simon Peter, Simon Peter Son of Jonah, and now Satan.
Peter was living in a world of oppression. He saw Jesus heal the sick, feed the hungry, and still the water. He’s probably been whipped around like a rag doll, especially as he was sinking.
Peter has been waiting on a King, a messiah, to wrestle with social justice. Peter has been waiting on a King to bring an army to crush the enemy and heal a broken place. Peter has been blessed for understanding that Jesus is the Messiah, but loses the understanding of what it means to be a follower of Jesus. Peter has set his mind on the comfort of being with Jesus rather than following Jesus. Get behind me.
Each of us is Peter. In each of us is Moses. In each of us, we are Egyptians. Most notably, each of us is in Christ. Through the Holy Spirit, we carry both the glory of Jesus rising and the suffering of the Cross.
Today’s struggles are too numerous to name. Is it 2021 yet? We have a Messiah who points all the time to grace, forgiveness, mercy, and compassion. We take on these gifts and go rather than stay put, like Peter. Take up your Cross, and follow me. Peter, is going to lose his life to save it. The keys to living in Christ carrying the Cross are to be patient, the practice of prayer, receiving forgiveness, and taking in the body whether spiritually or physically or both, and having a desire to follow.
We have lost a lot in the last six months. New challenges are surfacing due to COVID-19. Like Peter, we have our Jesus, King of Love. We purposefully went about giving. We still do. We strove to make a difference, and we are. We hold back, though, on issues of social justice. We hold back the cross of seeing the face of Jesus in each person. We hold back the suffering of implicit racial bias and live in just the risen days.
In living in just glory, we leave ourselves empty of living fully in Christ. In living on only the healing part, we forget about the broken. Get behind us, Satan.
Today’s Gospel for us is to see the third day when Christ rises from the Dead to desire us to go and do the hard work of offering hope to places where there is hopelessness. Grace to see the face of Jesus on a man who just broke up a fight, now in a hospital bed, after being shot point-blank seven times. Grace to see the face of Jesus in a young man who carried a rifle to a protest, and used it to ‘protect’ and yet killed and wounded. Grace to see the face of Chris Herren, the keynote speaker for Washington County Goes Purple event, whose life of recovery is fraught with relapses and overdoses, he’s been sober for over a decade. Grace to see the face of Jesus in an un-masked person in public. We all fall short of living perfect lives. And sometimes we have to lose ourselves and our indignation to gain our lives and the kingdom here and not yet.
Susan Susan Susan…Since those teenage days, I’ve learned to listen better, ask for help when I need it, turn to God not just for forgiveness, but also for grace. Just as Peter gets it, he loses it. Just as I get it, I lose it. Just as we get it, we lose it. While there is patience, practice in prayer, the spiritual or physical taking of Christ, and the desire to allow God to work in and through us, we will take up the Cross and be whole. Sometimes the pain of losing oneself in today will be in the gaining of glory of living again.