The Rock and The Way

This sermon was preached at our Sunday morning service on 30th August. The Gospel was Matthew 16:21-28, and the New Testament reading was Romans 12:9-21. 

In writing this sermon, I was reminded of a hymn I wrote a few years ago. I nearly quoted it in the sermon, but removed it in the end. It's here if you wish to read it.

 

Last week, Huw talked to us about when Peter proclaimed Jesus as the Messiah, and then how difficult the disciples must have found it when Jesus instructed them to keep quiet about it. I have been thinking about that this week. And I’ve also been wondering about Jesus’ motivation. To tell you the truth, I have never understood why Jesus wanted his heavenly identity to be kept so under wraps.

Well, this week, we finally find out why.

 

Poor Peter. I’ve never known someone get it so spectacularly right, and then so catastrophically wrong within such a short space of time.

Last week, he was top of his game.

Jesus asked his disciples who they thought he was. “The Messiah, the Son of the living God!” Peter replied. And you can almost hear the ‘ding ding ding’ of the bell as Jesus claps his hands and congratulates Peter on getting the star prize for his answer.

“You’ve got it!”, cries Jesus! “Those words are straight from God!” And Jesus renames him on the spot. Before he said this, he was Simon the Fisherman. Now that he’s stated this heavenly truth, he’s Peter the Rock. And hell will not prevail against this solid foundation of truth.

 

The Rock, in a pensive mood - maybe pondering the way to go?

(hang on - this might be the wrong 'Rock'...)


 

This week, though, after Jesus goes on to explain to his disciples what it really means to be the Messiah, Peter the Rock gets a bit above his station. Maybe he thinks he’s more of a mountain than a rock. But he takes Jesus aside, and tells him he must be wrong. And this causes Jesus to rename him again.

“You’re not a rock. You’re a stumbling block.”, Jesus says. And then he calls him Satan. Ouch.

 

Last week, Simon the Fisherman spoke words straight from God, and he became Peter The Rock.

This week, The Rock is causing Jesus to stumble by spouting the temptations of the devil.

 

“Get behind me”, says Jesus. Get back in line.

“If you want to follow, you have to let me lead.”

 

You see, Peter didn’t get what it meant to be the Messiah.

And that’s no real surprise.

Because no-one really did.

 

The people back then in Roman-occupied Israel were on the look-out. They were an oppressed people in their own homes. They were paying taxes to a foreign power; their money flowing back to Rome and paying for the privilege of those Roman soldiers on their streets.

They knew their history. They knew what the promised Messiah would do.

He would free them from oppression. He would lead them in their fight; in their revolution.

 

No wonder Jesus didn’t want others to know who he was. The moment the people heard he was the Messiah, they would have given him a crown and a sword and a flag and rushed off into battle. Into slaughter. If Christ wouldn’t lead them there, they would carry him with them.

 

But, as we heard in our gospel today, that’s not the way of Christ. The people had got it wrong.

We still get it wrong.

 

God does not win through battle and power and flags and crowns.

Jesus tells us in our gospel that we’ve always had it backwards: “Those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.”, he says.

It is in Christ’s death that the world is gained. In a choice between a crown and the cross, God picks the cross every time.

If only we could do the same.

 

Western Christianity does not like this Christ. He cannot be co-opted onto the battlefield. He cannot be used to justify building wealth and power. He cannot be used to draw divisions between people; his own creations. We want a Christ who blesses our plans; not one who overturns them. We want a Christ who protects our comfort; not one who calls us to surrender it.

This Christ is never the one the world wanted. But (in the style of those blockbuster movie trailers), he is the one the world needed.

 

Jesus’ example, and his call to us, is one of radical self-denial. If we want to follow him, to get behind him; he is leading the way. But it is the way to Golgotha. He calls us to carry our own cross.

For most of us, that cross won’t look like martyrdom. It will look like forgiveness we don’t wish to offer, generosity we feel uncomfortable giving, compassion we do not believe is deserved. It looks remarkably like the passage we heard from Romans today : genuine love, holding fast to what is good, rejoicing in hope, being patient in suffering, persevering in prayer, helping those in need, and particularly looking out to help those we don't know.

And if we want to follow Christ, that is the road before us. Not the way of power, but the way of self-giving love. Not the crown, but the cross.

This is how we follow; how we journey in Christ's footsteps, always carrying this symbol of self-sacrifice that is also the knowledge of our own mortality. This is the path to new life, for us and for our world.

Amen

 

 

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