The Eighth Sunday After Pentecost Genesis 37: 1 – 4, 12 – 28
Sunday, August 7, 2011 Romans 10: 5 – 15
The Rev. Bambi Willis Matthew 14: 22 – 33
And early in the morning Jesus came walking toward them on the sea.
Matthew 14: 25
Every good story has a crisis, a kind of cliff hangar that leaves us wondering what will happen next. In the story of Cinderella, for example, we meet a beautiful young woman who wants to go to a ball. Cinderella’s desire is frustrated by her ugly step sisters who insist Cinderella is a charwoman and has no place at a prince’s ball. With that, a fairy godmother appears on the scene, turning a pumpkin into a coach, mice into horsemen and Cinderella’s dirty rags into a magnificent ball gown.
Cinderella goes off to the ball, charms the handsome prince and her life seems changed forever. But then the clock strikes twelve and Cinderella remembers she must leave. Cinderella dashes out in haste, leaving the handsome prince without a word and we are left to wonder what will happen next.
The crisis comes in the story of Cinderella when the clock strikes midnight. When the clock strikes midnight in the story of Cinderella, we have no idea whether Cinderella and her handsome prince will ever meet again.
This morning we hear a story from the gospel of Matthew in which the disciples are in a boat, struggling to get across the Sea of Galilee. The wind is against them, Matthew tells us. Suddenly, Jesus appears, walking on the water toward them and they become terrified, thinking they are seeing a ghost. Jesus reassures them, telling the disciples, that it is, indeed, he. But Peter is not convinced, saying: “Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.” And then Peter jumps out of the boat, walks briefly on the water and soon begins to sink.
The crisis in this story in which first Jesus and then Peter walk on water is the appearance of Jesus to the disciples as they battle the wind and waves in a boat on the Sea of Galilee. The disciples are not sure that it is Jesus they are seeing and they become afraid. The disciples, who are already in peril, are not sure whether this mysterious presence has come to help or to hurt.
In response to this crisis of faith, Peter tests Jesus, asking: “Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water” and jumps out of the boat. And when Peter begins to sink, Jesus catches him, admonishing him with the words: “You of little faith, why did you doubt?”
And with those words, we often presume the crisis in this story is Peter’s lack of faith, concluding that if Peter had not doubted, Peter could have walked on water. Peter’s leap from the boat is understood as a model of faith, and his near drowning the result of his doubt. And the message for us is clear – if you have faith and do not doubt you can walk on water.
That message is probably not the one our evangelist Matthew is hoping we will hear. For Matthew, Peter’s leap from the boat is the wrong response to this mysterious presence, a way of proving that this presence is not a ghost but is really Jesus. Peter jumps ship this morning and Peter jumps ship after asking of Jesus a question that sounds strangely like one we have heard before. “Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water” sounds a whole lot like Satan’s question to Jesus in the wilderness: “If you the Son of God, turn these stones into bread.” Peter leaves his fellow disciples in a storm tossed sea, hoping to walk on water and he sinks.
Later, in Matthew’s gospel, Peter will make a confession of faith, but upon learning that Jesus will die, Peter refuses to believe such a thing could happen. In the face of Peter’s denial, Jesus accuses Peter of being an instrument of Satan. And when Jesus is arrested, Peter will deny knowing this man, not once but three times. In the gospels, Peter often models for us the challenge of faith, a faith that does not preclude but always includes, doubt.
The disciples this morning are in a boat, a traditional metaphor for the church, battling a storm. Jesus appears to them but not in a way that is certain, without doubt, unambiguously. Jesus comes to rescue them, to calm the storm, to save them. But the disciples cannot see clearly and cannot tell for certain that what they see is indeed, their Lord. For Matthew, the experience of these disciples is, and will be, the experience of the church throughout the ages.
Matthew is writing to a community of Jews and gentiles toward the end of the first century, on the far side of the first crisis faced by the church – Jesus did not return immediately after the resurrection and ascension. Now Matthew’s community is no longer welcome in the synagogue and continues to live under Roman rule. In the midst of these turbulent seas, Matthew’s community trusts Jesus’ promise to be with them always, as they struggle to forge a common life without his physical presence. For Matthew, Jesus is “Immanuel,” God with us, but not in such a way that is beyond questioning.
Indeed, the revelation of God in Christ begs us to question, to seek to understand this God who came and lived among us, but is no longer with us in the way Jesus was with the first disciples before the Resurrection. In the words of the eleventh century theologian Saint Anselm of Canterbury “faith seeks understanding.” To seek understanding and to ask questions, is not a sign of a lack of faith, but rather a sign of trust in a God who wills to be known and will not disappear before our eyes if we ask the hard questions.
Certainty about God and God’s ways is a dangerous presumption, a presumption that divides folk into us and them – those who know the truth and those who do not. Certainty about God and God’s will is not faith but self-righteousness, the refusal to believe we may be wrong. Faith, in the words of theologian Daniel Migliore, “has nothing in common with indifference to the search for truth, or fear of it, or the arrogant claim to possess it fully.”
You and I live in a comfortable time for the church, a time in which we are not persecuted for coming to worship. Matthew’s community was not so fortunate. When Matthew wrote his gospel, the church was struggling to forge a common life between Jews and gentiles, in the shadow of the Roman Empire. They, far better than we, knew their common life depended upon Christ’s presence in their midst, a presence they could no longer see and touch, but promised to them “whenever two or three were gathered” in Jesus’ name. Absent that often elusive presence, that fledgling community was doomed to shipwreck.
The church for us no longer seems like a boat battling to stay afloat. The church for us is a veritable institution, whose existence is guaranteed by the laws of the land. We can chose to come or not to come but the church will always be here, or so it seems, and not just The Church but church any way you like it. You can pick your preacher, your denomination, your congregation and what time you come to worship.
Unfortunately, the comfort of calm seas may tempt us into believing we no longer need to struggle with questions of faith, questions that often “rock the boat.” Precisely those questions, those “uncomfortable” questions keep faith alive, keep our faith, again in the words of Migliore, from slipping “into ideology, superstition, fanaticism, self-indulgence, and idolatry.” Faith that does not ask questions will eventually die.
Each new generation of Christians must draw forth from our faith “what is new and what is old,” Matthew tells us, seeking understanding in the midst of historical circumstances previously unimagined. Who knew in the first century that in the twenty-first century we would be able to surf the web and know within minutes what is happening on the other side of the world? Who knew then that now we can fertilize eggs in petri dishes and transplant organs? Who knew in the first century that by the fourth century the glory that was Rome would be gone, to be replaced centuries later by any number of nations? Each new generation of Christians must struggle anew to live faithfully in the midst of changing circumstances and new questions.
“Human life ceases to be human not when we do not have all the answers but when we no longer have the courage to ask the really important questions.” Again, those words are Migliore’s. What we seek with our questions is the promised presence of Christ, the Lord and giver of life.
Sunday, August 7, 2011 Romans 10: 5 – 15
The Rev. Bambi Willis Matthew 14: 22 – 33
And early in the morning Jesus came walking toward them on the sea.
Matthew 14: 25
Every good story has a crisis, a kind of cliff hangar that leaves us wondering what will happen next. In the story of Cinderella, for example, we meet a beautiful young woman who wants to go to a ball. Cinderella’s desire is frustrated by her ugly step sisters who insist Cinderella is a charwoman and has no place at a prince’s ball. With that, a fairy godmother appears on the scene, turning a pumpkin into a coach, mice into horsemen and Cinderella’s dirty rags into a magnificent ball gown.
Cinderella goes off to the ball, charms the handsome prince and her life seems changed forever. But then the clock strikes twelve and Cinderella remembers she must leave. Cinderella dashes out in haste, leaving the handsome prince without a word and we are left to wonder what will happen next.
The crisis comes in the story of Cinderella when the clock strikes midnight. When the clock strikes midnight in the story of Cinderella, we have no idea whether Cinderella and her handsome prince will ever meet again.
This morning we hear a story from the gospel of Matthew in which the disciples are in a boat, struggling to get across the Sea of Galilee. The wind is against them, Matthew tells us. Suddenly, Jesus appears, walking on the water toward them and they become terrified, thinking they are seeing a ghost. Jesus reassures them, telling the disciples, that it is, indeed, he. But Peter is not convinced, saying: “Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.” And then Peter jumps out of the boat, walks briefly on the water and soon begins to sink.
The crisis in this story in which first Jesus and then Peter walk on water is the appearance of Jesus to the disciples as they battle the wind and waves in a boat on the Sea of Galilee. The disciples are not sure that it is Jesus they are seeing and they become afraid. The disciples, who are already in peril, are not sure whether this mysterious presence has come to help or to hurt.
In response to this crisis of faith, Peter tests Jesus, asking: “Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water” and jumps out of the boat. And when Peter begins to sink, Jesus catches him, admonishing him with the words: “You of little faith, why did you doubt?”
And with those words, we often presume the crisis in this story is Peter’s lack of faith, concluding that if Peter had not doubted, Peter could have walked on water. Peter’s leap from the boat is understood as a model of faith, and his near drowning the result of his doubt. And the message for us is clear – if you have faith and do not doubt you can walk on water.
That message is probably not the one our evangelist Matthew is hoping we will hear. For Matthew, Peter’s leap from the boat is the wrong response to this mysterious presence, a way of proving that this presence is not a ghost but is really Jesus. Peter jumps ship this morning and Peter jumps ship after asking of Jesus a question that sounds strangely like one we have heard before. “Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water” sounds a whole lot like Satan’s question to Jesus in the wilderness: “If you the Son of God, turn these stones into bread.” Peter leaves his fellow disciples in a storm tossed sea, hoping to walk on water and he sinks.
Later, in Matthew’s gospel, Peter will make a confession of faith, but upon learning that Jesus will die, Peter refuses to believe such a thing could happen. In the face of Peter’s denial, Jesus accuses Peter of being an instrument of Satan. And when Jesus is arrested, Peter will deny knowing this man, not once but three times. In the gospels, Peter often models for us the challenge of faith, a faith that does not preclude but always includes, doubt.
The disciples this morning are in a boat, a traditional metaphor for the church, battling a storm. Jesus appears to them but not in a way that is certain, without doubt, unambiguously. Jesus comes to rescue them, to calm the storm, to save them. But the disciples cannot see clearly and cannot tell for certain that what they see is indeed, their Lord. For Matthew, the experience of these disciples is, and will be, the experience of the church throughout the ages.
Matthew is writing to a community of Jews and gentiles toward the end of the first century, on the far side of the first crisis faced by the church – Jesus did not return immediately after the resurrection and ascension. Now Matthew’s community is no longer welcome in the synagogue and continues to live under Roman rule. In the midst of these turbulent seas, Matthew’s community trusts Jesus’ promise to be with them always, as they struggle to forge a common life without his physical presence. For Matthew, Jesus is “Immanuel,” God with us, but not in such a way that is beyond questioning.
Indeed, the revelation of God in Christ begs us to question, to seek to understand this God who came and lived among us, but is no longer with us in the way Jesus was with the first disciples before the Resurrection. In the words of the eleventh century theologian Saint Anselm of Canterbury “faith seeks understanding.” To seek understanding and to ask questions, is not a sign of a lack of faith, but rather a sign of trust in a God who wills to be known and will not disappear before our eyes if we ask the hard questions.
Certainty about God and God’s ways is a dangerous presumption, a presumption that divides folk into us and them – those who know the truth and those who do not. Certainty about God and God’s will is not faith but self-righteousness, the refusal to believe we may be wrong. Faith, in the words of theologian Daniel Migliore, “has nothing in common with indifference to the search for truth, or fear of it, or the arrogant claim to possess it fully.”
You and I live in a comfortable time for the church, a time in which we are not persecuted for coming to worship. Matthew’s community was not so fortunate. When Matthew wrote his gospel, the church was struggling to forge a common life between Jews and gentiles, in the shadow of the Roman Empire. They, far better than we, knew their common life depended upon Christ’s presence in their midst, a presence they could no longer see and touch, but promised to them “whenever two or three were gathered” in Jesus’ name. Absent that often elusive presence, that fledgling community was doomed to shipwreck.
The church for us no longer seems like a boat battling to stay afloat. The church for us is a veritable institution, whose existence is guaranteed by the laws of the land. We can chose to come or not to come but the church will always be here, or so it seems, and not just The Church but church any way you like it. You can pick your preacher, your denomination, your congregation and what time you come to worship.
Unfortunately, the comfort of calm seas may tempt us into believing we no longer need to struggle with questions of faith, questions that often “rock the boat.” Precisely those questions, those “uncomfortable” questions keep faith alive, keep our faith, again in the words of Migliore, from slipping “into ideology, superstition, fanaticism, self-indulgence, and idolatry.” Faith that does not ask questions will eventually die.
Each new generation of Christians must draw forth from our faith “what is new and what is old,” Matthew tells us, seeking understanding in the midst of historical circumstances previously unimagined. Who knew in the first century that in the twenty-first century we would be able to surf the web and know within minutes what is happening on the other side of the world? Who knew then that now we can fertilize eggs in petri dishes and transplant organs? Who knew in the first century that by the fourth century the glory that was Rome would be gone, to be replaced centuries later by any number of nations? Each new generation of Christians must struggle anew to live faithfully in the midst of changing circumstances and new questions.
“Human life ceases to be human not when we do not have all the answers but when we no longer have the courage to ask the really important questions.” Again, those words are Migliore’s. What we seek with our questions is the promised presence of Christ, the Lord and giver of life.
The Ninth Sunday After Pentecost Genesis 45: 1 – 15
Sunday, August 14, 2011 Romans 11: 1 – 2a, 29 – 32
The Rev. Bambi Willis Matthew 15: 10 – 28
Just then a Canaanite woman from that region came out and started shouting, “Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is tormented by a demon.”
Matthew 15: 22
In 1965, the musical Fiddler on the Roof opened on Broadway to great acclaim. The play was based upon the story of a Jewish family at the turn of the century, struggling to keep their faith alive in Tsarist Russia in a small village named Anatevka. As the musical opens, the head of the family, a man named Tevye, speaks about what keeps him and his family together, in the midst of changing political and social realities, realities that by the end of the musical will force all Jewish families in the village of Anatevka to leave their homes.
“You may ask,” Tevye says, “why do we stay up there if its so dangerous? We stay because Anatevka is our home. And how do we keep our balance? That I can tell you in one word - Tradition.” “Because of our traditions,” Tevye continues, “everyone knows who he is and what God expects of him.”
Our gospel reading begins this morning with a dispute over traditions. The Pharisees are taking Jesus to task for not observing the tradition of washing one’s hands before one eats. This tradition was not grounded in concerns for one’s health, but rather in the purity laws, which sought to insure that what was unclean did not mix with what was clean. Eating with unwashed hands risked taking into one’s body what was unclean and contaminating the whole of your body, making you unclean, or, in other words, unholy. Jesus and his disciples are not washing their hands before they eat and the Pharisees, the keepers of the tradition, want to know why.
“Listen and understand:” Jesus tells the crowd, “it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but it is what comes out of the mouth that defiles.” “What comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this is what defiles. For out of the heart come evil intentions, murder, adultery, fornication, theft, false witness, slander. These are what defile a person, but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile.” And upon hearing these words, we stand up and cheer because Jesus has got it right and the Pharisees have got it all wrong. Down with tradition!
But then Jesus meets a Canaanite woman. A Canaanite woman was a non-Jew, a pagan. A Canaanite was not only a pagan but an enemy of Israel, kind of like the Tsar in Fiddler on the Roof. In the previous verses, Jesus the Jew is debating with his Jewish elders over the purity laws, a kind of family squabble if you will. Now a non-Jew and enemy of Israel confronts Jesus, begging him for mercy.
And Jesus does not come off looking particularly gracious. The woman asks Jesus to have mercy on her and Jesus ignores her. When Jesus’ disciples want Jesus to send this woman away, Jesus tells them, and presumably this woman, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” And finally when this woman throws herself at Jesus’ feet, pleading: “Lord, help me,” Jesus responds with the words: “It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” At the height of this woman’s desperation, Jesus calls her a dog. In the words of one commentator, Jesus’ words to this woman become an obstacle, not an encouragement, to faith.
For the Pharisees, Jesus was an obstacle because Jesus broke with tradition; for this Canaanite woman, Jesus becomes an obstacle because she is not Jewish and Jesus tells her he “was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel.” In our reading this morning, Jesus first seems to break through traditions that no longer mean anything, and then turns around insisting upon the tradition that the Messiah, when the Messiah came, would come to save Israel, God’s chosen people, not the whole world.
“Because of our traditions,” father Tevye in the Fiddler on the Roof says, “everyone knows who he is and what God expects of him.” That was true not only for the Pharisees but for Jesus as well. Unfortunately, the consequence of holding fast to tradition is that the plea of this desperate mother will go unheard and her daughter unhealed.
This Canaanite woman calls into question the very mission of Jesus. Jesus was indeed sent “to the lost sheep of Israel” because they, God’s chosen people, “were like sheep without a shepherd.” The people Israel was, by the grace of God, brought out of slavery in Egypt and called by God to be a light to the nations, to show forth God’s mercy and peace for the sake of the world. God had given them the commandments, the Law, to set them apart, to create light in the midst of a dark world.
But keeping the law, the traditions, had become a weapon in the hands of some of the religious leaders, a way of testing who was “in” and who was “out.” And in our reading this morning, the Pharisees accuse Jesus of not being “one of us” because Jesus did not observe the ritual purity laws. The Law, which God gave to the Jews as a gift had become, for some, a curse.
This Canaanite woman is clearly not one of the “in crowd” and Jesus knows that. But this woman really seems to believe that Jesus can heal her daughter. This woman trusts that the mercy of the God who called Israel out of slavery into freedom, will be merciful to her and her daughter as well. Her trust was not misplaced.
We will never know if this woman and her plea for mercy took Jesus by surprise, causing him to re-think his mission. What we do know is that by the time the gospels were written gentiles were worshipping with Jews. And we also have Paul’s letters, which pre-date all the gospels, and which speak eloquently of what it means to be a chosen people. For Paul, the mystery of salvation, to the Jew first and then to the gentiles, is grounded in the grace of God and not in our worth. “For by grace,” Paul writes in Ephesians, “you have been saved through faith, and this is not your doing; it is the gift of God.” This gift of deliverance, of rescue, of salvation, was freely given by God to the Jews first and then, through Christ, to all of us. The Jews did nothing to merit God’s favor upon them and neither have we.
The Church has not always remembered that we, like this Canaanite woman, have done nothing to deserve the mercy of God. Once the Roman Emperor Constantine was converted in the fourth century, the Church assumed a certain respectability in the world, even a place of privilege. Our traditions began to trump those of others, particularly those of the Jews who were increasingly marginalized. Many Christians did not realize just how demonic a place of privilege can become until the horror of the holocaust when “good” Christians systematically slaughtered not only Jews but homosexuals and the disabled.
As Tevye acknowledges in Fiddler on the Roof, our traditions give us an identity, a sense of community with others who share the same traditions. But traditions are “only” traditions, ways of honoring an identity which has been given to us freely by God. Tradition does not make us who we are; God makes us who we are.
Traditions can be both a blessing and a curse. Our traditions set us apart from others, shaping us into a particular people unlike other peoples. But traditions can become a stumbling block to others, others who come among us with different traditions. At those times will we privilege our traditions or the grace of God that brings us together and will call others into our midst?
What saves this Canaanite woman this morning is her faith – her trust in God’s mercy. Traditions shape us and form us but do not have the power to save us. That power comes only from God. This woman acknowledged the tradition but knew full well that the tradition could not dispel her daughter’s demon. That power belonged only to God and the One whom God had sent.
Sunday, August 14, 2011 Romans 11: 1 – 2a, 29 – 32
The Rev. Bambi Willis Matthew 15: 10 – 28
Just then a Canaanite woman from that region came out and started shouting, “Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is tormented by a demon.”
Matthew 15: 22
In 1965, the musical Fiddler on the Roof opened on Broadway to great acclaim. The play was based upon the story of a Jewish family at the turn of the century, struggling to keep their faith alive in Tsarist Russia in a small village named Anatevka. As the musical opens, the head of the family, a man named Tevye, speaks about what keeps him and his family together, in the midst of changing political and social realities, realities that by the end of the musical will force all Jewish families in the village of Anatevka to leave their homes.
“You may ask,” Tevye says, “why do we stay up there if its so dangerous? We stay because Anatevka is our home. And how do we keep our balance? That I can tell you in one word - Tradition.” “Because of our traditions,” Tevye continues, “everyone knows who he is and what God expects of him.”
Our gospel reading begins this morning with a dispute over traditions. The Pharisees are taking Jesus to task for not observing the tradition of washing one’s hands before one eats. This tradition was not grounded in concerns for one’s health, but rather in the purity laws, which sought to insure that what was unclean did not mix with what was clean. Eating with unwashed hands risked taking into one’s body what was unclean and contaminating the whole of your body, making you unclean, or, in other words, unholy. Jesus and his disciples are not washing their hands before they eat and the Pharisees, the keepers of the tradition, want to know why.
“Listen and understand:” Jesus tells the crowd, “it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but it is what comes out of the mouth that defiles.” “What comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this is what defiles. For out of the heart come evil intentions, murder, adultery, fornication, theft, false witness, slander. These are what defile a person, but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile.” And upon hearing these words, we stand up and cheer because Jesus has got it right and the Pharisees have got it all wrong. Down with tradition!
But then Jesus meets a Canaanite woman. A Canaanite woman was a non-Jew, a pagan. A Canaanite was not only a pagan but an enemy of Israel, kind of like the Tsar in Fiddler on the Roof. In the previous verses, Jesus the Jew is debating with his Jewish elders over the purity laws, a kind of family squabble if you will. Now a non-Jew and enemy of Israel confronts Jesus, begging him for mercy.
And Jesus does not come off looking particularly gracious. The woman asks Jesus to have mercy on her and Jesus ignores her. When Jesus’ disciples want Jesus to send this woman away, Jesus tells them, and presumably this woman, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” And finally when this woman throws herself at Jesus’ feet, pleading: “Lord, help me,” Jesus responds with the words: “It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” At the height of this woman’s desperation, Jesus calls her a dog. In the words of one commentator, Jesus’ words to this woman become an obstacle, not an encouragement, to faith.
For the Pharisees, Jesus was an obstacle because Jesus broke with tradition; for this Canaanite woman, Jesus becomes an obstacle because she is not Jewish and Jesus tells her he “was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel.” In our reading this morning, Jesus first seems to break through traditions that no longer mean anything, and then turns around insisting upon the tradition that the Messiah, when the Messiah came, would come to save Israel, God’s chosen people, not the whole world.
“Because of our traditions,” father Tevye in the Fiddler on the Roof says, “everyone knows who he is and what God expects of him.” That was true not only for the Pharisees but for Jesus as well. Unfortunately, the consequence of holding fast to tradition is that the plea of this desperate mother will go unheard and her daughter unhealed.
This Canaanite woman calls into question the very mission of Jesus. Jesus was indeed sent “to the lost sheep of Israel” because they, God’s chosen people, “were like sheep without a shepherd.” The people Israel was, by the grace of God, brought out of slavery in Egypt and called by God to be a light to the nations, to show forth God’s mercy and peace for the sake of the world. God had given them the commandments, the Law, to set them apart, to create light in the midst of a dark world.
But keeping the law, the traditions, had become a weapon in the hands of some of the religious leaders, a way of testing who was “in” and who was “out.” And in our reading this morning, the Pharisees accuse Jesus of not being “one of us” because Jesus did not observe the ritual purity laws. The Law, which God gave to the Jews as a gift had become, for some, a curse.
This Canaanite woman is clearly not one of the “in crowd” and Jesus knows that. But this woman really seems to believe that Jesus can heal her daughter. This woman trusts that the mercy of the God who called Israel out of slavery into freedom, will be merciful to her and her daughter as well. Her trust was not misplaced.
We will never know if this woman and her plea for mercy took Jesus by surprise, causing him to re-think his mission. What we do know is that by the time the gospels were written gentiles were worshipping with Jews. And we also have Paul’s letters, which pre-date all the gospels, and which speak eloquently of what it means to be a chosen people. For Paul, the mystery of salvation, to the Jew first and then to the gentiles, is grounded in the grace of God and not in our worth. “For by grace,” Paul writes in Ephesians, “you have been saved through faith, and this is not your doing; it is the gift of God.” This gift of deliverance, of rescue, of salvation, was freely given by God to the Jews first and then, through Christ, to all of us. The Jews did nothing to merit God’s favor upon them and neither have we.
The Church has not always remembered that we, like this Canaanite woman, have done nothing to deserve the mercy of God. Once the Roman Emperor Constantine was converted in the fourth century, the Church assumed a certain respectability in the world, even a place of privilege. Our traditions began to trump those of others, particularly those of the Jews who were increasingly marginalized. Many Christians did not realize just how demonic a place of privilege can become until the horror of the holocaust when “good” Christians systematically slaughtered not only Jews but homosexuals and the disabled.
As Tevye acknowledges in Fiddler on the Roof, our traditions give us an identity, a sense of community with others who share the same traditions. But traditions are “only” traditions, ways of honoring an identity which has been given to us freely by God. Tradition does not make us who we are; God makes us who we are.
Traditions can be both a blessing and a curse. Our traditions set us apart from others, shaping us into a particular people unlike other peoples. But traditions can become a stumbling block to others, others who come among us with different traditions. At those times will we privilege our traditions or the grace of God that brings us together and will call others into our midst?
What saves this Canaanite woman this morning is her faith – her trust in God’s mercy. Traditions shape us and form us but do not have the power to save us. That power comes only from God. This woman acknowledged the tradition but knew full well that the tradition could not dispel her daughter’s demon. That power belonged only to God and the One whom God had sent.
The Tenth Sunday After Pentecost Exodus 1: 8 – 2: 10
Sunday, August 21, 2011 Romans 12: 1 – 8
The Rev. Bambi Willis Matthew 16: 13 – 20
“And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it.”
Matthew 16: 18
On a lovely May morning in 2007, I was getting final instructions at the Washington National Cathedral in order to assist with the distribution of communion at the service in which Shannon Johnston would be ordained a Bishop in the Church of God. I was assigned to the balcony which was not my preferred place because I am afraid of heights and the balcony in the Cathedral is, shall we say, a long way up. No matter; I was that day about to watch the ordination of a bishop and that was more than a little exciting. The ordination of a bishop is not something that happens everyday and I was glad to be a small part of that glorious celebration.
At the heart of the service of ordination is the “Examination,” a declaration of the duties of a bishop followed by a series of questions to determine if the ordinand is prepared to assume the responsibilities of the office.
“My brother,” the Presiding Bishop Katherine Jefferts Schori began, “the people have chosen you and have affirmed their trust in you by acclaiming your election. A bishop in God's holy Church is called to be one with the apostles in proclaiming Christ's resurrection and interpreting the Gospel, and to testify to Christ's sovereignty as Lord of lords and King of kings. You are called to guard the faith, unity, and discipline of the Church; to celebrate and to provide for the administration of the sacraments of the New Covenant; to ordain priests and deacons and to join in ordaining bishops; and to be in all things a faithful pastor and wholesome example for the entire flock of Christ.”
With these words, we, in the Episcopal Church, recognize the authority Jesus gives to Peter this morning in our gospel reading when Jesus says: “And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it.” The authority given to Peter and which is passed down through the office of bishop is the authority to interpret the scriptures, guarding “the faith, unity and discipline of the Church.”
Jesus then gives to Peter “the keys of the kingdom of heaven,” a rabbinic phrase meaning the authority to interpret scripture. The rabbis of Jesus’ day had the authority to study the scriptures and to interpret those scriptures, teaching the community what was and was not required of them by God. The rabbis were teachers, charged with determining what was and was not permitted, what was “binding” upon the community and what was not. This authority, Jesus now gives to Peter.
We are not sure exactly when this authority came to be located in the office of bishop. By early in the second century, though, the office of bishop was a distinct order of ministry, an order different from that of priests. And by the fifth century, the bishop of Rome, came to be called a Pope, the chief bishop.
But five hundred years later, the authority of the bishop of Rome was challenged by the church in Constantinople as both churches accused the other of “false teachings” and in 1054 A.D., the Church of Rome in the west parted ways with the Church in Constantinople in the east. Later, in the sixteenth century, Martin Luther, a priest in the Roman Church, took the Church to task for granting indulgences, beginning a reformation that divided the western church into Catholics and Protestants. Subsequently, Protestants divided into Lutheran, Anglican, Anabaptist, Methodist, Presbyterian, and Reformed churches.
Whereas our text today has often been used to ground the infallibility of the pope, understood as the heir of Peter, contemporary Catholic and Protestant interpreters are coming to agree that this text does give Peter a unique role in the Church, albeit a role that is unrepeatable, meaning the Pope is not Peter come back to life.
At Bishop Shannon’s ordination, Shannon was charged with guarding the “faith, unity and discipline of the Church.” “Discipline” comes from a Latin word meaning “instruction given, learning, knowledge.” To be a “disciple” means to be a student, to stand in need of instruction. Peter is charged by Jesus this morning with “discipling” this band of simple fisher folk into the Church, the body of Christ. Peter is not charged with driving out the irreligious or the immoral but with proclaiming and interpreting the good news of Christ to all who would have ears to hear.
The Church is not without fault just as none of us are without fault. But sheep without a shepherd have a tendency to get lost and die. The Church’s mission is to continue the mission of Christ which was, and is, to bring life to the world. The office of bishop is meant to do just that. And the office of bishop is meant to keep us from thinking that any one particular pastor or congregation has the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
At the end of Matthew’s gospel, Jesus gives the disciples the Great Commission: “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you.” For Matthew, teaching is the central task of the church. We might even say, that for Matthew, the church is a school for discipleship.
We are not, in Matthew’s eyes, born disciples, much like we are not born knowing how to read and write. For Matthew, we become disciples as we come together with others, to worship together, to study together, to work together and to play together. We do not come into the church as disciples but may, God willing, leave this community at our death, knowing a bit more about what discipleship means.
The church can be, and sometimes is, more of a school of hard knocks than a school of discipleship. We do not pick the people who come to church with us. The word “church” - which, by the way, is only used twice in the gospels, both times in the gospel of Matthew and for the first time in our reading this morning – means “those called out.” God does the calling and then tells us to love one another. We can learn just as much in the church about how not to be disciple as we can about being a disciple.
But the church, for better and for worse, is the way ordained by God by which we learn how to be disciples.
I take no delight in the reality that the church is not one and that Bishop Shannon would not be invited to receive communion in a Catholic Church. I do believe, however, that the insights of the reformers were a necessary correction to a church that had strayed from the teachings of Christ. The Church will never be able to rest assured for all time that what we do and how we do it is what God would have us do. The Church, like all of us, is always “on the way.”
What we are promised is that “the gates of Hades will not prevail against it” Jesus tells us this morning. That promise is our assurance is that no matter how far the Church strays, how many wrong headed decisions we make, how pleased we become that we are right and others are wrong, the Church will abide, always holding out the promise of life not just for us but all those whom God loves.
Sunday, August 21, 2011 Romans 12: 1 – 8
The Rev. Bambi Willis Matthew 16: 13 – 20
“And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it.”
Matthew 16: 18
On a lovely May morning in 2007, I was getting final instructions at the Washington National Cathedral in order to assist with the distribution of communion at the service in which Shannon Johnston would be ordained a Bishop in the Church of God. I was assigned to the balcony which was not my preferred place because I am afraid of heights and the balcony in the Cathedral is, shall we say, a long way up. No matter; I was that day about to watch the ordination of a bishop and that was more than a little exciting. The ordination of a bishop is not something that happens everyday and I was glad to be a small part of that glorious celebration.
At the heart of the service of ordination is the “Examination,” a declaration of the duties of a bishop followed by a series of questions to determine if the ordinand is prepared to assume the responsibilities of the office.
“My brother,” the Presiding Bishop Katherine Jefferts Schori began, “the people have chosen you and have affirmed their trust in you by acclaiming your election. A bishop in God's holy Church is called to be one with the apostles in proclaiming Christ's resurrection and interpreting the Gospel, and to testify to Christ's sovereignty as Lord of lords and King of kings. You are called to guard the faith, unity, and discipline of the Church; to celebrate and to provide for the administration of the sacraments of the New Covenant; to ordain priests and deacons and to join in ordaining bishops; and to be in all things a faithful pastor and wholesome example for the entire flock of Christ.”
With these words, we, in the Episcopal Church, recognize the authority Jesus gives to Peter this morning in our gospel reading when Jesus says: “And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it.” The authority given to Peter and which is passed down through the office of bishop is the authority to interpret the scriptures, guarding “the faith, unity and discipline of the Church.”
Jesus then gives to Peter “the keys of the kingdom of heaven,” a rabbinic phrase meaning the authority to interpret scripture. The rabbis of Jesus’ day had the authority to study the scriptures and to interpret those scriptures, teaching the community what was and was not required of them by God. The rabbis were teachers, charged with determining what was and was not permitted, what was “binding” upon the community and what was not. This authority, Jesus now gives to Peter.
We are not sure exactly when this authority came to be located in the office of bishop. By early in the second century, though, the office of bishop was a distinct order of ministry, an order different from that of priests. And by the fifth century, the bishop of Rome, came to be called a Pope, the chief bishop.
But five hundred years later, the authority of the bishop of Rome was challenged by the church in Constantinople as both churches accused the other of “false teachings” and in 1054 A.D., the Church of Rome in the west parted ways with the Church in Constantinople in the east. Later, in the sixteenth century, Martin Luther, a priest in the Roman Church, took the Church to task for granting indulgences, beginning a reformation that divided the western church into Catholics and Protestants. Subsequently, Protestants divided into Lutheran, Anglican, Anabaptist, Methodist, Presbyterian, and Reformed churches.
Whereas our text today has often been used to ground the infallibility of the pope, understood as the heir of Peter, contemporary Catholic and Protestant interpreters are coming to agree that this text does give Peter a unique role in the Church, albeit a role that is unrepeatable, meaning the Pope is not Peter come back to life.
At Bishop Shannon’s ordination, Shannon was charged with guarding the “faith, unity and discipline of the Church.” “Discipline” comes from a Latin word meaning “instruction given, learning, knowledge.” To be a “disciple” means to be a student, to stand in need of instruction. Peter is charged by Jesus this morning with “discipling” this band of simple fisher folk into the Church, the body of Christ. Peter is not charged with driving out the irreligious or the immoral but with proclaiming and interpreting the good news of Christ to all who would have ears to hear.
The Church is not without fault just as none of us are without fault. But sheep without a shepherd have a tendency to get lost and die. The Church’s mission is to continue the mission of Christ which was, and is, to bring life to the world. The office of bishop is meant to do just that. And the office of bishop is meant to keep us from thinking that any one particular pastor or congregation has the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
At the end of Matthew’s gospel, Jesus gives the disciples the Great Commission: “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you.” For Matthew, teaching is the central task of the church. We might even say, that for Matthew, the church is a school for discipleship.
We are not, in Matthew’s eyes, born disciples, much like we are not born knowing how to read and write. For Matthew, we become disciples as we come together with others, to worship together, to study together, to work together and to play together. We do not come into the church as disciples but may, God willing, leave this community at our death, knowing a bit more about what discipleship means.
The church can be, and sometimes is, more of a school of hard knocks than a school of discipleship. We do not pick the people who come to church with us. The word “church” - which, by the way, is only used twice in the gospels, both times in the gospel of Matthew and for the first time in our reading this morning – means “those called out.” God does the calling and then tells us to love one another. We can learn just as much in the church about how not to be disciple as we can about being a disciple.
But the church, for better and for worse, is the way ordained by God by which we learn how to be disciples.
I take no delight in the reality that the church is not one and that Bishop Shannon would not be invited to receive communion in a Catholic Church. I do believe, however, that the insights of the reformers were a necessary correction to a church that had strayed from the teachings of Christ. The Church will never be able to rest assured for all time that what we do and how we do it is what God would have us do. The Church, like all of us, is always “on the way.”
What we are promised is that “the gates of Hades will not prevail against it” Jesus tells us this morning. That promise is our assurance is that no matter how far the Church strays, how many wrong headed decisions we make, how pleased we become that we are right and others are wrong, the Church will abide, always holding out the promise of life not just for us but all those whom God loves.
The Eleventh Sunday After Pentecost Exodus 3: 1 – 15
Sunday, August 28, 2011 Romans 12: 9 – 21
The Rev. Bambi Willis Matthew 16: 21 – 28
Then Jesus told his disciples, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.”
Matthew 16: 24
Sara Miles was forty-six the first time she stepped into a church. Sara recounts her “radical” conversion in an amazing story she titles Take This Bread, published in 2007. Sara begins by telling us she is the daughter of secular parents, parents who were deeply skeptical about Christianity. Their skepticism was the consequence of their own growing up as children of missionaries, missionaries who presumed that our Christian duty was to save the heathen, rescuing the Chinese and the Africans from their pagan ways.
Sara grew up in a house without God, without the God of her parents who rescued people by destroying their ways of life so that they might know a “better” way, the western way.
By her own account, Sara had an unconventional growing up – her college education consisted of living and working in various parts of the world, and culminated in her work as a journalist, interviewing the good, the bad and the ugly. What Sara came to understand is that truth rarely comes from those in power and to know the real story you have to be on the battlefield.
Sara, after she stepped foot into a church, which happened to be in San Francisco, began a food pantry, buying food from a local food bank and distributing the food at the church one day a week to those who were hungry. Sara’s food pantry was hugely successful but in unexpected ways.
Sara’s food pantry brought to the church hundreds of people, people who needed food because they were poor. And these folk were poor because they were crack addicts or abused spouses or mentally ill or out of work or just simply, difficult to get along with. What showed up on the church steps when Sara opened her food pantry was nothing short of “humanity” in all of its raw and mostly unloveable demeanor.
The church reacted as we might expect – cries for safety and protecting the church’s silver being chief among them. The neighbors were not pleased either – the poor have a way of trashing the neighborhood which is a problem.
But Sara persisted. Sara persisted because Sara had this absurd idea that being fed at the altar during communion was not just a religious ritual but the very means whereby God is making us “one.”
What Sara learned was that some among us are very hard to deal with - ask a crack addict to do something and you will likely be disappointed. Give away free food and some folk will complain they are not getting enough. Give away free food and some folk will take advantage of you. Give away free food and you have no idea who is going to show up or what is going to happen.
What Sara learned was that dinner at God’s house is not a carefully orchestrated affair. What Sara learned is that dinner at God’s house is always free and often messy. What Sara found was communion, but only insofar as Sara was able to let go of her prejudices, her fears, and her desire to have things her way.
In our gospel reading this morning, Jesus calls Peter a “stumbling block” after Peter “rebukes” Jesus for saying he must go to Jerusalem and be killed. Last week, Jesus blessed Peter after Peter confessed that Jesus is the Messiah. Now, the Messiah tells Peter he is going to die and Peter protests. For Peter, the Messiah comes to rescue and deliver God’s people, not to die. A dead Messiah is a failed Messiah for Peter. Jesus must be crazy.
“If any want to become my followers,” Jesus tells his disciples, “let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.” Peter, if Peter wishes to be a disciple, is going to have to learn how to get out of the way and allow Jesus to do what Jesus must do. Sara had to learn the same lesson – if we want to follow Jesus, we will have to learn how to stop asking Jesus to follow us rather than the other way round.
Self-denial is usually a theme we take up in Lent. And often in Lent, self-denial takes the form of giving up some pleasure, like chocolate or alcohol for forty days, and then congratulating ourselves that we were able to sustain our spiritual discipline for so long! Self-denial, as Jesus speaks of self-denial in our passage this morning, is a clear allusion to the cross, to a very real, very painful and horrifically humiliating death. Giving up chocolate hardly comes close.
Sara, like many, had deep suspicions about the institutional church, about the whole idea of a good and loving God, and knew better than most how the church could “spin” the good news in ways that either left the world unchanged or beaten down. In the food pantry, Sara met folk who spoke Russian and Chinese whom she could not understand; folk who firmly believed the end of the world was coming; and folk who were just plain irritating. All of Sara’s deeply held beliefs about the world, God and who she was, were challenged.
And, yet, Sara persisted, convicted of one simple tenet – if someone is hungry, you feed them. Feeding the hungry led Sara to understand that she, too, was hungry, yearning for communion, graced with a desire that only God can satisfy. What Sara learned is that she was a whole lot more like that raucous rowdy bunch of folk who showed up for free groceries than was she unlike them. Sara, through her work in organizing a food pantry realized she was just one human being in a vast sea, all dearly beloved by God.
Peter doesn’t “get it” this morning. Peter cannot fathom how a Messiah who refuses to save himself can save anyone else. Peter could not see that the cross was the means whereby God was rescuing not just Israel, but the whole world. Peter could not “see” what God was doing and, most of the time, neither can we.
Denying ourselves does not mean becoming door mats. We are called to give ourselves fully to the upbuilding of this community, not to be passive participants. But because what we seek is community and not a voluntary organization of like minded individuals, we all will be tasked to remember that we all are guests at God’s table and no one of us is any more or less deserving of our place.
Jesus is not acting this morning the way a Messiah is supposed to act and Peter means to straighten Jesus out. How many times have we wished to “straighten” someone else out, make them change, get them to behave and think and believe as we do? How many times have we privileged our view of the world, blinding ourselves to the truth that others do not see what we see?
This week we all experienced an earthquake,* some of us for the first time. As I listened to folk sharing their stories of Tuesday afternoon, I was struck by how different all of our stories were. I was parking my car and had not a clue we were having an earthquake. Dale Brittle, on the other hand, was visiting the Fredericksburg Museum and saw chandeliers shake and display cases rattle. We all experienced the same event but in very different ways. And, after the earthquake, we all had an almost innate desire to talk about it, to share our stories, to “connect.”
This desire to “connect” with others is a gift to us from God, who said when God made human beings in the first place, “It is not good to be alone.” Being together is God’s desire for us, but we, like Peter, can become “stumbling blocks,” resisting those others who God brings into our lives, preferring others who are more like us, less difficult to deal with, not so strange. Jesus becomes the ultimate Stranger this morning, a Messiah who is going to die and on the third day be raised. If Peter is to follow this Stranger, Peter, like all of us, will need to “lose” his life.
*and a hurricane although I did not know that when I wrote my sermon!
Sunday, August 28, 2011 Romans 12: 9 – 21
The Rev. Bambi Willis Matthew 16: 21 – 28
Then Jesus told his disciples, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.”
Matthew 16: 24
Sara Miles was forty-six the first time she stepped into a church. Sara recounts her “radical” conversion in an amazing story she titles Take This Bread, published in 2007. Sara begins by telling us she is the daughter of secular parents, parents who were deeply skeptical about Christianity. Their skepticism was the consequence of their own growing up as children of missionaries, missionaries who presumed that our Christian duty was to save the heathen, rescuing the Chinese and the Africans from their pagan ways.
Sara grew up in a house without God, without the God of her parents who rescued people by destroying their ways of life so that they might know a “better” way, the western way.
By her own account, Sara had an unconventional growing up – her college education consisted of living and working in various parts of the world, and culminated in her work as a journalist, interviewing the good, the bad and the ugly. What Sara came to understand is that truth rarely comes from those in power and to know the real story you have to be on the battlefield.
Sara, after she stepped foot into a church, which happened to be in San Francisco, began a food pantry, buying food from a local food bank and distributing the food at the church one day a week to those who were hungry. Sara’s food pantry was hugely successful but in unexpected ways.
Sara’s food pantry brought to the church hundreds of people, people who needed food because they were poor. And these folk were poor because they were crack addicts or abused spouses or mentally ill or out of work or just simply, difficult to get along with. What showed up on the church steps when Sara opened her food pantry was nothing short of “humanity” in all of its raw and mostly unloveable demeanor.
The church reacted as we might expect – cries for safety and protecting the church’s silver being chief among them. The neighbors were not pleased either – the poor have a way of trashing the neighborhood which is a problem.
But Sara persisted. Sara persisted because Sara had this absurd idea that being fed at the altar during communion was not just a religious ritual but the very means whereby God is making us “one.”
What Sara learned was that some among us are very hard to deal with - ask a crack addict to do something and you will likely be disappointed. Give away free food and some folk will complain they are not getting enough. Give away free food and some folk will take advantage of you. Give away free food and you have no idea who is going to show up or what is going to happen.
What Sara learned was that dinner at God’s house is not a carefully orchestrated affair. What Sara learned is that dinner at God’s house is always free and often messy. What Sara found was communion, but only insofar as Sara was able to let go of her prejudices, her fears, and her desire to have things her way.
In our gospel reading this morning, Jesus calls Peter a “stumbling block” after Peter “rebukes” Jesus for saying he must go to Jerusalem and be killed. Last week, Jesus blessed Peter after Peter confessed that Jesus is the Messiah. Now, the Messiah tells Peter he is going to die and Peter protests. For Peter, the Messiah comes to rescue and deliver God’s people, not to die. A dead Messiah is a failed Messiah for Peter. Jesus must be crazy.
“If any want to become my followers,” Jesus tells his disciples, “let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.” Peter, if Peter wishes to be a disciple, is going to have to learn how to get out of the way and allow Jesus to do what Jesus must do. Sara had to learn the same lesson – if we want to follow Jesus, we will have to learn how to stop asking Jesus to follow us rather than the other way round.
Self-denial is usually a theme we take up in Lent. And often in Lent, self-denial takes the form of giving up some pleasure, like chocolate or alcohol for forty days, and then congratulating ourselves that we were able to sustain our spiritual discipline for so long! Self-denial, as Jesus speaks of self-denial in our passage this morning, is a clear allusion to the cross, to a very real, very painful and horrifically humiliating death. Giving up chocolate hardly comes close.
Sara, like many, had deep suspicions about the institutional church, about the whole idea of a good and loving God, and knew better than most how the church could “spin” the good news in ways that either left the world unchanged or beaten down. In the food pantry, Sara met folk who spoke Russian and Chinese whom she could not understand; folk who firmly believed the end of the world was coming; and folk who were just plain irritating. All of Sara’s deeply held beliefs about the world, God and who she was, were challenged.
And, yet, Sara persisted, convicted of one simple tenet – if someone is hungry, you feed them. Feeding the hungry led Sara to understand that she, too, was hungry, yearning for communion, graced with a desire that only God can satisfy. What Sara learned is that she was a whole lot more like that raucous rowdy bunch of folk who showed up for free groceries than was she unlike them. Sara, through her work in organizing a food pantry realized she was just one human being in a vast sea, all dearly beloved by God.
Peter doesn’t “get it” this morning. Peter cannot fathom how a Messiah who refuses to save himself can save anyone else. Peter could not see that the cross was the means whereby God was rescuing not just Israel, but the whole world. Peter could not “see” what God was doing and, most of the time, neither can we.
Denying ourselves does not mean becoming door mats. We are called to give ourselves fully to the upbuilding of this community, not to be passive participants. But because what we seek is community and not a voluntary organization of like minded individuals, we all will be tasked to remember that we all are guests at God’s table and no one of us is any more or less deserving of our place.
Jesus is not acting this morning the way a Messiah is supposed to act and Peter means to straighten Jesus out. How many times have we wished to “straighten” someone else out, make them change, get them to behave and think and believe as we do? How many times have we privileged our view of the world, blinding ourselves to the truth that others do not see what we see?
This week we all experienced an earthquake,* some of us for the first time. As I listened to folk sharing their stories of Tuesday afternoon, I was struck by how different all of our stories were. I was parking my car and had not a clue we were having an earthquake. Dale Brittle, on the other hand, was visiting the Fredericksburg Museum and saw chandeliers shake and display cases rattle. We all experienced the same event but in very different ways. And, after the earthquake, we all had an almost innate desire to talk about it, to share our stories, to “connect.”
This desire to “connect” with others is a gift to us from God, who said when God made human beings in the first place, “It is not good to be alone.” Being together is God’s desire for us, but we, like Peter, can become “stumbling blocks,” resisting those others who God brings into our lives, preferring others who are more like us, less difficult to deal with, not so strange. Jesus becomes the ultimate Stranger this morning, a Messiah who is going to die and on the third day be raised. If Peter is to follow this Stranger, Peter, like all of us, will need to “lose” his life.
*and a hurricane although I did not know that when I wrote my sermon!
