CELC The Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost

The Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost – August 28, 2005

Matthew 16:21-28

Do you remember the TV program, “Happy Days?” One of the characters was the “Fonz.” Henry Winkler played the part. If you were one of the young people in “Happy Days” you wanted to hang with the Fonz. He was cool.

In today’s gospel reading Peter and our Lord Jesus have a conflict over what it means for us to hang with or to follow Jesus as Lord.

Peter hears Jesus tell the disciples that he will have to suffer and die. Peter’s reaction is to say, “God forbid!” Peter doesn’t ever want to see Jesus suffer and die. Peter’s reasons for objecting could be many or as simple as he did not want to lose Jesus, his friend. It was cool hanging with Jesus. What would Peter do if Jesus were to die?

My school experience was that most of us wanted to hang with the cool people. One of the realities of our humanity is many of us wants to hang with the “in crowd.”

I am not sure I would be much different than Peter given the same situation. Hanging with Jesus was special. I would be very upset if Jesus said that he was going to die and leave us alone. I would say, “God forbid!”

The issue here, though, is one of letting things be and letting God be God. That is how Jesus answers Peter. Jesus tells Peter he is a stumbling block and on the side of evil. God has a different idea than Peter, and Jesus tells him to follow, not lead.

Oddly, we are not far different than Peter, feeling we have a much better perspective on things than God does. We know how to end suffering. We certainly are working hard on getting things right so God won’t have to worry about us. In fact, if God would do things our way, it would not have been necessary for Jesus to die on the cross. If God will only listen, we have the answers. God should hang on our every word.

Talk about hanging. It is precisely because of the sin which makes us think we have the answers that Jesus hung on the cross. Yet it is in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus that God forgives all our sin. God has a message for us today: “Let things be.” It is so hard for us to “let things be” and let God be God.

It is difficult for us to accept the grace of God in the cross because we have an emotional issue with it. It is an emotional issue that is not far different than the one Peter had with our Lord’s prediction of his coming death.

The issue is one of surrender. Peter had to surrender his quick answer. Jesus is clear: following is what is important; not directing God to do what we think is the best answer. In our puny finiteness we think we know and can see more than God. How absurd. It is ridiculous to think that, but we do.

So, can we surrender and let God be God? Can we surrender and let God be mercy and forgiveness by hanging on the cross? Can we “let things be?”

It is not only absurd to think that we know better than God, the way we live our lives often becomes absurd. We are so busy, living lives that are so over done that we cannot hear God coming to us to say, “My grace is sufficient for you.”

During a recent home visit the power failed. There we were having a conversation that would lead to sharing Holy Communion and the power stopped. The lights went out. All the appliances and other gizmo’s in the house stopped. It was eerily quiet. The “buzz” that is always around us as the TV, radio, refrigerator, air conditioning and more run in the background, stopped. With the power off our noise filled lives were suddenly different. It felt odd. We listened to one another differently. With the ‘noise’ gone there was a different tone and volume to our voices.

To surrender to God and let God be God may mean letting go of the ‘noise’ in our lives. It may mean more silence to listen to God.

Our Lord sys today that lessening the noise in our lives means hanging with him on the cross. It means letting go of our solutions and following him to his, to the cross. There the noise stops and the silence begins. It is at the cross that we let God be God and raise us to new life as God did for Jesus. And if we hang with Jesus on the cross we can do what he asks Peter to do: we can get behind Jesus and follow.

Following is all about obedience. Obedience means we are willing to listen. At the heart of following is the desire to be told where to go. Rid of the distracting noise of our lives we can listen for our Lord’s voice, calling us to follow. That is obedience.

There are three particular ways we can listen: first we can listen by daily use of scripture. Each day, there is simply no substitute for daily use of the Word. It speaks to us of God’s grace and love for us. It speaks the voice of God to us.

The second way of following is to pray. Prayer here is not the kind where we place a long list of our wants before God as though God is a Santa Claus and Christmas is just around the corner. This prayer is founded in silence. It is the opening of our lives to listening to God.

The third way of listening is to serve others. The ladies of the Sewing Circle are placing before us the challenge to think of others as we shop for ourselves. Out of our abundance we can contribute food to the Verona Food Pantry and make a difference for the hungry of our community. Twelve hundred families are given groceries each month from the Pantry. Are we listening as God calls?

These three marks: daily use of scripture, prayer and serving are marks of a disciple. We hang with Jesus as we listen through these disciplines of faith. Amen.

Pastor Robert F. Holley