Readings: James 3:1-12
Mark 8:27-34
We pray: May the
words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your
sight, O God, our rock and our sustainer.
Amen.
Fascinating
readings today – offering opportunity for taking up a number of threads for a
sermon – the difficulty and challenging role of teachers, the imagery for the
power of the tongue found in bridles and rudders, and for goodness and cursing
to come from it. We have the great
question – ‘who do you say I am?’ and the rebuke of Peter for failing to grasp
the necessity of the cross.
I do want to
concentrate on the question ‘Who do you say I am?’ and I have no doubt we will
connect some of the threads in doing so.
Yet today we also
pay attention to the 125 years of women’s suffrage in NZ and what we might
learn from that momentous decision and the wisdom and courage and faith of
those who led, those who signed, those who presented again and again against
powerful opposition.
‘Who do you say I
am?’ Place yourself in that small
gathering around Jesus – it’s a big question, you are glad that he asks about
the people first because that is easier – you don’t have to take responsibility
– and so you say: John the Baptist.
Others say Elijah and yet others one of the prophets. But then the crunch moment comes: ‘But who do
you say I am?’ Feeling you should
know the answer but you don’t want to get it wrong, you wait for someone else
to speak first. And Peter, bless him,
answers ‘You are the Messiah!
Good answer, great
answer! The one promised to the Jews had
come.
But there is a
problem. Interpretation. Peter has a clear idea of how that pans out –
and it doesn’t involve Jesus going to the cross; suffering and humiliation is
not part of the plan – and he says so.
And the acclaim, the sense of going in the same direction suddenly
dissipates. Jesus challenges Peter’s
understanding of the path the Messiah must take to bring redemption to the
people and Peter does not like it. It is
counter intuitive to every hope he had and does not sit well at all.
He made a mistake,
the right words did not come out of his mouth, rather they were poisonous to
Jesus ears, a temptation he would not succumb to.
Yet we too name
Jesus as Messiah – I wonder what our Messiah looks like? Who do we say Jesus is
and are we willing to follow an unexpected, a counter-intuitive way of action
to bring about God’s kingdom in this place?
It’s always hard
to place yourselves in someone else’s story but it is interesting to think
about how the Christian women of those suffragette years would have answered
that question. Reading in the ODT the
stories of six of Dunedin’s women who were leaders in the movement advocating
for women gaining the vote, it is immediately obvious that their Christian
roots were defining for a number of them and yet their path set them in direct
confrontation with others in the Christian church – people who absolutely
believed that the path of following Jesus Christ included treating women as
second class citizens. It’s hard for us
today to know what it would have been like, to imagine the bravery of stepping
out into new reality of equality – at least as far as voting went. This was a huge step in offering the wisdom,
leadership, voice of a largely silent half of the population into our church
and our world. These women – you can see it in their lives – they were bold,
courageous and determined to take this step toward justice against the
expectations of a world and a church that had a different understanding of what
it meant to follow in the path of Jesus.
We do this still
today. Who do we say Jesus is today? Do
we still bring our own expectations and hopes of the Messiah without holding in
the light of the cross, the vulnerable way, the counter-intuitive way for many
of us?
Are we captive to
Peter’s understanding of what the coming of the Messiah means – the well-meaning,
majority held but ultimately comfortable understanding of a Messiah who will conform
to our specifications: or are we hearing the voice of Jesus say – no, not that
way, that way is formed by human need.
The way of God takes us in a different direction – one where we must
humble ourselves, be servants, trust that God is in the places we naturally
shun, where we feel uncomfortable and uncertain, where we know and depend
totally on the love of God as our rock and our salvation - as our purpose.
So if we think
back to those words from James about the voice, the tongue being responsible
for great blessing and also great curses – how do we make our expression of the
coming of the Messiah to be a blessing to the world in the way Jesus means.
I am thinking that
every time we are judgmental of others, when we allow our sense of belonging to
exclude others, whenever we keep our faith contained in boxes of our own making
and look to futures of our own desiring then curses are the prevalent voice.
The blessings flow
when we live in the valuing of all people, where we understand our diversity
and celebrate it, when we open our futures to the possibilities God alone can
see and trust in God to see us there and further.
I don’t know about
you but sometimes for me the hardest thing is to know how to be in situations
where I have no experience, where my voice, though well meaning, is unhelpful
and actually it is me that is being ministered to, not the other way
round. Distinctly uncomfortable and yet
the place where I am closest to God, where the understanding of Messiah is made
real and I no longer am calling the shots.
As a church, the
hardest thing is to place ourselves in situations of ‘unknowedness’, where we
cannot see a clear future, all the thinking we do to solve what we see as
issues coming to nothing, and our purpose as God’s people seems to be aligning
with words of disempowerment and loss of control.
A large part of
our church, and the church throughout the world, is riding the wave of absolute
control – what is right and wrong, who is acceptable, how we must act and speak
and believe. That is sounding remarkably
like Peter’s response is it not? Things
human rather than divine. A Messiah
boxed in to fit human biases and desires.
So can we take
heart from the uncertainty of direction that our church is going in? Can we allow God to take us down the path of
new things, different ways that might make us apprehensive and most certainly
are not in our control – trusting that our voice will grow in blessing, be
stronger for God.
Just as those
suffragette women took on the prevailing wisdom of the time and blew it out of
the water, can we too challenge that which prevents us from living fully in the
way of the Messiah who will not bow to our wisdom but who offers a new way to
redeem us and our world – the way of vulnerable love beyond our understanding
and in which we are to walk in trust and hope.
Amen
Margaret Garland
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