This is my Reflection on the following readings as part of the Sunday Devotion I prepared for Christ Episcopal Church, Yankton, South Dakota for August 30, 2020
Ephesians 4:14-32
We must no longer be children, tossed to and fro and blown about by every wind of doctrine, by people’s trickery, by their craftiness in deceitful scheming. But speaking the truth in love, we must grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and knitted together by every ligament with which it is equipped, as each part is working properly, promotes the body’s growth in building itself up in love.
Now this I affirm and insist on in the Lord: you must no longer live as the Gentiles live, in the futility of their minds. They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of their ignorance and hardness of heart. They have lost all sensitivity and have abandoned themselves to licentiousness, greedy to practise every kind of impurity. That is not the way you learned Christ! For surely you have heard about him and were taught in him, as truth is in Jesus. You were taught to put away your former way of life, your old self, corrupt and deluded by its lusts, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to clothe yourselves with the new self, created according to the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.
So then, putting away falsehood, let all of us speak the truth to our neighbours, for we are members of one another. Be angry but do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and do not make room for the devil. Thieves must give up stealing; rather let them labour and work honestly with their own hands, so as to have something to share with the needy. Let no evil talk come out of your mouths, but only what is useful for building up, as there is need, so that your words may give grace to those who hear. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with which you were marked with a seal for the day of redemption. Put away from you all bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander, together with all malice, and be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you.
The New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Church of Christ in the USA, and used by permission.
Matthew 16:21-28
Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and undergo great suffering at the hands of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him, saying, “God forbid it, Lord! This must never happen to you.” But he turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; for you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”
Then Jesus told his disciples, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it. For what will it profit them if they gain the whole world but forfeit their life? Or what will they give in return for their life?
“For the Son of Man is to come with his angels in the glory of his Father, and then he will repay everyone for what has been done. Truly I tell you, there are some standing here who will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.”
The New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Church of Christ in the USA, and used by permission.
REFLECTION
+In the Name of Jesus+
When Peter declared Jesus to be the Messiah, the Son of the living God in last week’s Gospel lesson, it became clear that Peter had a different understanding of its meaning than Jesus did. In today’s lesson we hear Jesus explain to his disciples what being the Messiah means; that he was not here to fight against human flesh and blood but rather fight for the soul of humanity at the expense of his own flesh and blood. This was foreign to the mindset of Peter and foreign to the mindset of the time.
A messiah was supposed to be a military hero, someone who would liberate Israel from oppression like the Roman Empire; not someone who would be killed. Peter found Jesus’ explanation unfathomable and disturbing. To Peter’s mind, Jesus should have been talking about raising an army, calling on the Hosts of Heaven to come to his assistance in freeing Judea from Roman rule and cleansing the temple of those who have been collaborating with the Romans. In his dismay, Peter takes Jesus aside and begins to scold Jesus for such an outlandish idea, but Jesus stops him cold by calling him Satan because Peter was attempting to stand in the way of what Jesus was fighting for.
Jesus, however, understood what Peter was getting at and takes Peter up on his implicit suggestion of rallying the troops for the type of warfare Jesus was waging. Instead of laying out a plan for battle, Jesus turns the question he asked them in last week’s Gospel lesson back on them. Instead of asking who he is, he now asks them and us, “Who are you?”
In the context of Matthew 16, this is not as simple of a question as it seems. Jesus does not explicitly ask that question, rather he implicitly does so by playing off of the idea of rallying his followers, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.”
In order to deny oneself, one has to know who one is and what it is about one’s self that one needs to deny. In the context of worldly warfare, denying oneself means being willing to give up one’s physical existence for a cause, and this is usually how this statement of Jesus is taken. In the light of Jesus’ crucifixion and Christians being subject to periodic persecutions, this may have been what the writers of Matthew and Mark meant also. In fact, during the two centuries following Jesus’ ministry on earth, martyrdom was seen by some as highest form of allegiance to Christ. It was even promoted by some as something that should be sought. People to this day are murdered because of their faith in Christ, but I think it safe to say no Christian today is seeking to become a martyr. In today’s world we know that martyrdom can be weaponized.
When I hear Jesus say these words today, I don’t sense Jesus asking us to seek martyrdom but rather to deny what is not truly us and humbly take up what is our true selves, our true calling. This understanding comes from what Jesus followed up his rallying call with, “For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it. For what will it profit them if they gain the whole world but forfeit their life? Or what will they give in return for their life?” This is not martyrdom Jesus is taking about. Jesus is referring to something much deeper. Jesus is talking about the soul; the soul of humanity.
Throughout many of these reflections I have referred to what I called the illusionary surface of life. As we skim along its surface in our daily lives, we acquire and take on some of its illusionary features in order to blend in and get along. It’s hard not to. Most of us want to blend in rather than stand apart from the mainstream of life’s surface illusions of popularity and power. Instead of trying to be a standout in this illusionary environment, Jesus is asking us to take up being who we are; Jesus’ followers who, like Jesus, see ourselves as God’s offspring.
I have selected a different lesson for this Sunday than the one assigned to illustrate what Jesus is talking about in today’s Gospel. The Epistle to the Ephesians perhaps explains what Jesus is talking about better than anything I can say here. The use of the term gentile in Ephesians denotes what I am describing as those skimming along the illusionary surface of life who do not see themselves as part of the bigger picture of creation, as a children of God amongst enumerable others. Paul is aptly describing what it means to take up our crosses and follow Jesus.
In order to take up the cross of our true selves means to dump a lot of meaningless things that we’ve acquired on our journey through this illusionary world. We cannot deceive ourselves into thinking that dumping such things is easy because we have come to rely on them as protective shields and masks that keep us from the fear of being lone standouts or being alone in the crowd. Such masks and shields can give us a sense of false humility based on how well they allow us to blend in with the crowd, displaying likemindedness with our tribe, and permitting us to turn a blind eye to what we know is not right by justifying doing so as necessary in order to get along.
True humility is a rare thing. It becomes a cross to bear because few appreciate it, because it can lead one to become a lone stand-out and be alone, and because it removes the protective baggage we’ve acquired and the masks that help us fit in. But true humility, when born faithfully as a cross, reflects the cross of Christ. It will shine brightly in the darkness of this illusionary world. True humility resonates with humanity's shared existential core. True humility speaks for itself. People see it, and some will reject it; preferring the mask and shield of selfishness. Others, however, will be drawn to its resonance. They may feel encouraged to pick up their crosses, brush them off, and let them shine. True humility frees one to be who one is; a child of God uniquely made and uniquely equipped for Life.
I’m not sure what the writer of Matthew had in mind when quoting Jesus saying that “some will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.” After two thousand years, what comes to mind is something Paul said about death and dying in his letter to the Romans. Paraphrasing, Paul puts it this way, “If we die to our illusionary selves (what I call our selfish selves or what Paul defines as sin) then we are already alive in Christ. [See Romans 6] In that sense, death has lost its savor; its attraction and meaning. As Jesus’ resurrection illustrates, life comes from death. It is when we allow our selfishness to die that our true selves emerge and can be taken up like a cross that will carry us through to Life.
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Loving Jesus, help us lay down the burden of our selfishness, the masks that hide us from ourselves, and the illusions we pretend to shield ourselves with, that we may take up the cross of our true selves; the cross of humility and the cross of our common humanity, and follow you in unity as the children of our heavenly Father. Amen.
Until next time, stay faithful.
Norm
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