August 24, 2008
(Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost; Proper 16)
Cross Purposes
by
The Rev. Joe Behen, Clergy Assistant
Exodus 1:8-2:10 • Psalm 124
• Romans 12:1-8 • Matthew
16:13-20
(From
The Lectionary Page)
While Jesus’ words and actions quite often caused people to know that they stood to benefit from him, the full depth of who he was evidently could not be known through Jesus’ teaching, nor even through his miracles. “Who do people say that I am?” he asks. The responses that the disciples have heard suggest misunderstanding. But the word Messiah hits the mark. Only the narrator and demons have used this word to this point in Matthew’s Gospel. And now, when Peter does use this word and connects it with Jesus, he is ordered to keep it quiet. But why? Why not have them tell everyone they saw? Perhaps it had something to do with people’s understanding of what it means, that Jesus is the Messiah. That this messiah figure would save Israel was commonly agreed, but how and even from what were under constant debate. And it turns out that God’s understanding of Israel’s Messiah was un-guessed by all of them. So much so, in fact, that he went unrecognized by most of the world. To know the Messiah as such demanded that one be ready to change.
When people did learn of Jesus’ claim to be the Messiah, look what happened. Jesus’ claim did not fall in line with the purposes of those who held power. He was a threat to their purposes, so he was removed. In the lesson from Exodus, we find the king of Egypt striving for his own purposes, his own well-being. It seems to be a fairly consistent thread throughout Scripture, that those who are capable of realizing their own purposes in the world, frequently find those purposes to be at odds with God’s purpose. You might even say that this is most fundamentally who they are at that particular point in their lives. They are people who are invested in the incarnation of their own word rather than God’s. God often identifies with the poor, with children, with the afflicted. They are less able to project their will on anyone. They are, however, quite susceptible to the will of others. They are people who are made ready to be changed.
Barbara Brown Taylor tells a story about a woman who was stopped by a man she didn’t recognize as she left church one Sunday morning. “Tell me,’ he asked, “What do you believe in there?” She found herself unable to find the words to answer the man. As she stammered about trying to think of what to say, he said, “Never mind. Sorry if I bothered you,” and walked away. Why could she not answer this question? Did she really not know what she believed? I don’t imagine that that’s it at all. She could have recited the Nicene Creed to him. But somehow she knew that’s not what he was asking about. There are a number of stock answers that could address the question, but that’s not really what he was looking for, and she instinctively knew that. Perhaps this man simply wanted to know what about this place moves her, makes her want to change. What is the essence of this place that draws you to it? The question, then, was not simply about the belief of the community, but it had much to do with her own relationship with God.
Likewise, Jesus’ question to his disciples is on the surface a question about their understanding of him. “Who do you say that I am?” But on another level, it is about they themselves. Has their time with Jesus made them ready to be changed by God? Are they people who can see beyond the miracles, to perceive their meaning, that God is truly with them? This is what Jesus is asking. When Peter answers with what amounts to a “yes” to this question, Jesus tells them that their knowing this is God’s doing. They have taken a step in the direction of opening up to God’s will. Just a few verses later in Matthew’s gospel, Peter will show us that such willingness to change is not a place, at which we have either “arrived” or not arrived. Rather, it is a life process that has to be engaged every day. Peter will say words this day that he will spend a life time learning the meaning of. He will learn above all else, that the person described by these words will transform him each and every day, if he will only let it happen.
I occasionally catch myself asking in some way that God will change another person. Such a prayer reflects a truth that I must eventually come to terms with. Implicit in asking for change in others is that I get to remain unchanged. It’s a way of asking God that my will be done, assuming that it is also God’s will. I have temporarily disengaged from God’s desire to act on me.
I have been fortunate to have spent time weekly with a group of friends over the last year discussing theology from a variety of topics and perspectives. One such conversation was about the nature of scripture. We read an article by a biblical scholar who suggested that there are two major streams of thought on this. One is that scripture is a resource into which we delve to find answers to the dilemmas that life presents. The other stream finds scripture more closely to be the narrative around which we gather as a community, with the anticipation that this narrative will act on us, that God will act on us in some way through it [O’Day, Gail R. “’Today this word is fulfilled in your hearing’: A Scriptural Hermeneutic of Biblical Authority.” Word & World, Vol. 26, Number 4. Fall 2006]. In other words, we expect God to change us through our engaging it together. When scripture is simply a resource from which we can pull the correct answer, it can be used to promote a dizzying variety of rules. Like anything, scripture too can become a tool that we use to realize our own purposes, one that can enable us to promote change in others while avoiding change ourselves.
In just a couple of chapters, Matthew will show Jesus expanding on this idea. “He called a child, whom he put among them, and said, ‘Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever becomes humble like this child,” Jesus will say, “is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.” If you’re like me, the first things you hear in this passage are the phrases, “like a child,” and “enter the kingdom of heaven.” But the focus is really on the words “become” and “change.” I’m not talking, in all of this, about some particular agenda or another. It may be that solutions to the problems of our time don’t look at all like anything we have yet imagined. But they have to be God’s solutions, not ours. What I am saying is that none of us are immune to the temptation to try to create change in others. Our God, therefore comes among us, calling us all to become ready to be changed ourselves. So as we learn from Peter in Matthew’s gospel, let us daily engage the one who would change us, if we will let him. Who do you say that Christ is?
Amen.
