Sermon: Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost, Matthew 16:21-28, September 3, 2023, + Faith-La Fe Lutheran Church, Pastor Jonathan Linman
Sermon: Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost, Matthew 16:21-28, September 3, 2023 + Faith-La Fe Lutheran Church, Pastor Jonathan Linman
Here we are, gathered by the Holy Spirit, on this first Sunday in September – a very long time until Holy Week and Easter which will be upon us in about seven months. And yet, in today’s gospel reading, Jesus teaches about the last days of his life, his suffering, his death, and the promise that he will be raised on the third day.
Perhaps you’ve heard of pop traditions of Christmas in July? Well, here’s a focus on Good Friday and Easter in the still hot days of summer – and in this season of the church’s calendar when our gospel readings generally focus on Jesus’ ministries of teaching and healing and casting out demons with their implications for our ministries in daily life.
It’s actually a good and salutary thing to be reminded of Jesus’ death and resurrection when we’re otherwise focused in our Sunday gospel readings on Jesus’ working of wonders and miracles. Because his wonders and miracles are not ultimately the point of his whole mission on earth. As compelling as Jesus’ wonder working was, that stuff is not ultimately what he is all about.
No. It is Jesus’ death and resurrection that are the organizing principles of everything that he was up to. Jesus’ death and resurrection are ultimately why God sent his only begotten Son to become the Word made flesh to save us and our crazy world.
It’s true, of course, that every Sunday is a celebration of Easter, of Christ’s victory over death. But in this season of ordinary time, it’s good for us to be explicitly reminded of these central things in our Sunday readings.
And in this season when we also hear about our own call to follow Jesus and to engage in God’s work with our hands in the world, it’s important for us to be reminded of the costs of discipleship.
In addition to the prediction about his own Passion, that he must go to Jerusalem and undergo great suffering [at the hands of the many religious authorities] and be killed and on the third day be raised,” Jesus had this to say to his disciples: “If any wish to come after me, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.”
This call to suffering for the sake of the divine mission echoes the cries of the prophet Jeremiah in today’s first reading: “Why is my pain unceasing, my wound incurable, refusing to be healed?” It was not easy to be a prophet sent by God to speak words of judgment to a hostile people. It’s not easy to follow Jesus either.
But as we heard in Matthew, there’s also much to be gained by taking up our cross to follow Jesus. Matthew reports that Jesus said this right after the call to take up the cross: “For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.” Those who lose their life for Jesus’ sake will find it.
What does this mean? And when in our lives might this happen? There might be some folk wisdom in this saying, for it’s true that the harder we try to get something, the more elusive it can be to get it, and when we give up trying, then suddenly it falls into our lap. But that’s not what Jesus is talking about here. Jesus is talking about losing the life specifically for his sake and then finding it.
Again, when does this happen? In short: in baptism. In the waters we lose our life when we die to sin, when our old sinful life drowns in that flood. And we find life – new life in Christ – when we are raised with him out of the flood. In this, we are saved not by the works of trying to save our lives. Rather, we are saved by the grace of being found in the life of Christ.
The realities of baptism also echo the promise the Lord made to Jeremiah in today’s first reading: “for I am with you to save you and deliver you, says the Lord. I will deliver you out of the hand of the wicked and redeem you form the grasp of the ruthless.” That’s what happens to us in baptism.
And then there’s more good news: we are also given bread for the journey to follow Jesus in our new life in Christ. Hear again Jeremiah’s words which I believe are quite suggestive for our Christian journeys. The prophet speaks to the Lord: “Your words were found, and I ate them, and your words became a joy and the delight of my heart.” Not only did that happen to Jeremiah, this happens for us here every Sunday as we are gathered around God’s word and the sacrament of the altar – the place where we eat the very word of God in blessed bread which becomes our joy and the delight of our hearts.
And this sacramental feast also fulfills Jesus’ foreboding but also reassuring promise in today’s gospel: “Truly I tell you, there are some standing here who will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his dominion.” Well, when we share in this supper, and eat and drink of Christ’s body and blood, we share in his death – we taste his death – even as we see the Son of Man coming in his dominion in this foretaste of the feast to come. Thanks be to God!
Thus, our faith generated and renewed sacramentally, we are free to take up the cross to follow Jesus wherever it may lead us, to joys and to suffering.
What does it look like to take up our cross to follow Jesus and to endure suffering for his sake?
It’s common for people to name the cross in connection with their own trials and tribulations, as in “this is my cross to bear.” It could be chronic illness and pain, it could be relationship trouble at home, difficulties at work, or any number of things. There are all sorts of reasons and occasions for human suffering as we all know painfully well. And I don’t want to minimize or downplay such suffering.
But Jesus is not talking here about ordinary human suffering; he’s talking about suffering and cross bearing for Jesus’ sake, specifically in the name of Jesus because one is a disciple of Jesus. Taking up the cross and denying ourselves involve the challenges we find ourselves in specifically because we follow Jesus.
The apostle Paul gives us a good sense of what it might mean to deny ourselves to take up the cross to follow Jesus. In fact, our whole second reading can be seen as a detailed elaboration on denying ourselves and cross bearing for Jesus’ sake.
Listen again carefully to salient portions of Pauls’ writing and instruction in today’s Romans passage – I’m going to read these words of wisdom slowly with pauses between so you can prayerfully let these specific instructions soak in the deeper places in your hearts and minds. Maybe bow your heads and close your eyes and listen prayerfully, calling to mind particular contexts in your lives where you can put all of this teaching into practice:
· In Jesus’ name, contribute to the needs of the saints…
· For Christ, pursue hospitality to strangers…
· To honor Jesus, bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them…
· In Christ, rejoice with those who rejoice; weep with those who weep…
· For Christ’s sake, live in harmony with one another…
· In the spirit of Jesus, do not be arrogant, but associate with the lowly…
· Following Jesus, do not repay evil for evil…
· To imitate our Lord Christ, live peaceably with all…
· Beloved, in Jesus’ name, never avenge yourselves…
· Keeping close to the example of Jesus, if your enemies are hungry, feed them; if they are thirsty, give them something to drink…
· For Christ’s sake, do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good…. (cf. Romans 12:13-21)
What you just heard and prayerfully took in is what it can mean for us as disciples to deny ourselves and to take up our cross in Jesus’ name as we bear witness in our words and in our deeds to God’s reign come near in Christ.
In short, what Paul offers us is our to do list for our ministries in daily life of serving others and pursuing God’s justice – timely advice on the day before Labor Day when we give thanks for ways we labor, especially here in church as we consider our labor for the Lord taken up in Jesus’ name. Take it all to heart and look for ways in which you can live out Paul’s wise exhortations. Read today’s passage from Romans again in the coming week – take it home with you.
Now a final word: inspired and empowered by Jesus’ own death and resurrection, when we deny ourselves and take up the cross for Jesus’ sake, this is what it also means for us to set our minds on divine things and not on human things. God’s ways are not our ways. What we see on the news is not what Jesus or the apostles teach in the bible.
And oh, what a contrast between these divine things to which we are called and the spirit of our age which so often clamors after the exact opposite of what Paul calls us to. The human way wants to turn away strangers and to curse and persecute and to rejoice at our enemies’ suffering. The human way is arrogant and repays evil with evil and seeks vengeance. We see this in the news every day.
But we are called to a different way, the divine way, the way of the Prince of Peace. And oh, when we seek to live the divine way of Jesus, we and the world then see evidence in our words and deeds of the coming of the Son of Man with his angels in the glory of the Father! Thanks be to God. Amen.