16th Sunday after Pentecost 8/31/08 Text: Matthew 16:21-28 Title: Follow the Leader
16th Sunday after Pentecost
08/31/08
Text: Matthew 16:21-28
Title: Follow the Leader
I read an interesting article this past week about a man; he was Pakistani, who is now living in the U S. He is a convert from Islam. The article said that every year he would go back to Pakistan. He would do this even though up to the date of the article he had been imprisoned 13 times. Why was he imprisoned you might be asking? It seems the reason he goes back each year is that he wants Muslims in his beloved country to know about Jesus. He cares about them enough to suffer going to prison.
As I read that article I could not help but wonder, just what is it that drove him to be so willing to suffer persecution for Christ? We have the same Savior. We know the Good News of Jesus. We know that unless people accept Jesus as their Savior they are doomed, but we are not, for the most part, willing to suffer such persecution because of our faith? In fact how many of us are willing to suffer ridicule or even a sneer from a neighbor because we practice our Christian faith? Just what is the difference between that man and us, for we both follow the same leader?
For those who have been faithfully attending the Bible time on Sunday morning where we are studying Acts have noticed that throughout the book of Acts, the believers are persecuted and even killed, and yet, the church continued to grow! As we studied Acts I am sure that most of those present could not help but wonder, “Why would anyone want to be a Christian? Why would anyone want to be part of a group that was being persecuted, jailed, and killed?”
Why should we follow the leader of the Christian faith, Jesus Christ? Why should the disciples follow Jesus? That is what our Gospel reading is about today, for it answers the question.
Earlier I played follow the leader with the children. We did some crazy stuff. We went places that some of you might have thought were off limits to children. We completely disrupted the service and caused some of you to be uncomfortable, for what we were doing was not proper behavior in church.
Now the game of follow the leader that I played was pretty simple, but sometimes the game can get quite complicated, especially if the leader goes where the followers don't want to go, like crossing a narrow beam over a high crevice, running across a busy street, squeezing through the entrance to a dark cave.
Imagine how complicated the game of follow the leader would get if the participants could not actually see the leader, but could only hear his voice. Imagine for a moment what it might be like to be told to follow the leader if he went into, say, a tall cornfield or into a dark cave. It would be downright scary wouldn’t it, unless we had complete trust in the leader? To follow a leader into a scary place would require us to completely trust that our leader would not let us get into places, even if they looked like it at the time that would hurt us and not let us safely finish the game.
In the game of follow the leader where he could not be seen our attention has to be focused on his voice. We would have to pay close attention to where the voice is coming from; so that we could follow him through whatever it is he is leading us.
As I am sure you know by now that I am not talking about a game of follow the leader like I did with the children. I am talking about the dialogue that took place between Peter and Jesus, where Peter and Jesus did not agree on how Jesus’ Kingdom was to come about. This story is not about Peter’s lack of faith, but is about Peter misunderstanding the purpose of Jesus, the reason he came. Peter knew what Jesus said. Jesus told them that he must go, in the Greek, it is necessary for him to go to Jerusalem and suffer and be killed and on the third day be raised from the dead. Peter understood the words and because he understood the words, at least he thought he did, he could not let Jesus go through with his plan. While I am sure Peter was concerned with Jesus safety, I think that in his inner being he was more concerned with his own life. Peter knew that if this was going to happen to their leader, there was an awful good chance it would happen to him and the rest of the disciples and he was not willing to go there.
Peter had to stop Jesus and for all his well meant efforts Jesus calls him Satan. Now it is not that Jesus believes Peter is actually Satan, for he had not too long before had complimented him on the strength of his faith. He knows he is not Satan, but he calls him Satan because anytime anything, anything at all, is done to try and stop the will of God; it is the same, as if Satan himself, is trying to stop him, as Satan tried in the temptations in the desert. Peter had forgotten who the leader was. He wanted to walk alongside Jesus or in front of him, so that things would be done Peter’s way and for that he got into trouble with Jesus.
So, what does this story have to do with us? Having been given life by Jesus in our Baptism in which we have received life, forgiveness, and salvation we too have became followers of Jesus; following since we cannot visibly see him, following his voice in God’s Holy Word. He is now our leader, at least he wants to be, if we would only let him. And because we are his followers, it only makes since, for he cannot be our leader if we do not follow him we follow him.
Jesus has summoned us to follow him down a new path. It is a path that is about self-giving, sacrifice, and denial of our own comfort and excesses. And in our walking this path following him sight unseen, but listening to his Word, according to the world's eyes, it will look like we are losing not only our minds, but our lives.
We are told in our Gospel reading that when we lose our lives as the world sees them, we actually have found them. And in this new life of following Jesus we find, even in this time of waiting for a storm to land on our coast that we can have peace, purpose, and even joy to replace what the world values. For you see that by following our leader Jesus not just through the good times, but through the bad times we are stating to the world who our leader is. And in doing so we are in fact becoming who God created and saved us to be. All he asks of us is to stop trying to preserve, protect, or reinvent ourselves and instead set our minds on following our leader Jesus Christ. Amen
08/31/08
Text: Matthew 16:21-28
Title: Follow the Leader
I read an interesting article this past week about a man; he was Pakistani, who is now living in the U S. He is a convert from Islam. The article said that every year he would go back to Pakistan. He would do this even though up to the date of the article he had been imprisoned 13 times. Why was he imprisoned you might be asking? It seems the reason he goes back each year is that he wants Muslims in his beloved country to know about Jesus. He cares about them enough to suffer going to prison.
As I read that article I could not help but wonder, just what is it that drove him to be so willing to suffer persecution for Christ? We have the same Savior. We know the Good News of Jesus. We know that unless people accept Jesus as their Savior they are doomed, but we are not, for the most part, willing to suffer such persecution because of our faith? In fact how many of us are willing to suffer ridicule or even a sneer from a neighbor because we practice our Christian faith? Just what is the difference between that man and us, for we both follow the same leader?
For those who have been faithfully attending the Bible time on Sunday morning where we are studying Acts have noticed that throughout the book of Acts, the believers are persecuted and even killed, and yet, the church continued to grow! As we studied Acts I am sure that most of those present could not help but wonder, “Why would anyone want to be a Christian? Why would anyone want to be part of a group that was being persecuted, jailed, and killed?”
Why should we follow the leader of the Christian faith, Jesus Christ? Why should the disciples follow Jesus? That is what our Gospel reading is about today, for it answers the question.
Earlier I played follow the leader with the children. We did some crazy stuff. We went places that some of you might have thought were off limits to children. We completely disrupted the service and caused some of you to be uncomfortable, for what we were doing was not proper behavior in church.
Now the game of follow the leader that I played was pretty simple, but sometimes the game can get quite complicated, especially if the leader goes where the followers don't want to go, like crossing a narrow beam over a high crevice, running across a busy street, squeezing through the entrance to a dark cave.
Imagine how complicated the game of follow the leader would get if the participants could not actually see the leader, but could only hear his voice. Imagine for a moment what it might be like to be told to follow the leader if he went into, say, a tall cornfield or into a dark cave. It would be downright scary wouldn’t it, unless we had complete trust in the leader? To follow a leader into a scary place would require us to completely trust that our leader would not let us get into places, even if they looked like it at the time that would hurt us and not let us safely finish the game.
In the game of follow the leader where he could not be seen our attention has to be focused on his voice. We would have to pay close attention to where the voice is coming from; so that we could follow him through whatever it is he is leading us.
As I am sure you know by now that I am not talking about a game of follow the leader like I did with the children. I am talking about the dialogue that took place between Peter and Jesus, where Peter and Jesus did not agree on how Jesus’ Kingdom was to come about. This story is not about Peter’s lack of faith, but is about Peter misunderstanding the purpose of Jesus, the reason he came. Peter knew what Jesus said. Jesus told them that he must go, in the Greek, it is necessary for him to go to Jerusalem and suffer and be killed and on the third day be raised from the dead. Peter understood the words and because he understood the words, at least he thought he did, he could not let Jesus go through with his plan. While I am sure Peter was concerned with Jesus safety, I think that in his inner being he was more concerned with his own life. Peter knew that if this was going to happen to their leader, there was an awful good chance it would happen to him and the rest of the disciples and he was not willing to go there.
Peter had to stop Jesus and for all his well meant efforts Jesus calls him Satan. Now it is not that Jesus believes Peter is actually Satan, for he had not too long before had complimented him on the strength of his faith. He knows he is not Satan, but he calls him Satan because anytime anything, anything at all, is done to try and stop the will of God; it is the same, as if Satan himself, is trying to stop him, as Satan tried in the temptations in the desert. Peter had forgotten who the leader was. He wanted to walk alongside Jesus or in front of him, so that things would be done Peter’s way and for that he got into trouble with Jesus.
So, what does this story have to do with us? Having been given life by Jesus in our Baptism in which we have received life, forgiveness, and salvation we too have became followers of Jesus; following since we cannot visibly see him, following his voice in God’s Holy Word. He is now our leader, at least he wants to be, if we would only let him. And because we are his followers, it only makes since, for he cannot be our leader if we do not follow him we follow him.
Jesus has summoned us to follow him down a new path. It is a path that is about self-giving, sacrifice, and denial of our own comfort and excesses. And in our walking this path following him sight unseen, but listening to his Word, according to the world's eyes, it will look like we are losing not only our minds, but our lives.
We are told in our Gospel reading that when we lose our lives as the world sees them, we actually have found them. And in this new life of following Jesus we find, even in this time of waiting for a storm to land on our coast that we can have peace, purpose, and even joy to replace what the world values. For you see that by following our leader Jesus not just through the good times, but through the bad times we are stating to the world who our leader is. And in doing so we are in fact becoming who God created and saved us to be. All he asks of us is to stop trying to preserve, protect, or reinvent ourselves and instead set our minds on following our leader Jesus Christ. Amen
posted by Pastor Rhoads | 1:02 PM
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