We do not belong to ourselves, individually: we are one together in Christ for our good and for the good of the world.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost, Lect. 24 A
Texts: Romans 14:1-12 (13); Matthew 18:21-35

Beloved in Christ, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

In the beginning, when God began to create, our hebrew forebears say God didn’t think it was good for us to be alone.

God made more than one human, so we wouldn’t be alone. God constantly encouraged human beings to love each other. Because we need each other to live. So we form communities, families, build relationships. Now, all of us need alone time, too, to varying degrees. But none of us would survive long all by ourselves.

And the necessity of human community is the first key to understanding the forgiveness and restoration in our Scriptures today.

The second key is to remember that communities shape the people in them.

The truth that forms a community, their reason for being together, can lead to people who do good and people who do evil. Today the power of evil emanates from all kinds of communities who are bound together out of fear, or out of hate, or out of greed, or out of prejudice of all kinds. In those communities, people are formed to the evil that gathers them.

But a community grounded on love, or centered on justice, such a community can also transform the people within it. If you belong to a group who shares values of wholeness and mercy, who works for justice among people, you will be shaped by that community to those values.

Our community is bound by Christ.

There are lots of differences between us, and lots of similarities, how each sees the world, understands themselves, lives their life. We’ve had our differences over the years, some serious. Some here you might call your friends; others might irritate you. But that’s OK, you probably irritate someone here, too. But none of this is as important to this community as what joins us: we are baptized into Christ, called into the Body of Christ to be loved by God and learn to love each other. In this community you and I have found welcome, and home, and companionship, and love, and grace. And it has shaped you and me for good.

And now we’re ready to hear about the Romans.

The Roman church was a messy and beautiful church just as our vicar described last week. They were a group of Christian congregations connected to Paul, perhaps founded by him. There are Jewish Christians and Gentile Christians together. But they’re seriously at odds.

It seems at this time the Jewish Christians have less influence, they’re weaker. The Gentile Christians seem to be in charge. The Jewish Christians keep kosher, follow the Torah. The Gentiles – never having been Jewish – do not. They eat all kinds of foods and don’t keep the Jewish festivals.

And they’re fighting with each other. Each group mocking the other, calling them wrong-headed, unfaithful. They’re not loving each other. And Paul is deeply dismayed.

You see, Paul had a beautiful vision he got from Christ in his calling.

In this vision of the church, diversity is beloved, cherished, a gift of God. All who come to Christ can keep their cultural treasures, their patterns and blessings, their ethnic distinctions, even if others don’t share them. Jews can be Jews, Gentiles can be Gentiles, but all are called together under the greater unity of Christ.

But this vision barely got off the ground. The communities we know in Scripture, such as Rome, Corinth, the Galatian churches, all seemed to struggle mightily with it. There’s scant evidence it survived Paul himself; we see very little in the history of the Church.

But it is Christ’s vision for the Church. And it’s still possible with the grace of the Spirit. Today Paul explains it again: In your community of Christ, love each other in your differences. Rejoice in them. Respect them. If you have to do your thing, good. But don’t do it for you. Do it for Christ. If all serve Christ with their habits and life, a community of love and grace can exist in joyful diversity.

Paul says we do not live to ourselves, and we do not die to ourselves. If we live, we live to the Lord. If we die, we die to the Lord. So then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s. That’s the key.

And that, Jesus says, is why you and I are called to forgive. Why we’re given the task of reconciliation. Why restoration of community is the heart of how we live as Christ. Because we’re bound together in Christ. And we’ve been changed here. Forgiven infinitely by God.

Jesus’ parable brings this home: the whole community has a stake in forgiveness.

It isn’t just about the slave who’s forgiven millions who couldn’t forgive a thousand dollars in turn. At the heart of this story is this line: “When the other slaves saw what happened, they were greatly distressed.” This breach, this absence of forgiveness, affected everyone who knew them. Threatened the community.

Forgiveness and restoration are crucial to our community because if any are at odds, everyone is hurt. If you withhold forgiveness from another person here, another sibling, all of us suffer.

And in this community of Christ, gathered together by the Triune God’s sacrificial, death-breaking love, our whole life depends on being God’s forgiveness to each other.

But there is a deeper implication to Jesus’ parable and Paul’s plea.

Our love for each other, our forgiveness and restoration, or lack of it, will be our witness to more than us. The Church is meant to be a blessing to the world. So are you. So am I. And if we’re not – and you know this because you see it happening in our world and despair – if those who carry Christ’s name carry it in hate and spite and wickedness, then the world will be greatly distressed at it, or worse, see our witness as fraudulent and harmful.

So we do not live to ourselves even here. If, with the Spirit’s grace, we are changed here, learn to forgive as we’ve been forgiven, to be a part of God’s restoration among us, it is so that we leave here to be a part of the same outside, with whatever diverse people we can form a community with who share our values of justice and peace and mercy.

And just imagine what might happen in our city or world when God sends us out on the road.

In the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

The path of Christ is foolishness, a stumbling block, nonsense, and we know that from the beginning. It is also the only way to life for us and the creation?

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The feast of the Holy Cross
Texts: 1 Corinthians 1:18-24; John 3:13-17

Beloved in Christ, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

You have to admire Paul’s honesty.

He starts his letter to the Corinthians calling his promise, his proclamation, his witness, foolish. Deluded. Making no sense to the Jewish people or any other people on earth.

“We proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles,” Paul says. From the start let’s be clear, he says. What we say about Christ isn’t going to connect with just about anyone.

He could actually have named two other groups. What he often calls the flesh, or the world, what we might call our culture, our way. And second, the very Church itself, born out of the cross of Christ and gathered by the Spirit’s fire. Both also struggle with the cross.

So Paul says: look honestly at the truth of our proclamation. And know that it’s in opposition to nearly everything everyone expects about the way the world works.

But it’s what Jesus proclaimed.

Jesus said, “The Son of Man must be lifted up, so whoever trusts in him might have eternal life.” The path to God’s life starts at the cross, where we see our Savior lifted up for the life of the world. Lifted up, as Jesus proclaims later, to draw all people to himself, all things into God’s embrace. (John 12:32)

And Paul says this way of the cross is clearly opposite to the way most desire. But it will save the world. All things will be healed, saved, brought into God’s life and love through this sacrificial love. And as those who see Christ lifted up allow themselves to be lifted up, cut down, walked on for the sake of others, then the world of power over others, of domination and might, will crumble and eventually fall.

And that’s where the rubber meets the road. When the historical event of the cross makes a demand on how people live their lives, how they they think things work.

It’s where all these groups struggle.

They just don’t know what to do with the cross.

The proclamation of Christ’s cross was a stumbling block to Jews because they couldn’t envision the one true God, the maker of all things, so debased, so lowly as to assume human form and die.

The proclamation of Christ’s cross was foolishness to Gentiles because they’d ridicule a pathetic group of believers who followed someone who ended in a humiliating public execution.

The proclamation of Christ’s cross is nonsense to our culture because the world can’t comprehend an all-powerful Creator of all things giving up that power in love. If you’ve got power, wield it, use it, the world says.

And the proclamation of Christ’s cross largely appears to be irrelevant to the very Church Christ called. The Church has learned to live as if the cross is unimportant to its life, sharing a bed with military and political power for centuries, calling it God’s will, a practical way to preserve the institution. And because we like power, being winners.

So, Paul says, let’s be honest. Name at the start what’s at stake.

The path to God’s life is the path of stumbling, foolish, irrelevant nonsense.

Can you see the stumbling block? he asks. You don’t get to tell God what to do, you only get to decide if you’re going where God has already gone, into disreputable places and places of loss. To love those who would hurt you.

Can you see the foolishness? Paul asks.  To stop defending the church, our congregation, yourself, even God. This path doesn’t lead to impressive, powerful things people have to respect.

Can you see the nonsense? he asks. To move out in vulnerability and weakness, offering only love and grace in your words, actions, and decisions, instead of fighting to make sure you win or the church wins.

Can you see how this might appear irrelevant to your life? Paul asks. If people always need to adjust to you, if your needs are always foremost, if your trust in God depends upon whether you have success and security, if being right is the most important thing, if sacrificial, vulnerable love is something you’re unwilling to do, what does that tell you? he asks.

That’s the honesty Paul calls for.

But such honesty is why you and I are here tonight.

Tonight, and at every Eucharist, when we gather at the Table of Christ and claim those visceral gifts as our own, Christ’s Body and Blood, we declare Paul’s words from later in this Corinthian letter: “When we eat of this bread and drink from this cup, we proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.” (1 Cor. 11:26)

This isn’t some morbid obsession, to stop and proclaim Christ’s death at every Eucharist. It is declaring the truth each time, so we remember this is our way. So we continually focus on the path we walk with Christ, a path of loss and death that gives life.

The cross marks our lives, our worship, our rituals, our gestures, our faith, precisely as a reminder of Christ’s path, and ours. And with this sign we commit to our path.

“The message of the cross is foolishness,” Paul says . . . “but to us who are being saved it is Christ the wisdom of God.”

We seek wisdom in foolishness, because that’s where God’s way is. We seek power in powerlessness, because that’s what God does. We seek strength in weakness, because that’s how God works. We seek victory in losing, because that’s how God wins. This foolish, nonsensical, stumbling block truth about the way the Triune God really works in the world is life. Millions before us have learned this and found life for themselves and for the world.

So with God’s help let’s walk this foolishness together, catch each other when we stumble, help make sense of the nonsense together, and find the relevance of this way for our life and the life of the whole universe.

In the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen

Following Jesus is about more than being generous and cooperative people. Through Jesus’ suffering, death, and resurrection, God reconciles all creation to Godself.

The Rev. Beth Ann Gaede
The Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost, Lect. 22 A
Texts: Jeremiah 15:15-21; Romans 12:9-21; Matthew 16:21-28

Beloved in Christ, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

If you follow New York Times columnist David Brooks, you probably saw this week’s reflections on a question novelists and poets, philosophers, theologians, and maybe you have long pondered: Are human beings fundamentally good or fundamentally bad? Are people mostly generous, or are they mostly selfish?

As Brooks lays out his argument, he first cites a recent psychological experiment in which 200 people in seven nations around the world were each given $10,000, free, and then reported how they spent the money. On average, the participants spent more than $6,400—nearly two-thirds—to benefit others. (https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/31/opinion/human-nature-good-bad-generous.html)

Brooks then goes on to cite a Harvard researcher who says: “Across a wide range of experiments, in widely diverse populations, one finding stands out: In practically no human society examined under controlled conditions have the majority of people consistently behaved selfishly.”

Brooks concludes, “Humanity hasn’t thrived all these centuries because we’re ruthlessly selfish; we’ve thrived because we’re really good at cooperation.”

I’m going to dare to assume that, people being people, Jesus’ followers were pretty much like the folks these scholars studied—basically generous and cooperative.

So if that was the case, why did Jesus say, “If any wish to come after me, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me” (Mt 16:24)? Couldn’t he assume people would listen to their good instincts and, hoping to make the world a better place, follow his teachings and imitate his ministry? Why did he talk about denial and the cross—that scary-sounding stuff?

As so often happens when we read the Bible, the context of a passage provides clues about it. And last week’s Gospel lesson is indeed helpful. There Jesus asks his disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” (v. 13) The text goes on:

And Simon Peter answered, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” And Jesus answered him, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you but my Father in heaven. And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church.” (vv. 16–18)

Peter, it seems, really gets it. He understands who Jesus is, what his message and mission are. He’s all in for Team Jesus! Three cheers for Peter!

But today, continuing with the next verse of Matthew’s gospel, we learn that Jesus starts to tell his followers what lies ahead for him: “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” (v. 21).

And how does Peter respond? “God forbid it, Lord! This must never happen to you.” Not surprisingly, Jesus scolds Peter: “Get behind me, Satan!” (vv. 22–23).

Oh, Peter! He was so close, looking for all the world like a faithful disciple—and he totally blew it! After walking in Jesus’ footsteps, sitting at Jesus feet, breaking bread at Jesus’ table, even being designated as the rock upon whom Jesus will build his church, Peter doesn’t understand who Jesus is and what he is about.

Peter is not the only one who has trouble grasping what it means to follow Jesus. We gather from the apostle Paul’s letters to various Christian communities that he is in good company. That’s why Paul writes to the Christians in Rome:

Hate what is evil; hold fast to what is good; … Be patient. . . . Live in harmony with one another. . . . Live peaceably with all. . . . If your enemies are hungry, feed them; if they are thirsty, give them something to drink. . . . (Romans 12)

Paul is describing a transformed life. He’s telling these folks, in detailed, practical terms, to be generous and cooperative.

But wait! What about the research David Brooks cites that says human beings are generally decent to one another? Do they, do we, really need a list like Paul’s?

Well, the thing of it is, Jesus is more than a model of neighbor love. Following Jesus is about more than being generous and cooperative.

I’m not minimizing or dismissing the value of Paul’s guidance for the Christians in Rome. Hardly! Paul is a wise teacher, a good pastor, and of course we need to pay attention to him.

But Jesus the Messiah, God’s anointed one, is inviting Peter and the other disciples, and us, to work toward a much grander vision. God’s yearning is not only to create generous and cooperative people but to reconcile all creation to Godself.

When we view the life of love, patience, and peace that Paul talks about through the lens of Jesus’ suffering, death, and resurrection, we see an entire cosmos that is healed, whole, and connected. All things, even the rocks, trees, and stars, are restored. All relationships are just.

As Jesus warned, following him is not easy. Jesus’ suffering, our suffering, is real. The cross, the cross Jesus asks us to carry, is heavy. Participating in God’s grand vision demands courage and stamina. But Jesus’ suffering and death are followed by his resurrection. And in that resurrection, the powers of sin and death that divide creation are overcome.

Maybe people do have a capacity to be generous and cooperative. (We can continue to debate that point, if you like.) But in Jesus, God is working to overcome everything that interferes with the wholeness of creation. All things are reconciled by God through Jesus. We are reconciled—to one another, to all creation, to God. In this journey, we find life. Thanks be to God!

In the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

You and I are called-out and sent as God’s anointed in the world, anchored on the moving foundation of God’s love in Christ; and even death can’t stop such a church.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost, Lect. 21 A
Texts: Isaiah 51:1-6; Romans 12:1-8; Matthew 16:13-20

Beloved in Christ, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

Listen to me, you people who pursue righteousness, Isaiah says.

Listen, you who seek the God-Who-Is. You who long for God to take the beauty and wonder that we see every day in the creation and apply it to the barrenness and devastation we also see in our world, apply it to our society and culture and life together on this planet. Listen, Isaiah says: to find that, look to the rock you came from, the quarry from which you were cut. The Rock that is your God.

Then God’s voice takes over: Listen to me, God says. I will bring salvation, deliverance, justice as a light to all people. What you hope for, I will do, God says. This is the rock our hope stands on.

And today the Son of God seems to repeat that promise. The rock on which I build my church, says Jesus, God-with-us, is so strong nothing can prevail against it.

But Jesus may be seeing it differently.

Jesus speaks of the “church,” the ecclesia, literally “the ones called out.” He says the gates of Hades cannot prevail against such a called-out community of God’s people. Hades to the Greeks is like Sheol to the Hebrews – not a place of punishment, just the place people go when they die. So Jesus says here the church will be sent to the very gates of death itself and break them. The church is moving, according to Jesus.

So, we are built on a rock, the trust we share with Peter that Jesus is God’s Christ, God’s anointed. But we’re not supposed to huddle up as church in our fortress on that rock, defending ourselves there. To be church is to be called out and sent. So we’re on the offense here, riding on a moveable foundation – the rock of our trust in God’s Anointed One – to bring God’s light and love and healing to the places of death and shadow and pain in this world.

To do this, Paul says God will transform you for this work, if you allow it.

Paul urges, “don’t be conformed to this age,” and that makes sense. If you and I are called out and sent into the suffering and pain of the world to bring God’s healing and restoration, we have to be different than what causes that suffering and pain. It does no good if we’re sent out and act in ways that perpetuate oppression, violence, suffering, the death we are sent to break through. We need to be different.

And that’s the hope: you can be transformed by God in Christ. So can I and all who follow Christ. Be transformed, Paul says – it’s not something you do, it’s done to you by God in Christ. Be made different, Paul says. Let God make you into Christ. And you will be part of God’s restoration and healing as Isaiah sees.

And every single transformed child of God is needed, Paul says.

You and I, and all anointed to be Christ in the world, are all part of one body, the Church. The called-out ones.

But we’re also all different, and that diversity is gift and blessing. To bring about the restoration God promises, it will need all kinds of people, all kinds of gifts. This is a world-changing plan.

So, Paul says, God needs people with compassion. And God gives some that gift. God needs people who are good at encouraging. God gives some that gift.

God needs people who are prophetic, who hear God and speak that word. God needs people who can teach, people who are generous in their giving, people who are able to minister to others. And God gives all those gifts, as needed for the plan. And many more gifts are needed, and are given – Paul’s list is only partial.

So our diversity, your difference, is critical, absolutely necessary to the plan of healing all things.

Now, we don’t hear it today, but this calling out and sending is a difficult path.

We only heard the first half of this Gospel story and the first half of Paul’s proclamation to the Romans. Next week we’ll hear the next parts of both. Next week Jesus will say he will suffer and die to break the gates of death, and asks all who follow to be ready to take up their lives of love sacrificial, too. Next week Paul will put a shape to the transformed life, a life of self-giving love, of honoring others, of peace-making. All very challenging, all costly.

Peter’s problem with this suffering path is evident next week. But we all have those moments where it seems too much for us to handle. So remember it’s fully part of what today’s readings call us to be and do.

For now, though, hear the joy.

You who pursue righteousness, who seek the God-Who-Is, rejoice. God is restoring and healing all things. Through your transformed mind and heart, and your specific gifts and calling. Through mine. Through all God’s anointed Christs in the world. And the gates of death can’t stop this – no oppression, no evil, no structures, no systems – nothing can stop the called-out anointed ones who bear Christ in the world.

And maybe you’ve realized what this also means – if the gates of death can’t keep out this love in this life, they’ve got no chance to stop God’s love in your death or mine. This promise of God we trust is also the foundation that moves with you through your death into the life that is to come. So you never need to be afraid.

Because nothing harmful can prevail against such transformed servants of God, against the love of God in Christ Jesus that is moving out into the world for the life of all things.

In the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen