A Sermon for the Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost (30/08/20): Must

Must

Matthew 16:21-28

From that time on 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 the scribes and be killed and on the third day be raised 

When reading the Bible, and especially when thinking about preaching my attention, is seldom captured by a single word. But one word here seems quite decisive. The small word “must”, in Greek an even smaller word “dei”, makes all the difference. 

This is the turning point in Jesus’ ministry. This is the point when he moves from the Galilean ministry of teaching and healing and turns towards the decisive showdown in Jerusalem. And here Jesus predicts the final outcome of what he is doing. He “must” He must go to Jerusalem. He must suffer. He must be killed. And he must rise again. And the little word "must" is decisive in all of that. The cross is not an accident. The cross is not a tragic intrusion into the story. It is not just, as with so much of history, the way things happen to happen. The cross is not simply way things turned out in the collision of random and unpredictable events. From the outset, as Jesus predicts it, his rejection, suffering, death and resurrection are necessary to God’s plan.

St. Paul quite rightly observes the difficulty of the cross. Famously he says that the gospel of the cross which he proclaims is: "a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles." (1 Cor. 1:23) Two thousand years may have altered the difficulty, but not reduced the problem. To the Gentiles, in Paul's experience, the cross is foolishness because they can’t fit it into the philosophical ideas they have about God. To Jews the cross is a scandal, literally a stumbling block, an obstacle, because the cross makes the Messiah, their champion look like a failure, which is of course unthinkable. 

To modern minds the cross suggests other unthinkable things. If the cross is a necessary part of God’s plan then, modern arguments tend to run, God is responsible for a terrible crime. It is bad enough that the cross is a cruelty. But Christian faith appears to declare that God deliberately inflicts a cruelty on his Son. God is excused from the guilt of this crime on the basis of the ends justifying the means. The idea is that the good which is accomplished through the cross is so great that even a brutal and unjust execution is justified in achieving it. That may be so in a manner of speaking. But the moral consequences of such a view are disastrous! Because they have viewed the cross in this way people, especially Christians, throughout history and even into the present have felt able to do all kinds of dreadful things on the basis of the good that might come out of them. From Crusades to the harsh treatment of “wayward” girls. Some feminist theologians have been very forceful in their rejection and argued that the cross seen this way amounts to divinely sanctioned child abuse.  This is a scandal which forces some people to reject the cross, Christianity and the Christian God outright! 

But there is more to that little word “must” than God choosing this as the path that Jesus has to take. To place the certainty and the blame for the cross all on God is to overlook the role of human nature in it.  The great 20th Century Swiss theologian Karl Barth  noted that it is not only God who is revealed in Christ. It is not as if it were only God who was the mystery and human nature was self evident. The reality is that in Christ and especially at the cross we not only see God we also glimpse the truth about human beings There is another side to the “must.” 

It is a mistake to make God culpable of the cruelty perpetrated by human beings The blood of the cross is on the hands of a small group of conspirators, a cabal of elders, the priestly caste and their scribes, along with the Empire’s military government whom they manipulate. The cross is as much a consequence of human nature is it of Divine intention. The cross says as much about what human beings are like and what they are capable of as it does about God. Human nature “must” try and destroy God from within its midst. The self interest, the appetite for power, the desire to be in control, of human beings means that inevitably they will try to thrust God out of their lives and out of the world altogether. The cross is the equally inevitable outcome of the way human beings are. Trapped by their desire for control, the will to satisfy their own appetites, the elders chief priests and scribes are typical of human beings who reject and deny God and try to destroy the evidence of God’s presence and rule in the world. Jesus must die, his death is predictable and inevitable, because that is the way human nature is. God is not culpable of the cruelty inflicted by human beings.  But God does accept suffering and death as the price that “must” be paid to set human beings free from being determined by their own “must.” It is what God must do to reconcile the human race to himself. 

Peter's role in the story is often the same, he is the representative of the disciples, but also of all humans beings at their well-intentioned but misguided best. Simon Peter, as he so often does, jumps right in. He does what rest of us might have done, only he got there first: 

"God forbid it, Lord! This must never happen to you." 

His reaction may be just the natural one. Faced with the prospect of the loss of a loved one anyone's first response would to deny that possibility. But, Simon who has been called the rock, Peter, by Jesus, puts himself in front of Jesus. Peter stands himself in Jesus' way. And he turns out to be the kind of rock that someone could trip over, a stumbling block. His mind is set on human things not on divine things. Instinctively, like the elders and their co-conspirators, he rejects the way God wants things done. Instinctively he wants to set his own agenda. He wants the story to turn out the way he wants. And that doesn't involve the loss of a loved one. Probably he wants the story to reach its climax with a triumphal parade, Jesus enthroned, the Romans expelled – and he Peter basking in reflected glory. Peter wants to be part of a heroic ending. He wants that rather than to accept the difficult, but gracious and ultimately beneficial sovereignty of God. Like all human beings Peter is trapped in his own desires. What human beings want is in fact what exercises the greatest tyranny over them and leads them often to do terrible things. 

The stories which we pay attention to and respond to have moral consequences. The necessity of the cross, that Jesus “must” suffer and die in order to be raised again does have moral a consequence. But that consequence is not that the ends justify the means. The moral consequence of cross, given that God is God and human beings are they way that they are, is discipleship. Jesus says: 

"If any want to become my followers let them deny themselves take up their cross and follow me."

At the cross Jesus’ followers are called upon to let go of what we want. When Jesus says we must deny ourselves and take up our cross, he says we must break free from the human half of that “must” that brought about the crucifixion. We must stop being determined by our minds being set on human things and instead set our minds on God’s things. Self denial does not mean some kind of asceticism, or a sort of religious masochism, or a false humility of self-loathing. That kind of self-denial for the sake of self denial is just another kind of self- assertion. That is still an expression of  the need to stay in control rather than submit to God’s will. Self-denial is freedom from the wilful tyranny of human nature  and the acceptance of the liberty of God’s will. And without that kind of self-denial human beings are doomed to repeat the crucifixion, the denial of God’s place in and rule of the world. And they are themselves headed for self destruction. 

"For what will it profit them if they gain the whole world and forfeit their life?" 

What would you give in exchange for your soul? The answer to Jesus' rhetorical question would presumably be, "Everything!" And that as it happens is the deal which is on offer! Jesus says: "You can have what you want, or you can have life, but not both, which is it, choose!" Our desires and our wilfulness are so distorted and misshapen that they are inevitably self-destructive. They "must" eat us up. We have to be freed of getting what we want because the outcome of that is actually loss. Self denial is the other side of accepting God’s presence and rule. And discipleship, following Jesus, is the reshaping of our desires and wilfulness so that they will give us life.

 

Peter did something that most people seem to do when they hear Jesus predict his death. What Peter seems to overlook when he jumps in is the final clause of Jesus' prediction. He heard about the suffering. He heard about the death. But by then his own wilfulness had kicked in and he’d stopped listening. So he didn’t hear “and on the third day be raised.” The path which Peter and all of us must follow is a difficult one. Ridicule and rejection are an inevitable part of it, our allegiance to the cross, our self-denial will seem foolishness to most people. But the end is the same for all of us. Except that like Jesus, those who accept his cross and followed, their lives will become like his life, and will be concluded not by death but by resurrection.

Amen.

 

Must by Christopher Wood-Archer is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

A Sermon for the Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost (23/08/20): Peter's Confession

 Peter’s Confession

Matthew 16:13-20

Jesus has a question and he takes his disciples out of earshot of the crowd, to Caesarea Philippi, to ask it. He says:

“Who do people say that the Son of Man is?”

That’s an easy one! Voices speak up from various places within the group of disciples

“Some say John the Baptist,

“But others Elijah, 

“And still others say Jeremiah or one of the prophets.”

Popular opinion of Jesus is high and quite clear. It places him within the prophetic tradition of Israel. He is one who speaks about and for God with the authority of God. He is like John the Baptist, the recently arrested and executed prophet, the latest in that tradition, who had offered his exacting message of repentance and the nearness of the kingdom, beside the River Jordan. Or he is like Elijah the archetype of all the prophets, who was so close to God that he didn’t die but was received directly into heaven, from where he would return to announce the coming of God’s kingdom. Or he is like Jeremiah who announced judgement and exile, but also promised restoration. Or he is just like all the rest who from time to time had spoken clearly about God to God’s people. The people at large have developed a very high opinion of Jesus. They have placed him in the greatest tradition of their nation. They know that when he speaks they are hearing words from God. And we might say that the are right, in as far as they go. Or at least they are not wrong.

But you can tell from the way which Jesus has asked his question that there is more. The way in which he poses his question implies that there will be a follow up: “Who do people say that I am?” To ask “those people over there, what do they say?” implies that “these people here” are going to say something different. And it also suggests that what those people over there think should not be decisive to the opinion of these people here. Right away Jesus suggests that there is a difference between people in general, and those he is addressing directly right now, his disciples. And his question implies that the distinction between the disciples and everyone else relates to their understanding of who he is. Jesus implies from the outset that the answer which the people are giving is not adequate, even incorrect, and that the disciples must have a better, more complete answer. That in fact it is his second question which is more important. He says:

“But who do you say that I am?”

This time there is a moment of quiet, before  Simon Peter speaks up. As ever he is first to open his mouth. He dares to voice what all the others are thinking but are too timid to say. He steps once more into his role as representative of the disciples. And just for once he hits the nail on the head:

“You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”

This is still the difference of opinion that marks out the disciples of Jesus as distinct from everyone else. Christians are the ones who acknowledge this. Jesus is more than someone to whom you can pay a very high compliment, like calling him a prophet, or wonderful teacher or even miraculous healer. Jesus is the one in whom God is made fully known. Jesus is the one in whom and by whom God’s reign is established on the earth and the complete remaking of creation is initiated. Jesus is indeed the Messiah, the Son of God.

But Jesus’ questions are more than requests for information. He doesn’t need to know what people think of him. His mission is not dependent on any kind of opinion poll or popularity test. He doesn’t even need to know what the disciples are thinking, since he has already demonstrated that he is more than capable of seeing the content of people’s hearts. When Jesus asks his questions it reveals to the disciples who they are in relation to everyone else. Asking “who do people say that I am?” shows them that they are already different from everyone else, they are already marked out as a peculiar people. And asking “who do you say that I am?” when you have to answer, “you are the Messiah” becomes a call to commitment. If you say that who Jesus is goes beyond someone who speaks for God with the authority of God, you have no option but to trust and obey. It is Jesus questioning in this way which establishes the Church. And it is these questions and answers which still mark Christians out as different from everybody else.

And it is Peter’s answer which makes the Church visible. His confession is the rock upon which the Church is built. He is the first to acknowledge that Jesus is God’s Son, the one who has been anointed by God to bring about God’s kingdom. Everything that the Church has done ever since finds its starting point in Peter here. Every Christian who has ever lived, or who will ever live, stands in an unbroken succession with those who have this confession which can be traced back to this moment. This is the difference between the Church and everyone else, and which despite all appearances to the contrary make it a unity.

But what makes that difference? How do Christians and the Church become distinguished from everybody else? It would be tempting to suggest that the difference is simply one of better understanding. Somehow, at this point the disciples just know more about Jesus than anyone else. It is certainly true that they do know more about Jesus than everyone else. They have had greater intimacy with him. They have seen and heard more from and about Jesus than anybody else, and all of it at closer quarters. This certainly hasn’t hindered them. It is never a mistake to seek out greater understanding and greater intimacy with Jesus. But it is not this which is decisive. Knowing more about Jesus doesn’t make the decisive difference. After all we shouldn’t be unaware of the fact that Judas Iscariot  was also present among those who gathered around Jesus at Caesarea Philippi. Knowledge of God is simply not accessible in the way that other human knowledge is. Jesus is the true revelation of God. To see and know Jesus is in some sense to see and know God. But as we see from this conversation, and more acutely in the one which follows, it is perfectly possible to have Jesus right in front of you, and even to spend a good deal of intimate time with him, and still not really know the truth or recognise what answering his question actually demands. Peter’s answer, his confession, comes not from his powers of observation nor from his ability to reason. It is a gift from God. It is a miracle. Jesus responds to Peter’s confession:

“Blessed are you Simon son of Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you but my Father in heaven.”

This is a miracle which all of us who sincerely make that same confession have each experienced. Whatever else we say about the history of the Church we cannot avoid the reality that in its origins the Church is miraculous. And the Church’s continued existence relies on the same miracle. Only God can reveal God and on that miraculous intervention our faith and the Church depend.

For all its miraculous origin and character, the Church is still always a human institution, and as such it is deeply flawed. One of the phrases by which can speak truthfully about the church is semper reformenda - “always in need of reform.” Perhaps what is most startling about the scene at Caesarea Philippi is not Peter’s confession, but the amount of trust which Jesus places in his followers:

“I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven. . .” 

The Church is miraculous but Jesus places it in human hands. But this unfortunately is a moment which eventually divides those who are united by Peter’s confession. The divisions in the Church always come down to questions of authority. Who gets to be in charge. And, who gets to say who is in charge. And human being being human are inclined to become argumentative on such topics. In the first instance, because he was first to speak, it is Peter who appears to put in charge:

“and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.”

But after Peter the issue becomes contentious. What is Peter’s role? And, what is Peter’s relationship with all the other disciples who come after him? Who is Peter’s successor? And, where does that authority reside now? Different traditions give different answers to these questions, and solve the question of authority in the Church in different ways. Those questions may seem remote to us. After all the power to resolve such questions of authority within and between the different traditions of the Church doesn’t rest with us. But we also know, at the most immediate level, that there is no row like the row you can have in church. And almost always the intensity of such arguments comes back to the question of authority. Who gets to do what. And, who gets to say that they can. At this point Jesus isn’t offering us any help in resolving such issues. And indeed in other places Jesus appears to give a very different picture of authority in the life of the Church than the one he gives here by appearing to place Peter in charge. But what we do see is that the origin of such tensions lie in the very first moment of the Church and in its dual nature as a miraculous phenomenon and a human institution.

At the close of this conversation which Jesus has with his disciples at Caesarea Philippi Jesus gives them what looks like his strangest instruction of all:

“He sternly ordered the disciples not to tell anyone that he was the Messiah.”

This gets called by biblical scholars the “messianic secret.” The idea that runs through much of the gospel that Jesus is very resistant to people being told who he really is. Of course if the disciples had kept strictly and permanently to that instruction there would be no gospels and no Church. It is the very nature, truly the mission of the Church to tell the world that Jesus is the Messiah. But in view of the Church’s own dual nature, and in view of the kind of knowledge the Church is trying to impart, Jesus invites his followers to at least pause for a moment and consider what they know, who they are and what they are trying to do. Even as we make Peter’s confession and bear witness to the miracle of revelation in ourselves, we have to ask ourselves have we really understood? For Peter his confession was only a starting point. It really is just the foundation of something that is built over time. And Peter’s makes many missteps as he grows into the role which Jesus gives him. Beginning with the very next scene in the gospel, where Peter finds himself so far from the mark that Jesus calls him “Satan.” And much later in the tragic scenes between Maundy Thursday and Good Friday when Peter despite his confession denies Jesus three times. Yet it is to human beings like Peter who Jesus entrusts the Church. All Christians now have a great advantage over Peter. We know Jesus’ story backwards. We will always look through the Resurrection to the Crucifixion, and through the Crucifixion back into Jesus’ ministry and back to Peter’s confession. We have huge advantage over Peter in our understanding from the outset of what Jesus being Messiah actually means. But that doesn’t mean that Jesus’ stern warning doesn’t apply to us. Confessing that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God is only the start. What follows is the same sort of journey which Peter made into a deeper discipleship, which enables us to say to others that Jesus is the Messiah and invite them to experience the same miracle of revelation.

Amen.

Peter's Confession by Christopher Wood-Archer is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

A Sermon for the Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost (16/08/20): God's Initiative Waits for Mary's Response

Actually, I have broken with the lectionary readings this week. In other Christian traditions the 15th of August is a major festival, the Assumption of Mary. Whilst the whole panoply of Marian devotion and doctrine lies outside our spirituality and theology, it is possible to recognise that we do not pay Mary the attention she deserves. If we stick to the Sunday lectionary her story only appears twice in three years, on the Fourth Sunday in Advent in years B and C (The same Sunday in year A is reserved for the single occasion that Joseph's story appears in the lectionary!). Mary speaking of herself declares: "Surely from now on all generations will call me blessed." It is perhaps worth, now and again, reminding ourselves of that. With this in mind I thought we could borrow this Sunday to think a little about Mary.

God’s Initiative Waits for Mary’s Response

Luke 1:26-38

Mary’s story takes us into the character of the relationship between God and human beings. How is it that God relates to human beings? What is that relationship like? And here as always it is God who takes the initiative in that relationship:

The angel Gabriel was sent to a town in Galilee called Nazareth to a virgin engaged to a man named Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin’s name was Mary.

Mary’s story, or at least the part of her story that we hear, and that remains important to us, Mary’s story begins in something God does. He sends his messenger to her, with a request. The initiative is with God. As with all things in the relationship between humans and God, it is God who starts the ball rolling. In the birth of Jesus as with all things relating to God, it is about something that God begins. But the thing that hangs us up in this story is Mary’s status:

The angel Gabriel was sent. . . to a virgin

To us  and in the way we usually read this passage, that word “virgin” has a gynecological significance, and it has acquired a moral meaning. The word that is used, παρθενος (parthenos), as it happens doesn’t mean much more than “unmarried woman”. It is actually Mary’s response to Gabriel’s announcement that points us to what that means in her case:

"You will conceive in your womb and bear a son."

Mary is surprised and confused. She knows how babies are conceived. And she knows that doesn’t apply to her:

"How can this be?" 

Says Mary. The Bible intends to say one thing. But when we read it, we make it say something more, or something else. The doctrine of the virgin birth is not meant to be saying anything about human sexuality or, for good or ill, about marital relationships. And still less, it is not meant to be saying anything about how sin comes into human society, and how sin carries on from one generation of humans to the next. None of this is intended in Gabriel’s announcement to Mary. And yet that’s so often what we find ourselves bogged down in. That Jesus is conceived in this way is meant to emphasise one thing. That the initiative in the birth of Jesus, as with all things relating to the relationship between God and human beings, the initiative lies with God. The birth of Jesus is something which God intends to do. But, and this is decisive in the relationship between God and human beings, it requires Mary’s willing participation 

Mary’s conclusion to this scene is her consent:

"Let it be with me according to your word."

It is that consent which gives Mary her place of honour in the memory of Christians (some more than others). It is that consent which makes her the first and the model disciple. But often the nature of that response, and the content of Mary’s character is misunderstood. And as a consequence the character both of the relationship between God and humans and the nature of discipleship become distorted. Mary’s answer is too often interpreted as meek passivity. Mary young, vulnerable and female is overwhelmed by Gabriel the powerful, dominant masculine messenger of a male God. The scene is usually pictured with Gabriel standing - all light and wings,  standing over a bowed almost cowering Mary. Her yes becomes a cowering acquiescence before the irresistible fiat of a despotic God. The social and moral consequences of that picture have been catastrophic for women in general and female Christians in particular. This portrayal is heightened by the, possibly false, presumption that Mary is a teenage girl hardly more than a child. 

But the way in which Mary is actually portrayed in the Bible gives a quite different picture of her womanhood. Mary is first of all portrayed as questioning and thoughtful. Faced with the angel and his surprising greeting:

She was much perplexed by what his words and wondered what sort of greeting this might be

An encounter with God’s word. Especially when delivered in such a dramatic way is likely to leave anyone confused. Indeed it will inevitably surprise and perplex us. But Mary thinks about what this might mean. Her final acceptance of what God is saying and doing comes after much thought. And she is not afraid to question what God is doing:

"How can this be?"

She demands an explanation of Gabriel as he speaks on behalf of God. And she is given one! And a little later she demonstrates she is a considerable thinker. She celebrates what God is doing with her in the Magnificat. Her faith seeking understanding finds voice in the song she sings. That song is the magnificent revolutionary manifesto of what God is about to accomplish. Hers is not a mindless acceptance. She is a thoughtful questioning participant in what God is doing. Mary is the model disciple. That portrayal of Mary gives a very different idea of discipleship than the one often suggested and even imposed, especially on women!

Furthermore as Mary’s story continues what we see her engaged in is not the limited roles that are usually assigned to women. Despite the Christmas carol’s picture of her as the lowly maiden in whose arms Jesus lay, that is not how the Bible pictures her. We never see her in a domestic situation. She is not pictured like Martha and the other Mary, or Peter’s mother in law, or even the woman at the well. All of them we see engaged in what might be called conventional female tasks. What we actually see Mary do is take risks  to see the fulfilment of God’s will for her. We see her make repeated risky journeys. First she goes to her relative Elizabeth in the hill country of Judea. Then she travels from Nazareth to Bethlehem with Joseph. And afterwards she journeys into Egypt and back again with Joseph and the infant Jesus. And finally she makes her way to the foot of the cross. But the first risk she takes is to say “yes” to God. The risk which Mary takes is a very considerable one. She risks the condemnation of her society. She risks even the violence of patriarchy against her. To be unmarried and pregnant in that society is a very risky position to place oneself in. At the heart of the relationship between God and humans is the opportunity to say “no”. God honours her autonomy. “No” would have been a valid answer. Her body is hers. It is her choice to allow it to become the means for God to accomplish what God intends. And in this relationship all the conventions of society and the morality that is imposed by the rulers and arbiters of that society is superseded. Mary answers without reference to anyone else. She does not require the permission of her father or her fiance to do what God is asking of her. Her consent is necessary. But her consent alone is sufficient

There is a picture of God in this story. Gabriel offers it when he declares the creed that lies behind all other creeds:

"For nothing will be impossible with God."

Everything we believe about and about what God does goes back to this. In theological language we say God is omnipotent, “all powerful.” Our normal assumption about this would be: God wills it, and it is done. God becomes pictured as some kind of infinite despot. Imposing his sovereign and inscrutable will on everything. But that is not how we see it in the Bible. That is not how God relates to human beings. God does not unmake what he has made. And part of what he has made is human freedom. God achieves what God set out to do. God achieves the impossible, like virgins conceiving children. But he doesn’t do these things at the cost of denying human freedom. God does not impose his will. If he did, in this scene, God’s action would amount to rape. That it doesn't places this scene in a very sharp contrast to the mythic stories told by the Greeks and Romans about their gods! God’s omnipotence consists of infinite patience. Which reveals the more important characteristic of God than power: Mercy! God’s mercy requires patience. God must allow space for a human “no” to his request. Slightly facetiously we might speculate about how many women Gabriel had to visit first before he found one, Mary, willing to say yes to what God is asking. It is allowing humans the space to say “no” which leads ultimately to the cross. Though because “nothing will be impossible with God” even that leads back to God’s patience and mercy.

God’s initiative always waits for a human response. Perhaps we need to picture the scene between Mary and Gabriel differently. It is not Gabriel who stands and Mary who kneels at his feet but the other way round. Gabriel comes to her and honours her. He pays her high compliments, so high that they startle Mary:

"Favoured one, the Lord is with you. . . you have found favour with God."

Gabriel comes to woo Mary for God. It is almost as if it is he who kneels at her feet with flowers and chocolate. Which points us to the real nature of the Gospel. The gospel is a love song sung by God to the human race. God’s initiative is still waiting for human response.

Amen.

God’s Initiative Waits for Mary’s Response by Christopher Wood-Archer is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

A Sermon for the Tenth Sunday after Pentecost (09/08/20): Jesus and Peter Walk on Water

 Jesus and Peter Walk on Water

Matthew 14:22-33

Immediately he made the disciples get in the boat and go on ahead to the other side. . . He went up the mountain by himself to pray.

Very often in the Bible locations are symbolic. There is a kind of spiritual geography in the Bible. So it is no accident that Jesus and his disciples go their separate ways after he has fed the 5000. Jesus sends his followers onto the water, out across the lake in the boat, while he spends the evening in prayer up a mountain. The mountain of course represents everything that is solid and permanent and unchanging. “As old as the hills,” we say. There is something reliable and reassuring about mountains, even as they can be awe inspiring. Typically for Jesus he goes, to a place of quiet grandeur, to pray. The tops of mountains in many cultures, not least in the world of the Bible, are thought to be places near to God. Even the pagan gods of the Greeks and the Romans as well as those of the Canaanites who had occupied the land before the Isrealites, were often thought to live on a mountain top. The temple in Jerusalem is on the top of a “mountain.” And it is not just that a simplistic understanding of the universe places human beings on the ground and God above the sky. There is also something about the narrowness of the place. Everything else falls away. On the mountaintop there is a special kind of solitude. This is combined with a largeness of vision, a greater part of the world visible below, which invites thoughts of existence itself, of the infinite and of God.

When evening came he was there alone, but by this time the boat, battered by the waves, was far from land, for the wind was against them.

There is a deliberate contrast that is being made. The water of the lake, the sea which the disciples are crossing, is the very opposite of mountains. For the Israelites the water of the sea, even the relatively tiny Sea of Galilee, represented instability and chaos, a disorder which threatens human existence. It is noticeable that the Jews were not a seafaring race, for all that they had become scattered throughout the ancient world, they hadn’t gone there in their own boats. It was the Philistines who were one of the “Sea Peoples” not the Israelites. And the Sea of Galilee was and is a particularly unstable body of water. It is constantly disturbed by the winds that blow down from the hills which surround it, one of which Jesus is praying on. In an instant the water could become like a boiling cauldron. Perhaps things weren’t quite that bad on this night There was wind, and the wind was against them. Their journey was a struggle, they were making very little progress toward their destination. But as yet the waves were not breaking over the boat, and they were in no immediate danger. In truth this is the disciples’ everyday life. A fair proportion of them are fishermen who had worked on this lake from childhood. This, without doubt, is not the first time they have struggled to cross the lake against the wind. Yes, the sea is an unstable and even unpredictable place, but it is also familiar. This is what they are used to dealing with. Through their lives they have acquired the skills to deal with most of what the sea will throw at them. This really is what their lives are made of, dealing with the chaos and uncertainty of water. Though at the back of their minds must have lurked the thought that sometimes human skill and determination and ingenuity is not enough. Sometimes even the most proficient sailors drown.

And early in the morning he walking toward them on the lake.

In the darkness of this night, Jesus steps onto the water of the lake and approaches the disciples in their boat. Walking on water is the very definition of the miraculous. To walk on water is to quite literally do the impossible. If you can do that, you can do anything. We still speak of those who we imagine will be able to achieve extraordinary things as “walking on water.” Walking on water defies what we know about how the world works. To walk on water is to defeat the “laws” of nature that hem human existence in. Jesus overcomes the instability and uncertainty of water, and makes it seem as solid and reliable as the dry land and the hill that he has just left. That Jesus can walk on water places him outside of what we already know about the world. In Jesus we are encountering something new, something quite unprecedented. Jesus is like us, but then again he is also utterly different from us. His presence in the world defies what we think we know about the world. Jesus walks on water!

Very often contemporary Christians try to avoid the miracle stories in the Gospels. We would really rather like to have a Jesus who doesn’t so obviously do the impossible. Not least because we worry that if Jesus does the impossible, Jesus himself must be impossible. We sometimes want to domesticate Jesus, make him fit into the world as we know it, the world where the impossible is, well, impossible. We would like to make Jesus a reassuring figure, someone who tells us what we already know, in a soothing voice. We don’t really want a Jesus who destroys our understanding of the world and our place in it. The water may be unstable, unpredictable and chaotic, but at least it is familiar. We are used to the capriciousness of life. Life is unreliable, but at least we can rely on it being unreliable in quite predictable ways. You can’t trust the sea, but at least you know that it will always be the sea. Jesus walking on water, like it is dry land throws everything into doubt. We would much prefer a Jesus who didn’t disturb our fundamental understanding like this. A Jesus who does miracles, a Jesus who walks on water is a terrifying prospect. If Jesus can do that, then nothing is certain, not even our uncertainty.

But when the disciples saw him walking on the lake, they were terrified, saying, “It is a ghost!” And they cried out in fear.

Jesus walks across the water and comes close to the disciples struggling in the boat. When they see him they are, quite predictably, frightened. At first they think they are seeing a ghost. Or perhaps, a fear they won’t voice, they are seeing a demon. As frightening as the sea is, as difficult as their struggles have become as the night has worn on, someone walking on water is worse! Until they recognise Jesus. Perhaps when we are worrying about the Jesus who does miracles, and who could turn our world upside down, we would do well to remember that it is Jesus we are talking about. What Jesus can do is frightening, but as we come to know Jesus we know that he loves us. At the same time as being the one who can walk on water, the disciples recognise that Jesus is the one who has shared the intimacy of their lives. They have eaten together. They have travelled together. They have talked together. They have struggled on this lake together. They have laughed and cried and slept under the stars together. Their relationship with Jesus is, as anybody’s relationship with Jesus should be, a mixture of awe and affection.

But immediately Jesus spoke to them and said, “Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid.”

For now Peter’s fear of the sea, and his fear of what Jesus can do, is dispelled. He is inspired by his faith in Jesus. Typically for Peter he turns his knowledge of Jesus, and his faith in him into immediate, even premature, action. He heeds Jesus’ announcement of the Bible’s most frequent commandment: Do not be afraid. And he is inspired to attempt the impossible for himself. What plays out in the following moments dramatically illustrates the interplay between faith and fear and doubt that any of us might experience. 

Peter answered, “Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.” And he said. “Come.”

Peter accepts Jesus’ invitation and climbs over the side of the boat. This is the ultimate act of faith. Peter attempts what he knows to be impossible, whilst trusting that Jesus will enable him to do it. And his faith is well directed. Trusting Jesus does indeed enable Peter to do what would otherwise be impossible. Peter walks on water as well.

Perhaps at that moment Peter also experiences something like vertigo. He is dizzied by what he sees himself doing. A moment or two after stepping out of the boat Peter’s attention is turned away from Jesus and toward himself. He begins to wonder how he is doing what he is doing. And at that moment uncertainty returns. Peter begins to doubt himself. What he is seeing now is not Jesus but only the wind and the waves around him and no solid boat to keep him safe. And now he becomes afraid. It is perhaps hard to say which really comes first. And it is difficult to tell which is more destructive to faith. Does Peter doubt because he has become afraid? Or does he become afraid because he has started to doubt? Whichever way it is, Peter’s faith, the connection between him and Jesus, is interrupted. Peter begins to sink into the water. At this point he becomes once again bound by the limitations which rule over everyone who has to live in the material world. He can’t walk on water. Water and dry ground do not work the same way.

But when he noticed the strong wind, he became frightened, and beginning to sink he cried out, “Lord, save me!”

What is also clear, however, is that fear and doubt cannot completely banish Peter’s trust in Jesus. Peter cries out to Jesus. This is hardly less of an act of faith than stepping out of the boat in the first place, even if it is motivated by desperation rather than confidence. He still looks in the right direction for help, even in this impossible situation. Peter knows and trusts Jesus well enough to know where to turn in this crisis. And Peter’s faith is still not misplaced. Jesus being Jesus, and being all compassion, reaches out and takes Peter by the hand and leads him back to the boat. As soon as Peter and Jesus are back in the boat the wind ceases, and the journey to the other side is no longer as difficult as it has been. Not for the first time in a boat the disciples are awed by what they have seen Jesus do.

And those in the boat worshipped him, saying, “Truly you are the Son of God.”

What has played out on the mountain and on the lake, and between Peter and Jesus, this night is the whole gospel in miniature. Jesus has come from the place a stability and certainty, from nearness with God, and joined human beings in the place of their lives and their struggles. Jesus stepping onto the chaotic waters is the incarnation. That God can be human is impossible and it is terrifying. But it is also wonderful and reassuring because it is Jesus. And faith in Jesus makes the impossible possible. There is nothing which cannot be accomplished in and through and by us with an undivided focus on Jesus. A focus which may be interrupted but never completely destroyed by the fears and doubts life creates in us. Faith in Jesus is what will take his disciples safely to their journey’s end.

Perhaps there is an epilogue to this story. Later, early on another morning, Peter is again in a boat on this lake with the other disciples, at the end of another night of fruitless struggle, when he sees Jesus. This time Peter realises that he doesn’t need to do the impossible to be with Jesus. Again he climbs over the side of the boat, but this time he swims to be with his Lord.

Amen.

Jesus and Peter Walk on Water by Christopher Wood-Archer is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

A Sermon for the Ninth Sunday after Pentecost (02/08/2020): Jacob Wrestling

Jacob Wrestling

Genesis 32:22-31

Jacob was left alone; and a man wrestled with him until daybreak.

Jacob is on his way home with two wives, two concubines, ten sons and a daughter. Coming home with  more livestock than he could count. He is far better off now than when he left. And all of it, everything he possesses, everything that that gives him place and status and security in the world, all of it, he has sent ahead of him across the river that now lies between him and the land of his birth. The river forms a boundary between him and the brother he had cheated and betrayed. That brother is now coming in the other direction accompanied by 400 men. Jacob is more alone and more naked now than at any time since he had left the home of his mother all those years ago. Does he place a rock beneath his head? And as he drifts into sleep does he think of a dream that he had, when he made this journey in haste in the other direction? Does he remember the dream that he had, the dream of a ladder, a staircase, that stretched down from heaven all the way to the earth with the angels travelling up and down it? Does he remember that God seemed so real and so close to him then that he name the place Bethel, the house of God? 

But dreams are passing things. Like dew they evaporate in the morning. Human beings are forgetful creatures, especially when it comes to God. Whatever Jacob thought he knew about heaven and angels and God at breakfast, by lunchtime time had gone. Despite that dream, despite the experience of the divine presence, Jacob has lived for the last 14 years as a practical atheist. For all useful purposes once the river, to whose banks he has now returned, once that river was behind him he has lived without reference to God. Rather than accepting a future that God might be offering him, he has tried to carve out one for himself. He met and fell in love with his uncle's daughter (that of course makes her his cousin) Rachel, and was determined to have her for himself. But God had other plans, and so did his uncle Laban. The trickster was tricked. On the morning after the wedding feast the night before it was Rachel's plainer older sister, Leah, that was in his bed! He was given Rachel too. And given the headache of two sisters, two wives at war with another. One sister who he couldn't or wouldn't love enough and whose sons hardly compensated for her disappointment in her husband. The other sister who he couldn't love more but whose lack of sons meant that no amount  of love could compensate her. Until Joseph was born, the son on whom all of Jacob's hopes now rested, even if still God had other plans. Finally the trickster had returned to his old tricks. Jacob found a way to swindle Laban out of the best of his flocks. And once more he was on the road, back the way he came. Were these the thoughts that crowded his he as lay in the dark on his own?

As he he drifted into sleep was he hoping for another reassuring dream of God's presence. If he was Jacob is seriously disappointed. There, in the night, he is attacked. Alone and vulnerable he is assaulted. He takes hold of his assailant. It is an invisible foe, a man. And Jacob wrestles. Since before he was born Jacob has struggled. As he grapples does he wonder who this can be? 

Is it Laban? Who has changed his mind and refused to accept the losses that Jacob has inflicted upon him. Is this the consequences of his actions, of 14 years of living without God and trying to make his own future catching up with him? But no! Laban is an old man but this opponent has vigour and power, mixed with cunning and experience. 

Is it Esau then? Is this his brother, his oldest and fiercest opponent, the first victim of Jacob's trickery? Is the old wound that Jacob is seeking to heal still open and raw with his older brother? But no! Why come now alone in the dark when he has an army? And if it is his brother, why is he not already dead with a tent peg through his head whilst he still slept? 

A demon then? Jacob has no shortage of them. All his life he has been creating demons and running away from them. Have they finally caught up with him in the dark? But no! This adversary is more solid than any demon could be. This in no projection of his mind, this is not his guilt and his anxiety that is assaulting him. This is real and this is other. 

An Angel perhaps? That staircase he once saw, rather than assistance could it also deliver judgement? No! The grip this stranger has on Jacob is more personal, more intimate, this contest means something to the opponent as well. 

As the darkness and the struggle wears on through the hours of the night a growing certainty arises in Jacob. His opponent is God. But he cannot look at him to be sure. It is too dark.  He has him grasped from behind. He has him gripped too close so that Jacob cannot twist his head and remove all doubt. But this is God. God found in the form of a man. The real strange God. The almighty, all powerful, yet vulnerable and weak enough to wrestle all night with a single, frail human being and not prevail. A strange self-denial on the part of God that makes this an almost equal contest.

They say the night is darkest before the dawn, and that life's difficulties weigh heaviest, just before they are lifted. The man strikes Jacob on the hip. He hits him so hard that the ball is forced right out the socket. An agony, it is a pain so great that Jacob never wants to be reminded of it. Never again will he eat a leg of lamb, so that he doesn't have to see the ball of the hip joint and be remind of the pain he is in now. This his been a long dark night. And the difficulties of Jacob's life have mostly been of his own making. But slowly, as surely as day does follow night, the eastern horizon behind them is turning from black to a lightening shade of gray and gradually gaining the thinnest sliver of colour, red and yellow. The man for a moment has the advantage and finally speaks: 

"Let me go for the day is breaking." 

The advantage still swings to and fro. Jacob grips the man tighter. His grasp had always been his defining characteristic. The man wants to leave and Jacob recognises that he has leverage:

"I will not let you go unless you bless me." 

Convinced that he does at last have God by the heel Jacob asks for what he longs for most, a blessing. He asks for something to relieve him of all his past, something to tell him that it has all been worthwhile, something to assure him that is now set right and can live at peace with himself and with everyone around him. If Jacob and the man are equal as wrestlers they are no less equal in word play. So now the advantage has swung back to the man, Jacob wants something, and can be gripped and manoeuvred once more. The man evades Jacob's demand and answers a request with a question: 

"What is your name?" 

Jacob has lived a life that has made the name he was given his own. He was born holding onto his older twin's heel. “He grasps!” “Jacob,” they exclaimed. And everything he has done since then has been to live up to that name. “Trickster.” “Over-reacher.” “Supplanter.” “Usurper.” Jacob concedes a little and confesses his name: 

"Jacob."

The name that he has made his own. The man declares: 

"You shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with humans and have prevailed." 

He is given the name that is his destiny. In this moment is founded the nation that Jacob had been promised he would become, God's chosen people. They will be the people who will carry forth God's promise and be a blessing to the whole human race. Typically of Jacob, for he was still the person he had made himself, and emboldened by his new name, he overreaches himself one last time. Still holding onto the man he asks:

"Please tell me you name." 

Jacob would know for sure. He would remove all doubt and grasp the totality of God for himself. Trust and hope could be replaced by certainty. Yet that too would be an illusion, another dream, that would evaporate with the morning dew just as the first one had. That knowledge of God is simply not available to anyone. Human beings cannot live like that. 

"Why is it that you ask my name?" 

Enquires the man. And then he blessed Jacob. At last, here is a blessing that was his own, not something that belonged to someone else. This is not something that he cheated to receive and stole from the one to whom it rightfully belonged, but his own. This has been given as part of his new destiny and the new life that had to go with it. But now the man must go. If this really is God, does God's power vanish with the daylight? Is God only God when we cannot see him in the darkness? Must God remain a mystery? The man slips from Jacob's grasp. Or did Jacob let him go, realising that it is better to live with faith and hope rather than false certainty. In the growing day light he struggles to his feet. One might long to meet God. One might assume that that such an encounter would be warm and reassuring, like a ladder stretching down from heaven to the place where you lie. But Jacob now knows different. Meeting God is strange and terrifying and difficult. And because God is God it takes place on God's terms, like an assault in the night. But God being the God is there is also a gracious self-denial that doesn't deny us our freedom. We can still struggle. And we still must doubt and trust. That old dream took place at a location Jacob called “Bethel” the house of God. He knows that in this terrifying, wounding encounter he has been much closer to God. So he calls the place “Peniel” the Face of God. The encounter has marked Jacob forever. He will always walk with a limp. He is a cripple, but a cripple with a blessing and with a destiny.

Amen.

<a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/"><img alt="Creative Commons Licence" style="border-width:0" src="https://i.creativecommons.org/l/by-nc-sa/4.0/88x31.png" /></a><br /><span xmlns:dct="http://purl.org/dc/terms/" property="dct:title">Jacob Wrestling</span> by <span xmlns:cc="http://creativecommons.org/ns#" property="cc:attributionName">Christopher Wood-Archer</span> is licensed under a <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License</a>.