Saturday, September 12, 2015

Sermon for the Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost
Proper 19B  ~  September 13, 2015
Holy Trinity & St. Anskar

 it stains the whole body, sets on fire the cycle of nature,
and is itself set on fire by hell.

+In the Name of God, the Holy and Undivided Trinity,

James seems to wish we would keep our mouth shut.  Peter shows us why this is a good idea.  The Brother of God wants us to bridle our tongues, advice from which Peter clearly could have profited.  The only problem is that Jesus Himself asks us to speak: Who do men say that I am?  Who do you say that I am?  Jesus requires an answer, He requires us to talk.
   Peter exemplifies the problem.  On the one hand, he is inspired by God to pronounce the truth (Orthodox dogma).  On the other hand, he goes on to say way more than he should.  His first confession arises not out of his own research (flesh and blood has not revealed this to you) but from divine inspiration.  His subsequent advice, which earned him the rebuke as satan or adversary, DID come of his own experience, his background, culture, and history – his own knowledge: flesh and blood, human thoughts, not divine.  The problem seems to be that our talk about God (theology) inevitably contains both. God-given insight and our own baggage – flesh and blood along with spirit.
   It is tempting to think that it would be better if we just shut up, but we are not at liberty to do that.  So, we need to be humble, and to recognize that whatever we do say will likely contain a lot of mistakes, even though it may also contain some truth.  As St. Paul told the Corinthians, all of our knowledge — and hence all our pronouncements — are partial, incomplete, and usually accompanied by extraneous material, as Peter's were.  But we still have to make them.  We have to answer the Lord’s question about His identity.  That is one big difference between Christianity and Buddhism.
   Christianity is the religion of the logos, the word.  A word is an expression of a concept.  But God is inconceivable.  So, Buddhism prescinds, because talking about God is "unprofitable."  We cannot conceive the inconceivable, and so it is foolish to speak of it.  But Jesus, the Word Incarnate, requires us to speak of it.  In so doing, we are almost certain to turn, like Peter, into adversaries. The same tongue that confesses the truth about Jesus at Cæsarea Philippi also denies Him with cursing in Jerusalem.
With [our tongue] we bless the Lord and Father,
  and with it we curse those who are made in the likeness of God.
From the same mouth come blessing and cursing.

And in this, Peter is our model. If we shut up out of fear of error, we also stifle the Good News. Like Peter, we are bound to get it wrong, but also like him, we must be willing to risk it.
   The Lord’s rebuke comes with the answer to Peter’s problem: “Get behind me.” In other words, get with the Program. Follow me, even if it seems all wrong, from everything you know so far. We are going into uncharted territory. Everything you think you know will be challenged. Now that you know Who I am, trust Me and not your own thinking.

AMEN
MARANATHA

COME, LORD JESUS!

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