At the Crossroads-Peter

Sermon Luke 22:54-62 March 26, 2017 4^th Sunday Lent

At the Crossroads-Peter

As we travel these weeks of Lent we’ve met some interesting people along the way. 

Bourgogne Crossroad

Today we meet Peter. He has been made famous for his many choices documented in Scripture. We feel like we really know him. He made a lot of declarations about Jesus during his ministry. He was rather pushy at times and excited and even a bit childlike in his mannerisms.

What are some things you can remember from your Bible teachings about Peter?

Is there any one story that sticks in your mind?

Peter and Andrew were called to follow Jesus at the same time. Peter was first known as Simon and the Jesus named him Cephus/Peter which means rock. He was from Bethsaida but lived in Capernaum, he was a fisherman.

Peter is the disciple that walked on water just to see Jesus. He has been the one quick to action and quick to fall. Peter was part of the inner circle of Jesus. He was with James and John on several occasions when Jesus took only three disciples with him. Occasions such as the raising of the daughter of Jairus and at the transfiguration. Peter was impulsive and he even sought to rebuke Jesus when Jesus starting talking about his own death. Peter pledged to Jesus that he would never forsake him and that is when Jesus warned him that he would deny Jesus three times.

Perhaps this is why we can all identify with Peter. He seems real to us. We feel that we might be just like him in some situations. Or we are pretty quick to judge him and say that we would not behave like him.

It is so easy for us on this side of Easter to look at Peter and his denial of Jesus in the courtyard and chastise him for his reaction to those gathered around him.

But, Peter had no clue what was to happen. Even though Jesus talked about suffering and death none of the disciples had any idea of how this was going to transpire.

We don’t live our lives with crystal balls in front of us.

We don’t live knowing how things are going to unfold.

Therefore, when we make strong declarations and bold statements of how we will act and how we will be bold, it might not transpire as we hope.

Life gets in the way all too often.

Peter was following closely as Jesus was taken to the High Priest’s house. He wanted to be close but he had no idea what to do next. He had already tried to fight and Jesus didn’t want any of that to happen.

He was probably following close trying to figure out his next move.

When the servant girl and the two servant men identify him as one of Jesus’ disciples. It catches him off guard.

It catches him in the middle of his thoughts about what to do to help Jesus.

These people have messed up his planning.

He needed more time.

They took him by surprise and he wasn’t ready to respond.

He reacted as usual with quick words.

He just wanted them to leave him alone as he followed Jesus and tried again to make plans to rescue him or maybe even prepare a discourse.

And before he realized he had denied knowing Jesus three times and the rooster crowed.

In the gospel of Luke, the poignant moment wasn’t the realization of the denial. But, that Jesus looked at Peter. And with the look of Jesus, Peter was filled with remorse. He was devastated and he ran away and wept bitterly.

Peter’s faith didn’t fail him at this moment. It was his faith in Jesus that responded with regret when he saw the face of Jesus. In the face of Jesus, we experience love, mercy, grace beyond measure. In the face of Jesus our relationship with him is sealed forever. We call that salvation. Salvation, our relationship with God, sealed through the love of Christ.

Fred Rogers had many things to say about relationships. As an ordained Presbyterian minister Fred Rogers chose to spread the message of the gospel through the show, Mr Roger’s Neighborhood. It was a program all about the power of relationships and love for one another.

“Love isn’t a perfect state of caring. It is an active noun like ‘struggle’. To love someone is to strive to accept that person exactly the way he or she is, right here and now-and to go on caring even through times that might bring us pain.”  

At that is what the look of Jesus upon Peter did. It loved him and showed forgiveness even in the moment of the pain of being denied.

Forgiveness is necessary in all relationships.

We cannot survive without the love and forgiveness of others.

And when we receive forgiveness we have the opportunity to repent, to change, to turn another way. It is our choice point. It is our crossroads.

The power of faith is that repentance flows from faith rather than precedes it. Repentance is actually born of faith. It is the sum of our faith. (Calvin Institutes) When we recognize that we have succumbed to temptation and denied the very One in whom we believe; it is our faith that brings us to our knees in sorrow. For, how could it be that if we were without faith that we could even experience remorse for our sin of denial? 

Dr Orr once said, ‘There is only one thing evil cannot stand, and that is forgiveness.” And forgiveness is born out of love. And love is born from God. For God is love. And we belong to God who loves us. 😃

All of us find a time or place where we should have said a bold word, a good word. We struggle with what we should say. We struggle with how our faith will help us. We struggle if our words will help or hurt our relationships. We may never face a time where our words will put us in danger for our lives, but there are times when we will find ourselves at a crossroads that calls on us to speak boldly.

How do we handle those times?

Have we yet to experience those times?

We are so quick to condemn Peter for not standing up and being bold at the very moment when we think he should have been. We are so quick to rebuke those who do not take a stand for justice and righteousness in the way we expect it to be done. We especially get angry when those silent have caused harm to us.

The toughest thing for us is to love someone who has hurt us. Someone who has been cruel, mean, and unjust to others. And yet, somehow there is this power that flows from the look of Jesus, the power of love and mercy, that causes us to see Jesus in that person as well.

To find mercy in our heart to offer to them what Jesus has offered to us.

Now the other toughest thing is to love the someone who has been mean to us when that person is our self. Take good care of this person. Offer this person mercy and forgiveness too.

Let us be gentle as we hold expectations before us and recognize our need for courage comes from above.

God is the one who calls us into lives of purpose.

God is the one who calls us to serve with the unique gifts given us. And when we falter, we can look up and see the face of Jesus loving us, forgiving us, and pouring his grace upon us.

Fear not.

Grace will lead you home. Amen.

Who is my neighbor?

Sermon Luke 10: 25- 37  March 22, 2017 Ecumenical Lenten Service @ Gaskins AME Church 

Who is my neighbor?

Years ago, I traveled to seminary from Lynchburg, Virginia to Richmond, Virginia. It was a two-hour drive traveling north on state road 29 to Charlottesville then east on I64 to Richmond. I loved the drive. The trip was easy and it gave me lots of time to think or study or listen to music. I was in my own little world, feeling independent and as if nothing could burden me.

Three days a week I took to the highway and never thought twice about ever needing any help. One day on the return trip I was listening to a great song on the radio in my Chevy Malibu when my right rear tire blew out. At first I wasn’t sure what happened. But, when the car wobbled and the steering shook I realized something was wrong. I pulled off to the side of the busy, crazy part of I64 and saw the damaged tire.

Now you might think it odd that I’ve never changed a flat tire. But there I was not wanting any help and certainly wanting to prove that I could do it ‘all by myself.’ I went to the trunk to find the tire and the jack stand. I went to the glove box and pulled out the owner’s manual. I looked at the jack stand and couldn’t figure out how to use it from first glance so I sat down on the side of the road and starting reading the book.

Cars were zooming past me and some slowed down and then kept on going. I looked up a few times and kept saying when I saw those faces, ‘please don’t stop.’ I’m begging you, please don’t stop.’ I’m not sure if I didn’t want help from those kinds of people or if I was just too stubborn to accept help.

At one point a semi-truck slowed down and then kept going. Whew, I sighed relief because I really didn’t want him to stop, I’ll figure this out. But less than five minutes later the truck had gone and made a U-turn and come back to help me. His first comments were, ‘lady, I saw you sitting there reading the owner’s manual and thought if anyone is reading a book to figure out how to change a tire they need help.’ He changed my tire and sent me on my way. I was truly grateful for the help I received. He was a gentleman and had gone out of his way and interrupted his schedule to help someone who needed it. To this day grateful for this grace lesson.

‘Who is my neighbor’, the lawyer asks Jesus. Jesus shares the Good Samaritan story with him. It is a lesson in Levitical Law. The lawyer knew the Law and didn’t need this lesson. As Christians, we know the lessons of Jesus. We really don’t need a lesson on how to be kind to others. We were raised up on those lessons. We can tell each other how good we are at helping the needy.  

But what about when we are the ones in need?

Have we ever considered how we would respond to a Samaritan coming to our aid?

I ask this today, because I believe ‘how we are willing to receive help and from whom, gets to core of our own prejudice’.

It gets to the heart of our deep feelings about others.

It gets us to realize how far we are willing to go with this command from Jesus.

Who is our neighbor?  The one we fear the most, coming to us with acts of mercy.

There we are on the side of the road, stuck in a ditch and people who are just like us drive by and don’t even stop to look or slow down.

The one we find less desirable takes time to help and makes sure we have everything we need. Can we handle that?                          Can we handle that?

Samaritans, according to the Jews of the day, were ‘stupid’ people.

(And we know a lot of ‘stupid’ people. We might not say it in public. But we sure do say it in the privacy of our homes. Yes, we call people by name frequently and we know it.) They were ‘dirty and unworthy’. They were the ‘less than’ people.

Who are the Samaritans of our day? Who are the people we would beg to not come to help us?

 

Bishop Kevin Dowling-a true Good Samaritan-
Tapologo Hospice, South Africa 

The priest and the Levite who walked past the man in the ditch felt burdened by the idea of having to interrupt their lives to help someone else.

A lot of how we help has to do with our schedule and our agenda.

We stop to help others when we are not already late to get to somewhere or to do something. When we are on our way to work or school, places where we punch a clock, we have tunnel vision and preoccupation with what matters for us.

A person on the side of the road just can’t fit into that agenda.

This parable is more than a good deed. It has many twists and turns with the outcast caring for the elite and the vulnerable showing hospitality to the less vulnerable. It has the twist that hospitality comes from a willingness to have our vision turned to the side to notice others around us and to disrupt our routine to offer ourselves, our money and our time.

A few years ago, I took a youth group to spent three days working at a homeless shelter in Louisville. The shelter was a hotel and those who lived there were learning all the skills of hotel work. Cooking, cleaning, management and so on. It was an eye-opening experience and a lesson about ‘all God’s creatures’.

I asked myself, ‘would I be willing to be vulnerable and get help from one of these people? I came to serve them, this was my mission to feel good about what I did not what they did for me.’  And yet, my life was altered and my tunnel vision changed.

I think the experience at the homeless shelter was recognizing the dignity restored to the men and women in the hotel.

People, once homeless, were given new life.

The men working in the kitchen were able to teach us how to do their job.

They taught us with pride and

helped me to realize that I wasn’t there just doing something to lift them out of the ditch

but

they were doing something to lift me

out of my short sightedness.

The Samaritan in this story looked beyond the lens of prejudice and could only envision mercy.

It took guts to do what he did.

Everything one could imagine could have kept him from helping.

But, he did it anyway.

You see, To act in love for our Lord in the world demonstrates the power that love gives to discipleship;

pure love and tenderness

wrapped in the package of pure audacity and boldness.

It wasn’t too long ago, that we were unwilling to accept a blood transfusion based on the color of the skin of the donor.

It wasn’t too long ago that we were not willing to be taught by a teacher of a particular sexual orientation.

It wasn’t too long ago that we were not willing to receive a son or daughter in law based on religion.

It wasn’t too long ago that we were unwilling to have a person working for us who had a thick accent.

It wasn’t too long ago that we were unwilling to receive mercy, love, care concern, from anyone different from us.

Who is our neighbor? Jesus doesn’t need to answer us, we already know. Go and live it!

The family of God has many members and they are not all just like me.

Brothers and sisters come in all shapes, sizes, and behaviors.

As we discover how our community is diverse in many ways here on the Eastern Shore, we have the opportunity to discover how to live with shared faith, shared experience, and shared traditions.

Who is our neighbor? The one who showed mercy. Go and do likewise. Amen.

Excerpts from FPC sermon of 7/14/2013 ‘My Flat Tire’

At the Crossroads-Pilate

Sermon Matthew 27:11-26 March 12, 2017 2^nd Sunday Lent

At the Crossroads-Pilate

In this Lent, we travel the crossroads of people who were faced with a difficult choice. Today, we meet Pilate. We heard in the gospel of Matthew, Pilate was faced with a difficult choice. He could choose to do what was right in the eyes of justice, or he could respond to the pressure of the crowds and the religious leaders. He chose to bend to the will of the crowds and the religious leaders. He knew his choice was not a fine one nor was it a fair one. But, despite the turmoil within him, he chose to free Barabbas and send Jesus to his death.

In Matthew’s presentation of Jesus’ passion story, God is present and active for the salvation of humanity. Jesus struggles at the face of death just as much as any human has in history. M. Eugene Boring.

Jesus faces the trial that sends him to his death. God is fully present in him and with him.

Pilate asks Jesus the question, “Are you the King of the Jews?” This is the only question Jesus answers in this Roman trial. The next time we hear Jesus speak, he is speaking from the cross. And Jesus makes the choice to seal his fate at the cross with his answer. Jesus says, “you say so.” That is the same as saying. “Yes, I am.”

Pilate, in an effort to get Jesus to say something that is less condemning, tells him there are a number of accusations against him. Jesus doesn’t budge. Pilate is left with the struggle of his choice. He is the judge of this man. Jesus has verified the charge of treason against Rome with his answer. But, even if he had said something different, the result of his trial would be the same. Yet, Pilate seems to try every turn to set him free.

Imagine being a judge in charge of the fate of another. I don’t think I can-it’s too scary.

I think that’s why I really didn’t like serving on a jury. I was always worried that perhaps we didn’t hear the whole story. Perhaps, my judgment was in error. Perhaps, my decision was based on my prejudice-perhaps even an unconscious prejudice-and that’s the scariest of all to me.

Being a judge takes a lot of discernment and character. It requires being able to do the job without letting emotion take control. Yet, judges are faced with decisions every day that affect the lives of others.

Even though we don’t wear a judge’s robe and sit on a bench each day, we are faced with decisions that impact the lives of others.

In this reading, today we learn of Pilate and we also learn about the crowds. Pilate throws the question of which prisoner to release to the crowd. His choice point to throw the decision over to another ended up with an outcome he did not expect. They called for the release of Barabbas! Pilate who thought Jesus could be freed through the voice of the crowd, heard instead, for him to be crucified! How, can it be that people turn against someone so quickly?

How do we fall in love and follow someone for their ideals, only to turn away just as quickly through the influence of voices from the crowd?

The questions we struggle with are the ones that get at the core of our belief.

What are the basic principles that keep us on the way for good?

How do we make a choice point, a judgment that is for the best?

The best for others, and the best for us?

Perhaps, this telling story of Jesus before Pilate and the crowd is a start.

If we were to become members of a crowd, we best be sure we understand the purpose of the crowd.

Whether we were part of the women’s march on Washington,

or the crowd at a Trump support rally,

we should have known the reasons for being there.

If we were caught up in a crowd to chant slogans or campaign cries, we would hope the words that came from our mouths were ones we really believed.

Often when people are gathered in crowds they are swept up with the emotion of the moment. And in the emotion, core principles can somehow be left behind.

The crowds that followed Jesus were perhaps ones who were intrigued by his popularity, and his view on the world and his counter cultural ideals were appealing. Yet, when the crowd was faced with the need to shout out their support, they would not do it. They hid behind the words of a few and then yelled the opposite of how they had behaved over the last few years.

In this season of Lent, we come to the choice point; to choose whom we will follow. Joshua said it so well to his people so long ago. “Now therefore, revere the Lord, and serve him in sincerity and faithfulness…now if you are unwilling to serve the Lord, choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods of your ancestors…or the gods …in whose land you are living; but as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.”

I really believe that the choice of whom we follow becomes the core of our faith. I also believe that this then grants us the basic principles to handle life in the crowds.

It is the center of our judgment seat. Once we know who we put our faith in, we are then able to learn, know, seek to understand, and put into action those principles for life.

Christ’s premise for life was based on grace, love, truth, and service. John 13:34- A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you  Matthew 22:37-40- “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’^[a] 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. ³⁹ And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’^[b] 40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

Bob Hoekstra puts it this way: Centuries before the Messiah (Jesus) came into this world, the Psalmist prophesied of the words of grace that would flow from His mouth. "You are fairer than the sons of men; grace is poured upon Your lips." God's grace guided and poured forth through the words of Jesus and set His speech above that of every other person. Those who listened to Him during His earthly pilgrimage testified of this fact. "All bore witness to Him, and marveled at the gracious words which proceeded out of His mouth" (Luke 4:22). One of the distinctive aspects of Jesus' words was the unique authority this grace imparted. "Then He went down to Capernaum, a city of Galilee, and was teaching them on the Sabbaths. And they were astonished at His teaching, for His word was with authority"

When we choose that our speech will always be filled with grace, perhaps sometimes also seasoned with salt, we can know we are speaking through the wisdom of God.

We must choose that our purpose for speech is for the edification of others, not to hurt others. We must want our words to be ministering God’s grace in the lives of others as well as in our own.

Pontius Pilate had the opportunity to speak the way for good. The crowd had the same opportunity.

We have choices every day. Let us live remembering the solid rock of faith on which we stand. Let us choose grace, love, truth, and service. Let the power of God’s love flow through us and from us. Amen.