Sermon at Parish Mass Trinity 12 2017

Jeremiah 15.15-21

Romans 12:9-21

Matthew 16:21-28

Today we have the second half of an encounter between Jesus and Peter. The first half was last week, when Peter confessed that Jesus was the Messiah, the Son of the Living God, and Jesus in response had named him Peter, “the Rock”, and given him the keys of the kingdom of heaven.

That part of the reading is very familiar to us as we have it every year for the feast of St Peter, our patron saint, and also when we read through Matthew’s Gospel as part of the three year lectionary, as happened last week.

But the second part of the encounter is only read once every three years. Peter gets it spectacularly wrong, but perhaps it’s considered impolite to bring that up on his feast day, so it gets relegated.

But it is a very important reading. The two halves of this episode go together. Peter has entered into the way of faith in Jesus the Messiah. He has begun to follow him. But as yet he has no idea where that journey will lead him. He is still setting his mind not on divine things but on human things.

Peter is right that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God. But he does not yet know what that means. He conceives of the Messiah in human terms, someone who will conquer by force and violence and drive out the unrighteous and unclean. So, when Jesus talks about his coming death, this is incomprehensible. Jesus rejects the path of violence. How, then, can his kingdom come?

In the Divine plan, the kingdom will come not by force, but by suffering. The path of the Messiah is the way of the cross – literally. Rejection, suffering, and an ignominious death await. But so too does the resurrection. The cycle of violence and vengeance brings only destruction. The Kingdom of God does not pay back this world in its own coin, but breaks in upon it with something wholly new, the Resurrection, God’s inexhaustible life and love pouring in and overwhelming the old order of sin and death.

Peter does not understand this yet. But he will, for veiled in this reading is a reference to Peter’s own death. The Gospels were written down after the death of the Apostles to preserve the teachings of Jesus, so this would have been in the minds of the early Christians as they heard this passage read. Jesus says, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.”

According to ancient tradition, referred to obliquely also in the 21^st chapter of John’s Gospel, for Peter this was literally true, for he himself would be crucified, in Rome, some 30 years after the life of Jesus, dying a martyr for Christ.

What was literally true for Peter is also true in some way or another for every disciple of Jesus. The path of dying and rising with Christ is marked on us by our baptism, and the sufferings that come our way have in them the potential to be a realisation of what that means.

Suffering is a profound mystery. In a fallen and imperfect world it happens, and questions about why often go unanswered, even in the Bible. But Jesus calls us to follow the way of the cross, not the way of ease. We should not seek suffering, and it is not wrong to seek relief from suffering when that is possible.  But some unavoidable sufferings will come our way. Accepted voluntarily in union with Christ these can become part of how we follow him and are conformed to his image.

Most Christians are not called to heroic suffering and martyrdom most of the time, but even the little sufferings and humiliations of daily life can be offered in union with Christ and so transformed. Illnesses and afflictions, the stress of our daily commute, being kind to a particularly difficult colleague or family member, surrendering our little claims to the petty things that we call “mine”.

This is a work of grace in us. Suffering can so easily lead to bitterness, resentment and ultimately despair.  We have to depend on God for the gifts of his Holy Spirit to accept suffering with generosity and in a spirit of sacrifice, in union with Christ. As St Paul says in Romans today, “Rejoice in hope, be patient in suffering, persevere in prayer”. And Jesus tells us this is the path of life, the only way to the resurrection which is our entry into true and eternal life.

More than that, suffering accepted in union with Christ is associated by him in his redeeming work. St Paul in Colossians 1 says “in my flesh I am completing what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church”. Christ alone is the redeemer, but he is pleased to allow us a share in his work. Adopted in Christ by the grace of baptism, our sufferings become part of his and are associated in the world’s redemption. How this works out is largely hidden from us, but nonetheless real.

I think of an old lady I knew, long dead, who often passed sleepless nights of pain. After one such night she said to me, “I felt God wanted me to pray for South Africa” (this was in the days of Apartheid). In the Divine economy of salvation, she was taking part in her small way in the redemption of the world. And, for a person who knew suffering, and whose life was in many ways very limited, she was full of joy, full of the Holy Spirit.

The sufferings that come our way can often be the little trials, difficulties and humiliations of everyday life. But there is also serious illness, disability and loss. And in the end, in one way or another, we will all be joined with Christ in the death of the body, so that we may share also in his resurrection. Perhaps in God’s providence the little trials of daily life are part of our preparation for the great sacrifices to come.  Jesus’s words to Peter today, although they come in the form of a humiliating rebuke, are also part of how Jesus is beginning to prepare Peter for his death.

This all sounds very Lenten, really. But actually Lent reminds us that the way of the cross is none other than the way of life and peace. In the world as it is, our call is to follow the way of Jesus, the way of joy that nevertheless involves contradiction and suffering. But we can do this with faith and trust, for it is Jesus himself, the Risen One, who says to us, “those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it”.