Reflections on the Passing of the Peace

“Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.” –1 Corinthians 1:3

“And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” –Philippians 4:7

“Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.” –John 14:27

Peace is talked about many times in the Bible, from Genesis to Revelation.  Practically every writer of Scripture has something to say on the subject.  Every Sunday we wish peace for one another in worship.  What is it about peace that makes it such an integral part of our worship, our faith, and our lives?

Peace is a way of seeing the world, a way in which our faith in God helps us stay calm in a turbulent world. When God is present with us and in us, when we put our trust in God, we know that we are in God’s hands and don’t need to spend our time worrying about what to do or what will happen.  We know that we belong to God, and he will take care of us.  This inner peace is ours no matter what happens in the world around us; it is a gift from God, and beyond our understanding or ability to explain.  It is something we deny ourselves too often, when we shove our faith into a box marked “only for Sundays” and try to seek fulfillment in endless busyness instead of in God.  It is something we ignore when we focus on our fears and anxieties instead of on God’s promise of love and forgiveness.

Peace is also a way of relating to others, a way of treating others with love and justice.  It happens when we act with Christ-centered hospitality and respect, when we air disagreements honestly and openly with charity and compassion instead of storing up grudges and disagreements and bitterness.  It can take hard work to practice peace in the midst of conflict, but it can also bring great rewards of growth and harmony.

When we wish each other the peace of the Lord each Sunday, as Christ wished it to us and as Paul wished it to his congregations in every letter, we’re not just mouthing pious good wishes.  We are affirming that God is truly present in us and in the congregation, that his presence brings that peace that surpasses all human understanding.  We are reminding one another that God’s peace isn’t just some abstract pie-in-the-sky proposition, but a present reality with us here, now, in this place.  And we are promising that we will reflect that peace in our lives together in Christ.

God’s work, our hands

Today I had the privilege of listening to John Nunes, head of Lutheran World Relief, speak and preach in church.  One of the things he said was that historically, Lutheran World Relief and other Lutheran charities have not had to advertise themselves–Lutherans gave regularly, as congregations and as individuals, and so money that other organizations had to spend on marketing and fundraising, LWR could commit directly to projects.  That’s changing, and so Lutheran World Relief has just had to hire their first director of marketing.  And it seems to me that part of the problem is that we as Lutherans haven’t been good at spreading the word about all the good things we do.  As children of God, we are called not only to spread the Good News, but to be what Luther called “little Christs” to our neighbor, spreading the love of God through tangible means of food, shelter, healing, companionship.  We give and we work, not to earn God’s grace, but to share the love God has given us.  Here are some of the ways we as Lutherans do this:

Lutheran World Relief works in 35 countries throughout the world.  They seek lasting solutions to poverty and injustice in some of the poorest places in the world.  While they do disaster relief, their focus is on building communities and helping people raise themselves out of poverty so that when disasters strike, be they natural or manmade, the people can take care of themselves and are less dependent on the charity of others.  They work with and through local people and organizations, creating sustainable growth and working towards peace and justice.  And they do all that while staying financially stable in today’s economy, and while spending less than ten cents of every dollar on administration (which is an incredible ratio–a lot of charities are good if they get less then twenty cents per dollar for administration).  LWR’s projects include collecting and distributing quilts, health kits, clothing, etc, made by American Lutheran congregations, Fair Trade coffee, chocolate, and gifts (perfect for this holiday season!), disaster relief, and working with people in poor,  rural communities to figure out what they need and find a sustainable way to get it.

Lutheran Services in America is the largest social service organization in America.  It’s larger than Catholic charities, larger than the Red Cross, larger than the Salvation Army.  It’s an alliance of over 300 Lutheran health and human service organizations. Working neighbor to neighbor through services in health care, aging and disability supports, community development, housing, and child and family strengthening, these organizations together touch the lives of one in 50 Americans each year and have aggregated annual incomes over $16.6 billion.

Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service.  For over 70 years, Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service has led a ministry of welcome to some of America’s most vulnerable newcomers.  They help people seeking safety from persecution in their home countries and reunite families torn apart by conflict. They resettle refugees. They protect vulnerable children who arrive alone in the United States. They advocate for compassion and justice for all migrants.

Lutheran Disaster Response works with local people and volunteers to rebuild lives and communities, both in the initial aftermath of a disaster and in the years of rebuilding that long-term recovery requires.

Through these and other organizations, Lutherans do great work in the world.  I encourage you to give as you are able, of your money, time, and talents.  And spread the news about what we do!

In the Flesh

Have you ever noticed that when Jesus appears to people after the Resurrection, there’s usually a fleshy part of his visitation?  His followers touch Jesus  (Matthew 28:9, Luke 24:37-40, John 20:20, 27-28) or Jesus eats with his followers (Luke 24:30, 24:41-43, John21:12-13).  Almost every time he appears, there’s some proof that this is not just a “ghost” or “spirit”–this is a real, flesh-and-blood person coming among them.

What does this mean?  Why does it matter?

Well, first, it means that resurrection isn’t just about the soul–the body gets resurrected, too.  The whole package deal, body and soul, is redeemed and re-created and resurrected.  We don’t leave our bodies behind.  Instead, our whole being is taken by God and made holy and pure.  We like to think of the world as dualistic, flesh=bad and spirit=good.  We like to think of the physical world as evil, corrupted, temporary, something that will be destroyed when Christ comes again, while the spirit is pure and holy and eternal, merely waiting to be freed from the evils of the material world.  This is not the case, as Jesus showed us in his appearances after the Resurrection.  The body is just as involved as the spirit.

Remember that in Genesis, when God creates the world he calls it good, repeatedly.  It has been corrupted by sin, yes, but was created good, and ultimately belongs to God.  Our souls, as well, were created good but were corrupted by sin.  Both are alike, that way.  Both need to be cleansed of sin and death.  Both depend on the mercy and grace of God.

Again, what does this mean?  What effect does it have on our daily life?  It means we can’t just ignore the world around us.  Too often, Christians try to withdraw from the world and concern themselves only with “spiritual” matters.  Or we separate “spiritual” concerns from “worldly” concerns, as if they have nothing to do with one another, as if God has no use in the everyday world.  But God is the Creator of all, God is the Redeemer of all, God is the Sanctifyer of all.  We are called to live as God’s people in the world, to spread the light of God, to spread God’s Word, to work for God’s kingdom.  And we can’t do that if we try to separate the physical from the spiritual.

Christ came to his disciples, and ate with them.  He let them feel his flesh.  He was truly among them.  Let us, as his disciples, follow his example.

Up and Down religion

You know what the most common theological problem among Christians is?  It’s that, without realizing it, we all tend to twist our religion into something about us, that despite its trappings has very little to do with our lord and savior Jesus Christ’s life, death, and resurrection.

We are slaves to sin.  This is not something we want to admit to anyone, least of all ourselves.  We want to believe that we are fundamentally in control of our own lives and our own destinies.  We want to believe that we can get into heaven on our own merit.  This is “up religion” because We want to believe we can climb up to heaven by ourselves.  Even if we can’t control everything, we want to control what we can–there’s an old slogan, “Do your best and let God do the rest.”  In other words, most of it rests on us–God just fills in the gaps between what we can do and what we can’t.  To make ourselves feel better about our failures, we look around us for people who fail more often than we do, so that we can say “Well, at least I’m better than them.”  It leads to works righteousness, the belief that we can create a right relationship with God and with the world around us (be righteous) by doing good works to make up for any sin we might do.  It also leads us to turn our focus into our self, a kind of theological navel-gazing.  It’s about what we want, not about what God wants.

The problem with “up religion” is that however much we might like the idea, it doesn’t fit what we know of God.  God’s deepest and most fundamental relationship with humanity is through Christ Jesus–who did not stay up in heaven and invite us up, but came down to meet us and promised to be with us always down here on Earth in our daily life.  Christ Jesus became an ordinary human, and he took our sins on himself through crucifixion–the messiest, most painful, most shameful death imaginable to the time and place he lived.  We are sinners and we can’t do enough good to balance out our sin, but God loves us anyway.  We cannot climb up to heaven–and if we do, all we will find is a distorted mirror of our own desires, a god made in our image.  Instead, God comes down to us and claims us as we are.  We cannot go out to find God, but God does come to find us.  We can shut God out of our lives, but we cannot bring him in by our own efforts.

So how do we keep from slipping into an “up” religion?  First, be aware of the difference.  When you think about anything related to God or religion, ask yourself if you’re thinking about it in an “up” way or a “down” way.  Is it about you, or is it about God?  Are you leaving space for God to work in you and in your life?  Do you accept the fact that you are not the one in control of your life?  You won’t be perfectly open to this all the time; all have sinned, remember, and “up” religion is one of the most natural heresies to slip into.  But that’s okay.  God loves you anyway.

Give to God the things that are God’s

I know I’ve talked a lot about money and God and stewardship lately, but the text this last Sunday was so perfectly on that topic that I had to speak on it. Next week will be on a different topic, I promise.

Matthew 22:15-22

‘Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s.’ It sounds fairly simple. Yes, Christians are to pay taxes and be good citizens, while at the same time staying faithful to God. You might say we have dual citizenship—we are citizens of our country here on earth while at the same time we are also citizens of God’s kingdom, which will be fulfilled on earth when he comes again. We need to be good citizens of both heaven and earth, and that means participating in all just requirements of citizenship in our earthly country, including taxes.
But there’s more to this passage than simple advice to be good citizens of both kingdoms. ‘Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s.’ There’s a lot of political debate in our country about what and how much should be taxed, how much should be “given to the Emperor” in the words of today’s lesson, and just about everyone I know has a strong opinion on the subject one way or the other. Here’s something we don’t think about as often: what should be given to God? I know that time and talent sheets have been mailed out, so you’ve probably given this a little bit more thought recently than you usually would. Here’s something to keep in mind.

Jesus divides it up that if it belongs to the emperor, it should go to the emperor, and if it belongs to God it should go to God. But wait a minute. Doesn’t everything belong to God? God created heaven and earth. God created everything, from the planet we live on to the stars and sun that shine above us, to the plants and animals we share the planet with, to our very lives. God created us and everything around us. Everything we have, from our lives to our families to our possessions, is a gift from God. Our salvation through Jesus Christ, the presence of the Holy Spirit in our midst, the faith that brought us here today and sustains us through our lives, all are God’s gifts to us. We acknowledge this in our offering prayer, but have you ever really stopped to think about what that means?

We like to think we’ve earned everything we get. Study hard in school, work hard at your job, and you’ll get ahead and earn money to buy things with. But the intelligence that helped us learn and the health that helps us work are both gifts from God, for our use. And the things we buy with our money were all made from resources God has given us. The fabric in our clothing comes from plants and animals created by God, the metal in our cars comes from the planet created by God, the plastics that are in just about everything these days were created from materials given by God using knowledge gained by chemists using the intelligence God gave them. Everything we have comes from God, one way or another. And we have so much.

The Pharisees knew that everything comes from God. That’s what they based their question on—the Romans were foreign overlords who wanted them to worship Roman gods. They didn’t think it was lawful to give anything that belonged to God—including the money for the tax—to the people who ruled them and didn’t want them to remain faithful to God. But at the same time, they were looking at the whole thing from a purely political standpoint, as if God were merely a rival king and paying taxes to his rival were treason. They missed the deeper truth that God is not a petty ruler looking to consolidate his power at the expense of everyone else’s. God gives us everything he gives us because he loves us and wants us to have an abundant life, and he wants us to learn to love and share that abundance he has given us. Giving to God is not just about paying your share of the church’s bills, it’s about taking care of the people all around us, sharing our abundance so that all of God’s children here and around the world can live happy and healthy lives.

When we forget that everything comes from God, when we think of everything we have as things we earned on our own, it’s harder to be generous. We worry about not having enough, about not earning enough and saving enough, particularly when the economy is troubled. So when we do give things to others, we base it on needs and expectations. The church needs to make its operating budget and we are expected to contribute so we figure out what we can comfortably spare. The school band needs money for new uniforms, and we are expected to support them so we buy a sandwich or two. We do what we need to do to stay members of the community in good standing. It’s not bad, but it’s not particularly good, either.

Give to God the things that are God’s. When you find yourself having trouble with that, remember this: Everything in heaven and on earth belongs to God, and God has given to us everything we have. God will continue to give to us, though perhaps not always in the ways and quantities he has in the past. God wants us to give generously—not just with money but with time and talents, too. God wants us to give, not because it’s expected of us or simply to fill a need, but cheerfully and with love because we have so much to share.

Stewardship isn’t just about paying the bills on time. Stewardship means taking care of the things that have been entrusted to you. It means using them where they will do the most good and passing them on to the next generation. It means recognizing that in the end, everything belongs to God. Including ourselves.

If you have any questions about Christianity, please comment and I will answer them.

Be still, and know that I am God.

“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? 26 Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? 27 And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life? 28 And why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, 29 yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. 30 But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you– you of little faith? 31 Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear?’ 32 For it is the Gentiles who strive for all these things; and indeed your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. 33 But strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. 34 “So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today’s trouble is enough for today.” (Matthew 6:25-34)

“Be still, and know that I am God!” (Psalm 46:10)

It seems like everyone’s worried about something these days. If you’re not worrying about the economy, you’re worried about politics. If you’re not worrying about politics, you’re worrying about the environment or the world hunger crisis or international relations or your health or the way kids these days behave or the way adults just don’t understand or your job or your spouse/significant other or …. the list is endless. We work frantically to try and fix whatever problems we think are fixable, or work frantically to try and ignore the ones we think aren’t. We try to drown out our worries in work or play. We get so caught up in our worries that we don’t have room for anything else, and that takes a toll not just on our mental and spiritual well-being, but on our physical well-being.

Here’s the thing: we don’t have to worry, and we shouldn’t worry. When we worry, when we turn problems over and over in our head and agonize over what can or can’t be done to fix them, we enclose our minds and souls until they are only big enough for the problem we’re worrying about. We don’t leave room for God to work in us and through us. The fate of the world does not rest on our shoulders alone, but on God’s as well. Things will not always go well. But whether things go well or badly, God is always with us, and he’ll take care of us if we let him. This doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do whatever we can to solve our own problems, but it does mean that the problems shouldn’t consume our attention, and when we fail it’s not the end of the world. Do what you can, and trust God–in whose care the entire world rests, including you and me and everyone else–to take care of the rest.

When you find yourself worrying, don’t give in to the temptation to frantic action. Don’t give in to the temptation to turn your worries over and over in your mind. Instead, stop and take a deep breath, and remember that God cares for the world and everything in it. In the words of the Psalm, be still and know that God is God. Then take time to pray or meditate. Turn your worries over to God to deal with. Find something to be grateful for, something to rejoice over, and lift that up to the Lord. Then ask God for guidance and help dealing with whatever it is you’re worried about. Then act.

No Other Gods

“I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; you shall have no other gods before me.” (Deuteronomy 5:6-7)

Thus begin the Ten Commandments, the laws given by God to his people to teach them how to live good lives.  This commandment is the first because without a strong foundation, without knowing who our God is who is the basis of our faith, everything else becomes relative, shaky, a house of cards ready to fall.  After all, look at the story that follows the Ten Commandments: while Moses is up on Mount Sinai talking to God, the people of Israel get afraid and make an idol to worship to reassure themselves.  This is quickly followed by the people of Israel breaking just about every single one of the Ten Commandments they’ve just been given.

It sounds so simple to follow.  When we go to church on Sunday, it’s pretty clear who we worship: all the songs, scripture, preaching, etc., point to God, and it’s pretty easy to avoid going to the worship services of other religions which would involve the worship of other gods.  So it’s easy to read the story and condemn the Israelites for a lack of faith.  What we don’t realize is that idolatry is easy to spot when it’s wrapped up in a golden calf.  It’s a lot subtler in its modern forms, and we are very guilty of it.

Martin Luther said that our god is whatever we put our trust in.  Think about that: your god is whatever you put your trust in.  It’s not just about what you worship in formal ceremonies, it’s about what you rely on in your day to day life.  And watching what’s going on in America today, it’s pretty obvious that even in a nominally Christian nation, what we put our trust in is not the God who led our ancestors out of slavery and sent his only son to save us and make us whole and who has promised to be with us no matter what.

From the reactions to and panic about the banks and the stock market, it’s blatantly obvious that the thing in which many Americans put their trust is the nation’s economy.  And I’ll bet most Western nations have similar attitudes.  When the financial system falters and people start hearing the word “recession,” people feel nervous because the thing in which they put their trust–their god–is failing them.

From the reactions to and talk about the Presidential race, it’s blatantly obvious that the thing in which many Americans put their trust is their political party or specific political candidates.  America has problems; so does every other nation on earth.  People believe that a political ideal, or a political party, or a certain politician can fix those problems and make things right; that’s what they put their faith in.

Now, I’m certainly not saying that having a working economy is bad, or that participating in and caring about politics is bad.  Both are necessary to a functioning society.  But you always have to ask yourself: what do I put my trust in?  What is my God?

If your ultimate trust is in any human institution, you are doomed to disappointment.  All humans have flaws; all humans have problems; all humans have limitations.  Every human society and institution since the beginning of history has eventually collapsed in one way or another, because of those human failings.  If they are what you put your ultimate trust in, what will you do when things go wrong?  When the economy fails or the politician turns out to be just like all the others that came before or the ideology that sounds so great in speeches turns out not to work in real life?

All humans eventually fail.  But God, the one true God who created us and loves us and redeems us, will never fail.  You can put your trust in God whether things are going well or badly, whether the economy is strong or fails, whether politicians keep their promises or not.  God will never abandon you.

If you have any questions about the Christian faith, please comment and I will answer them next week.

Justice and love, not -isms: how Christians should think about money

Once a week, I go to a pastor’s Bible study where we look at the texts assigned in the lectionary for the coming Sunday. (A lectionary is a yearly cycle of readings used in worship, designed to ensure that a wide variety of texts are heard each week; Roman Catholics, Lutherans, Episcopalians, many Methodists and Presbyterians, and others around the world use the three-year Revised Common Lectionary.)

This Sunday’s gospel text is the parable of the laborers in the vineyard, in which the kingdom of heaven is compared to a vineyard where all the laborers are paid the same amount, whether they worked all day or came late, and the laborers who worked the longest complain about the unfairness of the wage scale. Because by human logic, it is unfair—and we like unfairness when it’s in our favor, but complain and get jealous when it’s in someone else’s favor. God’s grace is incredibly unfair—no one can earn salvation, no one is good enough to be saved on their own merit. We benefit from God’s grace, and then complain when the same benefits go to those less worthy than ourselves, as if we earned them and they didn’t.

This group of pastors discussed God’s grace for a few minutes, and then started dealing with the economic implications of the parable. How does God want us to organize our money? How does capitalism compare with this parable? How does socialism compare with this parable? How would market forces be affected if we were to live according to this parable?

As I listened to them talk, I realized the questions were good questions, but shared the same underlying flaw: they assumed that God’s “economy,” God’s views of money, fit within our own systems of how we understand and deal with money. Everyone likes to assume that God agrees with them; it’s comforting, and means you don’t have to rethink your opinions. (Oh, we say we agree with God, but often what we really mean is that God agrees with us, particularly if we haven’t approached our faith and our Bible studies with an open mind and heart.) But God is greater and deeper than we can understand, and can never fit neatly within our prejudices. God is neither a capitalist, nor a socialist, nor any other –ist.

So what’s this got to do with the economy, you ask? During the history of Christianity, various groups have tried for a time to live lives perfectly fitting God’s will; the Biblical example is in Acts, where the first believers held all things in common and shared with all as each needed. But humans being sinful creatures, no such attempt has lasted long before greed, jealousy, and laziness have interfered. That’s why we have human-designed economic systems such as capitalism and socialism and others today.

The thing is, God’s primary concern isn’t money, except how justice and love are affected by it. When you think about money, ask yourself these questions: am I using my money justly? Am I using it to support systems that are just or unjust? Am I using all the resources God has given me (money included) for just causes and out of love for my fellow human beings, or am I using it selfishly, for myself alone? What can I do with what I have to further spread love and justice in the world?

Doing the Right Thing: Sermon for the Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost, 2008

Lectionary 22 / Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost (Year A)

Sunday, August 31

Jeremiah 15:15-21

Psalm 26:1-8
Romans 12:9-21
Matthew 16:21-28

Preached by Vicar Anna C. Haugen

First Evangelical Lutheran Church, Greensburg, PA

Sermon podcast

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O Lord.

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

There is a banner that hangs over the door to the gym in Talmadge Middle School in Independence, Oregon. It’s one of many inspirational quotes and slogans that decorate the halls of that school. It says: “What is right is not always popular; what is popular is not always right.” The banner was there every day of the three years I went to school there, but few of the students ever bothered to read it, or apply it to their lives if they did. I know I read it, decided it was true, and promptly forgot about it.

Doing the right thing is hard, when it’s not the popular thing. It’s much easier, not to mention a lot more fun, to go with the flow and do what everyone else is doing. It’s safer, too—no danger of looking stupid or preachy or offending people. And let’s face it: most of the choices we have to make every day, most of the things we do, aren’t exactly life-shattering choices. Nobody lives or dies, nobody gets rich or poor, nobody’s soul is saved or lost. We may not always do things that are exactly right, but they’re not exactly wrong, either. The banner above the gym door is true, but it’s not what we want to hear.

Jeremiah lived by that truth. He’d been called by God to be a prophet, to bring God’s word to the people of Israel. It’s been said that a prophet’s job is to speak truth to power, even when that’s not what the power wants to hear. Jeremiah went one better: he spoke the truth to everyone. And no one wanted to hear it. Our first lesson today comes from one of Jeremiah’s laments. He complains that people are persecuting him because he’s speaking the words God has told him to speak. Jeremiah was attacked and accused of treason for doing what God wanted him to. But in today’s lesson, God tells him that this persecution isn’t going to last forever; in the end, God’s will will be done, and Jeremiah will be saved. More than that, eventually the people of Israel will heed Isaiah’s words and return to doing the right thing, to behaving like the people of God, and not just paying lip service to their faith while doing the easy thing, the popular thing.

It must have seemed an incredible, almost unbelievable, idea. Israel had been doing the popular thing for a long time. They’d demanded that God give them a king so they could be “like their neighbors,” and although David and Solomon and a few others had been good rulers, most had been utter disasters. Israel had focused on trade and their economy, and they’d produced an upper class that could rival the neighboring countries in wealth, but at the cost of trampling on the poor and oppressed. They’d learned to play power-politics, staking their safety and freedom on military alliances and power blocs, playing one neighboring nation off against another. Some of them had even adopted the gods of the nations around them. Most people worshipped as God had commanded, gave lip service to God’s laws, and went on with their daily lives as if it made no difference. Their minds were set on human things. God had brought them out of Egypt and freed them from slavery to be a chosen people, holy, a royal priesthood, but they behaved no differently than anybody else.

It’s no wonder they didn’t like Jeremiah; he called them on everything they were doing wrong, and told them that this time, they weren’t going to escape the consequences of their actions. It wasn’t what they wanted to hear, and it wasn’t what they wanted to believe. Most of the Israelites weren’t bad people, after all, and most of them worshipped God according to Israel’s traditions. Surely they hadn’t done anything bad enough to warrant conquest. Surely something would happen to turn the tide and restore Israel to safety and prominence. It’s true, the northern kingdom of Judah had already been conquered, and the Babylonians were right outside their gates; there was still a good chance they might be bribed, or perhaps an alliance with Egypt would provide the military might to drive the invaders from their lands.

I’m sure the people of Israel felt they had many good reasons to disregard Jeremiah’s warnings. What good would repentance and changing their way of life, their way of thinking, do against an invading army? They went about their business as usual, ignored the word of God in their midst, and hoped for the best. But in the end, all their power politics and riches couldn’t save them. They were conquered by Babylon and taken into exile. Many fled to Egypt to escape; Jeremiah wanted to stay in Israel but was forced to leave his homeland for Egypt. God’s assurances that all would be well in the end must have been even more unbelievable then than they had been when they were made.

Like the Israelites of Jeremiah’s day, Peter, too, had his mind set on human things. You may recall from last week’s Gospel that Peter has just confessed that Jesus is the Messiah, the son of the living God. It’s a profound insight; it’s the first time in Matthew’s gospel that anyone but the narrator has called Jesus that. You’d think that the person who is spiritually-minded enough to realize that just a few verses earlier would get what Jesus is trying to say now, but Peter is still too focused on human things. According to the beliefs of the time, the Messiah was supposed to be a political figure, a king just like his ancestor David who would drive out the Romans and their puppet-kings and restore Israel to its former glory as a nation. True, there would be some religious changes, but in support of the political restoration, not in place of it. Suffering? Death? What kind of revolutionary goes in predicting that ahead of time? What kind of revolutionary counts that as success? And even if you ignore the political aspects of the Messiah’s coming, how could suffering and death possibly be according to the will of God?

Peter’s not alone in thinking that, of course; how many people today assume that when something bad happens, it means God has abandoned us? How many people assume that if God loves you and you have the right faith, you’ll always be happy and healthy and rich? How many people assume that faith is nothing more than coming to church on Sunday, and ignoring it the rest of the week, as if God was a decoration you could take out on Sunday and store in a box the rest of the time? How many people who believe that are sitting in our pews right now?

“If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.” We tend to think of the cross sentimentally, today. We sing hymns about it, we create beautiful artwork, we wear it as jewelry. If we think about “bearing our crosses,” we tend to think about things like arthritis, having to deal with annoying people, the kinds of problems everyone deals with all the time. That’s not what the disciples were thinking about when they heard Jesus say those words.

This is what they were thinking about: crucifixion was the ugliest, most painful, most shameful death the Roman Empire could come up with—and remember that this is a people who considered fights to the death to be a form of public entertainment. Criminals condemned to crucifixion were dragged naked through town, carrying a part of the thing that was going to kill them on their back, mocked by everyone who saw them. Then they were nailed to their cross—heavy, iron spikes driven through their hands and feet—and hung up in the air by those wounds for hours in the hot sun. They didn’t die from blood loss or pain, they died when their bodies became too weak and tired to hold their chest up to breathe anymore and they suffocated. And it took a long time, while the whole city watched and jeered. Take up your cross? What kind of insanity is that? Who would follow a Messiah who promised that as the reward?

Someone who had their mind set, not on human things, but on divine. Paul gives us a brief outline of what this mindset looks like in our second lesson: “Let love be genuine; hate what is evil, hold fast to what is good; love one another with mutual affection; outdo one another in showing honor. Do not lag in zeal, be ardent in spirit, serve the Lord. Rejoice in hope, be patient in suffering, persevere in prayer. Contribute to the needs of the saints; extend hospitality to strangers. Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them. Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with one another; do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly; do not claim to be wiser than you are. Do not repay anyone evil for evil, but take thought for what is noble in the sight of all. If it is possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. … Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.”

Paul’s words give us a pretty picture of what life as a Christian is supposed to be like. It’s not as easy as he makes it sound of course, particularly in days like our own when hate and fear and evil seem to be everywhere, from local crime to national politics to international terrorists and wars. But oh, God, think of what life could be like if we could all genuinely live the way Paul tells us to, lives full of love and compassion and joy and harmony, a peace of mind and spirit too deep to be explained, even in times of trouble. Think of what life could be like, if we truly put our trust and our faith in Christ Jesus our Lord, the true Messiah who comes not for political or military revolution, but to save us from our sins, make us children of God, and show us how to live lives of truth and justice and grace. Think of what we could be if we put our faith in God, instead of our money and our power and our politics. If we were ruled by hope instead of fear. If we did what was right, instead of what was popular.

Living that way means that you can’t always take the easy way out. It means you can’t hide behind the excuse that everyone else is doing it. It also means that people aren’t always going to like what you have to say, or what you do. Few people in America risk death or imprisonment on account of their faith as Jeremiah did, but ridicule and discrimination, both obvious and not, are certainly possible. Focusing on divine things instead of human things doesn’t mean everything in your life will go well, or that God will reward your faith with material prosperity. But it does mean that no matter where you go, no matter what happens to you, God will be with you, to guide and protect and care for you.

Jeremiah died in exile in Egypt. We don’t know how he died; we do know that he never stopped calling the people of God to repentance and new lives of faith, and that once the worst had happened, his words turned to comfort and hope for the future. Peter was crucified in Rome, after years of working tirelessly to spread the Gospel. Yet they were never alone, for God was with them, and when they died, God was waiting to welcome them into the rooms prepared for them. May we, like them and all the saints that came before us, learn to keep our minds on God’s will, instead of our own. Amen.