Monday, August 28, 2017

Set Your Mind – 3 September 2017 – 13th Sunday after Pentecost/ Lectionary 22

Our invitation to be disciples of Jesus is an invitation to help God deliver the world from sin and death into love and life. . . Jesus invited the apostles there at Caesarea Philippi; Jesus invites us in this holy meal of bread and wine.

How can we participate in God's deliverance? We start by simply being a community that witnesses to the power of the Gospel to change lives. . . –– Brent Laytham

Matthew 16:21-28

Jesus continues to prepare the disciples for what awaits him in Jerusalem. Peter's incredulity at what Jesus foretells stands in for the reaction of all who had eagerly anticipated the Messiah: torture and death for Israel's savior simply were not part of the plan. Jesus' rebuke of Peter (“Get behind me, Satan!”) recalls Jesus' experience in the wilderness where he dispatched the devil with “Away with you, Satan!” (4:10). . .

Verses 24 and following reveal what kind of Messiah Jesus is and what kind of followers he calls. Instead of taking up a scepter or a sword, Jesus takes up a cross and asks the same of those who would be his disciples: “Let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.” Self-denial here is not the erasing of one's inherent worth; it is, rather, the abandonment of all self-assertion driven by fear and the desire for power. It is, in other words, the complete refusal of violence.

The familiarity of verses 24–26 has often led to a tepid and confused theology of the cross; one which assumes that my private anxiety—a difficult relationship, financial hardship, uncertain health—is my personal cross to bear. While certain forms of emotional or physical suffering may be redemptive, the cross Jesus speaks of in Matthew 16 and elsewhere does not represent the sum total of our personal worries and aggravations. It is, instead, as Dietrich Bonhoeffer claimed, the suffering that comes from our allegiance to Jesus Christ alone.

The cross, Bonhoeffer insisted, is not random suffering, but necessary suffering; it is rejection for the sake of Jesus Christ. . . . Verse 28 seems to . . . preoccupy some Bible readers, causing them to create timetables and offer predictions of Jesus' return. They would do well to pay closer attention to Jesus' teaching about the way of the cross and the cost of discipleship. –– Debra Dean Murphy

Jeremiah 15:15-21

The prophets received invitations from God, as well. They were not always accorded triumphant success, as we well know, but the deepest joys came to them in the same way Jesus’ followers experienced the call to take up the cross. God gave Jeremiah delight when the prophet ate the word of God. The road is not without dangers, but God’s promises are sure: “I will make you to this people a fortified wall of bronze...” God’s word is strong. Ingested, it is invincible.

Romans 12:9-21

Building on the first eight verses of this chapter (last week's text), Paul continues to set forth specific patterns and practices and a vision of life in the body of Christ grounded in “genuine love.” As always, for Paul, love is concrete action, not a feeling or emotion; love does things, behaves in certain ways. . . The commands in these verses are not a checklist of orders to be carried out (or else), but something like the contours of a life well-lived in Christian community. . . by the exquisite self-giving of the cross. –– Debra Dean Murphy


D. Brent Laytham is the Dean of The Ecumenical Institute of Theology in Baltimore, Maryland.

Debra Dean Murphy is assistant professor of Religious Studies at West Virginia Wesleyan College.



Homily Service 41, no. 3 (2008): 178-189.



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