Jesus began to teach – 1 March 2015 – Second Sunday in Lent

The message of the cross is very difficult to convey. We can understand Peter’s rejection of Jesus’ announcement of his death and resurrection. Peter focused on the death.

How many ways might we look at the cross of Jesus? at the crosses borne by people in all parts of our world who are suffering now? at the crosses we carry? at the crosses we fail to carry for others? at the joy of the cross? 

The preacher’s task on this Second Sunday in Lent is to talk about losing one’s life in order to save it without telling people how to live and thus imposing a law on them. We cannot bear the burden without also having received God’s promises. Setting the story of God’s incredible gifts to Abraham and Sarah next to the story of Jesus’ hard teaching about losing life to save it, we see that the struggle to live gratefully has everything to do with hope for what must be impossible.

Mark 8:31-38

Among the many different claims about the Messiah in Jesus’ time, none of them would have called for the Messiah to suffer and be rejected the way Jesus describes in this passage. It should be no surprise then that Peter would question Jesus’ statements and likely he would have been shocked at the sternness of Jesus’ rebuke, “Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.” . . .

Some commentators have suggested that this passage is intended to encourage Jesus’ followers when they experience similar rejection, so that they can identify with Jesus in his reward as well as his suffering. Thus those who identify with Jesus and his gospel will save their lives, even if they lose them, but those who focus on earthly things, as Peter was doing, will lose everything. – Jonathan D. Lawrence

Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16

With Abraham, we walk in hope and faith, not knowing how the promises of God will be manifest in our lives or whether we will recognize them when they come.

One of last week’s readings described God’s covenant with Noah and all living things. This text focuses on God’s covenant with Abraham and through him with all of his descendants, promising land, descendants, and a blessing in return for Abraham’s willingness to be circumcised and to “walk before me, and be blameless.”  . . .

Abraham and Sarah were too old to even imagine having a child. Yet as often happens in the Bible, God’s promise of a son is fulfilled, as proof that with God all things are possible.  – Jonathan  D. Lawrence

Romans 4:13-25

In Romans, Paul contrasts faith and law, although his view of law differs from the views of many Jewish writers from his time to our own. Paul suggests that the promises to Abraham were fulfilled not through the law but through “the righteousness of faith.”

. . .  He speaks of Abraham’s unwavering faith that God would fulfill those promises, which could refer indirectly to Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice Isaac at God’s command. This deep faith is presented as a model for Christians who put similar trust in Jesus and his death and resurrection. – Jonathan D. Lawrence

And then it comes down to our own situations. The challenges for the preacher and pastor are many, especially in a time when some worship leaders want to avoid mentioning sin or emphasizing the importance of baptism which is all about dying to rise. Perhaps this is a good time–this Lenten time–to point to the transfiguration of all people who enter the baptismal waters and how necessary it is in order to receive fully the feast that God has given us in Christ Jesus.

Much of the current literature on how to make a church grow and attract members emphasizes helping people discover their individual gifts and then allowing them to use those gifts. The writers make it all sound so upbeat and pleasant.

When do we tell our seekers that we are called to follow a LORD who gave his life rather than deny the good news of God’s grace that he came to proclaim? When do we make the case that it is that serious a thing and not just a way to make friends and have a “church home” and feel more spiritual? When do we tell them that joining the church means taking up a cross?

We would drive people away if we did not also tell them that there is priceless joy in serving God in this way.  . . .  You can have all the world’s goods and pleasures and it means nothing compared to the value of being in partnership with God. To live as a cross bearer is to be on God’s side. – Judith E. Simonson

Jonathan D. Lawrence, an American Baptist Church ordained minister, teaches Religious Studies and Theology at Canisius College, Buffalo, New York.

Judith Simonson is an ordained minister in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.

Homily Service 39, no. 4 (2006): 22-32.

Overcome Evil with Good – 31 August 2014 – Lectionary 22

I have seen in my lifetime the gains of the civil rights movement in the United States, the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the end of apartheid in South Africa with Nelson Mandela as president. I have seen South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission. It would be hard to convince me that God does not look down on the affliction of his creation, hear the cries of suffering people, and desire their deliverance from their oppressors, thereby giving us reason to see his purpose and take hope. It would be hard to convince me that the world was not created for justice, charity, relationship, compassion, and goodness.

– John E. Smith

It may be difficult in any age to hold onto hope in the face of the complex of worldwide evils unleashed daily. But Smith’s conviction is the proclamation of the church, and it is based in the focus exemplified in Jesus, Jeremiah, and Paul throughout their own struggles.

Singleness of will is the image of Jesus for this Sunday. Singleness of intent governs Jeremiah’s prophetic work. And singleness of task is Paul’s admonition to the church.

The kernel that stands at the heart of this Sunday’s scripture readings comes from divine promise that the practices of love, prayer for enemies, and commitment to forgiveness is the way of our lives together in God.

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)—a similarity that is certainly intentional on Matthew's part.

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. . . [T]he 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.

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

The preacher will want to set the assembly’s focus on Jesus’ determination to be guided by the cross. 

Jeremiah 15:15-21

Jeremiah’s lament arises from the persecution he has received for having taken in (“eaten”) and digested God’s word. He must prophesy, and the resulting pain is immense.

Jeremiah’s witness is analogous to that of Jesus. Both must fulfill the Lord’s commands, and both suffer greatly for it.

Jeremiah lives in the tension between the world the way it is and the presence of God, which is a judgment upon the world. In that tension, he cannot help but suffer from the pain of indignation. He cannot know God and be at peace with the world.

            – John E. Smith

We are left with the question how we can know God and remain at peace with the world. The answer is that we are not at peace with the world as it stands in need of redemption. At this point, Paul’s epistle to the Romans turns the situation of the Christian community toward the tasks set before us.

Romans 12:9-21

Paul writes Romans 12 . . . about how congregations regard and treat one another, how they face evil and deal with it together. . .  The task of the church is to be Christ's truthful community in the world, an end-time community in which Jesus is the center, tangibly providing alternative ways of corporate living. Of particular importance is how we deal with our enemies and nemeses in our own congregation.

– John E. Smith, a Methodist pastor for many years.

 Homily Service 41, no. 3 (31 Aug 2008): 178-189.