True Religion or Stumbling Block? by The Rev. Don Hamer
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Trinity Episcopal Church, Hartford
Year A – 12 Pentecost
August 31, 2014
Matthew 16: 21-28
“True Religion or Stumbling Block?”
It is wonderful and a joy to be back among you here at Trinity Church. During these past three months I have done a lot of travelling, and during that time there has been work, study and to be sure recreation and relaxation time built in. While I realized I am not the best or most consistent “blogger” during my time away, the blogs I posted do give a pretty accurate picture of the types of things I have been up to.
I was prohibited from accessing my office email during my absence – the wardens stopped responding to me while I was messaging them from Wales, and Pam unplugged my computer so I couldn’t access email for the rest of my sabbatical. What I could do to stay in touch with things here at Trinity was to read the weekly email blast that Marie puts out each Wednesday – if you don’t already get it, you should sign up for it. I could also read the weekly sermons – except for George’s because he doesn’t preach from a written text – and so there has been an opportunity to walk with you spiritually by reading the sermons each week as they are posted on our website. A practice that I would commend to all of you when you are away or on those rare occasions when you are unable to attend church on a Sunday.
And so I know that four Sundays ago, Bishop Drew preached a wonderful sermon on how we understand the Kingdom of Heaven; three weeks ago Marie preached on the importance of claiming the ordination that each one of us has from the sacrament of Baptism, and that we live that out by reliving the experience of Jesus’ feeding the 5000 – by presenting what we have to God, allowing God to bless those gifts as God gives them back to us to share with the world; two weeks ago Deacon Bonnie reminded us that Christ is present with us in both the good times and the bad. Just last week Drew challenged us to wrestle with what it means to claim our baptismal covenant by living more fully as a member of the Body of Christ in the world.
As I read those sermons and reflected upon my own experiences over the summer, I am struck by two phrases found in today’s service:
From the Collect of the Day: Increase in us true religion.
From today’s gospel: Jesus words to Peter – Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me.
Now I have to tell you that the Gospel passage that we heard last week and this week is one of my favorites. The very last words of last week’s Gospel passage show Jesus basically anointing St. Peter as the leader of the church He was sent to establish – he even uses the term “rock” to indicate the strength that St. Peter would have. And in that very same encounter between Jesus and his disciples which we continue in this week’s Gospel passage, there is Peter, trying to be faithful but protesting to Jesus that what he has just said can’t be true -- that Jesus can’t be allowed to suffer and die at the hands of the priests and the elders. At which point Jesus turns to the man he has just anointed as his successor and rebukes him with the words, Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; for you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.
How can it be that Peter – just a normal working guy like most of who gets thrust into this incredible leadership role – How can it be that within the space of probably 5 minutes Peter goes from being hero to goat, from being the rock on which Jesus will build his church to being a stumbling block for Jesus’ mission that warrants him being equated to the devil?
And when we realize that St. Matthew’s purpose in sharing this story is to make us realize that each of us is in the role of Peter, we have to ask ourselves, How do we – usually unwittingly – turn our best intentions into stumbling blocks? How have we misunderstood Jesus’ purpose? How have we, in our attempts to build up the kingdom of God through the institution of the church, somehow lost our way in furthering God’s mission?
Over the summer, I have worshipped at some 13 different churches, in three different countries, in four different states. Small country churches, suburban churches, inner-city churches. In addition, during my work with Partners for Sacred Places in Chicago, I analyzed the work of some 140 different congregations from all denominations, conducting on site visits and interviews at about 10 of them. Everywhere I went, I discovered people who are earnest in building up a church that furthers the mission of Jesus Christ – clergy and all of the baptized, working hard to keep their churches alive and growing.
What I discovered was virtually universal among the churches I visited: That one’s idea of what the church should be like – of what the Body of Christ should look like – is deeply influenced by our own experiences of church. What we grew up with informs our concept of what church should be like. And so we project our childhood or early adult experiences of church onto what the church should be like in the future. Or – on the opposite side – we stay away from the church of today because we harbor bad memories or horror stories of what we experienced as a young person. In both cases, we limit the future by what we have experienced in the past. In both cases, we limit what might be by what has already been. And in doing that, we shrink the infinite possibility of the divine to the finite, limited reality that is the world.
This is exactly what was happening in the interchange between Jesus and Peter. Jesus was sharing with the disciples his divine vision – what needed to happen for the continuation of his divine work on earth. In Peter, he saw the spark for that leadership. Peter, doing his human best, understood that in terms that he knew – his own vision of what a good outcome would be. And that’s when Jesus brings him up short with the stern admonition, Get behind me Satan1 You are a stumbling block to me.
Peter wasn’t a bad person – Jesus didn’t take back what he said about Peter being the rock. But he did teach Peter a lesson – that the Kingdom of God as it exists on earth is something other than our usual human expectations. And that means that we have to look beyond ourselves and our own experiences when we attempt to discern God’s will for the church of Jesus Christ.
As I have travelled and studied various churches, I have learned at least three related principles:
- That the potential for what a particular church looks like is defined at least in part by the gifts of that particular church: its location, its building (if there is one) and its land, the community which surrounds it, the community that actively participates in it, the gifts – both spiritual and material – of those who support it. As in the parable of the loaves and fishes several weeks ago, you first have to know what your gifts are before you present them to Jesus for a blessing, and then you take those gifts to use them as God directs.
- The reality of what the church becomes is dictated by the dedication with which the leaders of that body -- and all members of that body – are open to the prompting of the Holy Spirit on what to do with those gifts. Unlike the disciples, we don’t have Jesus personally present with us to direct us (“No, YOU feed the 5,000), and so we rely on the prompting of the Holy Spirit for direction on how to use our gifts.
- That as we look and wait for the prompting of the Spirit, we cannot frame that response only within the parameters of what we know. And this is where we typically fall short. Peter couldn’t envision a situation in which Jesus had to suffer and die for God’s work to be done. Similarly, we have to stop limiting our sense of “church” to a model that has its roots in 20th century middle America, understanding that what God has in mind for us may be something different. This is not to throw out the baby with the bathwater – it is simply to recognize that in the Gospels, God is always doing a new thing and calling upon us to refresh existing practices by embracing that new thing. Even Jesus taught in the Temple – he just wanted Temple leadership to pay less attention to the human trappings and more attention to what God was calling them to do.
This is going to be an exciting time for the church, and an exciting time for Trinity. It is a joy to be back with you, and I invite you to join me and all of our leadership as we remove stumbling blocks from Jesus’ path in pursuit of the divine calling to which He invites us. AMEN.