Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost
Sunday, August 28, 2011
GOSPEL: Matthew 16.21-28
21From that time on, Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and undergo great suffering at the hands of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised. 22And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him, saying, “God forbid it, Lord! This must never happen to you.” 23But he turned and said to Peter, “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.”
24Then Jesus told his disciples, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. 25For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it. 26For what will it profit them if they gain the whole world but forfeit their life? Or what will they give in return for their life?
27For the Son of Man is to come with his angels in the glory of his Father, and then he will repay everyone for what has been done. 28Truly I tell you, there are some standing here who will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.”
21Ἀπὸ τότε ἤρξατο ὁ Ἰησοῦς δεικνύειν τοῖς μαθηταῖς αὐτοῦ ὅτι δεῖ αὐτὸν εἰς Ἱεροσόλυμα ἀπελθεῖν καὶ πολλὰ παθεῖν ἀπὸ τῶν πρεσβυτέρων καὶ ἀρχιερέων καὶ γραμματέων καὶ ἀποκτανθῆναι καὶ τῇ τρίτῃ ἡμέρᾳ ἐγερθῆναι. 22καὶ προσλαβόμενος αὐτὸν ὁ Πέτρος ἤρξατο ἐπιτιμᾶν αὐτῷ λέγων, Ιλεώς σοι, κύριε: οὐ μὴ ἔσται σοι τοῦτο. 23ὁ δὲ στραφεὶς εἶπεν τῷ Πέτρῳ, Υπαγε ὀπίσω μου, Σατανᾶ: σκάνδαλον εἶ ἐμοῦ, ὅτι οὐ φρονεῖς τὰ τοῦ θεοῦ ἀλλὰ τὰ τῶν ἀνθρώπων. 24Τότε ὁ Ἰησοῦς εἶπεν τοῖς μαθηταῖς αὐτοῦ, Εἴ τις θέλει ὀπίσω μου ἐλθεῖν, ἀπαρνησάσθω ἑαυτὸν καὶ ἀράτω τὸν σταυρὸν αὐτοῦ καὶ ἀκολουθείτω μοι. 25ὃς γὰρ ἐὰν θέλῃ τὴν ψυχὴν αὐτοῦ σῶσαι ἀπολέσει αὐτήν: ὃς δ’ ἂν ἀπολέσῃ τὴν ψυχὴν αὐτοῦ ἕνεκεν ἐμοῦ εὑρήσει αὐτήν. 26τί γὰρ ὠφεληθήσεται ἄνθρωπος ἐὰν τὸν κόσμον ὅλον κερδήσῃ τὴν δὲ ψυχὴν αὐτοῦ ζημιωθῇ; ἢ τί δώσει ἄνθρωπος ἀντάλλαγμα τῆς ψυχῆς αὐτοῦ; 27μέλλει γὰρ ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου ἔρχεσθαι ἐν τῇ δόξῃ τοῦ πατρὸς αὐτοῦ μετὰ τῶν ἀγγέλων αὐτοῦ, καὶ τότε ἀποδώσει ἑκάστῳ κατὰ τὴν πρᾶξιν αὐτοῦ. 28ἀμὴν λέγω ὑμῖν ὅτι εἰσίν τινες τῶν ὧδε ἑστώτων οἵτινες οὐ μὴ γεύσωνται θανάτου ἕως ἂν ἴδωσιν τὸν υἱὸν τοῦ ἀνθρώπου ἐρχόμενον ἐν τῇ βασιλείᾳ αὐτοῦ.
“A Time for Burning”
+ In nomine Domini. Amen.
I had never seen the movie A Time for Burning[1] although I certainly lived through the time itself. I have Ruth Hoffman[2] to thank who several weeks ago told me about the film and that it was available through Netflix. I placed it in my Queue and last week it arrived.
Made in 1966 by filmmaker Bill Jersey, it received an Academy Award Nomination for Best Documentary Feature in 1967, has been called “the best civil rights film ever made” and was produced by the late Robert E. A. Lee who from 1954 until 1988 was the executive secretary of Lutheran Film Associates. You may remember Mr. Lee from the 1950’s film Martin Luther that many of us saw in our congregations during that time.
A Time for Burning tells of a searing chapter in the life of the Rev. William Youngdahl, the Lutheran pastor of an all-white congregation in Omaha. Seeking to promote fellowship between races, Pastor Youngdahl proposed a program in which 10 couples from Augustana Lutheran Church would visit 10 couples in all-black Lutheran churches in the area. The film includes a meeting between Youngdahl and a black barber named Ernie Chambers who tells the minister that his Jesus is “contaminated.”
Chambers, a passionate civil-rights activist, was elected to the State Senate of Nebraska and served for 38 years from 1971 until 2009 until a term limits law was passed in 2000. It is agreed that he would easily have won re-election.
I watched the film twice. You will be able to see it sometime within the next several weeks when we revive the Christ Lutheran Church Social Action Film Night. Watch for the announcements.
In 56 minutes of cinema-verité (where filming takes place just as it happens) encounters and conversations between persons of colour — both black and white — wrought within the time in our nation’s history of civil rights legislation and the life that followed in every single community … those encounters and conversations hold you to your seat.
The conversion of one of the members, perhaps he was the chair of the social ministry committee, is particularly poignant. He moves from someone who was a declared “Christian” to someone who in two weeks is able to talk about “standing before Jesus” who will ask him how he has led his life in love to his neighbors.
I shall never forget Homer (I believe that was his name) a member of the Church Council who when Pastor Youngdahl insists that this is the calmest proposal one could ever make, to have 10 white couples from Augustana visit with 10 black couples in the neighborhoods, tells the pastor over and over again:
“This is not good.”
“The timing is not good.”
“The climate is not good right now.”
Things come to a head when completely incidental to the Pastor’s proposal, young people from one of the black congregations show up one Sunday because of a youth exchange.
One of the members of Augustana reports, that she saw them there, and simply turned her car around that Sunday and went home.
Long-held prejudice prevails, and Pastor Youngdahl is forced to resign.
The film is quite stirring and upsetting. It speaks to the past, and still to the present.
I remember when our congregation was the only Reconciling in Christ congregation in our Synod, back in 1993, not that long ago. I was asked by our Bishop to co-chair a synodical committee that would continue the conversation about ministry together with persons who are Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender (LGBT). Steve Helmrich, another member with me on the Synod Council, and himself a member of Peace Lutheran Church in Las Cruces was the other co-chair.
I think it was in 1995 at the Synod Assembly that I announced that after one of our plenary sessions we were going to hold a gathering in a vacant room, and if anyone wanted to join us and find out about “ministry with gays and lesbians” and how to become a Reconciling in Christ congregation, they were welcome.
Steve and I figured the attendance would be between 0 and 8. Over 60 people walked into the room. And for the next hour, a few pastors and many, many lay people began to tell their stories … painful stories, yearning stories, stories of need, stories of love, stories of faith.
In the years following when the “Committee” as we called it, because we didn’t what else to call it … when the “Committee” gathered for discussions … and I would tell the story of Christ Lutheran Church in Santa Fe … a frequent statement to me by other pastors would be, “Well, you know, I agree with what you’re doing, but you know we’re just not ready, the time is not right.”
To which I nearly always answered, “Well, when would it be a good time … next Tuesday?”
Homer lives on in many ways and in many people.
By the way, Augustana Lutheran Church in Omaha, NE is today a Reconciling in Christ congregation of the ELCA, it’s pastor is Susan Butler, and the phrase beneath the words Augustana Lutheran Church read: “Progressive Christian Thinking.”
***
I have always pondered the twin stories of Jesus and Peter. In last week’s Gospel portion, Peter confesses, “You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God!” And Jesus tells him, “You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church.”
In the next three verses, our Gospel portion this morning, in response to Peter’s insistence that Jesus should not go to Jerusalem and tempt the fate that surely will befall him, Jesus says, “Get behind me Satan! You are a stumbling block to me.” The word in Greek that Matthew employs is σκάνδαλον (scandal is the word that comes from it into our English).
And then Jesus goes on to explain the price of obedience, the cost of discipleship (as Pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer called it in his Letters from Prison shortly before he was hung by the Nazis just two weeks before the Flossenberg Prison in Germany was taken over by the Allies in World War II and the war came to an end.).
Jesus calls us … You, me, Pastor Youngdahl, the black barber become state senator, the converted member of a social ministry committee, the recalcitrant member of a church council, this congregation in Santa Fe striving to be Reconciling and open and welcoming … calls us to costly obedience.
Discipleship comes with a price tag shaped in the form of a cross.
Following Jesus means following him. And that means following him into places sometimes we would rather not go, or rather delay because “the timing is not good.” Following Jesus means stepping into conversations of understanding when people take opposite sides. Following Jesus means walking into the hospital rooms where a sister or brother lies dying. Following Jesus means helping carry food from the Food Depot to the Food Pantry and then following Jesus means helping to put food into grocery bags and then handing out those bags to people who are hungry … and talking with those people … in love. Following Jesus means sharing from the heart, listening to another’s sorrow, embracing the shoulder of one who is grieving.
Following Jesus means going into other congregations to learn and share and understand and grow.
Following Jesus means letting the Good News of God fill this room and then inhale it, absorb it, become so caught by it that it flowers here and flows through us into the world so that what is broken can be mended, what is wounded can be healed, and what is torn asunder can be put back together.
That’s what it means to follow Jesus.
Let us pray.
O God, give us grace to set a good example to all among whom we live, to be just and true in all our dealings, to be strict and conscientious in the discharge of every duty; pure and temperate in all enjoyment, gracious and generous and courteous toward all; so that the mind of Jesus Christ may be formed in us and all may know that we are his disciples; in whose name we pray. Amen.
+Deo Gratia
The Rev. Benjamin Larzelere III
Pastor
[1] See Wikipedia article at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Time_for_Burning
[2] Director of Lutheran Advocacy Ministry – New Mexico and member of our congregation.
Thank you Ben. This is beyond wonderful.
Posted by: Connie Schroeder | 12/17/2011 at 07:55 PM