The First United Methodist Church of Napa, CA
August 24, 2008
15^th Sunday after Pentecost
Scripture Readings:

Epistle – Romans 12: 1-8¹

¹I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. ²Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God—what is good and acceptable and perfect.

³For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of yourself more highly than you ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. ⁴For as in one body we have many members, and not all the members have the same function, ⁵so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually we are members one of another. ⁶We have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us: prophecy, in proportion to faith; ⁷ministry, in ministering; the teacher, in teaching; ⁸the exhorter, in exhortation; the giver, in generosity; the leader, in diligence; the compassionate, in cheerfulness.

Gospel Lesson – Matthew 16: 13-20²

¹³Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” ¹⁴And they said, “Some say John the Baptist, but others Elijah, and still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” ¹⁵He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” ¹⁶Simon Peter answered, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” ¹⁷And Jesus answered him, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven. ¹⁸And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it. ¹⁹I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” ²⁰Then he sternly ordered the disciples not to tell anyone that he was the Messiah.

“We, Who Are Many, Are One.”

In one of many very enlightening conversations found in Nikos Kazantzakis' novel Zorba the Greek, one day the overseer asks Zorba what a man is. Zorba replies with a story about his own father. Every day, he said, his father would leave the house early in the morning and walk seven miles to begin plowing and planting a field. Before he would begin his day’s work, he would sit down under a tree, fill his pipe with tobacco, and have a leisurely smoke. On one particular day, though, when the father opened up his tobacco pouch, it was empty. He went into a rage and ripped the tobacco pouch to shreds. Then he stopped and realized what he’d done. From that day on he never smoked again. Zorba ended the tale by turning to his boss and saying, “That is a man.”³

Another author, Jack Shea, who’d read that same story, commented:

To be human is to be transcendent – to be a little bit more than our habits and behaviors…. We humans are constantly breaking out of the prisons we ourselves have constructed.  We play all the roles – warden, guard and inmate.  But the moment we most enjoy is when we are dancing in freedom on the far side of the wall.⁴

Even Saul of Tarsus experienced a transcendent moment before he, too, underwent a name change as he “saw the light” and became Paul. Change was happening all around Matthew and his small Syrian “Jesus Movement” community – every bit as dramatically as it is today. The Temple in Jerusalem had been destroyed. Judaism itself was being reshaped. And now Paul was gaining both Jewish and “god-fearers” as converts to his personal “mystical experience” that could now be called the “Christ Movement.”

So, just as it happens within the United Methodist Church every four years, internal political maneuverings were beginning to take shape within the Jesus Movement, as one branch, led by Simon, aimed its evangelistic efforts at the Judean community in Palestine; and another branch, led by Paul, focused its evangelistic efforts on the gentiles – pagans, non-believers, you might say. And Jesus, himself – in that rich Jewish tradition of wanting to stimulate more dialogue – asks a compelling question: “Who do people say that I am?” At first glance, this just appears to be an abstract question – nothing at all to do with theology. And in spite of popular bumper-sticker theology,⁵ there is absolutely no one way for us to fully understand who Jesus really is in relationship to God and to the rest of us.

Who we believe Jesus to be is most dramatically demonstrated by how we share our giftedness as his followers, with each other, and with those who may not yet know him. Some are here this morning who take their faith seriously enough to be more than just a bit uncomfortable with Jesus’ next question, “Who do you say that I am?” You may not be too sure anymore (if you ever were) who this Jesus, the Christ, might be in a world that seems so empty of him. Some of you may be visitors here for the first time and wonder about our answer to that ancient and foundational question. Who does this particular church say Jesus is today, not so much in our Mission Statement⁶ printed there in the bulletin, but in the ways that we live out our lives when we walk out of here? Some churches sing, and then truly believe, that Jesus is their friend,⁷ warmly greeting the stranger and providing information on where to find the nursery. Some say that Jesus is a mystery, their very buildings echoing with his memory – as quiet as the womb, dark on a sunny day, and strangely comfortable even when the air is warm. Such was the church of my childhood.

The knowledge of who Jesus is comes in listening to him and following him. To one is given a moment of insight, while others seem to need more time to decide. Sadly, for too many church-goers and Christians, Jesus remains – at least for the time being – what other people say he is. They say he’s a friend, but in those sleepless days when our souls are distressed and our spirits depressed, we don’t find a friend at all. And yet because we’re here, we’ve chosen to live as a friend to others, to serve without fully seeing him, to follow without knowing for sure. They say he’s a mystery, but this place looks all too familiar and we can find little mystery within these walls or in our bustling and busy day-to-day world. And yet, from time to time, we will celebrate the mystery we do not fully experience, trusting in what others may have seen and have come to know.

That reminds me of a story.

In ancient times, in Japan, bamboo-and-paper lanterns with candles inside were used to light the darkness. A blind man, visiting a friend one night, was offered a lantern to carry home with him. “I don’t need a lantern,” he said, “darkness or light is all the same to me.”

“I know you don’t need a lantern to find your way,” his friend replied, “but if you don’t have one, someone else may run into you. So take it.”

So the blind man started off into the darkness with his lantern and before he’s walked very far somebody ran squarely into him. “Look out where you’re going!” he exclaimed to the stranger. “Can’t you see the lantern?”

To which the stranger replied, “But, your candle has burned out, brother.”⁸

It seems as if we human beings are constantly in need of breaking out of the prisons that not only others but we ourselves have constructed around us. Never mind Peter, “Look to the rock from which you were hewn,” exhorts Isaiah, “and to the quarry from which you were dug.”⁹ What is the foundation upon which you stand?

Another way of understanding our gospel story, then, is as a commentary about “authority” and “leadership.” By its decisions at General Conference, some in The United Methodist Church have said that, even though we are many, we are not one – because some are not welcome here for who or what they are. For decades it was people of color, or it was the immigrants, then it was women who insisted upon being ordained, now it’s gays. At a similar conclusion recently within the Anglican Communion, Britain’s chief rabbi, Sir Jonathan Sacks, appealed to both Jews and Christians to begin to forge a common cause and then reach out to other people in a world that’s not led by religious faith, but is dominated by politics and economics. He said,

Though we do not share a faith, we surely share a fate. Whatever our faith or lack of faith, hunger still hurts, disease still strikes, poverty still disfigures and hate still kills.¹⁰

Speaking with both authority and leadership, this modern-day rabbi said that our shared faith should require a “covenantal relationship” of cooperation amongst us in the face of an economic and political world that’s based not on our shared faith, but on the twisted logic of scarcity and competition. He went on to say that…

If there is only competition and not cooperation, if there is only the State and the market and no covenantal relationships, society will not survive… [W]hat is the face religion all too often shows to the world?  Conflict – between faiths, and sometimes within faiths.¹¹

We, who are many, are meant to be one. Again, to be fully human has to mean that we’ve been given the ability to transcend our more savage and tribal nature – to be more than just our habits and the ways in which they cause us to behave.¹²

At a time and in a world where television and electronic communication has taken over our dens and living rooms – letting the outside world in and turning the family circle into a semi-circle – where globalization is thrusting us together as never before, where every event modifies and affects every other event, we need courageous, honest, and cooperative leadership – courageous, honest, and cooperative leadership in politics, courageous, honest, and cooperative leadership in religion. We, who are many, are meant to be one.

Today, I believe, some of that courageous and honest leadership within the progressive religious movement, globally, is being offered by people like Canadian, Gretta Vosper. In her book With or without God she offers a blessing with which I choose to end this sermon, and that reflects the honesty and the thesis of her book.  She says this to us:

The world you go into is a world filled with challenges, with crises, with pain, with disappointment. You go as people who know these things intimately because you have felt them, experienced them, and railed against them. Go now as those who would see not only what the world is but what we can make it be, and may your hands, your heart, your voice be turned toward making it so.  Go in peace.¹³

May it be so.

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