Proper 19 -- Proverbs 1: 20 – 33; Psalm 19; James
3: 1 – 12; Mark
8: 27 – 38
A
homily by Fr. Gene Tucker, given
at Trinity Church, Mt. Vernon,
Illinois on Sunday, September 16, 2012.
“GOD’S WAYS, NOT OUR WAYS”
“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor my ways your ways, says the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts. For as rain and snow fall from the heavens and return not again, but water the earth, bringing forth life and giving growth, seed for sowing and bread for eating, so is my word that goes forth from my mouth; it will not return to me empty; but will accomplish that which I purposed, and prosper in that for which I sent it.”
(A
portion of the canticle known as the Second
Song of Isaiah, taken from Isaiah 55: 6 – 11)[1]
In today’s gospel reading, we hear
that Peter took the Lord aside and began to rebuke Him for saying that He was
going to go to Jerusalem, where the elders, the chief priests and the scribes
would reject Him. He was to be killed
there, He said.
Peter had a major problem: He knew how to say the right things at the
right time. After all, he was the first
to confess that Jesus is the Christ, the Messiah, God’s anointed one. But he
also had the ability to turn right around and say the totally wrong thing. (Fortunately for Peter and for us, after the
Lord’s resurrection, Peter no longer had this awful tendency to say the wrongs
things at the wrong time – Peter became, after the resurrection – a powerful
and eloquent spokesman for the good news of Jesus Christ.
It might be easy for us - distanced
as we are by time and space – to wonder why Peter and the other disciples failed
to see God’s purposes as they are at work in Jesus Christ. It was easy for the disciples to see God and
work in the miracles, in the healings, and in the teachings of Jesus. It was impossible – before the resurrection –
to see God at work in Jesus’ death.
But we shouldn’t be too hard on
these first disciples, who would soon become apostles, sent out to carry that
good news to the whole world.
After all, God was doing a new thing
in sending Jesus Christ to be the world’s Messiah. This new thing had to do with showing God’s
power over disease, over nature, over death itself. But part of God’s plan had to do with His
plan to purposely limit His own power, and to allow Jesus to become vulnerable
to death, even death on a cross.
This new thing involved miraculous
healings, a demonstrated power over the forces of nature, and the raising of
the dead. The powers at work in Jesus
Christ were like nothing anyone had ever seen before.
Maybe that’s why the disciples –
Peter chief among them – couldn’t understand why the Lord would say that He was
going to Jerusalem, where the powers-that-were would succeed in killing him.
Let’s put ourselves into their shoes
for a moment…..If we had seen the Lord do all these wonderful and powerful
things, wouldn’t we assume that that same Lord had all power, even over the
rulers of the people? Wouldn’t we assume
that God was ushering in a new kingdom which would root out all sources of
corruption, all occupying powers of the Romans, and all causes of disease in
the world? I must admit to you, that if
I had been one of those original disciples, I would have assumed that Jesus was
going to conquer all these things, and I would also have assumed that I was
going to be on the Lord’s winning team.
So, it doesn’t make any sense, does
it, for the Lord who had all these powers to say that He wasn’t going to win
once He got to Jerusalem. In fact, the
Lord told His disciples, you, too, need to “take up your cross and follow me.”
The Lord’s prediction of His coming
death, and the call for all of His followers to take up their own cross to
follow Him, must have sounded a whole lot like losing, not winning.
But we began this homily with
Isaiah’s wise words: “For your ways are
not my ways, nor your thoughts like my thoughts, says the Lord.”
Surely, this sort of an idea lies
behind Jesus’ rebuke of Peter as He says, “Get behind me, Satan, for you are
not on the side of God, but of men.”
Put another way, Jesus is saying to
Peter that he is thinking like normal human beings do. The way of human beings is to gather power,
enough power to conquer the things and the enemies that stand in our way. That’s the way of the world. That’s the way of the world in which Jesus, Peter
and the other disciples lived.
But God purposely stays His hand,
allowing His Son to go to the cross, and to the grave. Could God have prevented these things? The answer is “Yes”. Could God have banished all the forces which
allied themselves against God and against His Son? The answer is, again, “Yes.”
But a spiritual truth emerges
here….God’s power is made perfect in weakness.
It’s important for us to hear that
truth again…..God’s power is made perfect in weakness.
Before you think that I have come up
with that truth on my own, allow me to disavow you of any such notion….No, that
thought isn’t one of my original ones…it comes to us from the hand and the mind
of St. Paul, who writes in II Corinthians 12: 9b.
If we look ahead to the events of
Good Friday, Jesus’ death looks a whole lot like a complete and total
defeat…hung on a cross, abandoned by His disciples, the victim of a horrible
death which was reserved for enslaved peoples, He died a criminal’s death.
Indeed, it is St. Paul again who
describes the complete and total disconnect between Jesus’ death and the
sensibilities of those who heard the gospel preached to them….Paul says that
the cross is “a stumbling block to Jews, and folly to the Gentiles
(Greeks). (I Corinthians 1: 23b)
For the Jews who heard the gospel
message from Paul’s lips, the idea of a man who had died on a tree was
preposterous to their way of thinking.
After all, Deuteronomy 21: 22 – 23, we read, “And if a man has committed
a crime punishable by death he is put to death, and you hang him on a tree, his
body shall not remain all night on the tree, but you shall bury him the next
day, for a hanged man is cursed by God.”
For the Gentiles (Greeks) who heard
the gospel message, the idea of following as Savior and Lord a person who had
died a criminal’s death was silly.
But God’s power is made perfect in
weakness, as we said a moment ago. Moving
forward from Good Friday to Easter Sunday morning, we can see the power that
was manifest in Jesus Christ clearly….After all, the powers of evil devoted
everything in their arsenal to the purpose of defeating Jesus Christ on that
awful Friday. But everything that the
powers of evil had to bring to that battle wasn’t enough to achieve victory,
for the victory belongs to Christ and to God the Father, as the Lord emerges
from the grave, with His body intact and complete.
It would take the events of Good
Friday and Easter Sunday morning, taken together, for the disciples to
recognize God’s true power, at work in Jesus Christ. The “defeat” that Jesus suffered on Good
Friday is made all the deeper by His victory on Easter morning.
No, God’s ways aren’t our ways. They are higher than our ways. They are different than our ways.
But the lesson of Good Friday and
Easter Sunday morning is that God’s power is supreme above any obstacle that
can come before it. Even the obstacle of
death itself cannot stand up to God’s power to create life, or to create life
anew. Sometimes, God’s power isn’t
apparent right at first. It may take
awhile to see it clearly. But see it, we
will.
That same Lord of all life allowed
Himself to be subject to suffering, pain and death. That is the great and enduring mystery of the
cross, and of the Lord’s prediction, heard today, of His coming death.
For you and me, we can be assured
that no matter what suffering might lie in our life’s pathways, the Lord has
already walked the path we may be called to walk. For the Lord whom we worship and who we love
is also the one who emptied Himself, taking on the form of a servant, the one
who allowed Himself to be subject to death, even the death on a cross. Therefore, God has highly exalted Him, and
given Him a name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus, every
knee should bow, in heaven and on earth.
(I am paraphrasing Philippians 2: 5 -11 here).
God’s willingness to walk our life
of pain, disappointment, rejection and death is the distinctive marker of the
Christian faith. No other system of
believing in the entire world sees God this way.
Thanks be to the all-powerful God,
whose power is made perfect in weakness, whose power conquers every force of
sin, evil, pain, and even death.
AMEN.
[1] This canticle, which is known by the title
“The Second Song of Isaiah” can be found in the Book of Common Prayer, 1979 at
page 86. It is used in Morning Prayer,
Rite II.
