Pentecost 11: Going on the Offensive

Isaiah 51:1-6

Psalm 138

Romans 12:1-8

Matthew 16:13-20

First Lesson: Isaiah 51:1-6

Challenges:

For those of us who know the Biblical Story, referring to Abraham and Sarah makes sense and we can all go, “Ohhhh! Yeah!” But if you are NOT familiar with all of this, it can be rather confusing.

Opportunities:

Amazing imagery here.  Rocks, quarries, gnats dying: wow! This passage really paints a picture here: a very vivid picture.  Do you have any experience with rocks? What they are like? What they feel like or smell like or what it’s like to break them apart?  Also, in verse 4 you have the word “teaching” used. This is actually “Torah.” We get very wrapped up in how THE LAW is oppressive and harsh and something that is a big downer, but it can be very, very helpful to look at Torah as Teaching, or as “instruction.”

Good News:

Here we have another example of the Gospel splashed all over these verses. You almost don’t have to explain it: it’s just all there.  At the same time, it can seem like less-than-good-news.  Things are going up in smoke and people are going down like gnats.  Woo-hoo! (that was typed ironically).  This doesn’t sound like a fun time. BUT there is salvation and deliverance. You can really make the point that we are saved and delivered DESPITE the issues we face. In a great sermon Timothy Keller says that God’s promise is not to change our life circumstance…it’s to give us a better life.

The Psalm: Psalm 138

Challenges:

Wait, here are other “gods” that we are singing before? I thought there was just one god and that was GOD?  What’s going on here pastor? Okay, yeah, so what is henotheism? Really, earlier on the Israelites accepted that there was more than one deity but that the LORD was the best and over everyone?  Wait, what? When did that change and how the heck does that work?  Can you explain that to me in another 45 seconds?

Opportunities:

There are some amazing verses that can really be used as day-to-day reminders.  Sure, it can be dangerous to use verses completely out of context, but at the same time it can be useful too. Lately, I’ve been putting verses on slips of paper and people in my congregation have been cutting them out and carrying with them throughout their day. Some tape them on their desks at work, attaching them to their smart phones, putting them on the fridge, or in their wallet.  This can be very helpful and there are quite a few good verses in this psalm that prime candidates: 1, 7, 8 are all good examples.

Good News:

Despite threats and challenges and dangers, God will be there for us.  We are “the work of [God’s] hands.” That means something.  Having faith/trust in that means something to us and our day-to-day lives.

Second Lesson: Romans 12:1-8

Challenges:

There’s a lot of great stuff here: but it can roll right off of your ears if you’re not careful.  How can you and the lector who is reading this make it stick?

Opportunities:

You can really talk about what it means to be conformed to this world: going along with the crowd, not caring that you are caught up in a systems of institutional racism and sexism.  It can feel like we are just flowing along with the tide. We might disagree with what’s happening, we might be cynical and snarky about it…but nothing in our lives actually looks different.  But if we are TRANSFORMED, our actions and our time and who we associate with will look different.

I think you could really go on a great tear with this idea of ‘our bodies as living sacrifices.’ You can talk about what sacrifices were meant to be back then: dead animals or other items that would please and mollify the particular deity to whom you were appealing.  Our God doesn’t need a dead carcass on an altar: our God wants us to love our neighbor as ourselves, to do justice, love kindness and walk humbly with God, to discern what is the will of God…I could go on and on. 

Good News:

It is good news for me to read this and looking into a different world…almost an ‘alternate world’ that I have the chance to enter...actually that I am being INVITED to enter.  This is exciting.

Gospel: Matthew 16:13-20

Challenges:

Oh how tempting it will be (for some of us) to go into a long talk about how this passage has been used by various denominations to further their own agenda.  The Roman Catholic Church will say: “See, Peter is called the Rock and he is the first Pope and he gets to bind and loose and so all of the Popes get to do this…sooooo…do what the Pope says!” Protestants have looked at this and said, “It’s Peter’s faithful confession that is the Rock that the church is built on…so it’s all about Faith, not some silly Pope!”  I’m sure there are other ways of looking at this.

This could be very useful in a Bible Study as a way of showing how different groups interpret the same passage differently. It could even be useful in the sermon too, for this very reason. But if you do talk about it in the sermon: MAKE IT INTERESTING! Maybe even funny. These points can be really applicable and interesting, or they can be very, very, VERY dry and boring. Use them well!

Opportunities:

This lesson really lends itself well to a bit of theater. You could pretend to be one of the disciples…eager to answer Jesus’ first question about who people say he is. Then you could get very hesitant when we asks the next one. Maybe you could even say under your breath, “Don’t make eye contact, don’t make eye contact, don’t make eye contact.” In fact, you could turn this into a classroom situation (this is the time of year for the beginning of school after all).  Making this lesson come to life through some acting could be both fun and useful.

Also, you could go in a completely different direction by talking about what “binding and loosing’ looked like back then: it was the way various rabbis decided when parts of Torah applied to a particular situation and when they didn’t. Jesus is giving his followers this authority and it’s a big deal. We use it today, whether we recognize it or not. After all, Jesus didn’t tell us how fast we should drive our cars, or how many hours of TV our kids should watch, or whether or not we should go to sporting events.  BUT Jesus taught us about how to live our lives and what should be important in them…we have been tasked with finding out how that applies to the things I listed above.

Good News:

One of my seminary professors, Mark Allan Powell (and others as well), have made the point that “gates” (as in “the gates of Hades” or hell…) are not offensive. Gates don’t attack anything.  When Jesus says “the gates of Hades will not prevail against it [the church],” he isn’t saying that the church will be defending itself. Instead WE are on the offensive.  We will be ‘storming hell.’  That’s a big deal. It means that there will be no where that Jesus and his church cannot (or will not) go.  Football season is about to begin (Huzzah!). You can use the image of Jesus and his team marching down the field as "Team Hades" falls apart.  The Kingdom is coming: let’s be a part of it.