PEOPLE'S CHURCH OF DOVER

Matt. 16:13-20                                                    A PARTICULAR GOSPEL

Sermon August 24, 2008:  People's UCC, Dover, DE:  The Rev. Dan Griggs

 

          Last Sunday I preached a sermon on the universal gospel and how I have found it personally compelling through Jesus Christ.  That sermon doesn't stand alone:  it needs today's sermon to make it complete, and so today's message doesn't wipe out last week's—it amplifies it.  Today I want to talk about how the good news of our redemption in Jesus Christ is not just universal but also very particular. 

          Just how specific and particular the gospel really is came home to me in relation to a friend of mine, an African American man named Idus Jones, from West Virginia, with a heavy accent and a special read on Jesus.  We were in seminary together.  One day in class he told his life story.  As a teenager he had a job as a janitor in a factory.  One day he asked the boss what kind of future he could look forward to.  The boss said, "Well, you'll always have work as a janitor, or a cook, or something like that."  It made Idus furious, and at that moment he decided it wasn't going to be that way for him.  He struggled personally and financially and put himself through college.  When I met him he was putting himself through seminary.  A year later he graduated and went back to West Virginia to become the head chaplain in a state prison.  He became widely known, did some writing, appeared on television.  He proved to himself that he was more than that boss thought he could be.  Something caught fire in Idus and he responded with … life. 

          That's a lot like what happened to Peter in our Gospel Lesson today:  something caught fire in him.  This was the first day of Peter's real life.  And something like that also happened to you and to me when God came by.  God is universal:  we don't know where the outer boundaries of God's love might be—that's not up to us.  What is up to us is something very particular and personal:  when God kindles a fire in your soul, it's a particular fire for you; and in that moment you must respond.  You hear a particular gospel.  How will you in particular  answer? 

 

          Jesus and his disciples were up in the far north of Palestine—that area we call the Golan Heights today, where Israel has occupied Syrian territory.  In Jesus' time there was a Roman city nearby, Caesarea Philippi.  Today it's just a village called Banyas:  it sits a thousand feet up in the hills above the northern end of the Jordan River valley.  Sitting there, Jesus and his disciples could see for tens of miles.  The snow cap on Mount Hermon gleamed across the valley in the morning sunlight.  They could see God's beauty in nature, but could they see God's action in their own particular experience?  Jesus asked them, "Who do people say I am?"  They answered, "John the Baptist, Elijah, some other prophet."  Then Jesus asked, "What about you?  Who do you think I am?"  In a blaze of inspiration far beyond his understanding Peter blurted out, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God!"  This is the beginning of Peter's seeing, so Jesus uses a play on words about Peter's own name, which means "rock":  "On this rock I will build my church."  On this seeing, on this particular view in the soul of a specific person, Peter—or you, Christ establishes what church really is.  Church is about some good news from God that makes a specific difference in you and me.  It's particular. 

          The reason this story is in the Gospel of Matthew isn't just because those ancient Christians knew who Peter was; it's in here for us, because just as Christ called Peter, he also builds a fire in you.  A particular fire, a particular gospel, a particular person:  and how will you in particular answer? 

 

          Just as in the Beatitudes, here Jesus pronounces a blessing:  "Blessed are you, Simon bar-Jonah …; I will give you the keys of the kingdom of God, and the gates of Death will not win."  Jesus is talking about death.  Death is a fearful thought.  It produces an inner twitch we've all learned to ignore because it's so uncomfortable.  But death is the one moment I can not dodge:  I will die—this, too, is particular.  As children we learn to put it from our thoughts.  As teenagers we tinker with it until we think we've made it our buddy.  As adults we philosophize and try to pad its crushing impact.  In maturity we have to come to terms with it as with all the rest of a life now mostly unchangeable.  I've known certain people who have reached a very old age who have come to the point where Death is no longer an enemy.  But whatever we do with Death, if we spend any time thinking about it, we feel a certain chill; and in this fear we're already dead men and dead women.  Still we have no recourse:  the end comes, and we are gone. 

          But Jesus has something to say about my approaching death:  that there is something more to be said.  "I give you the keys" to the cemetery gate, to unlock it from the inside.  The real tragedy of church history is that we've spent nearly 2,000 years playing with the keys to the kingdom:  we and those who went before us have played jail-keeper (as if some of us could keep others of us locked up), we've played keep-away, we've played all the childish games of power over each other, we've locked people in and locked people out by passing premature judgment on them ourselves—and all along we and our forebears have been using pious words so none of us will realize that these are all human games.  And we've rarely gotten down to business and used the keys of life!  They're right here anytime we're ready.

          In the Hebrew Bible there's a story about one woman who did use the keys of life:  Esther.  To be honest, the story of Esther is about how women in the Persian empire were treated like so much fresh meat.  She was a pretty girl.  All the boys in Susa Central High School wanted to date her.  Her father wasn't rich, but he had a good job so there was enough of life's necessities for her plus a little spending money.  Some people have told her story as if she were some kind of Cinderella:  she got included in the beauty contest at the imperial palace; but really she went because she had no choice in the matter.  She entered the precincts of power and influence to be eye candy, along with a hundred other girls.  She didn't want to be there, and she didn't want to be chosen as the next consort for the king; but that's what happened.  Her uncle Mordecai has some influence, and she begged him to get her out of this dehumanizing mess.  Do you remember what Mordecai said to her?  "Who knows whether you have come to the kingdom for such a time as this?"  And that was the case for this particular young woman. 

          Esther was a Jew, and the Jews had enemies in high places.  They tricked the king into declaring a pogrom—an empire-wide holocaust on February 27.  They didn't know Esther was a Jew.  Her uncle sent her a message:[1] 

 

 

Through trickery, subtle political advocacy, and the help of God she got the king to allow the Jews to defend themselves, and they survived.  Esther, a particular woman in that time and place, did this particular thing, and gave her people access to the keys of life.  And this is the story behind the Jewish holiday of Purim, celebrated right down to our own time.  The name of God doesn't appear once in the Book of Esther, but you can be sure God is there, building a fire in Esther's soul:  a particular fire that lit the lantern of life.  But Esther had to face the question:  how will she in particular  answer? 

 

          I may or may not affirm that God's love and mercy extend beyond the borders of Christianity.  I may or may not hold the opinion that Buddhists and Shinto adherents are redeemed on the Cross, just as I am.  But this question is secondary to the particular gospel that Jesus Christ speaks to me, here, now, in my experience and my life situation.  What counts is what I in particular will do in answer to the call I receive.  I'm not the one who passes judgment: I'm the one who stands under judgment for the way I respond to the fire the Spirit of God has built in me. 

          Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a dull, upper-class German scholar and theologian in the 1930's.  When Hitler tried to move the churches of Germany into absolute support of the Nazi ideal of Aryan superiority, a number of German Christians withdrew and formed a fellowship of resistance within the national church; Bonhoeffer was one of this group.  He taught in an underground seminary, and ultimately he was arrested for plotting against the dictator, imprisoned, and hanged for treason just a few days before the American army freed the camp where he had been held.  In his little book Life Together, which describes the resistance fellowship, Bonhoeffer wrote these words about the fire God builds in your own soul.[2]

 

You cannot escape from yourself; for God has singled you out.

 

In your own life the situation will be different from that of Peter, or Esther, or Bonhoeffer; but the question is the same:  How will you in particular  answer?

 

          Jesus Christ didn't come into the world and die on the Cross in order to start a "religion":  he came to show us the way to life.  He builds a fire in your soul, offers an invitation to your life—an invitation to confess as Peter did, "You ARE the Christ," which means, "You are MY Christ," and then to respond with your life.  You live now, here, in this particular way.  You have heard this particular gospel.  How will you in particular  answer?

          I can't tell you how to answer, because your calling is particular.  But I can point to the one who will show you:  the Christ. 

AMEN