The Taught Can
Sermon
Fringe, Front and Center
Sermons For Sundays After Pentecost (Middle Third)
You have heard that it has been said in old times, "Those who can, do; those who can't, teach." But I say unto you this morning, "Those who are taught, can do." As one who has been taught, I say this unto you as to those who have been taught by God, "Having been taught, we can."
All this is pertinent to us all because as the Preacher in Ecclesiastes wrote, "For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven" (Ecclesiastes 3:1). Are we aware of what time it is? There is a time to be taught and a time to do.
Quite clearly for the disciples this was a time to be taught. Mark relates the call of some of the first disciples early in his book. He tells of the appointment of the twelve as apostles and tells of how Jesus sent them out two by two on a mission. But it is quite clear that Jesus regarded these days chiefly as classroom days.
All the world's population was to become his pupils, but for the time of his ministry on earth he limited his lectures to Palestine. He focused much of his instruction on the twelve. Small group discussion was in his lesson plan. On this morning the instruction began with what was designed to be a discussion question. "Who do people say that I am?" One couldn't miss on that question. There could be no wrong answer. But it led up to the real issue: "Who do you say that I am?" Peter, as always, had his hand up. Did some of the others have that thwarted feeling? "You always call on Peter. I had my hand up first." They had all learned the correct answer: "You are the Messiah." Whether they understood the definition of "Messiah" any better than Peter did is rather doubtful.
It was still the time for being taught. Jesus did not want them going off proclaiming some half-truths. "He strongly ordered them not to tell anyone about him." As he continued to teach them, he spelled out how "the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes and be killed, and after three days rise again." Then Peter again -- and Peter's attitude makes clear why Jesus was not yet ready to let them go out witnessing. Jesus had told them these details "quite openly." Peter took Jesus aside. Was he thinking that he ought not embarrass Jesus before the others? Still, someone had to set him straight. Peter rebuked him. "You've got it all wrong, Jesus. With what you've got, you can take over as Messiah easily. You don't have to take second place to these scribes and priests and elders."
Clearly the problem was in the definition of terms. "Messiah" for Peter seemed to mean some sort of political leader who would restore the kingdom to Israel. Messiahship could be achieved by a popularity ploy which would make his fame pay off, which would perhaps get people to declare him king.
We think of Jesus as a "can do" person, but clearly here he was first of all a "can teach" rabbi. His words are stern. They are rebuke. They are designed to set Peter and the disciples straight, to get them in line -- and that line was behind him, lined up in support of him, following his lead, following him. Jesus wanted more than that the disciples would mouth the right answers, agree with him with or without understanding. He wanted disciples, followers, individuals who could and would not only follow after him but who would take over after him, would take the lead after his visible presence was taken from the earth. His teaching was aimed at his disciples's doing. What he said was, "Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things."
The text tells us that Jesus turned from the twelve and addressed the crowd as well. But one could well imagine that before that he first reviewed his basic instruction with the twelve. Whether Jesus did that or not, it may be well for us to review who Jesus is and what he did, check our teaching before we consider our doing. "Now," we can imagine Jesus saying, "let's get this concept of Messiah straight." This is the lesson we have learned about what God-in-Christ was doing in a place like our world, then and now. We are mired in it, in the disaster and the distortion of what has become of that creation God once called very good. God does not want any of us to perish. He wants all of us to come to the knowledge of the truth.
The first part of God's truth is the mess we have made of our world and our lives. No one can be blind to the desecration of the planet. No one can avoid the wickedness that kills and maims, impoverishes and starves people in every country and city. Each of us must acknowledge personal enmities and selfishness and deliberate misdeeds. It is bad enough to realize how self-centered we are; it is even worse to comprehend the greater stupidity it is on our part to think we can dethrone God from life's real center. People sometimes apologize for evil or for bitter words: "I shouldn't have said that." But the tongue is only the messenger. The whole head is sick. The heart is apart from God. That is the truth, the first part of God's truth.
The second part of the truth was right there with the disciples and the crowd. It was he, Jesus. He is the truth, clear evidence that God loves his creation and, though he detests the world's evil, stands ready to take it. God was in Christ taking it, taking the awful results of evil into his own being. Then, in giving his life, he took sin's punishment of death away from us and suffered it himself.
We have learned what Jesus taught. We wouldn't dream of rebuking Jesus, or God the Father, for that matter, for the way God went about reconciling the world to himself. Who would argue with that success? We believe and are sure that Christ's suffering succeeded in saving us. Isaiah has words which can apply to our Lord as our teaching savior. Jesus had the tongue of a teacher, all right, with words that sustain the weary. God has "wakened our ears to listen as those who are taught." Though his soul was exceeding sorrowful as death impended, he was not rebellious. He did not turn backward. He gave his back to those who struck him and his cheeks to those who pulled out the beard. He did not hide his face from insult and spitting. He set his face like flint to obey in all things what the Father asked him to do. And he was not disgraced, not put to shame. God vindicated him before all enemies, before all doubters, before us. God who had him die for the sins that condemned us, raised him to life again as undebatable proof that evil and devil were defeated. Do we quarrel with that? We do not! We believe and we are sure that this Jesus is the Son of the living God, the living Son, our Living Savior (Isaiah 50:4f).
But what about our doing? Are we able to? Can we? Jesus took up the matter of deeds. "If any want to be my followers," he began. There is a time for faith and a time for works. James minces no words and makes mincemeat out of our excuses: "What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but do not have works? Can faith save you? ... Faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead" (James 2:14-17). Well, we don't need James to make us feel guilty. We can do that for ourselves. But can we do more than that?
What was the first thing Jesus said we must do if we wish to be followers? "If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me." Deny your self ... when we repent and believe the good news that already means we are denying ourselves. Do any of you claim that God owes you eternal living? Or do any of you claim that you can sin in order that grace may abound? Or do you do everything your foolish heart desires? Sometimes you do some of those things, but even then you deny yourself: "It is not I that do them, but sin that dwells in me." Of course, we pass the test of "let them deny themselves." We are not hearers only.
As for "taking up your cross," which is the follow-through Jesus expects, you're doing that, too. Sometimes, like Simon of Cyrene, we bear a cross that others force upon us. We may wish we did not have to, but we carry on. We, too, pray, "Nevertheless, not my will but thine be done." We cross out line items in our budgets so that there will be a share for God at the bottom line. It's true as well about our time --Êinstead of having all our time on our hands, we offer some of it to God and we spend time for God's people. We may often groan and travail, but we get good things done, and, what's more, we're glad we do them; we rejoice that we have brought forth good works into the world.
Don't minimize your good works. So Abraham did more? So Abraham, the father of the faithful, seems to have done better than we of little faith? When he saw the three men standing by his tent pitched by the oak of Mamre, he ran to them and begged them to stay with him and rest. He had Sarah make flour cakes and served them with curds and milk and roast veal (Genesis 18:1-8). And you don't even look at the panhandler you pass by on a street downtown, and you teach your teenage drivers not to pick up hitchhikers -- so what? This age, our non-civilization, our doped and violent dropouts demand different methods. And we use them. We set up shelters and call them Good Samaritan houses; we invite the hungry to sit at tables in places we call "Loaves and Fishes." And we invest heavy money for clothing the poor. That is much more than saying merely, "Keep warm and eat your fill," while doing nothing to supply bodily needs. Speaking of taking up your cross, you also fill out your income tax forms, and you vote for and help pay for governmental programs for the poor and needy. Eat your heart out, Abraham. Rejoice and be glad, all you. Lift up your heads!! Your redemption is showing through!
Nor ought we minimize what we are doing in this very hour. There is a time for doing these other "goods" and there is a time for doing good liturgy. God is not ashamed to be our God, and we are not ashamed to claim God as our God and to worship as part of our duty "him only to serve." Sunday after Sunday -- doing your good liturgy! It does the whole body good! When you give to God the glory due his name, there is a feedback of blessing that comes from God to you, and encouragement that flows from these other saints to you. Yes, we come for the assurance of forgiveness -- the better to be saints. Yes, we pray for life -- the better to live with and for others. Yes, we seek salvation -- the better to share it with others. We stop by church on the way to work. We come for teaching, because having been taught, we can!
Sometimes after a great thanksgiving meal, all you want to do is take a nap. Here now is this great meal, this Eucharist, this feast of thanksgiving. God gives us forgiveness, life and salvation with the bread that is our Lord's body, the wine that is our Lord's blood. Sometimes, it is true, in the days after this thanksgiving we are caught napping. But much of the time, most of the times, we go in the strength of this heavenly food forty days and forty nights. That's biblical talk for as long as necessary. And that is only as long as it takes until our next liturgy.
All things are ready. Lord, make us more ready and willing and able!
All this is pertinent to us all because as the Preacher in Ecclesiastes wrote, "For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven" (Ecclesiastes 3:1). Are we aware of what time it is? There is a time to be taught and a time to do.
Quite clearly for the disciples this was a time to be taught. Mark relates the call of some of the first disciples early in his book. He tells of the appointment of the twelve as apostles and tells of how Jesus sent them out two by two on a mission. But it is quite clear that Jesus regarded these days chiefly as classroom days.
All the world's population was to become his pupils, but for the time of his ministry on earth he limited his lectures to Palestine. He focused much of his instruction on the twelve. Small group discussion was in his lesson plan. On this morning the instruction began with what was designed to be a discussion question. "Who do people say that I am?" One couldn't miss on that question. There could be no wrong answer. But it led up to the real issue: "Who do you say that I am?" Peter, as always, had his hand up. Did some of the others have that thwarted feeling? "You always call on Peter. I had my hand up first." They had all learned the correct answer: "You are the Messiah." Whether they understood the definition of "Messiah" any better than Peter did is rather doubtful.
It was still the time for being taught. Jesus did not want them going off proclaiming some half-truths. "He strongly ordered them not to tell anyone about him." As he continued to teach them, he spelled out how "the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes and be killed, and after three days rise again." Then Peter again -- and Peter's attitude makes clear why Jesus was not yet ready to let them go out witnessing. Jesus had told them these details "quite openly." Peter took Jesus aside. Was he thinking that he ought not embarrass Jesus before the others? Still, someone had to set him straight. Peter rebuked him. "You've got it all wrong, Jesus. With what you've got, you can take over as Messiah easily. You don't have to take second place to these scribes and priests and elders."
Clearly the problem was in the definition of terms. "Messiah" for Peter seemed to mean some sort of political leader who would restore the kingdom to Israel. Messiahship could be achieved by a popularity ploy which would make his fame pay off, which would perhaps get people to declare him king.
We think of Jesus as a "can do" person, but clearly here he was first of all a "can teach" rabbi. His words are stern. They are rebuke. They are designed to set Peter and the disciples straight, to get them in line -- and that line was behind him, lined up in support of him, following his lead, following him. Jesus wanted more than that the disciples would mouth the right answers, agree with him with or without understanding. He wanted disciples, followers, individuals who could and would not only follow after him but who would take over after him, would take the lead after his visible presence was taken from the earth. His teaching was aimed at his disciples's doing. What he said was, "Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things."
The text tells us that Jesus turned from the twelve and addressed the crowd as well. But one could well imagine that before that he first reviewed his basic instruction with the twelve. Whether Jesus did that or not, it may be well for us to review who Jesus is and what he did, check our teaching before we consider our doing. "Now," we can imagine Jesus saying, "let's get this concept of Messiah straight." This is the lesson we have learned about what God-in-Christ was doing in a place like our world, then and now. We are mired in it, in the disaster and the distortion of what has become of that creation God once called very good. God does not want any of us to perish. He wants all of us to come to the knowledge of the truth.
The first part of God's truth is the mess we have made of our world and our lives. No one can be blind to the desecration of the planet. No one can avoid the wickedness that kills and maims, impoverishes and starves people in every country and city. Each of us must acknowledge personal enmities and selfishness and deliberate misdeeds. It is bad enough to realize how self-centered we are; it is even worse to comprehend the greater stupidity it is on our part to think we can dethrone God from life's real center. People sometimes apologize for evil or for bitter words: "I shouldn't have said that." But the tongue is only the messenger. The whole head is sick. The heart is apart from God. That is the truth, the first part of God's truth.
The second part of the truth was right there with the disciples and the crowd. It was he, Jesus. He is the truth, clear evidence that God loves his creation and, though he detests the world's evil, stands ready to take it. God was in Christ taking it, taking the awful results of evil into his own being. Then, in giving his life, he took sin's punishment of death away from us and suffered it himself.
We have learned what Jesus taught. We wouldn't dream of rebuking Jesus, or God the Father, for that matter, for the way God went about reconciling the world to himself. Who would argue with that success? We believe and are sure that Christ's suffering succeeded in saving us. Isaiah has words which can apply to our Lord as our teaching savior. Jesus had the tongue of a teacher, all right, with words that sustain the weary. God has "wakened our ears to listen as those who are taught." Though his soul was exceeding sorrowful as death impended, he was not rebellious. He did not turn backward. He gave his back to those who struck him and his cheeks to those who pulled out the beard. He did not hide his face from insult and spitting. He set his face like flint to obey in all things what the Father asked him to do. And he was not disgraced, not put to shame. God vindicated him before all enemies, before all doubters, before us. God who had him die for the sins that condemned us, raised him to life again as undebatable proof that evil and devil were defeated. Do we quarrel with that? We do not! We believe and we are sure that this Jesus is the Son of the living God, the living Son, our Living Savior (Isaiah 50:4f).
But what about our doing? Are we able to? Can we? Jesus took up the matter of deeds. "If any want to be my followers," he began. There is a time for faith and a time for works. James minces no words and makes mincemeat out of our excuses: "What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but do not have works? Can faith save you? ... Faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead" (James 2:14-17). Well, we don't need James to make us feel guilty. We can do that for ourselves. But can we do more than that?
What was the first thing Jesus said we must do if we wish to be followers? "If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me." Deny your self ... when we repent and believe the good news that already means we are denying ourselves. Do any of you claim that God owes you eternal living? Or do any of you claim that you can sin in order that grace may abound? Or do you do everything your foolish heart desires? Sometimes you do some of those things, but even then you deny yourself: "It is not I that do them, but sin that dwells in me." Of course, we pass the test of "let them deny themselves." We are not hearers only.
As for "taking up your cross," which is the follow-through Jesus expects, you're doing that, too. Sometimes, like Simon of Cyrene, we bear a cross that others force upon us. We may wish we did not have to, but we carry on. We, too, pray, "Nevertheless, not my will but thine be done." We cross out line items in our budgets so that there will be a share for God at the bottom line. It's true as well about our time --Êinstead of having all our time on our hands, we offer some of it to God and we spend time for God's people. We may often groan and travail, but we get good things done, and, what's more, we're glad we do them; we rejoice that we have brought forth good works into the world.
Don't minimize your good works. So Abraham did more? So Abraham, the father of the faithful, seems to have done better than we of little faith? When he saw the three men standing by his tent pitched by the oak of Mamre, he ran to them and begged them to stay with him and rest. He had Sarah make flour cakes and served them with curds and milk and roast veal (Genesis 18:1-8). And you don't even look at the panhandler you pass by on a street downtown, and you teach your teenage drivers not to pick up hitchhikers -- so what? This age, our non-civilization, our doped and violent dropouts demand different methods. And we use them. We set up shelters and call them Good Samaritan houses; we invite the hungry to sit at tables in places we call "Loaves and Fishes." And we invest heavy money for clothing the poor. That is much more than saying merely, "Keep warm and eat your fill," while doing nothing to supply bodily needs. Speaking of taking up your cross, you also fill out your income tax forms, and you vote for and help pay for governmental programs for the poor and needy. Eat your heart out, Abraham. Rejoice and be glad, all you. Lift up your heads!! Your redemption is showing through!
Nor ought we minimize what we are doing in this very hour. There is a time for doing these other "goods" and there is a time for doing good liturgy. God is not ashamed to be our God, and we are not ashamed to claim God as our God and to worship as part of our duty "him only to serve." Sunday after Sunday -- doing your good liturgy! It does the whole body good! When you give to God the glory due his name, there is a feedback of blessing that comes from God to you, and encouragement that flows from these other saints to you. Yes, we come for the assurance of forgiveness -- the better to be saints. Yes, we pray for life -- the better to live with and for others. Yes, we seek salvation -- the better to share it with others. We stop by church on the way to work. We come for teaching, because having been taught, we can!
Sometimes after a great thanksgiving meal, all you want to do is take a nap. Here now is this great meal, this Eucharist, this feast of thanksgiving. God gives us forgiveness, life and salvation with the bread that is our Lord's body, the wine that is our Lord's blood. Sometimes, it is true, in the days after this thanksgiving we are caught napping. But much of the time, most of the times, we go in the strength of this heavenly food forty days and forty nights. That's biblical talk for as long as necessary. And that is only as long as it takes until our next liturgy.
All things are ready. Lord, make us more ready and willing and able!
