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Sentence

The greatest among you will be your servant. All who exalt themselves will be humbled, and all who humble themselves will be exalted. Matthew 23:11-12

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               

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Collect  

Creator God, you have filled the world with beauty:
open our eyes to behold your gracious hand in all your works, that, rejoicing in your whole creation, we may learn to serve you with gladness, for the sake of him through whom all things were made, your Son Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen

                                                                                                                                                                            

Readings

This week:

• Joshua 3:7-17
• Psalm 107:1-7, 33-37
• 1 Thessalonians 3:5-13
• Matthew 23:1-12

• Next week:

• Joshua 24:1-3a, 14-25
• Psalm 78:1-7
• 1 Thessalonians 4:9-18
• Matthew 25:1-13

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A Thought to Ponder

Pentecost 23 – Matthew 23:1-12
The Pharisees’ love of honour manifests itself in several ways. “They make their phylacteries broad, enlarge the fringes of their garments” (v. 5b). Phylacteries (also known as tephillin) are leather boxes containing one or more scrolls inscribed with passages of scripture in accord with the law, “Therefore you shall lay up these my words in your heart and in your soul; and you shall bind them for a sign on your hand, and they shall be for symbols between your eyes” (Deuteronomy 11:18). In obedience to this law, the scribes and Pharisees wear phylacteries on their forehead and their arm. The phylacteries serve as a constant reminder of God’s law and include certain passages of the law (Exodus 13:1-16; Deuteronomy 6:4-9; 11:13-21). Deuteronomy also requires Jews to write the laws “on the door posts of your house, and on your gates” (Deuteronomy 11:20)—a law that observant Jews still obey by fastening a Mezuzah containing these laws on the doorpost of their homes. Such a device identifies a home as Jewish and its inhabitants as observant. It also serves as a constant reminder to children and others of God’s law.
Tassels or fringes are required by Numbers 15:37-41 and Deuteronomy 22:12 and are intended to remind people of God’s commandments. Phylacteries and tassels are like stained glass windows or icons— intended to help people, particularly pre-literate people, to remember and to understand spiritual things. They are laid down by God in Torah law. The problem is not that the scribes and Pharisees observe these Torah laws, but that they seek personal honour for doing so. They wear especially large phylacteries and long tassels to draw attention to their scrupulous observance.
Jesus teaches his disciples a very different way to live. He teaches us to give alms, to pray, and to fast in secret (6:1-8, 16-18) so that “your Father, who sees in secret, will reward you” (6:18). He says of people who seek to practice public piety to gain public honour that they will “have no reward from your Father who is in heaven” (6:1).

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Sermon

You can read the Pew Sheet here

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Sentence

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second if like it: you shall love your neighbour as yourself. On these two commandments hang all the law and prophets. Matthew 22:37-40

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               

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Collect  

O God, whose Son has taught us that love is the fulfilment of your law: stir up within us the fire of your Holy Spirit, and pour into our hearts your greatest gift of love, so that we may love you with our whole being, and our neighbours as ourselves; through Jesus Christ our Lord who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen

                                                                                                                                                                            

Readings

This week:

• Deut 34:1-12
• Psalm 90:1-6, 13-17
• 1 Thessalonians 2:1-13
• Matthew 22:34-46

• Next week:

• Joshua 3:7-17
• Psalm 107:1-7, 33-37
• 1 Thessalonians 3:5-13
• Matthew 23:1-12

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A Thought to Ponder

Pentecost 22 – Matthew 22:34-46

“Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest? You shall love the Lord your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and the first commandment. The second is like it: You shall love your neighbour as yourself. The whole law and the prophets depend on these two commandments. “

In this Sunday’s Gospel, as in last Sunday’s, the Jewish leaders seek to trip Jesus up. The question the lawyer poses was much discussed in rabbinical circles: Which is the greatest commandment? The Pharisees’ intention in posing the question was to force Jesus into a single rabbinical school, thereby opening him up to criticism from all other sides. Jesus’ answer, however, proves his fidelity to both the Jewish tradition and to a spirituality that transcends the legal interpretations of the commandments: the “second” commandment is the manifestation of the first. If we love the Lord God with our whole being, that love will manifest itself in our feeding of the hungry, our sheltering of the homeless and our liberating the oppressed.
Jesus’ “command” to love our neighbour means seeing one another as we see ourselves: realising that our hopes and dreams for ourselves and our families are the same dreams others have for themselves and their families.
Every one of us, at one time or other, is an alien, outsider, foreigner and stranger. The commandment to “love your neighbour as yourself” is not confined to our “own” people or to a list of specific situations but should affect every relationship we have and every decision we make.
As our society becomes more and more diverse, as science continues to make once unimaginable advances in all forms of technology, the ethical and moral questions we face become more complicated, difficult and challenging. The “great commandment” gives us the starting point for dealing with such issues: to love as God loves us – without limit, without condition, without counting the cost, completely and selflessly.
In our “e-connected” existence, the words of Jesus in today’s Gospel are especially challenging: to love with our whole heart and soul and mind requires us to “unplug” and be present to one another, to engage one another as our loving God is engaged with us, to seek not just images and perceptions of compassion but behold compassion and experience love in one another.

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Sermon

You can read the Pew Sheet here

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Sentence

Give to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s. Matthew 22:21

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               

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Collect  

Almighty and everlasting God, In Christ you have revealed your glory among the nations: grant that your church throughout the world may persevere with steadfast faith in proclaiming the cross to be the way that leads to life eternal; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen

                                                                                                                                                                            

Readings

This week:

• Exodus 33:12-23
• Psalm 99
• 1 Thessalonians 1:1-10
• Matthew 22:15-33

• Next week:

• Deut 34:1-12
• Psalm 90:1-6, 13-17
• 1 Thessalonians 2:1-13
• Matthew 22:34-46

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A Thought to Ponder

Pentecost 21 – Matthew 22:15-21

“Repay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God“

In today’s Gospel, two opponents of Jesus, the Pharisees and Herodians (supporters of Herod’s dynasty), join forces to trap Jesus. If Jesus affirms that taxes should be paid, he alienates the religious nationalists; if he denies that taxes should be paid, then he is subject to arrest by the Romans as a political revolutionary. But the very fact that his inquisitors could produce the emperor’s coin from one of their purses was to admit a Roman obligation: If one used the sovereign’s coin then one automatically took on an obligation to the sovereign; in other words, the Pharisees and Herodians, in trying to trap Jesus, answered their own question. But Jesus takes the debate to an even higher level by challenging them to be just as observant in paying their debt to God.
The confrontation over Caesar’s coin is not a solution to any church – versus-state controversy; Jesus’ response to the Pharisees confronts them – and us – with the demand to act out of our convictions and to take responsibility for our actions.

Jesus appeals to us to look beyond the simplistic politics and black-and -white legalisms represented by the coin and realise that we are called to embrace the values centred in a faith that sees the hand of God in all things and every human being as part of a single family under the providence of God.
The Pharisees who confront Jesus with Caesar’s coin are trying to trap him into making a choice between one’s country and God. But Jesus’ response indicates that one’s citizenship does not have to be at odds with one’s faith; in fact, when government seeks to provide for the just welfare of its citizens, it becomes a vehicle for establishing the reign of God.
God and Caesar do not have to be at odds, Jesus tells the Pharisees. In God, we realise the dignity of every man, woman and child as sons and daughters of God and our brothers and sisters; in setting up systems of government, we provide for the common good of one another and protect the welfare of all, providing for public safety, educational opportunities and clean water and air.
Jesus’ answers are not the clear, unambiguous solutions we hope for to these and many other questions. But his response is the heart of living our faith: the struggle to return to God what is God’s. Through prayer and discernment, each one of us has to do for ourselves the hard work of deciding exactly what is God’s will in our complex world of politics, money and human relationships.
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Sermon

You can read the Pew Sheet here

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Sentence

This is our God for whom we have waited; let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation. Isaiah 25:9

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                

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Collect  

Saving and healing God, you have promised that those who have died with Christ shall live with him: grant us grace to be continually thankful for all you have done for us, and in that thankfulness to be eager to serve and live for others, so that we and all your children may rejoice in your salvation; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen

                                                                                                                                                                            

Readings

This week:

• Exodus 32:1-14
• Psalm 106:1-6, 20-24
• Philippians 4
• Matthew 22:1-14

• Next week:

• Exodus 33:12-23
• Psalm 99
• 1 Thessalonians 1:1-10
• Matthew 22:15-33

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A Thought to Ponder

Pentecost 20 – Matthew 22:1-14

“The kingdom of heaven may be likened to a king who gave a wedding feast for his son: ‘Behold, I have prepared my banquet, my calves and fattened cattle are killed, and everything is ready; come to the feast … Go into the main roads and invite whomever you find …” “When the king came to meet the guests, he saw a man there not dressed in a wedding garment. ‘My friend, how is it that you came in here without a wedding garment?’ But the man was reduced to silence. Then the king said to his attendants, ‘Bind his hands and feet, and cast him into the darkness outside, where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth.’ Many are invited, but few are chosen.”
Jesus’ parable of the wedding feast is another illustration of Israel’s rejection of God’s promise. The invitation is therefore extended to everyone – Gentiles, foreigners and those who do not know God – to come to the Lord’s table. (Matthew’s readers would see the “destruction of those murderers” and the “burning of their city” as references to the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans in 70 A.D.)
Jesus tells a second parable within the parable of the wedding feast. The wedding garment is the conversion of heart and mind required for entry into the kingdom. The Christian who does not wear this mantle of repentance and good deeds will suffer the same fate as those who reject outright the invitation to the wedding. As the apostle Paul writes (Romans 13: 14), we must “put on” the garment of Christ.
God has invited each of us to his Son’s wedding feast: the fullness of God’s life in the resurrection. The only obstacle is our inability to hear his invitation amid the noisy activity that consumes our time and attention.
God invites all his children to his table – distinctions drawn according to economic class or influence, discrimination by race or origin, reservations due to mental or physical ability disappear at the banquet of the Father. In order to be able to take our own place at God’s table, we must first realise God’s vision for the human family at our own tables.
The parables of the king’s wedding feast and wedding garment confront us with the reality that we cannot be Christian without conversion; we cannot come to the feast of heaven while remaining indifferent to the empty plates before so many of the world’s children; we cannot love the God we cannot see if we cannot love those we can see.
The wedding garment of today’s Gospel is the garment of good works we make for ourselves for the Lord’s banquet: the garment sewn of repentance, joyful expectation and humble service to others.
© Connections/MediaWorks

Sermon

You can read the Pew Sheet here

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Sentence

The stone which the builders rejected has become the cornerstone; this was the Lord’s doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes. Matthew 21:42

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

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Collect  

Almighty God, your Son Jesus was the stone rejected by the builders, and, by your doing, he has been made the chief cornerstone: grant that, by the power of his Spirit working in us, we may become living stones built up into your dwelling place, a temple holy and acceptable to you;
through Jesus Christ, our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen

                                                                                                                                                                            

Readings

This week:

• Exodus 20:1-4, 7-9, 12-20
• Psalm 19
• Philippians 3
• Matthew 21:33-46

• Next week:

• Exodus 32:1-14
• Psalm 106:1-6, 20-24
• Philippians 4
• Matthew 22:1-14

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A Thought to Ponder

Pentecost 19 – Matthew 21:33-46

The parable of the vineyard owner and his murderous tenants: “The kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people that will produce its fruits.”
Today’s Gospel parable “updates” Isaiah’s allegory of the friend’s vineyard (Reading 1). God is the owner of the vineyard who has “leased” the property to the religious and political leaders of Israel. Many servants (prophets) were sent to the tenants, but all met the same fate. The owner finally sends his own son, who is brutally murdered “outside” the vineyard (a prediction of his crucifixion outside the city of Jerusalem?). With this parable, Jesus places himself in the line of the rejected prophets. The owner finally comes himself and destroys the tenants and leaves the vineyard to others (the Church) who yield an abundant harvest. This parable is intended to give hope and encouragement to Matthew’s Christian community, which is scorned and persecuted by its staunchly Jewish neighbours.
Fear, selfishness and bigotry can kill whatever chances we have of turning our part of God’s vineyard into something productive; but, through justice, generosity and compassion, we can reap a rich and fulfilling harvest, regardless of how small or poor or insignificant our piece of the vineyard is.
Too often we see this “vineyard” God has given us as ours alone, and we will manipulate it, abuse it, and exhaust it to satisfy our own needs and pleasure — like the tenants in the today’s parable, we will find some way to cut down whoever challenges us or calls us accountable.
Like the tenants in today’s parable, we are too quick to reject whatever scares us or threatens us, whatever we don’t understand, whatever challenges us and the safe little worlds we have created for ourselves. In Christ, God calls us to look beyond the “stones” of our fears and welcome Christ (in whatever guise he may appear) into this vineyard of ours, aware that he calls us to the demanding conversion of the Gospel but determined to sow and reap the blessings of God’s reign.
Christ the Messiah comes with a new, transforming vision for our “vineyard”: a vision of love rather than greed, of peace rather than hostility, of forgiveness rather than vengeance, a vision that enables us to reconcile even the ugliest and smelliest dragon among us.
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Sermon

You can read the Pew Sheet here

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Sentence

Come, let us return to the Lord, that we may live before him. Hosea 6:1a, 2b

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

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Collect  

Grant, O merciful God, that your people may have that mind that was in Christ Jesus, who emptied himself, and took the form of a servant, and in humility became obedient even to death.
For you have highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, Jesus Christ, the Lord;
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, in everlasting glory. Amen

                                                                                                                                                                            

Readings

This week:

• Exodus 17:1-7
• Psalm 78:1-4, 11-16
• Philippians 2
• Matthew 21:23-32

• Next week:

• Exodus 20:1-4, 7-9, 12-20
• Psalm 19
• Philippians 3
• Matthew 21:33-46

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A Thought to Ponder

Pentecost 18 – Matthew 21:23-320:1-16

The parable of the two sons: “Tax collectors and prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God before you. When John came to you in the way of righteousness, you did not believe him; but the tax collectors and the prostitutes did.”
Today’s parable of the two sons is a devastating condemnation of the Jewish religious leaders whose faith is confined to words and rituals. Jesus states unequivocally that those the self-righteous consider to be the very antithesis of religious will be welcomed by God into his presence before the “professional” religious.
Prostitutes and tax collectors were the most despised outcasts in Judaism. In light of the First Testament tradition of God’s relationship with Israel as a “marriage” and Israel’s disloyalty as “harlotry,” prostitution was considered an especially heinous sin. Tax collectors were, in the eyes of Palestinian Jews, the very personification of corruption and theft. According to the Roman system of tax collection, tax collectors (also called publicans) would pay the state a fixed sum based on the theoretical amount of taxes due from a given region. The publican, in return, had the right to collect the taxes in that region – and they were not above using terrorism and extortion to collect. Tax collectors, as agents of the state, were also shunned as collaborators with Israel’s Roman captors.
Jesus’ declaration that those guilty of the most abhorrent of sins would enter God’s kingdom before them deepened the Jewish establishment’s animosity toward Jesus.
Jesus’ simple story of the two sons takes the Gospel out of the realm of the “theoretical” and places the mercy of God into the midst of our messy, complicated everyday lives. Compassion, forgiveness and mercy are only words until our actions give full expression to those values in our relationships with others; our calling ourselves Christians and disciples of Jesus means nothing until our lives express that identity in the values will uphold and the beliefs we live.
The words of the Gospel must be lived; Jesus’ teachings on justice, reconciliation and love must be the light that guides us, the path we walk, the prayer we work to make a reality. Discipleship begins within our hearts, where we realize Christ’s presence in our lives and in the lives of others and then honouring that presence in meaningful acts of compassion and charity.
Throughout the Gospels, Jesus shatters labels and stereotypes in order to uphold the sacred dignity of all men and women in the eyes of God. Christ calls us to move beyond our own contemporary version of the designations of “tax collector” and “prostitute” to recognize, instead, the holiness that resides within the soul of every person, who is, like us, a child of God.
© Connections/MediaWork

© Connections/MediaWorks

Sermon

You can read the Pew Sheet here

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Sentence

By grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God. Ephesians 2:8-9

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

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Collect  

Loving and righteous God, your boundless generosity exceeds all that we can desire or deserve, and you give to the last worker all you promised to the first:
liberate us from all jealousy and greed, that we may be free to love and serve others, and in your service may find our true reward;
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen

                                                                                                                                                                            

Readings

This week:

• Exodus 16:2-15
• Psalm 105:1-6, 37-45
• Philippians 1
• Matthew 20:1-16

• Next week:

• Exodus 17:1-7
• Psalm 78:1-4, 11-16
• Philippians 2
• Matthew 21:23-32

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A Thought to Ponder

Pentecost 17 – Matthew 20:1-16

The parable of the generous vineyard owner: “Are you envious because I am generous? Thus, the last will be first, and the first will be last.”
The parable of the generous vineyard owner (which appears only in Matthew’s Gospel) is the first of several parables and exhortations challenging the Pharisees and scribes and those who criticised Jesus for preaching to tax collectors and sinners.
Jesus makes two points in this parable:
First, the parable speaks of the primacy of compassion and mercy in the kingdom of God. The employer (God) responds to those who have worked all day that he has been just in paying them the agreed-upon wage; they have no grievance if he chooses to be generous to others. God’s goodness and mercy transcends the narrow and limited laws and logic of human justice; it is not the amount of service given but the attitude of love and generosity behind that service.
The parable also illustrates the universality of the new Church. The contracted workers, Israel, will be joined by the new “migrant workers,” the Gentiles, who will share equally in the joy of the kingdom of God.

Today’s Gospel strikes at our tendency to judge everything and everyone in terms of how it affects me. How someone else benefits or is lifted up doesn’t matter — my hurt feelings trump their joy. Christ calls us to embrace the vision of the generous vineyard owner: to rejoice in the good fortune of others and their being enabled to realise their dreams, instead of lamenting our own losses and slights.
We have our scales, yardsticks, actuary tables and market indices to measure what is just and what is not; but God is generous, loving and forgiving with an extravagance that sometimes offends our sense of justice and fair play.
Christ calls us to look beyond labels like “tax collector” and “prostitute” and seek out and lift up the holiness and goodness that reside in every person who is, like each one of us, a child of God. The parable of the generous vineyard owner invites us to embrace the vision of God that enables us to welcome everyone to the work of the harvest, to rejoice in God’s blessings to all, to help one another reap the bounty of God’s vineyard.
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Sermon

You can read the Pew Sheet here

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Sentence

If you, O Lord, should note what we do wrong, Lord, who could stand? But there is forgiveness with you, so that you may be revered. Ps 130:3-4

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            

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Collect  

O God, you call your Church to witness that in Christ we are reconciled to you:
help us so to proclaim the good news of your love that all who hear it may turn to you;
through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen

                                                                                                                                                                            

Readings

This week:

• Exodus 14:19-31
• Psalm 114
• Romans 14:1-14
• Matthew 18:21-35

• Next week:

• Exodus 16:2-15
• Psalm 105:1-6, 37-45
• Philippians 1
• Matthew 20:1-16

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A Thought to Ponder

Pentecost 16 – Matthew 18:21-35

The parable of the unforgiving debtor: “’Should you not have had pity on your fellow servant, as I had pity on you?’ “So will my heavenly Father do to you, unless each of you forgives one another from your heart.”
The cutting edge of Jesus’ teaching on love is that nothing is unforgivable, nor should there be limits to forgiveness. It is ironic that Peter should ask the question about forgiveness that introduces the parable of the merciless steward, since Peter himself will be so generously forgiven by Jesus for his denial of Jesus on Good Friday. It was common rabbinical teaching that one must forgive another three times; the fourth time, the offender was not to be forgiven. Perhaps Peter was anticipating Jesus’ response to his question by suggesting seven rather than the conventional three times; but Jesus responds there should be no limit to the number of times we must be ready to forgive those who wrong us (“seventy times seven times”), just as there is no limit to the Father’s forgiveness of us.
As the king in the parable withdraws his forgiveness of his servant because of the servant’s failure to forgive another, so will God withdraw his forgiveness of the unforgiving and merciless among us. God’s forgiveness is not entirely unconditional: if we do not share it, we will lose it. What is going on within our own heart? Is it rigid or open? Is it full of resentment or compassion?
To forgive as God forgives means to intentionally act to purge the wrong that exists between us and those who harm us, to take the first, second and last steps toward bridging divisions, to work to mend broken relationships and to welcome and accept the forgiven back into our lives. It also means recognising those times when this is not possible because the other party is not willing to budge.
Forgiveness requires empathy, the ability to place ourselves in the place of the other to see the situation from their perspective. To realise the reconciling peace of Jesus begins with overcoming our own anger and discontent at the injustice waged against us and focusing our attention, instead, on the person who has wronged us. Is there something I’ve missed? Is there something I could do differently? Do I have the humility to face the hurt I have inflicted on others as a result of my insensitivity and self-centredness?
Before our merciful Father in heaven, every one of us is an insolvent debtor – but the great mystery of our faith is God continues to love us, continues to call us back to him, continues to seek not retribution but reconciliation with us. All God asks of us is that we forgive one another as he forgives us, to help one another back up when we stumble just as God lifts us back up.
The Risen Christ calls us to seek reconciliation that transforms and re-creates: forgiveness that is joyfully offered and humbly but confidently sought; forgiveness that transforms the estranged and separated into family and community; forgiveness that overcomes our own anger at the injustice waged against us and focuses on healing the relationship with the person who wronged us and broke that relationship. Christ-like reconciliation also means possessing the humility to face the hurt we have inflicted on others as a result of our insensitivity and self-centeredness.

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Sermon

You can read the Pew Sheet here

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Sentence

‘Where two or three are gathered in my name,’ says the Lord, ‘I am there among them.’

Matthew 18:20

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               

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Collect  

Go before us, O Lord, and further us with your continual help, that in all our works, begun, continued, and ended in you, we may glorify your holy name, and finally, by your mercy, obtain everlasting life;
through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

                                                                                                                                                                             

Readings

This week:

• Exodus 12:1-14
• Psalm 149
• Romans 13:1-10
• Matthew 18:10-20

• Next week:

• Exodus 14:19-31
• Psalm 114
• Romans 14:1-14
• Matthew 18:21-35

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A Thought to Ponder

Pentecost 15 – Matthew 18:10-20

“If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone … If he does not listen, take two others along with you, so that ‘every fact may be established on the testimony of two or three witnesses.’ If he refuses to listen to them, tell the church …“For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there I am in the midst of them.”

Chapter 18 of Matthew’s Gospel is a collection of Jesus’ sayings on the practical challenges facing the Christian community, including status-seeking, scandal, division, and the topic of today’s reading conflict.
Today’s Gospel reading sounds more like regulations devised by an ecclesiastical committee than a discourse by Jesus (this chapter has been called the “church-order discourse” of Jesus). But the real point of Jesus’ exhortation is that we must never tolerate any breech of personal relationship between us and another member of the Christian community. At each stage of the process – personal discussion, discussion before witnesses, discussion before the whole community – the goal is to win the erring Christian back to the community (the three-step process of reconciliation outlined by Jesus here corresponds to the procedure of the Qumran community).
Jesus’ exhortation closes with a promise of God’s presence in the midst of every community, regardless of size, bound together by faith.
Jesus challenges us in today’s Gospel not to tolerate the dysfunction in our lives or allow our judgements and disappointments to isolate us from others, but to confront those problems, misunderstandings and issues that divide us, grieve us, embitter us.
Today’s Gospel outlines a process of reconciliation among divided members of a community. Jesus calls his hearers to seek honesty and sincerity in all relationships, to put aside self-interest, anger and wounded pride, and take the first step in healing the rifts that destroy the sense of love that binds family and friends, church and community – the love of Christ is the “debt” that binds us to one another.
In the “rules” and “procedures” for bringing sinners back to the community he lays out in today’s Gospel, Jesus calls us to build communities that are inclusive, not exclusive: to bring the lost back, not out of pride or zealousness, but out of “the debt that binds us to love one another.”
Today’s exhortation by Jesus is designed to help us create and maintain households of love and forgiveness and communities of reconciliation and peace, where even the smallest and youngest and least able to contribute are as welcomed and honoured as we would welcome and honour Christ himself. Christ promises that whenever we gather in his name, he is in our midst. Sometimes it requires an extra sharp and focused vision of faith to realise and recognize Christ with us, but he is always there. Christ’s presence should move us, inspire us, transform us into a community of disciples and witnesses of his resurrection. © Connections/MediaWorks

Sermon

You can read the Pew Sheet here

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Sentence

If you want to become a disciple of Jesus, deny yourself, take up your cross and follow him. Matthew 16:24-25

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        

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Collect  

O God, whose Son has shown the way of the cross to be the way of life:

transform and renew our minds that we may not be conformed to this world but may offer ourselves wholly to you as a living sacrifice through Jesus Christ our Saviour;

who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen

                                                                                                                                                                              

Readings

This week:

• Exodus 3:1-15
• Psalm 105:1-6, 23-26
• Romans 12:9-21
• Matthew 16:21-28

• Next week:

• Exodus 12:1-14
• Psalm 149
• Romans 13:1-10
• Matthew 18:10-20

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A Thought to Ponder

Pentecost 14 – Matthew 16:21-28
“Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.”

Peter’s confession of faith (last Sunday’s Gospel) begins a new phase of Matthew’s Gospel. As he makes his way to Jerusalem, Jesus’ teachings will now be addressed primarily to his disciples on the events and work that awaits them in Jerusalem – and beyond.
The hostility between Jesus and the leaders of Judaism is about to reach the crisis stage. In today’s Gospel, Jesus proclaims unambiguously that his mission as the Messiah includes suffering and death. Perter is sharply rebuked by Jesus for his seemingly innocent remark that Jesus should be spared such a fate, but Jesus sees Peter’s refusal to accept such a possibility as a “satanic” attempt to deflect the Messiah from his mission of redemption. To avoid suffering and hardship in order to opt for the easy and safe course is purely human thinking, an obstacle to experiencing the life of the Spirit. Authentic discipleship involves taking on the cross and “denying oneself” – disowning ourselves as the centre of our existence and realizing that God is the object and purpose of our lives.
Jesus asks his disciples to detach from the ephemeral and shallow in order to attach to the lasting, fulfilling things of God: compassion, reconciliation, justice.
The cross that Jesus asks his followers to take up is not a cross that cedes to crucifixion but a cross that is the means to resurrection. In embracing Jesus’ spirit of humble servanthood and compassion, we take up his cross, not out of a sense of self-loathing or pessimism, but out of a sense of conviction and hope that the demands of the cross will result in the life and love of the Easter promise.
It’s a natural and understandable reaction to avoid whatever is unpleasant, uncomfortable, stressful, hurtful. In today’s Gospel, Peter simply wants to protect Jesus from the suffering that awaits — but Jesus sharply rebukes Peter for trying to diminish or skirt the cross because it is difficult. To take up one’s cross is not a “battle” of good over evil but a means for bringing God’s promise of resurrection into our lives and the loves of those we love.

Christ urges us to “lose” that part of our life that is centred in ephemeral, perishable things so that we may “gain” lives grounded in the love of God: to lose our anger, our disappointment, our need for control in order to find meaning and purpose in doing for others and contributing to the common good. In “dying” to ourselves we become something greater; in letting go of the temporary and the fleeting we become richer; in the suffering we endure we become stronger, in the failures we experience we become wiser.
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