The Workers In The Vineyard

So – the referendum’s over. But the conversation’s just begun.

 

And underneath all the posturing and politicking of the past few months, all the debate and discussion, it seems to me there are two basic questions we’ve been asking ourselves. What kind of nation are we, and what kind of nation do we want to be?

 

One question looks backwards to our history – to the tectonic forces of religion, politics, geography and culture that have helped shape the peoples of Scotland as they are today.

 

And the other question looks forward, recognising that perhaps more than ever, though our future's unclear, it's there to be shaped and owned. 

 

And the scale and intensity of the debate has reached far beyond these shores; suddenly the hegemony of Westminster is being challenged, even by those in favour of the Union. And many in England are beginning to argue for a more representative, de-centralised government that recognises regional differences and is less deferential to the money boys who run the city of London.

 

But talk is talk. What matters now is what our politicians can deliver.

 

And as I said last week. whatever our political leanings, the Kingdom that should matter most to a Christian isn’t the kingdom of Scotland or the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. It’s the Kingdom we pray for each and every week as we say the Lord’s Prayer together – Thy Kingdom Come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

 

But what does that Kingdom look like, we might ask?

 

Well over several chapters in Matthew’s gospel, Jesus spells that out in a series of Kingdom parables, and today’s gospel reading is one of them – the parable of the workers in the vineyard.

 

And two things come through very clearly from this story: the Kingdom of heaven is about grace, and it’s also about proportion. 

 

Jesus says the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the day to hire some men to work for him. The working day started at 6am with the sunrise, so he goes and picks up the early birds from the town square, strikes a deal with them, and carts them off to start harvesting.

 

They need to be quick about it because once the rains come, the harvest can spoil quickly, so during the day the owner keeps tabs on how things are going, and he ends up making several trips back to the town square to pick up some more recruits.

 

Finally, at five o’clock, he heads back down to the square one last time to round up the last stragglers looking for work, even though there’s only an hour left of the working day.

 

And when the time comes for payment, the motley crew who’d only been there for an hour step up to get their wages and can’t quite believe their luck when they’re given a day’s pay for an hours work.

 

The early birds, of course, are rubbing their hands and doing the sums. They’ve been there 12 hours, so they should be due 12 times as much.

 

But no – they also get a denarius – the standard pay for a day’s work.

 

And as you can imagine – they’re not best pleased. Who would be? It doesn’t seem fair.

 

If I were one of the early birds, I’d be pretty hacked off. And I’m pretty sure you would have been hacked off too.

 

But the landowner, who stands for God, is having none of it. “You got what we agreed”, he said. “What’s the problem? Are you giving me a hard time for being generous with my own money? Isn’t it mine to do what I want with it?”

 

And so – says Jesus – those who are first will be last, and the last will be first. This – he says – is what the Kingdom of heaven is like.

 

So what do we make of this tale.

 

Well, firstly, I think it’s important to say I’m not suggesting that this becomes Scotland’s new economic policy. I’m pretty sure there must be something in EU working directives about it, and you wouldn’t want to get on the wrong side of the fruit-pickers union.

 

The parable’s not really about agrarian economics. It’s about the generosity of God. And isn’t it interesting how God’s generosity gets our backs up. Every bone in our body sides with the early birds and screams ‘this isn’t fair’.

 

But let’s think about that word ‘fair’ for a moment.

 

Did anyone in this story get less than they deserved?

 

No – everyone got at least what they were owed. The problems arose because a small number got far more than they were owed.

 

The early birds had been happy to work for a denarius – that’s what they’d agreed to. A denarius only became “unfair” when others – who’d worked less- were paid the same, simply because the owner wanted to be generous towards them.

 

‘That’s not fair’ say the early birds.

 

But that concept of fairness is as slippery as a bar of soap.

 

For one thing, isn’t it strange how we’re quick to complain when we think we’ve been treated unfairly. We’re not nearly as quick to notice when others are being treated unfairly.

 

Take a look at the men gathering in the square that morning, looking for work. Some young and healthy with lots to offer – they were the ones who always got chosen.

 

But what about the others who rarely got picked, because of age, health, disability or reputation. Did they have families to feed too? Did anyone argue that in the interests of fairness, they should be prioritised now and again so their families didn’t starve?

 

It strikes me that’s exactly why the landowner gives them a denarius for their hours work. He was being gracious to them because they needed it. No DSS in those days. No safety net. If you couldn’t find work, your family didn’t eat. End of.

 

And in our societies there will always be those who are needing a little more help and a little more care. I’m not talking about the professional unemployed who say they’ve no money but seem to to spend a good part of the day at the pub or at the bookies. I know these folk exist, though there’s not as many of them as the Daily Mail might like us to believe.

 

No, I’m talking about genuine folk who struggle to break out of poverty, because they can’t get a job that pays enough to significantly improve their lives. Some can’t find work because of their age, or disability or life circumstances; others are trapped in low paid jobs with little or no prospect of betterment.

 

It was Ghandi who once said that “A nation’s greatness is measured by how it treats its weakest members”. And he’s talking about grace. The grace to help those who need help and struggle to help themselves.

 

So how are we doing, on that front in Scotland?

 

Well, there’s been a lot of talk in the referendum about Scotland’s egalitarianism and how different we are from the rest of the UK in that respect. But the plain truth is that Scotland, at the present moment, is one of the most unequal societies in the developed world.

 

According to a recent Oxfam report, the wealthiest 10% of Scottish households are 273 times richer than the poorest 10% of Scottish households. We’re in the top 20 world economies, and yet somehow 20% of Scotland’s children are still living in poverty in 2014.

 

The average annual salary in the UK is £26,000 and the UK prime minister, with all the pressures that he or she deals with, earns £142,00. The average salary of the chief executives of the FTSE 100 companies is in the region of £4.4million. 200 times the average salary and 30 times what the Prime Minister of the country earns. Do these guys work 30 times harder than the PM, or carry 30 times the responsibility that he carries?

How can we begin to talk about fairness when things are out of proportion to that degree?

 

We laugh when we read about professional footballers taking the huff because they’re only being paid £100,000 a week when the guy at the next club is earning £200,000. What planet are they on, we think!

 

But it’s a lot closer to home than that!

 

I heard a colleague talk about this a few months back. He’d moved from one of the big independent city centre churches in Aberdeen to plant a new church in Seaton based round a food bank. He was saying that the first real pastoral issue he had to deal with in his original church was a couple that weren’t getting on. The husband had been offered a new job that paid better money, but it was going to mean even more time away from the wife and kids. He was keen to take it, the wife wasn’t happy about it.

 

In the job he was leaving, he was earning £1500 a day.

 

What’s happened to that guy? What’s happened to him that £1500 a day isn’t enough?

 

It seems to me, he’s completely lost his sense of proportion. Just like the vineyard workers lost theirs when they expected 12 days pay for 12 hours work.

 

I saw a poster the other day on Facebook which came as a wee reality check. It showed three African women struggling along a roadside with massive bundles of sticks on their backs and it said: 

“If wealth was the inevitable result of hard work and enterprise every woman in Africa would be a millionaire”.

 

We assume that our hard work entitles us to a certain standard of living, whether that’s £26,000  or £260,000 or £2.6 million a year. We forget that there are folk all over the world working far longer and harder than we ever will, and still struggling to feed their families and keep them alive.

 

We need to recover a sense of proportion about our place in the world. And about what makes for a good and fulfilling life – because it’s not all about money, despite all the economic arguments that have been raging back and forwards over the referendum.

 

Professor Mark Anielski, author of The Economics of Happiness, writes -

 

“Most of us would define genuine wealth in terms of the conditions of our relationships…the social cohesion of our neighbourhoods and the quality of our children’s play. We wouldn’t tend to measure wealth in terms of our military spending, war, the development of prisons, the cutting down of ancient forests, or increases in the [stock market]”

 

I think he’s absolutely right – and I think Scotland now has an opportunity to lead the way in rethinking what kind of nation we want to be, and where our wealth really lies.

 

In this crazy, imbalanced, radically unfair world that we live in – can we rediscover a sense of proportion about things and live accordingly? Can we find it within ourselves – as a nation and as individuals - not simply to be fair to the other, but to be gracious – when circumstances demand it?

 

Grace, wherever you find it, always seems to provoke one of two reactions – anger, or stunned incredulity. People just don’t expect it. That’s all part of the fun.

 

Towards the end of a presentation called The Gods Aren’t Angry, the writer and pastor Rob Bell tells story after story of people he knows demonstrating grace.

 

One woman called Mary was sitting on her front porch when she saw a lady pushing a shopping trolley down the road filled with all kinds of household goods. The same lady passed again half an hour later, with another trolleyload of stuff.

 

Mary stopped her and asked her what she was doing and she said she was moving house this way because she didn’t have a car to shift all her stuff.

 

Straightaway, Mary said – can’t have that – borrow my car. (can do that in the states – insurance different!).

 

Woman came back a few hours later, reached her the keys and said – nobody has ever trusted me like that before.

 

And you don’t have to look too far in our own community to find that kind of thing happening. People giving up time and effort to help others, within and without the church.

 

Many ways we do that already, but I found myself thinking of food angels – a group of women cooking meals and taking them to help out folk who need a bit of extra support – new mums, folk just home from hospital and so on.

 

Recently we’ve helped out some folk who’ve got no connection with the church. And they can’t believe that we’re doing this. That folk they don’t know could – out of the kindness of their hearts – turn up on their doorsteps with a shepherds pie or a lasagne and not be looking for anything in return!

 

They can’t get their heads around grace. It’s the church’s trump card. We need to play it more often.

 

A landowner reaches a worker a denarius he didn’t expect.

 

A woman reaches another woman the keys to her car.

 

A food angel takes a meal to the door of a stranger in need.

 

The world is tired of words. But it never tires of grace.  

70 x 7

In 1944, Corrie Ten Boom, a Dutch Christian living in Amsterdam, was arrested along with the rest of her family for sheltering Jews who were hiding from the Nazi authorities.

 

She was taken to Ravensbruk concentration camp and though she survived, her sister Betsie died there, just a few weeks before the camp was liberated later the same year.

 

On release, Connie took up her charitable work again and grew in the conviction that forgiveness was the only force that could bring Europe together again after the war. So she started touring in Holland, France and Germany, sharing her experiences and preaching about the need for forgiveness.

 

One Sunday she was speaking in Munich and after the service, a man walked up to her and offered his hand  "Ja, Fraulein Ten Boom," he said, "I am so glad that Jesus forgives us all our sin, just as you say."

Straight away, she recognised  him.  He was one of the guards who had looked on, laughing and leering, when the women in her camp were forced to take showers. Corrie remembered. And as the man reached out his hand, expecting her to take it, her own hand froze at her side.

Could she practice what she had just preached?

Corrie’s story is an especially heightened one, but her struggle to forgive is one that we’re all familiar with. None of us go through life without needing to forgive others or be forgiven by them. And it has ever been so.

So what are the parameters we should live by, when it comes to forgiveness? How do we make this work in the real world? That’s the question Peter comes to Jesus with in today’s reading.

“Lord, if my brother keeps on sinning against me, how many times do I have to forgive him? Seven times?”

Now Peter, being a good Jew, knows that the rabbis worked on a three-strikes and you’re out policy. If someone sinned against you in the same way three times, you had to forgive them, but when it got to the fourth time you could legitimately walk away without settling the matter.

But Peter, being a follower of Jesus, knows that the Lord often sets the bar higher than the law demands. So he doubles the rabbi’s figure and adds one to bring it up to that nice, holy Biblical number of 7. Surely that would be enough?

‘No’ said Jesus. Not seven times, but 77 times. Or – as some translations have it – 70 times 7. The number’s not important. The point is, it’s a number that’s so big it’s not worth counting. If you’re still counting you’re not forgiving. You’re just postponing revenge. Throw away the calculator, says Jesus. We’re not working that way in my Kingdom.

 

But why? Surely when someone does me wrong I have a right to be angry, especially if they don’t show any signs of remorse?

Well, it all depends on how you see things, says Jesus. And that’s his cue for the parable of the Unforgiving Servant.

A king decides it’s time to call in the accounts of his servants. One of them’s brought in and it’s discovered that this man owes 10,000 talents. That’s billions in your money and mine.

Now let’s stop there for a moment because that should give us pause for thought. How come this servant has managed to rack up debts that even a Premiership Footballer and his wife couldn’t dream of?

Well some commentators think that the kind of King Jesus is drawing on here for the story, is the kind you’d find in the bigger nations to the east of Israel. All-powerful, ruling vast empires with a rod of iron and exacting taxes from all his provinces. It might be that the servant’s debt isn’t a personal one, but the monies that are owed the king from the province that the servant oversees. That would make more sense.

Or it might be, for the sake of the story, that Jesus is just exaggerating for effect. This guy owes the king more than he can ever hope to pay.

Whatever the truth of it, the point is that there’s no way the servant can make this right. And the King, being that kind of severe eastern King, orders that the servant and his family and all they own be sold to pay the debt.

Now, will the sale of one family and all their possessions raise the missing billions? No, but it’ll help ensure that the next person to take the king’s money won’t play fast and loose with it.

And the servant’s just about to be carted off when the he falls to his knees and begs for mercy. But his plea is a nonsense. “Be patient and I’ll pay you back” he says. Like that’s ever going to happen!

But for reasons we never fully understand, the king – surprisingly – takes pity on him. The servant asks him to ‘be patient’ and the Greek there literally means ‘be big hearted’. And indeed the King is, because he does far more for the man than we might have expected him to.

He doesn’t give the servant more time. He doesn’t arrange for repayment on a capital and interest basis. He cancels the debt. The King takes the financial hit himself because he feels sorry for the guy – or more likely his family.

And so the servant’s sent out, the totally undeserving recipient of an incredible act of mercy.  You would expect that out of gratitude, he might start extending mercy to others.

But no. Maybe he doesn’t believe the King. Maybe he thinks the King’s going to change his mind and come looking for his money again. Is that why he grabs this fellow-servant who owes him a few months wages, and tries to bully him out of it? 

We never know. But we know how the King feels about it when he gets to hear what’s happened. The unmerciful servant’s thrown into prison until he can pay his debt, and given the size of the debt, that’s a roundabout way of saying that he’ll be there ‘til kingdom come.

And the message from the Parable, and indeed the whole of the New Testament, couldn’t be clearer. If you choose not to forgive others, don’t expect God to be forgiving towards you.

Blessed are the merciful, said Jesus for they will receive mercy.

¹⁴If you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. ¹⁵But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins. More words of Jesus.

And the apostle James put it this way – “Judgment without mercy will be shown to anyone who has not been merciful”

Sobering stuff this Sunday morning because as every one of us knows, it is terribly hard to forgive; And some of us have much more to forgive than others – I’m always very mindful of that when I speak on this issue.

 

But what are the alternatives, if forgiveness seems too hard?

Venegeance seems sweet at the time, but as Ghandi once said, an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind. When does it stop? Not much sign of vengeance ending the cycle of violence in Gaza, or Syria at the moment.

If we lash out at the other in hate, it only makes the situation worse. But if we bottle it up in resentment, it ends up making our own lives worse.

Rabbi Harold Kushner talks of counselling a woman whose husband had left her for a younger woman and was now defaulting on his maintenance payments

"How do you expect me to forgive him after what he's done to me and my children?" she said.

"I'm not asking you to forgive him because what he did wasn't terrible: it was terrible! I'm suggesting that you forgive him because he doesn't deserve to have the power to turn you into a bitter and resentful woman!"

Storing up resentment poisons the wellspring of our own lives, and yet that’s often the way people choose to deal with their hurt. Many would rather grow bitter than try to forgive.

Why such resistance to forgiveness?

Part of the answer is that folk often believe that choosing the way of forgiveness means belittling the hurt caused; pretending away a genuine wrong that was done as though it didn’t matter. Pretending we’re ok when really we’re gutted inside.

Well, none of that is either true or necessary.

The best definition I’ve heard of the process of forgiveness comes from a little book called Forgive and Forget, by Lewis Smedes. He says there are three stages in forgiveness -

"We hurt, we hate, we heal”.

“We hurt; that is, we allow ourselves to feel the depth of an injury that has been dealt to us. We don't minimize it, or try to sweep it under the carpet”

“We hate; that is, we blame the one who has hurt us. We don't condone or excuse the offense.

“Finally, when we are ready, we heal; we let go of the pain that is binding us to the past, and move on. That is how we human beings forgive."

And for me, it’s that last insight that’s key – we don’t pretend the past away or belittle it. But we seek to let go of the pain and move on for the sake of our own wellbeing. It’s hard work to do that, maybe the hardest work we’ll ever do, but it leads us into life and freedom instead of the prison of our own resentment.

We forgive not primarily to bless the other, but to free ourselves.

 

Is God nudging you this morning, I wonder?

Are you nursing a spirit of unforgiveness towards someone? Are you aware of the damage it’s doing to you? How it affects your moods and your behaviour and the people around you?

Are you feeling like you’re locked into that way of thinking? Would you like to get out of it but don’t know how?

Forgiveness is God’s doorway to freedom. It doesn’t change the past, but it does allow you to move on so you don’t have to live in the shadow of the past.

That’s what Corrie Ten Boom discovered that day in Munich, as she stood there facing an enemy who was reaching out to shake her hand.

What could she do now that she was confronted by a person she struggled to forgive?

She prayed: "Jesus, I can't forgive this man. Forgive me." At once, in a wonderful way that she wasn’t prepared for, she had a sense that she was completely forgiven by God.  And from that strong place she was able to do what she couldn’t have done in her own strength.

She raised her hand, took that of her enemy, and then let it go. In her heart she freed him from his terrible past. And she also freed herself from hers.

Why does Jesus command us to forgive the people who hurt us, seventy times seven? Because forgiveness is the only way we can ever be set free from the wrongs that we do to one another and move on from them.

 

I’ve said nothing thus far about September 18^th, and while I’m sure there’ll be colleagues up and down the land rallying for the Union today or condemning the evils of Trident and UK foreign policy you won’t get that from me. You’re old enough to make up your own minds!

But let me say this as I close – whatever political solution you put your hopes in and your cross beside this Thursday, remember that as Christians we live to serve another Kingdom.

No political system is able to deliver the change I want to see – men and women turning back to God and one another, because they’re inspired by the person of Jesus Christ and determined to keep in step with his Spirit.

Whatever we decide, we won’t wake up in Utopia on September 19^th this year or any year. And maybe the church’s greatest contribution to this time in our life as a nation won’t be at the ballot box, but afterwards as we try in our homes and communities and families and churches, to draw folk back together again for the common good.

Alongside the robust debate and fervent campaigning of the past few months there’s been a darker underside of hurt and hate that’s left many feeling bruised and sore. And the only certainty after the referendum is that half the folk in Scotland will be feeling disenfranchised.

Let’s pray and act now for the healing that will lead to forgiveness.

And let’s pray that whatever the result, we might become a nation which determines -  in the prophet Micah’s words – to act justly, to love mercy and to walk humbly with our God.

Thoughts and Crosses

Most of us who preach for a living are wise enough to know that 99% of what we say is going to go in one ear and out the other.

 

I can scarcely remember what I preach on from week to week; I can hardly expect you to! But 1% of what’s said, by the grace of God, will stick and make a difference.

 

Wouldn’t it be great if we could all just get to that bit! We could all go home at half eleven! The only problem, of course, is that I’m never sure which bit of the sermon is the 1%, and to be honest it’s probably a different 1% for each one of you!

 

But when something sticks, it sticks.

 

Four years ago when I was at the General Assembly and therefore more desperate than usual for some spiritual input, I listened to a couple of talks by an Irish poet and former priest, John O’Donohue. He’s a lovely lyrical writer and speaker, full of fun and stories but very perceptive and insightful as well.

 

And almost as a chance remark he said ‘here’s something you might like to do some work on sometime. Something that’ll get you thinking. What are the seven or eight thoughts that have shaped your life? Do you know what they are? And are they thoughts that it’s worth shaping your life around?”

 

Well, that was my 1% for that particular talk. What a great question. What are the thoughts that have shaped your life?

 

That came to mind earlier this week because of something Jesus says to Peter in today’s gospel reading. We all remember the ‘get thee behind me Satan’ bit. But then Jesus goes on to tell him why he’s to get behind him - ‘you’re an obstacle in my way, because these thoughts of yours don’t come from God, but from human nature.”

 

What thoughts, I wondered? What are the thoughts Peter’s having at this particular moment which make Jesus so angry?  

 

There’s a lot to preach on in this morning’s passage, but that’s the particular seam I want to mine with you today.

 

Matthew 16:21 brings a watershed in Jesus’ ministry. Up until now he’s been working and teaching among the crowds, but now that the disciples have begun to cotton on to who he is, he spends much more of his time alone with them. And for a while at least, he drops the parables and speaks plainly to them because he really needs them to understand what’s about to happen.

 

Matthew says - “From that time on Jesus began to say plainly to his disciples “I must go to Jerusalem and suffer much from the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the Law. I will be put to death, but three days later I will be raised to life”.

 

This is what’s coming – he’s saying – Suffering and death at the hands of the religious establishment. But after that, at the hands of God, there will be life. Resurrection life.

 

But Peter doesn’t hear the bit about life. He’s so horrified at the prospect of Jesus’ death it’s as though he doesn’t even hear the rest of the sentence.

 

“God forbid it, Lord!” he says “That must never happen to you”.

 

“Get away from me, Satan.’ says Jesus.  You’re an obstacle in my way, because these thoughts of yours don’t come from God, but from human nature.”

 

It’s a  right slap in the face for Peter. He’s gone from being the rock on which the church will be built, to a rock that’s causing Jesus to stumble.

 

Why was Jesus so angry about this, do you think? Wasn’t Peter only trying to help? Wasn’t this him, admittedly in his usual ham-fisted way – trying to protect Jesus and keep him on track?

 

I’m sure that’s right, but I think the clue to Jesus’ anger is in how he responds to Peter. Get away from me Satan.

 

We’ve heard him say those words before. Do you remember where? In the Judean wilderness, where for 40 days at the start of his ministry, Jesus  was tempted by the devil. Tempted to do things any way but God’s way.

 

Use your power, play the political game, build your popularity, compromise here and there – make it easier on yourself!

 

Can you see how Peter’s words, quite unintentionally, are straight off the very same diabolical page? You don’t need to suffer and die – you’re the Messiah! God wouldn’t ask his son to go through all of that!

 

Get away from me, Satan, says Jesus. Those kind of thoughts don’t come from God, they come from human nature.

 

Jesus has spent literally years getting his head around the idea that his life’s trajectory is taking him towards confrontation and death. It’s taking all his courage and resolve to stick to that course. 

 

And here’s Peter, his closest friend, trying to talk him out of it. Small wonder he’s angry.

 

But what about Peter? What’s going on within him as he puts that presumptuous arm around Jesus and says “God forbid it, Lord. That must never happen to you”.

 

Well as I’ve reflected on that this week, it seemed to me that there are four different kinds of thoughts that contribute to Peter’s response here:

 

Thoughts that emanate from love, from fear, from faith and from unquestioned assumptions. Some of those thoughts are more blameworthy than others, but they’re all there, I think, and we’re going to look at each of them in turn.

 

Let’s start with love.

 

A friend tells you that in all probability she’s going to suffer and die. You’re gutted. You love her. You don’t want to lose her. It’s a struggle to contemplate life without her.

 

Love’s first thought is – ‘I don’t want this to happen to you’ and that’s a good, honest, compassionate human thought.

 

That’s what love does – it binds us together with the other so that we share their joys and their sorrows, their happiness and their suffering.

 

I laughed a while back when I heard someone define a vest as an item of underwear that a child wears when its mother feels cold.

That’s a good example of what I’m trying to say.

 

So when Peter says ‘Lord, this must never happen to you’, in part, this is love speaking. Love for his friend. And that’s not blameworthy – it’s commendable.

 

The danger comes when love oversteps the mark and tries to control what it can’t or shouldn’t control.

 

When that same mother who insists on a vest also insists that the child can’t go out and do the normal things that children do in case something terrible happens, her love begins to smother that child’s opportunities.

 

When a family, out of love for an elderly relative, angrily insist on resuscitation when a good, natural death might be a better option, is their love blinding them to hard realities that have to be faced?

 

Love holds and hopes and prays for the best; but when love starts to cling, it’s a sign that something’s out of balance.

There are some things that even love can’t or shouldn’t control, and a mature love has to make peace with that truth.

 

Is the arm round the shoulder Peter trying to take control here, when the truth is he has absolutely no control over this situation?

 

Are there things you’re trying to control, out of love, when the truth is you can’t control them? The best you can do is hold on and hope and pray, but not cling?

 

Some very human thoughts in Peters mind, emanating from love.

And maybe some coming from fear as well.

 

If love says ‘I don’t want this to happen to you’, fear asks ‘and what on earth is going to happen to me if it does happen?’

 

If Jesus chooses this path, what’s going to happen to the rest of them? They’ve given up home and family and livelihood to follow him. Could they ever go back again? They’ve made themselves a bad smell in the noses of the religious authorities. If Jesus stirs things up even more, are they going to end up suffering and dying along with him?

 

Once again, fear is a natural human response and there’s nothing intrinsically wrong with that. It’s what we do in response to our fears that makes the difference.

 

When folk are in hospital, they’re often fearful about the future.

Years ago I came across a verse in Philippians that speaks beautifully into that fear:

 

Don’t fret or worry. Shape your worries into prayers, letting God know your concerns. Before you know it, a sense of God’s wholeness, everything coming together for good, will come and settle you down

 

What I love about that is that it recognises that by nature, we will worry. But rather than just turn those fears over and over in our imagination, Paul asks us to do something more life giving – he asks us to turn our worries into prayers.

 

When we act out of fear, we’ll fight, we’ll cling, or we’ll run. When we pray our fears, a whole new set of responses become possible because we start seeing things from God’s perspective and not ours. Fearful thoughts don’t bring life. Praying our fears does.

 

Peter needs to face up to the things that are frightening him: and so do we. If fearful thoughts are among those that are shaping your life, why not try turning the restless energy of that worry into prayer. You might be surprised at how things change.

 

What was in Peter’s mind when he took Jesus aside? Love, fear and thirdly faith. Questions of faith.

 

“God forbid it, Lord” Peter says. “That must never happen to you.” In other words, ‘surely God wouldn’t allow this to happen to you! You of all people!’

 

I wonder if he’s assuming that Jesus will be entitled to special protection from God because of who he is. Won’t God look after those who love him and keep them from harm. Isn’t that how God works?

 

Well, that’s a comforting notion, but I think it’s a wrong one. Even a quick scan of the Bible shows us that even the best and most faithful of us aren’t exempt from the dangers and burdens of living in a fallen world.

 

The blessing of the faithful isn’t that they avoid trouble in this world; but that they’re given the grace to cope with it. Faith gives us a wider perspective, an eternal perspective, against which to see the ups and downs of life.

 

I sat with a woman with a terminal illness last weekend, and she knows that her time is short. She’s got a very strong faith and is doing remarkably well within herself. But she tells me that her son, who’s not a believer, is angry at God for what’s happened.

 

One person accepts the painful reality that their expectations of life are going to have to change, and bears no rancour towards God because she believes this is not the end of her story. Another can’t come to terms with her diagnosis and finds himself veering towards anger.

 

This must never happen to you, Lord says Peter.

 

Why, Peter, we might ask? Because death means the end? Tell me, Peter – is death greater than God? Do you believe Jesus’ story will end this way? Have you still so little faith in the God whose power you’ve been witnessing every day since you started walking with Jesus?

 

We have a bigger hope than that. As Paul said to the church in Corinth – “If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men”.

 

Bad things can and do happen to God’s people. But in Christ, they never have the last word because our perspective, in him, is an eternal one. And that always leaves room for hope.

 

What was in Peter’s mind when he took Jesus aside? Love, fear, faith and then lastly a whole load of unquestioned assumptions.

 

This can’t happen because the Messiah isn’t meant to die a humiliating death at the hands of the religious authorities. That’s Peter’s basic thought. And we can’t blame him for having it, because that’s what everyone in his day would have believed.

 

The disciples, like everyone else, were waiting for a Messiah who’d be a religious revolutionary. Someone who’d march into Jerusalem, depose the religious leaders and proclaim himself king before driving the Romans out of the country once and for all. That was the Messianic blueprint.

 

The only thing was, it wasn’t God’s blueprint.

 

Never in a million years did anyone think that the Messiah would conquer the world through suffering and self-sacrifice. That’s why Peter’s so incredulous at Jesus’ words. Everyone knows that Messiah’s don’t die, so Jesus must be making some kind of mistake here.

 

But it’s Peter who’s making the mistake. He assumes he knows about Messiahship, but to the best of our knowledge it’s never been discussed. He’s never sat down with Jesus and said – ‘ok – now we know you’re the Messiah. But what does that actually mean’?  If he had done, he could have saved himself a whole lot of grief

 

Unquestioned assumptions.

 

I wonder how many difficulties and stresses in our lives; how many arguments and misunderstandings are brought on by wrong assumptions and expectations.

 

 

I see couples drift apart because their expectations in the relationship haven’t been met, but they find it almost impossible to talk about it without becoming accusatory. Things aren’t negotiated or brought into the light, and over time, resentment builds.

 

I see people struggling with the unreasonable demands of elderly parents; fathers wounded because their sons, and it usually is the sons, don’t want to continue in the family business. People burdened because life never seems to live up to their expectations. Others running themselves into the ground because others assume too much of them, or they expect too much of themselves.

 

Is that touching a nerve this morning? Are some of the thoughts that shape your life tied in with the whole issue of unquestioned assumptions about who you are and what you’re expected to do?

 

Is it time to take your courage in your hands and question some of those assumptions, if they’re not leading you to life?

 

 

 

We shouldn’t be too hard on Peter this morning, I think, because at the end of the day we’re all Peter. Our motives are always complex, and sometimes even we don’t understand why we do what we do.

 

We react to circumstances from the gut – from love, fear, faith and unquestioned assumptions. We can’t help it – it’s part of human nature.

 

But by the grace of God our human nature isn’t the last word about us if Christ lives in our hearts through faith. Following him, we can turn things around so the thoughts we live from aren’t just the gut-level human ones, but God inspired holy ones.