Sermon by Rev Sydney Maitland for Sunday 15 September 2024.
• First Reading: Proverbs 1: 20-33 (Wisdom’s rebuke)
• Epistle: James 3: 1-12 (Taming the tongue)
• Gospel: Mark 8: 27-38 (Whoever wants to be My disciple must deny themselves, take up the cross and follow Me)
I suppose that our worldly wisdom comes out of experience in getting by – and getting on in life. Survival of the fittest, making the best of it, go along to get along, soon become just looking after number one, and so on and so on.
It all becomes a tedious litany for looking after oneself, shrouded in cliches to make it look a little more acceptable, and a little less selfish or destructive than it really is.
And what we say comes from what we think, and that comes out of what we are and what we have become.
The letter of James sees the tongue as the most powerful organ in the body because it can set whole communities alight with bile and hatred. Perhaps the experience of the recent riots, mainly in England point to this. A few hate-born words and it spreads through the social media like wildfire and then erupts in crowds, protests and riots.
And then the Book of Proverbs sees a difference between wisdom and folly. Mockery is denounced, as the wisdom, laws and principles of God are held in contempt by the openly scornful, possibly encouraged by the gossip-mongers of the day. We of course are more advanced and have whole publishing and broadcasting industries to do this for us.
But Wisdom is compared with folly, as fools hate knowledge especially that which is of God. The kind of knowledge that comes from a life of honouring God in one’s thoughts, prayers, conversations and relationships.
Wisdom offers to instruct the simple – those who have not yet committed themselves to unbelief and rejection. These are the people who are still open-minded enough to hear and understand. It is not a matter of great book-learning, debating skills or point-scoring. It is more a question of starting with God and letting Him be the rule and guide of life.
And He does not disappoint us.
But then the gospel sets out several questions for us.
In it, Jesus asks His disciples what people are saying about Him. Who do they say that I am? What is the word in the street, what is the received opinion? Where has the consensus settled down?
And yes, the disciples offered various opinions and responses to what they had heard. Nothing threatening here. Nothing personal.
And then comes the zinger: What about you? Who do you say that I am?
Note the question. Not who do you think or feel that I am, but how do you commit yourselves in the light of Jesus’ words and deeds?
Thoughts and feelings are personal and interior. There is no commitment here. There is no exposure to embarrassment or ridicule. No awkward questions, or ‘What about …’
There is no danger here, it as if we could admit to going to church and admiring the architecture, the singing and the liturgy, even dare I say it, the preaching, like a form of entertainment. But going to the theatre does not make us into an actor, and going to an opera does not make us into an opera-singer. We are just spectators, with no commitment – only our opinions. And even these we can modify in the light of the critics’ reviews.
No, the danger is when we speak out. What do we say? How will we commit ourselves and be remembered? Where will we stake our reputations?
So Jesus’ question to the disciples was really pointed and it reduced them to silence. And then Peter – it had to be dear old Peter – who spoke out, as he often did. Yes: ‘You are the Christ the Son of the Living God.’
Jesus smiled and the heavens lit up with joy.
But then it came. The awful warning and foreboding. True discipleship means following Jesus wherever He goes.
Even to Jerusalem and its rejection, arrest, show trial, scourging and crucifixion.
And this was where conventional wisdom failed Peter, badly. The Messiah was supposed to sweep all before Him – so how can He end up on a cross? And everything in him rebelled.
It certainly earned Jesus’ sternest rebuke. From being the rock of foundation of the church Peter was now its greatest stumbling block.
But the point was there. Jesus’ ministry would be rejected by the worldly wise and the scornful. Better let one man die than bring Rome down onto the structures of civic Judaism. As if there were any threat anyway.
But the truth of Jesus’ warnings about discipleship are still there. And it starts with what we are willing to say about Him. The outside world will not reject our admonitions to being good neighbours and citizens, being generous to the poor and always the Good Samaritan.
But that is not threatening. Neither is our concern for zero-emissions or good community relations.
No: it is the person of Jesus. And just who do you say that He is?
