Noticing the Groud you Stand on
Jesus said something that was not true. He called Peter Satan. Peter is not Satan, nor did Jesus intend to imply that Peter was literally Satan, but rather, that Peter, by what he was saying, was tempting Jesus much as Satan would, by attempting to get Jesus’ mind off of heavenly things and putting them on earthly things.
It is a temptation that all of us most likely struggle with. Few, if any of us, are able to continually keep our minds focused on “things above.”
You may have noticed that for the past few weeks I have been speaking about how we live. How we choose to live. That our lives should be different and look different to the world around us, that our faith, our Christianity should be influencing us to make choices that seem odd and should be different from the world around us.
Jesus is again reinforcing to his disciples in Matthew today that if you “want to become my followers, you must deny yourself and take up your cross and follow him.”
“For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it” (Matthew 16: 26)
What does Jesus mean when he says, those who save their life will lose it?
Humanly speaking, there are two extreme ways to live. You can have the perspective of “let’s live it up, for tomorrow we die”, “Carpe Diem” and focus your time and energies on accruing more and more for yourself — where every thing you do is focused on you and obtaining more; and your own pleasure; never sacrificing for anyone or anything, or you can adopt a form of Puritanism and attempt to keep yourself unsullied from the world, denying ourselves even simple pleasures in hopes of reaping blessings in the world to come (Few of us seem to be suffering from that).
Neither perspective is what I think Jesus is calling his disciples too.
Increasingly, we seem to be becoming a nation who is completely focused on self. If you think that Instagram or Snapchat doesn’t affect you because you don’t have it downloaded or don’t even know how it works - I can assure you it is affecting those around you, and therefore it is affecting you.
Instagram or “Reels” if you are on facebook — are all small clips depicting you and your loved ones, doing things that you think are interesting. (And some of them are hilarious.) But, they are all “reels” that are focused on you. What you are doing, what you think is funny, it is a form of self promotion. The other side of that is you can learn how to apply your mascara just so, or what you need to do to your hair, or what shorts you must buy that will change your life, etc.
Generation X, the demographic to which I belong, are described as having grown up during a time of shifting societal values, we were a generation where the values and things our parents cherished, such as church attendance — began to slide.
Millennials, the next generation are described as “less likely to be religious”. They are also called Generation Y or “Generation Me.” Jean Twenge, a psychologist, wrote a book, “Generation Me” where she attributes millennials with the traits of confidence and tolerance, but also describes a sense of entitlement and narcissism.
Generation Z, or zoomers, are those born in mid-to-late 1990s and ending in the early 2010s. This was the first generation to have grown up with access to the internet. They have been described as being “more ridden with irony and self-consciousness due to the awareness of incessant peer surveillance.”
We are increasingly becoming (according to psychologists) a people less religious, having an increasing sense of entitlement and narcissism, and self-consciously comparing ourselves to others, due to “incessant peer surveillance.” All of this speaks to a mindset of “saving our life," of focusing on self that Jesus warns us against.
We are not to live our lives for ourselves but for others. The opposite of loving your life is not hating it, but the opposite of loving your life is loving others! Take up your cross and follow me!
Romans today tells us how to be and serves as a good diagnostic tool for evaluating where we are in life. Love one another with mutual affection. Outdo one another in showing honor.
Outdo one another in showing honor. This is an interesting thought.
How well do you honor others? Do you treat others with respect and kindness? (Even those with whom you disagree?) Do you honor them when they are not around by not speaking ill of them? How about in your thoughts?
Persevere in prayer. How much do you pray? Do you make time each day? Do you continually pray? Do you set time aside for prayer?
Contribute to the needs of the saints; extend hospitality to strangers. (Romans 12: 9-10) Is giving part of your spiritual practice? Do you give more than you think you are comfortable with or only what you think you can afford? How much of what you have is used in and for the service of others?
“Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with one another; do not be haughty but associate with the lowly…”
How do you live in community with others? How much do you participate in the lives of those around you and in community? What does your friend group look like? How do you treat others?
Those who want to save their life will lose it, those and lose their life for my sake will find it. (Matthew 16:26-27)
For what will it profit them if they gain the whole world but forfeit their life?
What will it profit you?
I am guilty as the rest of us as wanting to secure a future for myself and my loved ones, of desiring nice things — but what will it profit us if we gain the whole world and forfeit our life or “forfeit our souls” as it is translated elsewhere.
Be aware of where your soul is and what things you desire. Be aware of where and how you spend your money and your time. Are you completely focused on self? Do your time and money reflect those decisions?
Moses today, in our Old Testament text, was just keeping the flock of his father-in-law when an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire out of a bush.
The Lord called Moses, sharing that the Lord had observed the misery of his people who are in Egypt, heard their cry and know their sufferings and had come to deliver them. The Lord had decided to come and send you Moses, to bring my people out of Egypt.
Moses was just minding his own business, doing what he was doing — keeping the flock-when God came to him.
He felt unequipped to go to Pharaoh and just bring the Israelites out of Egypt, to remind them of the God of their ancestors. Moses asked God, “Whom am I that should go to Pharaoh?”
God told him to tell them that “I am who I am”. “I AM has sent me to you.” He didn’t really answer Moses’ question about who he was — who Moses was, was insignificant. Who God was, was what was significant.
The same God that gave Moses strength to go to Egypt and lead the Israelites out of slavery into the wilderness with nothing but a name to go on — is your same God.
Following Jesus will continue to lead you on a path of personal and communal transformation. It is not we who will change the world, but God in Jesus Christ, through the Holy Spirit, changes us, and the world is therefore changed.
The more that God sneaks in our life and changes our consciousness, the more we are called out of our daily routines to notice the world around us, the more we follow Jesus, our priorities and the way we live and see life will shift.
We will take up our cross and follow Jesus. To go where we would not normally go, to value that which we may not normally value, to love those whom we may not normally have loved.
When we do so, we may find ourselves, like Moses, on holy ground.
Amen.
It is a temptation that all of us most likely struggle with. Few, if any of us, are able to continually keep our minds focused on “things above.”
You may have noticed that for the past few weeks I have been speaking about how we live. How we choose to live. That our lives should be different and look different to the world around us, that our faith, our Christianity should be influencing us to make choices that seem odd and should be different from the world around us.
Jesus is again reinforcing to his disciples in Matthew today that if you “want to become my followers, you must deny yourself and take up your cross and follow him.”
“For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it” (Matthew 16: 26)
What does Jesus mean when he says, those who save their life will lose it?
Humanly speaking, there are two extreme ways to live. You can have the perspective of “let’s live it up, for tomorrow we die”, “Carpe Diem” and focus your time and energies on accruing more and more for yourself — where every thing you do is focused on you and obtaining more; and your own pleasure; never sacrificing for anyone or anything, or you can adopt a form of Puritanism and attempt to keep yourself unsullied from the world, denying ourselves even simple pleasures in hopes of reaping blessings in the world to come (Few of us seem to be suffering from that).
Neither perspective is what I think Jesus is calling his disciples too.
Increasingly, we seem to be becoming a nation who is completely focused on self. If you think that Instagram or Snapchat doesn’t affect you because you don’t have it downloaded or don’t even know how it works - I can assure you it is affecting those around you, and therefore it is affecting you.
Instagram or “Reels” if you are on facebook — are all small clips depicting you and your loved ones, doing things that you think are interesting. (And some of them are hilarious.) But, they are all “reels” that are focused on you. What you are doing, what you think is funny, it is a form of self promotion. The other side of that is you can learn how to apply your mascara just so, or what you need to do to your hair, or what shorts you must buy that will change your life, etc.
Generation X, the demographic to which I belong, are described as having grown up during a time of shifting societal values, we were a generation where the values and things our parents cherished, such as church attendance — began to slide.
Millennials, the next generation are described as “less likely to be religious”. They are also called Generation Y or “Generation Me.” Jean Twenge, a psychologist, wrote a book, “Generation Me” where she attributes millennials with the traits of confidence and tolerance, but also describes a sense of entitlement and narcissism.
Generation Z, or zoomers, are those born in mid-to-late 1990s and ending in the early 2010s. This was the first generation to have grown up with access to the internet. They have been described as being “more ridden with irony and self-consciousness due to the awareness of incessant peer surveillance.”
We are increasingly becoming (according to psychologists) a people less religious, having an increasing sense of entitlement and narcissism, and self-consciously comparing ourselves to others, due to “incessant peer surveillance.” All of this speaks to a mindset of “saving our life," of focusing on self that Jesus warns us against.
We are not to live our lives for ourselves but for others. The opposite of loving your life is not hating it, but the opposite of loving your life is loving others! Take up your cross and follow me!
Romans today tells us how to be and serves as a good diagnostic tool for evaluating where we are in life. Love one another with mutual affection. Outdo one another in showing honor.
Outdo one another in showing honor. This is an interesting thought.
How well do you honor others? Do you treat others with respect and kindness? (Even those with whom you disagree?) Do you honor them when they are not around by not speaking ill of them? How about in your thoughts?
Persevere in prayer. How much do you pray? Do you make time each day? Do you continually pray? Do you set time aside for prayer?
Contribute to the needs of the saints; extend hospitality to strangers. (Romans 12: 9-10) Is giving part of your spiritual practice? Do you give more than you think you are comfortable with or only what you think you can afford? How much of what you have is used in and for the service of others?
“Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with one another; do not be haughty but associate with the lowly…”
How do you live in community with others? How much do you participate in the lives of those around you and in community? What does your friend group look like? How do you treat others?
Those who want to save their life will lose it, those and lose their life for my sake will find it. (Matthew 16:26-27)
For what will it profit them if they gain the whole world but forfeit their life?
What will it profit you?
I am guilty as the rest of us as wanting to secure a future for myself and my loved ones, of desiring nice things — but what will it profit us if we gain the whole world and forfeit our life or “forfeit our souls” as it is translated elsewhere.
Be aware of where your soul is and what things you desire. Be aware of where and how you spend your money and your time. Are you completely focused on self? Do your time and money reflect those decisions?
Moses today, in our Old Testament text, was just keeping the flock of his father-in-law when an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire out of a bush.
The Lord called Moses, sharing that the Lord had observed the misery of his people who are in Egypt, heard their cry and know their sufferings and had come to deliver them. The Lord had decided to come and send you Moses, to bring my people out of Egypt.
Moses was just minding his own business, doing what he was doing — keeping the flock-when God came to him.
He felt unequipped to go to Pharaoh and just bring the Israelites out of Egypt, to remind them of the God of their ancestors. Moses asked God, “Whom am I that should go to Pharaoh?”
God told him to tell them that “I am who I am”. “I AM has sent me to you.” He didn’t really answer Moses’ question about who he was — who Moses was, was insignificant. Who God was, was what was significant.
The same God that gave Moses strength to go to Egypt and lead the Israelites out of slavery into the wilderness with nothing but a name to go on — is your same God.
Following Jesus will continue to lead you on a path of personal and communal transformation. It is not we who will change the world, but God in Jesus Christ, through the Holy Spirit, changes us, and the world is therefore changed.
The more that God sneaks in our life and changes our consciousness, the more we are called out of our daily routines to notice the world around us, the more we follow Jesus, our priorities and the way we live and see life will shift.
We will take up our cross and follow Jesus. To go where we would not normally go, to value that which we may not normally value, to love those whom we may not normally have loved.
When we do so, we may find ourselves, like Moses, on holy ground.
Amen.