A, Pentecost 10 Proper 16 - Matthew 16:13-18 “On This Rock”

Matthew 16:13–18 (ESV) Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, "Who do people say that the Son of Man is?" And they said, "Some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets." He said to them, "But who do you say that I am?" Simon Peter replied, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God." And Jesus answered him, "Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.

On what type of rock is best for building the church? What type of rock is Peter?

Rocks come in many different shapes and sizes, textures and degrees of hardness! One can picture a good rock as a huge block of granite – too heavy to move easily. With much toil does one move it and reshape it with tools to build a structure.

Or just as big are great big blocks of sandstone, beautifully layered with warm colours, hard to move like granite, but much easier to shape into the blocks needed to erect a building.

Some rocks are jagged and sharp. They cut the feet and hands of those who climb over them. Especially if they're encased with sediment and shells as a result of massive compression. Then again they might be smooth and slippery after being constantly washed in a stream or in the ocean.

Smaller smooth rocks make great marbles, manhandled by children and rolled down the hill for fun. And even smaller ones are good for skimming across the water. Or these stones stood on have the power to marble and manhandle us, toppling a person off their feet to the ground.

A rock can be so hard it can barely be crushed, but after doing so one might find blue metal inside to make a bitumen road solid enough to carry heavy machinery. Or it might be so easily powdered into mineral which can blow away as dust, or perhaps after being contained and mixed with water and left to set, the powdered rock can be used in bricks or concrete.

So what type of rock was Peter? On what type of rock did Jesus Christ build his church?

Simon Peter, Simon the rock, made the bold confession who Jesus is, saying, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God." This son of Jonah, was then told before the disciples, the church was to be built on him. And the gates of hell would not overcome or consume it.

Yet Peter had just been the one whose faith was sinking when Jesus invited him to get out of the boat and walk on water. He was one of the twelve who didn't understand the feeding of the five and the four thousand, and was criticised by Jesus for their faithless understanding when he said, "Watch and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees." (Matthew 16:6 ESV)

Peter, this pillar of the church, seemed to crumble and fall at every moment of testing. It seemed like Simon Peter was no match for the gates of hell because in the very next breath Jesus turns to Peter and says, "Get behind me, Satan! You are a hindrance to me. For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man." (Matthew 16:23 ESV)

What type of rock is Peter? A building block or a stumbling block! Hadn't he watched or been aware? Had he not risen to the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees? Didn't he rise to the occasion cutting off the ear of Malchus when the soldiers came to arrest Jesus? Didn't he deny Jesus before the roster crowed? What type of rock was Peter when he ran from the court and wept bitterly over what he had said?

Peter was the man who stood up at Pentecost and proclaimed Christ crucified in a sermon which brought three thousand Jews to baptism in a day. And even after Jesus' death and resurrection, Peter's reinstatement and the bestowal of the Holy Spirit just prior to Jesus' ascension, we find the Apostle Paul having to chastise Peter for crumbling under pressure from the circumcision party of Jewish believers.

On what type of rock was Christ building his Church? And how was the gates of hell not going to overcome one who seemed to be so easily rolled out of the way or blown away like dust?

What is the best type of rock for building the church? What type of rock are you? Are we any different to Peter? Are you so tough you can't be cracked? Or are you so fragile and brittle you're crushed and blown about like dust? How is the church today not going to be overcome by the gates of hell?

When Paul addressed the church in Galatia he speaks of his reprimand of Peter (or, Cephas) saying…

…when Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned. For before certain men came from James, he was eating with the Gentiles; but when they came he drew back and separated himself, fearing the circumcision party. And the rest of the Jews acted hypocritically along with him, so that even Barnabas was led astray by their hypocrisy. But when I saw that their conduct was not in step with the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas before them all, "If you, though a Jew, live like a Gentile and not like a Jew, how can you force the Gentiles to live like Jews?" (Galatians 2:11–14 ESV)

Paul does not say this to grandstand over Peter, but carries on using the incident to make the critical point…

We ourselves are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners; yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, so we also have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified. But if, in our endeavour to be justified in Christ, we too were found to be sinners, is Christ then a servant of sin? Certainly not! For if I rebuild what I tore down, I prove myself to be a transgressor. For through the law I died to the law, so that I might live to God. I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose. (Galatians 2:15–21 ESV)

The church is built on faith. Not on Peter's personal faith, because out of the mouth of Peter came things that caused Christ and Paul to condemn him. Rather the church is built on faith not of flesh and blood but of that given by our Father in heaven. And this is the faith given by the Holy Spirit which leads us constantly to the cross and resurrection of Jesus. Daily reinstating us as Jesus first did with Peter on the shores of lake Galilee after the resurrection.

What type of rock are you?

Whatever you are, allow yourself to be one which Christ can use in the building of his church, his kingdom. It matters not whether your are hard or soft, smooth or jagged. Jesus is the master craftsman and he seeks to craft himself in you, regardless of your weakness.

After all in our earthly use of rocks, it's their weaknesses which allows us to exploit them for their strengths. And Jesus seeks to use us in our weakness and brokenness as the building blocks of his eternally fortified church and kingdom.

In next week's gospel reading we hear Jesus reprimand Peter telling Satan, "to get behind me". Jesus goes on to say, "If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me." (Matthew 16:24 ESV)

This week ask yourself "what is my cross? What does a cross actually represent? What did the sight of a cross say to a Jew? What is Jesus telling you, the rocks of his church, to do when he says, "take up your cross and follow me"?

Let us pray: Lord, move us to allow the Holy Spirit to mix and mould Christ in us with the substance of his word and the waters of daily baptismal repentance so we are built into the kingdom of heaven. Amen.

C, Pentecost 19 Proper 22 - Habakkuk 2:4 "His Faith"

In these days of sporting finals there will always be winners and losers. Who will win the prize? The wait for the answer to this question brings out all sorts of stuff in people at the game.

Sporting sidelines are the place of many a sporting conspiracy theory. Parents patrolling the sideline caught up in the emotion of the moment. In the grandstand amongst the colours sit a team’s jury judging the referee and the other side guilty. And in the lounge rooms and pubs of the nation one’s sense of justice causes the crowd to cheer over victories and cry foul over failure to win.

But after the day is done; the ground is deserted; the teams have gone home; and the emotion of the fans subsides — all will agree there’s a winner as well as a loser. Regardless of the reason or the conspiracy behind the win or loss, there’s a single fact all have to come to terms with; there will always be a winner and a loser.

Winners and losers are two sides of the same coin. Without one the other doesn’t exist, lest there be no sporting competition. Similarly, we might understand that without bad, good might not be as well known, and vice versa. Also righteousness is clearly obvious against wickedness just as light is against darkness. Both help define the other revealing their differences, so we can identify their properties. Two sides of the one coin, without a loser can a winner exist?

The prophet Habakkuk lived in a time of great turmoil. It seemed destruction and violence had won out over every part of faithful Jewish life. Things were not as they should have been; justice and righteousness were the losers.

Judah was in a mess some six hundred years before Christ. The Judean king of the day had led the Jews away from the Law into grave sin against God. Where order should have grown, perversion of justice made life increasingly hard to live.

It seemed as though anyone who sought to follow God were losers while the oppressors flourished as they dispensed destruction. It was if those who sought to play by the rules were penalised, while others literally got away with murder.

Habakkuk pleads, “O Lord, how long shall I cry for help, and you will not hear? Or cry to you ‘Violence!’ and you will not save? Why do you make me see iniquity, and why do you idly look at wrong? Destruction and violence are before me; strife and contention arise. So the law is paralysed, and justice never goes forth. For the wicked surround the righteous; so justice goes forth perverted.” (Habakkuk 1:2-4 ESV)

But God’s response was not the answer a faithful Jew would have wanted to hear. Because of the Judean king’s unwillingness to yield to the Lord, exile of the people was imminent at the hands of treacherous Chaldean raiding parties from Babylonia. We hear God’s reply to Habakkuk’s complaint…

“Look among the nations, and see; wonder and be astounded. For I am doing a work in your days that you would not believe if told. For behold, I am raising up the Chaldeans, that bitter and hasty nation, who march through the breadth of the earth, to seize dwellings not their own.” (Habakkuk 1:5-6 ESV)

Consequently both faithful and violent Jews were going to be exiled and separated from their land and God’s throne in Jerusalem. God was about to hand Judah over to judgement. And now both the righteous and unrighteous would know violence and destruction, being paralysed by the dreaded and fearsome Babylonians.

Habakkuk then complains to God again, “Are you not from everlasting, O Lord my God, my Holy One? We shall not die. O Lord, you have ordained them as a judgment, and you, O Rock, have established them for reproof. You who are of purer eyes than to see evil and cannot look at wrong, why do you idly look at traitors and remain silent when the wicked swallows up the man more righteous than he? You make mankind like the fish of the sea, like crawling things that have no ruler. He brings all of them up with a hook; he drags them out with his net; he gathers them in his dragnet; so he rejoices and is glad. Is he then to keep on emptying his net and mercilessly killing nations forever?” (Habakkuk 1:12-15, 17 ESV)

But God replies to Habakkuk’s outcry with what has become the catchcry of the Christian Church. God says, “Behold, his soul is puffed up (that is the Babylonian’s soul); it is not upright within him, but the righteous shall live by his faith. (Habakkuk 2:4 ESV)

One can imagine this must have come as a bit of a riddle to the Jews, as their nation balanced on the cusp of exile. How were they to live when all seemed lost to destruction, violence, strife, and contention? How on earth were they to live righteously, separated from God, his temple in Jerusalem, and their inheritance. And to live by faith; faith in what?

One thing was clear. The Law had failed; they were losing their inheritance, once promised to Abraham ­– the land of Canaan. And they knew why! They had failed to keep their end of the bargain with God, which they promised to do so when Joshua first led them into Canaan across the Jordan. Therefore, Canaan was to become the property of the Babylonians, and the Israelites were to be once again taken into slavery, just as they had been in Egypt.

Nevertheless, despite what was about to come upon them God promises the righteous shall live by his faith. “His” faith! So the question goes begging, “If adherence to the Law was continually failing on a corporate level, by the nation of Israelites, and individually, but those who sought, but couldn’t be righteous, where and how was this faith to come from?”

In fact, what is righteousness? What is faith?

We know from God’s interaction with Abraham that God considered him righteous. Righteous is being able to stand in God presence without suffering the consequences of sin — namely, death. Righteousness before God allows one to live with God in peace. And to live before God one must be holy as God is holy, lest God be not really holy.

If unholiness could defile God’s presence, he would lose his identity and being as God. As black and white as there are winners and losers, holiness must stand separate from everything else, lest it loses its purity. So God cleansed Abraham so he could live with him. God was faithful to Abraham and Abraham responded in faith trusting God, and God credited this faith as righteousness.

So to be righteous, is to be righteous before God. This is to be guilt-free, untroubled, blameless and cleansed. What’s your righteousness like before God?

And now we turn to faith! “The righteous will live by his faith”, Habakkuk reports God as saying. And this is easier said than done, especially in Habakkuk’s and the Jew’s context. Perhaps even in your context too!

We know trust and faithfulness have always been problematic from the point of view of humanity. From the days of Abraham to Habakkuk, the Scriptures constantly report humanity’s failure in their faithfulness towards God. Yet, what we do hear is God’s constant faithfulness towards the Israelites, despite their sin.

We could hear “his” in “the righteous will live by his faith”, as a person’s own internal faith workings, but to be righteous before God surely it must begin with God’s faithful work toward us first!

Habakkuk had been given the ability by God to see and hear the tragedy before it came. God showed him what was about to unfold at the hands of the Babylonians, yet we hear from the final chapter of the book of Habakkuk, he praises God saying…

O Lord, I have heard the report of you, and your work, O Lord, do I fear. In the midst of the years revive it; in the midst of the years make it known; in wrath remember mercy. (Habakkuk 3:2 ESV)

Habakkuk acts in faith despite knowing what was about to unfold. Why? Because of God’s faithfulness. He hears God, trusts him, and he lives by what God says. He lives by his faith, his promise, his Word! Habakkuk’s faith is God’s faithfulness towards him.

We are called to live by his faith too. This is the great Christian mantra! Saint Paul says to the Romans…

For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith.” (Romans 1:17 ESV)

Again, he says to the Galatians… Now it is evident that no one is justified before God by the law, for “The righteous shall live by faith.” (Galatians 3:11 ESV)

And the writer to the Hebrews also quotes Habakkuk saying… For, “Yet a little while, and the coming one will come and will not delay; but my righteous one shall live by faith, and if he shrinks back, my soul has no pleasure in him.” (Hebrews 10:37–38 ESV)

Just as there are winners and losers in sport, there are two sides of faith too! The Holy Spirit, the administrator of faith, enables us to truly believe we are open-grave sinners; that our nature is bound to sinfulness and death. And yet he also shows us the faithfulness of the Father and Son and carries us to the foot of the cross — to life despite death. You and I are losers in sin, but winners only in Christ. This is the simple two-sided fact made clear in faith, by faith, with faith, through faith, and from faith.

From Abraham, led from his homeland; to Habakkuk, on the verge of exile; to the coming of Christ, the Righteous One who was faithful even unto death; to Paul, on death row; and now to us — we live in harsh times. There’s no doubt about it! Regardless of drought or destruction, chaos or contention around us, now is the time for faith.

If you’ve been trusting in yourself or in the things God chooses to give, be it favourable weather, good government, or peace in your family and community, now is the time to turn from self to God himself — and trust in him alone.

The fact of the matter is this: You have been buried with Christ in baptism so continue letting him raise you in his faith, his faithfulness. (Colossians 2:12)

Let faith show you your sin crucified and let God’s grace continually resurrect you in faith. If God can raise Jesus from death, he will be faithful towards you in this life until he chooses to take you into his eternal home.

God has made you righteous through Christ. Continue living in him, letting his faith, his faithfulness, be your enduring faith. Amen.

C, Pentecost 17 Proper 20 - Luke 16:1-8 "Management Woes Made Right"

Text

1 Jesus told his disciples: “There was a rich man whose manager was accused of wasting his possessions. 2 So he called him in and asked him, ‘What is this I hear about you? Give an account of your management, because you cannot be manager any longer.’ 3 “The manager said to himself, ‘What shall I do now? My master is taking away my job. I’m not strong enough to dig, and I’m ashamed to beg— 4 I know what I’ll do so that, when I lose my job here, people will welcome me into their houses.’ 5 “So he called in each one of his master’s debtors. He asked the first, ‘How much do you owe my master?’ 6 ”‘Eight hundred gallons of olive oil,’ he replied. “The manager told him, ‘Take your bill, sit down quickly, and make it four hundred.’ 7 “Then he asked the second, ‘And how much do you owe?’ ”‘A thousand bushels of wheat,’ he replied. “He told him, ‘Take your bill and make it eight hundred.’ 8 “The master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly. For the people of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own kind than are the people of the light.

Sermon

This reading is possibly one of the hardest to understand in the whole bible. Hearing the master’s commendation of the dishonest manager for being shrewd goes against the grain of our thought. It seems Jesus is giving out licences to be dishonest and fraudulent. Surely, this is not Jesus’ intention! The parable of the shrewd servant seems to stand out like a sore thumb in the context of other things Jesus says.

Who is the rich man in the parable? Who is the manager? Only once we understand who these people are, we can understand the parable, letting it have an effect on our lives. Couldn’t God be the rich man? After all, he is rich in everything, and it is from him that we have received all things. So if God is the rich man in the parable then we must be the managers. God has given us his creation to manage.

How have we managed God’s affairs lately? As a parent, as an employer, as holders of God’s image, as a server of the common good of Australia, as a member of this congregation, as a Christian, as one whom God has made holy through the blood of Jesus – what’s your management been like?

In the text Jesus tells of a manager who has to give an account of his management just before he is removed from his position by the rich man. This servant, his household head, the manager of his possessions, is a rogue, and a deceiver. His negligence to care for the boss’s possessions is nothing short of fraud and dishonourable deception. He is one who has been given the responsibility of much, he is entrusted with the rich man’s wealth, his kingdom, everything that is his.

Jesus tells us the manager is accused of wasting possessions; he scatters the seeds of his boss’s resources with recklessness. It is surly right that he is accused, this is something that shouldn’t be left from the owner’s attention. The owner must be told; this bloke is out of control. How dare he do something so thoughtless, so wasteful, and so stupid! And if this is not enough, after he is exposed as a fraud, he seeks to feather his own nest by taking more from his employer by reducing the accounts of the boss’s debtors. This scandalous action deserves the full force of the law.

If Jesus reports in the parable that the servant’s management is untenable, let us remember that all of us have many possessions, we are rich in possessions given to us by our Heavenly Father. He is the One who gives us relationships with others, our friends, our families, and our enemies. He is the One who gives us enjoyment, love so we can love others, he gives us our senses and our bodies made in his image. He is the One who gives us a land and homes in which to live, free from oppression, and with freedom to choose. Yes! Our Heavenly father gives us everything to manage and enjoy. Moreover, he gives us himself through his Son, the Holy Spirit, and the church. How does your management of these gifts shape up in the sight of God?

You and I are the managers misusing the possessions and mysteries God has given to us. We take these gifts as if they were products of our own doing, any interest gained from these gifts we pat ourselves on the shoulder and credit it to our own tab, our own self-interest. We make a mess of the world in which we live, we rape and pillage the earth rather than care for it, and we abuse and look down on others and in doing so discredit God’s creation, God’s very own image. So he calls us in and asks us, ‘What is this I hear about you? Give an account of your management, because you cannot be manager any longer.’ Surely, we must pay for this deception, this misuse of funds, and this fraudulent activity with his creation.

In this text, the manager is shrewd. He acts in a way that gains the favour of his master’s debtors by cutting their huge bills. Surprisingly this behaviour, which seems to be even more deceptive and scandalous than the manager’s original activity, attracts the master’s praise. In verse eight Jesus says, ‘The master commended the dishonest servant because he had acted shrewdly.’

How do we act shrewdly? We know that to misuse God’s gifts is wrong. God’s word and our conscience tells us so. How can I win the master’s favour? The answer is as scandalous as this text. Pass the buck! Pass it onto the one true manager of the Father’s gifts, the manager of managers, the Lord of Lords, the shrewdest servant ever to walk the face of the earth. Christ Jesus is the servant, the manager who takes our responsibility, our wasteful and fraudulent management, who calls us to pass the buck over to him. He is the one, whom God entrusts with his gifts, his possessions, and his riches. With great thoughtfulness, prudence and wisdom Christ came to us, the scoundrels of this world. He shrewdly came into the world so that we could live lives as managers of God’s gifts. Jesus Christ takes the debt of God’s huge bill from our shoulders.

How can this be that Jesus Christ is the shrewd manager? The manager in this parable is in a process of being removed from the rich man’s service, for dishonourable deception. He is being removed for his foolishness, dishonesty; for the scandalous way he managed.

Dear friends, we preach Christ crucified, a scandal, a stumbling block to the Jews and foolishness to the Gentiles. These are the words of St Paul to the Corinthians. The scandal is the management of Christ. The deception is one of deception over our sin, our natures, and of Satan. On the cross, the sign of shame and scandal, Christ bore our sin, our shame, our foolishness; our poor management. At that time he was removed from the Father’s house, his purpose for doing so, was not for himself, but for the management and service of the whole world. He humbled himself and became obedient to death—even death on a cross!

Satan, the deceiver, was deceived. Just when he thought he had won the victory over us, he lost and Christ stepped in and took our place in death. And the Father commended the manager because he had acted shrewdly. The manager, Christ, became as though he was worldly, wicked, unjust, in the likeness of humanity; he dwelt in the presence of dishonesty, his disciples were frauds when the crunch came, he hung between criminals. Therefore, God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, Jesus is our Lord; and he is a very shrewd manager. We are dishonest servants but he is the shrewd servant who swapped places with us. What a scandal, what a deception!

In the same way we too are scandalous. St Paul confesses in Gal 2: 20, ‘I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me’. The scandal is alive in all of us, we are the shrewd servants of God’s gifts, because God owns us, he lives in us, through Christ we reflect the true image of God. Through Christ we manage the world, as Christ manages. Because of what Christ scandalously did, we too can go out and give Christ’s love to the unbelievers, to the scoundrels, and to the rogues of this world with graciousness and freedom. Through Christ, we can deceive the devil too.

Are we foolish? Yes! Are we scandalous, scoundrels, weak and lowly? Yes! For the foolishness and shrewdness of God is wiser than man’s wisdom, and the weakness and scandal of God is stronger than man’s strength.

Let each of us not only look to our own interests, but also to the interests of others. Let our attitude be the same as that of Christ Jesus. Let us serve the world here in the presence of God as his holy people in our day to day lives. Let us shrewdly, pass the buck, hand our debt of sin over to Christ, so that we too can be commended, not for our sinful activity, but for the shrewdness we have gained in Christ. Amen!

Dear Lord Jesus Christ continually renew us so our management is your management! Amen.