A, Pentecost 22 Proper 23 - Exodus 32:1-14 "A Big Heap of Bull"

A Christian fellow, who had previously been a devout Hindu in India, reflects on his former religion at a time when he decided his Hinduism would lead him to worship his cow. Cows are sacred in India. They are gods allowed to roam the streets, enter houses, and to eat them would be a crime of sacrilege.

The Hindu honoured his cow; however, he began to question his faith when this god of his charged him. The consecrated cow, became a beast of burden, thinking nothing of the honour the Hindu had given him.

I’d suspect it would make you wonder, what you’d done wrong, after giving much homage to the cow. Yet all you get in return is wild-eyed rampage coming at you to gore you for your trouble.

Perhaps one should have fell prostrate seeking mercy from the cantankerous cow, but I must admit I’ve never witnessed too many farming folk from around these placed bowing low in the dust and filth of a cattle yard to earn the favour of a snotty animal that’s just been seared with a branding iron. No. The wise thing to do is let the adrenaline take over in super-human style and leap the impossible fence in a single bound.

So the blessed bovine became a beast of burden. The Hindu knew his god of wrath was no god at all and after some time circumstances brought him before the God of creation and his Son, Jesus Christ. In time he believed and he became a Christian.

This might seem like nonsense — worshipping a cow, not being able to eat them, believing they have divine powers. One might say it’s foolish or just a big heap of bull!

But humans have been burying themselves in it from ancient times up until the present. The Israelites having been led out of Egypt with much power and supremacy by God himself, now sit in wait for Moses who had disappeared up Mount Sinai.

While Moses is before God, hearing what was to be put in place so God could have a personal relationship with the Israelites through the giving of the ten commandments and instructions for building a tabernacle — a footstool for God on earth, the Israelites put there own building plan into action. They built themselves an image and declare it to be God’s representative. What was taking time and preparation between God and Moses on the mountain was contrasted by the immediate rush down below for Aaron to dream up a golden image to take the place of an infinite God.

For us this too might seem like a load of bull. They built an image of a calf, and covered with their gold. It was a personal creation of the people, but it was impersonal — unable to speak, see, or act. It could do nothing unlike the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, who had done everything for them in the past.

However, the people had waited quite a while for Moses. They must have wondered if he was returning. The Israelite failed to see it was not Moses who brought them up out of Egypt, but rather it was God using Moses as his mouthpiece and mediator.

But why a golden calf? What has a cow got to do with God? Why did they make an image of a young bull as God’s representative on earth?

The Egyptians and Canaanites saw the bull as an object of fertility and power and worshipped it as a representative of the sky or storm gods. The Israelites had just recently left Goshen where they would have been accustomed to this style of worship.

Bulls in ancient times were seen as the kings of domesticated animals, just as eagles were the kings of the birds, lions were kings of the wild animals, and the cedars of Lebanon were the kings of the trees.

So God seemed to have become even more distant, now that there leader, Moses, had not been seen for some time. He had disappeared in the glory cloud of thunder and lightning on the mountain. Therefore a bull would have seemed a fitting image of God who was hidden in the Sinai storm of fire and smoke with such power and might.

But we know that the whole exercise was a load of bull. The glory of God and his personal relationship with the people of Israel was exchanged for an impersonal idol. In fact they acted disobediently before God, who had commanded them not to make graven images out of gold or silver. They turned from the person of God Almighty to their own personal thoughts and created a god. They sinned against the Creator and became creators themselves and after they made their impotent god of gold, their self-glory sat them down in revelry against God.

Worshipping living cows or golden calves might seem to us like a big load of bull. However, you and I too struggle with self-glorification. All of us create sacred cows in our lives and bow down to them. We do it wittingly and unwittingly, making gods of the created, and placing them above the Creator.

The problem is that when we create these gods for ourselves, it’s just not they that are the gods. We worship them before God, placing our faith in them, because they have come from our own power. In fact, it is you and I who make ourselves god, when we place other things before God Almighty. In reality, we distant ourselves from the One True God with a pantheon of pseudo gods. We busy ourselves in service to them, so we don’t have to face the reality of our sinful nature before God Almighty.

These gods in our lives are very impersonal. They take away our identity, further destroying the image of God which was originally intended for you and for me. Like the Hindu’s cow god, the gods we create end up charging us, becoming beasts of burden. They kill rather than give life. Like the golden calf our impersonal gods serve us by being a dead weight around our necks, dragging us down into darkness.

Before we exchange the glory of God for our ideas about God we do well to remember the idolatry of the Israelites and the Hindu cow worshipper, was, and still is, a big heap of bull. Before we seek to implement our own ideas of what worship is all about, perhaps we need to hear and study the word of God, and hear what God has put in place for us.

The glory of God is the God who saves us. The glory of God is he who names our sin, calls it to account so he might forgive it, so we might live in peace with him. The glory of God is he who feeds us with his Holy Word and embodies that word of peace and forgiveness in us through the bread and the wine, so we might bear the glory of God before the world showing that our own created false gods and idols are a big heap of bull. The Glory of God is Jesus Christ alone; who served us by bearing our sin on the cross; and continues to serve us in his resurrected glory.

And that’s no bull! Amen.

A, Pentecost 17 Proper 18 - Romans 13:8-10 "How can I Love?"

How do we love? What is love? Is there a part of our bodies from which love comes? We often say the heart is from where love comes, but it is just an organ that pumps blood around our bodies.

Some might think of the sexual organs, but our society is full of sexually active people still starved of love. Maybe love stems from the brain, but some of the greatest thinkers of the world live depressed lives because they have no love. How about the nervous system, the tingly feelings of touch and nurture? But the nervous system is just a heap of electrical currents running around the body. Is the organ of love the eyes, the ears, or the tastebuds? No! It has to be more. Perhaps it is the whole person from whom love evolves?

Being honest though, we know that left alone by ourselves, love evades us. In fact, we don’t even know what love is, when we are alone!

What we do know is that we all need love to survive in this world; a world starved of love. At the close of World War II a soldier was on sentry duty on the outskirts of London on Christmas morning. Later in the day, as he walked the city with a couple of his military mates, he came to an old grey building in amongst the ruins left by bomb blasts. On this building was a sign, “Queen Anne’s Orphanage”. He wondered how they might be celebrating Christmas inside, so he and the other soldiers knocked on the door. An attendant told him that all the children had lost their parents in the London bombings.

The soldiers went inside and seeing no tree, no decorations, and no gifts, gave out as gifts whatever they had in their pockets – a stick of gum, a coin, a stubby pencil. The soldier saw a boy standing all alone in the corner. He went up to him and said, ‘My little man, what do you want?’ Turning his pale face up to the soldier, the little boy answered, ‘Please sir, I want to be loved.’

Just like that little boy, we too want to be loved. We need to be loved.

This boy starved of love, knew there was nothing in him capable of love. War had stripped all love from him, but he knew he needed to be loved. That too is our world – in desperate need of love. Not knowing how to find it, not knowing what it is, every person has a hole within needing to be filled with love. No organ produces love – not the brain, the eyes, the ears, nor the heart.

St. Paul tells us, ‘Owe no one anything, except to love one another; for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. The commandments, “You shall not commit adultery; You shall not murder; You shall not steal; You shall not covet”; and any other commandment, are summed up in this word, “Love your neighbour as yourself.” Love does no wrong to a neighbour; therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law.’

So if love fulfils the law, how then can we love? Aren’t we like little children in the orphanage, unable to find love or even know what it is? Love must come to us from outside. When that soldier heard the words from that little boy, tears filled the man’s eyes and he fell to his knees with outstretched arms, took a hold of the boy and hugged him.

Look at the arms of Jesus outstretched (picture Jesus Christ at Calvary on Good Friday, and the crucifix on the altar) for you. This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. (1 John 3:16) Even greater than the sacrifice the soldier made for the little boy is Jesus’ sacrifice for us. We are orphans adopted by the Father through the sacrifice of his only Son.

So God loves us and in him we know what love is. Love is not something that begins with us, but we need it so much to survive. We have received God’s love because he sent Jesus to die for us and then raised him from death. The love of God is now with us; God has sought us out from amongst the ruins of this life. Jesus is the soldier doing sentry duty, standing guard over us.

So then how does God’s love come to us? It comes though people; in a very special way through the office of a pastor, and also through all of us in the priesthood of all believers.

We heard last week Jesus tell Peter to, ‘Get behind me Satan!’ And we know that Peter denied Jesus three times just prior to his crucifixion. But it is what Jesus says to Peter after his resurrection which addresses love in our context today. In fact it tells us how the fulfilment of love in Christ on cross is given to all of us orphans, adopted by God.

Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon son of John, do you truly love me more than these?” “Yes, Lord,” he said, “you know that I love you.” Jesus said, “Feed my lambs.” Again Jesus said, “Simon son of John, do you truly love me?” He answered, “Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.” Jesus said, “Take care of my sheep.” The third time he said to him, “Simon son of John, do you love me?” Peter was hurt because Jesus asked him the third time, “Do you love me?” He said, “Lord, you know all things; you know that I love you.” Jesus said, “Feed my sheep.” (John 21:15-17)

Three times Jesus asks of Peter, ‘Do you love me?’, and Peter says, ‘Yes Lord, you know that I do.’ But what does Jesus say to Peter in response to Peter’s confession of love? ‘Feed my lambs, take care of my sheep!’ If Peter was to love Jesus he was going to love him through loving others. God was calling him to allow Jesus to stand guard over others through him. Peter was called to take his post and do sentry duty on behalf of Christ.

After all of Peters failures and they continued right through his life, even after Jesus ascended into heaven, Jesus calls Peter to love. You see Jesus won forgiveness for Peter’s sins on the cross and he has won forgiveness for your sins too. We can love ourselves and others, with the love that comes from God, in his Son Jesus Christ. Through means given by pastors—forgiving of sins against God, preaching, baptising, and administering Holy Communion—and also through people praying and forgiving each other, plus through all our other wholesome vocations God gives love.

Christ is present in your whole being and no matter what we are called to do God gives us the ability to love other people. God lives in us standing watch over us and through us over others too.

That little orphan boy had no way of knowing the soldier was going to walk into his orphanage and give him the loving hug he so badly needed. Jesus finds us and gives us the hug of life, when we had no way of finding love or knowing what it was.

So how do you think all those lost from God, might come to know his love? God loves us, he loves all people, and because Christ lives in you and me, even while we still struggle with sin, God wants to love others through you and me too. Jesus Christ, himself, stands guard in us and through us, seeking out the lost to love. Amen.

A, Pentecost 16 Proper 17 - Romans 12:9-21, Matthew 16:21-28 "Love without Hypocrisy"

Peter gets it right. Then Peter gets it wrong. Well actually God first works faith in Peter to enable him to get it right and say of Jesus, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God”. (Matthew 16:16) Peter believed Jesus was the Messiah, that he was the Christ. But he sure didn’t understand what that meant. Nor did he understand what faith had done within him; he had no idea what made him say what he said.

Because Peter didn’t understand what and why he said what he said, Peter turned to pride after Jesus replies, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by man, but by my Father in heaven. And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” (Matthew 16:17-19)

Put yourselves in Peter’s place. You have just been blessed by the Son of God. He tells you that on you the whole church will be built. To you the keys of the kingdom of heaven will be given. To you is given a new name, the name of rock, you will be the foundation of something new. Even the gates of hell will not overcome you, and therefore on you the whole church will be built.

Can you understand what happened here? Can you see what would happen to you if Jesus said these things to you? Placing ourselves in Peter’s shoes, and hearing these words from Jesus, it’s as if we can almost feel our backs straighten up, our heads are raised up lifting just a bit higher, so we look down our noses, feeling just a little more distinguished, as if we were chosen by something that we ourselves did.

Now that you are the rock, now that Christ is going to build his church on you. He then tells you he is going to die and be raised. Imagine that! Nothing would seize up the wheels of glory quicker than hearing the one who blessed you go on to say something so ridiculous.

Could it have been that Peter took Jesus aside to rebuke him because he now believed the church would be founded on him through his actions to defend the church? Could Peter have taken Jesus aside to rebuke him, because he saw in Jesus’ death, a whole bunch of trouble for himself? Perhaps he just saw death as weakness; and this being raised again, was just crazy man talk! And if Jesus is crazy or his authority is undermined by death, then perhaps Peter saw his being blessed somewhat weakened?

We will never know what Peter was really thinking. But Jesus knew exactly what was going through his mind and came down on him like a ton of bricks, saying, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; for you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.” (Matthew 16:23) If hearing Jesus say he was going to die and be raised didn’t confound Peter’s understanding of Jesus’ blessing and leadership, his reprimand as being Satan, would have completely stopped him in his tracks and brought him back to earth.

Jesus then explains, “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it. What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul? For the Son of Man is going to come in his Father’s glory with his angels, and then he will reward each person according to what he has done.” (Matthew 16:24-27)

Whatever Peter was thinking as a result of hearing Jesus bless him as Peter “the rock”, Peter’s hidden response was one that would have left him on a trail towards the loss of his soul, and his reward would not have been good, since what he’d done was accredit Christ’s words of blessing as words of glory for himself.

Similarly, we all struggle with the same thing as did Peter. God had done something wholesome in Peter, yet Peter’s pride grabbed it and moulded it just enough so that he believed it was he who was the catalyst for receiving the blessing, rather than God. God has also done something wholesome in you and me, but the same thing Peter is guilty of, we are guilty of too. In short we derailed God’s glory for ourselves.

We too, struggle with the same pride issues. We love to be seen. Either by advertising ourselves for what we’ve done “Look at me, boy I’m good.” Or by going the opposite way and marketing ourselves in the negative, “Nobody’s ever had it as bad as me!” Either way it’s exactly the same thing! It’s the same pride as Peter, which received Christ’s call for Satan to get behind. Jesus’ harsh words to Peter are understandable since through pride Satan became Satan, one hundred percent anti-God or antichrist.

Although we are God’s very own children, still present in our nature is our sinful will pushing and pulling us away from God and his Son Jesus Christ. Even as we remain with Christ and he stands right beside us, our antichrist nature, like Peter’s, underhandedly seeks to work its ways.

In Romans 12 we have heard we need to use sober judgement of ourselves, not thinking we are loftier than we are. Even though we are a part of the body of Christ, just as Peter was the foundation of the church, Christ and the church would have survived despite Peter, and it will continue to grow by the power of the Holy Spirit in Christ despite you and me.

In this light, Paul then tells us love must be sincere. Or, let love be genuine. Or, the New King James translates it best, let love be without hypocrisy. Paul is telling the church in Rome and you today, to love without hypocrisy, or literally to not under judge. That is to not have one judgement for yourself and one for everyone else. He immediately follows the command to be sincere in love with a call to hate what is evil and cling to what is good. And it’s best that we first look into ourselves and hate what pride does to us even while God continues to do immeasurable amounts of good.

Luther comments on the verse from John 13:34, “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another” saying: What else is Jesus saying to us here but this, “Through me you now have in faith everything that I am and have: I am your very own. You are now rich and fully satisfied through me. For all that I do and love is not for my sake but namely, how I can be useful and helpful to you and fulfil all that you desire and need. Therefore never lose sight of me as your example. Do to one another as I have done for you. Consider also henceforth how you can live for the benefit of your neighbour and do whatever you see to be useful and of good benefit to him. Your faith has enough in my love and goodness: therefore you should now give your love to others.” (SL.XI.1580,18)

We might see how short we fall in loving our neighbour as God loves us by cutting out love and grafting in pride in Romans 12.

Pride is not sincere. Pride cleaves to evil and hates good. Pride is devoted to nobody in brotherly love except the self. I honour myself above everyone else. Pride is never slack on zeal, it’s always spiritually fervent. Unfortunately it serves itself. It’s joyful in itself, impatient in affliction, and has no time for prayer or just forgets about praying altogether. It doesn’t share with anyone, but rather pride demands we get, get, get! And it only practices hospitality, if there is something in it for pride’s sake. Pride says it’s ok to be proud, and not associate with people of low position. After all they’re getting what they deserve! Pride knows everything; therefore, pride never says sorry!

However, despite the foolish, despicable ways that thrash and convulse within, something better is happening within by a holy power that comes from God, despite pride and the suffering it causes the self and those it seeks to make suffer. It’s the power of love, the power of faith, the power of Christ, the power of forgiveness; calling us to stop making excuses to justify ourselves and be sorry before God and each other.

This power comes from the Holy Spirit and it wills us to see Jesus and see his forgiveness. Now having been caused to see Jesus in you, see to it that same forgiveness flows onto those who have wronged you. Learn the lesson that Peter had to learn. The glory is God’s, it comes from him, and works in us, and returns to him, despite all the things we do to keep it for ourselves and hinder it from returning to God.

Jesus is love. Jesus is sincerity personified. He is the perfection of anti-hypocrisy. Yet he judges righteousness from evil. When he walked on earth as man, he clung to that which was good. Jesus was devoted like no other in brotherly love, honouring all above himself. He was zealous, fervent, and always hopeful despite facing death. He was patient in affliction, and faithful in prayer. He didn’t repay evil, but suffered unto death. He was not proud or conceited, bearing the diseases of sinful humanity. Jesus overcame evil, by his goodness. He suffered death for sins he did not do, overcoming both sin and death by his humiliating and sinless death on the cross.

Although this is the greatest template and example for each of us to follow, Jesus did all this because of you. He did this because we could never hate evil enough; we could never love perfectly without even just a bit of pride entering in to do its disruptive work. And he still walks with us today in our struggles and suffering calling us to see it’s sin within causing us to stumble.

But he still walks with you, picking you up and calling you to trust him, so you joyfully walk towards sufferings and death knowing you will be raised to rejoice in him in glory forever. Amen.

A, Pentecost 15 Proper 16 - Romans 12:2-3, Matthew 16:13-20 "Dare to Judge"

Romans 12:2-3 Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God—what is good and acceptable and perfect. For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of yourself more highly than you ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned.

“You can not judge me!” “HOW DARE YOU JUDGE ME!” “Take the log out of your own eye before you try taking it out of mine!”

Every person will resonate with these words. If you haven’t said them at one time or another, you sure have felt like saying them!

In a time when everything is “all good”, it seems that no one can judge anyone else. Everyone’s opinion is right because everyone is entitled to their own opinion; so we’re led to believe! If a person challenges someone’s view, a label of intolerance is quickly affixed to the challenger because of their observations.

Judgement is deemed as big a problem for those having to make judgements as for those receiving judgements in an age which woos us to believe there’s no right or wrong; where there’s a perception of no one single ultimate truth.

However, this problem has been around a lot longer than just in this age of “so-called equality and political correctness”. This problem has existed from the time when humanity first sought to do what they pleased, at the expense of what we were created to do.

This problem exists because it points to the greatest vice known to humankind. Everyone loathes this vice when they see it in someone else. When someone else carries this vice, no mercy is shown to the person for being this way. However, the more we notice this vice in others the more it is present in ourselves. The more we hate it in those who carry it, the more we have it in us. So, what is this vice?

Pride is the vice and pride doesn’t like being judged. And so we retaliate with the “don’t judge me” mantra. But do you know when we make anti-judgement comments like this we ourselves are making a judgement too? It is pride that makes us tell someone else they can’t judge, regardless of the judgement being right or wrong.

So the greater our intolerance is to pride, the greater our pride actually is. If you want to find out how much pride you carry, just reflect on how you dislike being snubbed, not taken notice of, being shown up, being patronised, or how you react to a smart-aleck or show off!

Christian writer C.S. Lewis states… According to Christian teachers, the essential vice, the utmost evil, is pride. Unchastity, anger, greed, drunkenness, and all that, are mere fleabites in comparison: it was through pride that the devil became the devil: pride leads to every other vice: it is the complete anti-God state of mind. (Mere Christianity: 106)

It seems that we humans single ourselves out expecting to be tolerated by everyone else, but in doing so are losing our humility, and our ability to be accountable to each other, and ever more so, to God. However, judgement is not the problem, rather our pride and lack of humility is the true struggle we face, as human beings, and especially as God’s children in the Christian community.

The reality today is while there seems to be a push towards tolerance in all things; intolerance is still just as present as ever, if not even greater. Authority is hindered from making judgements, and therefore, chaos in society is ever increasing. People are forced to put on the “all good” facade while reality festers underneath, oozing to break the surface. And the politically correct requirement to love without judgement results in our inability to know just what true love is!

The bottom line is that while pride is concerned about being judged, pride ultimately leads us to believe we have a greater licence to judge others than they have to judge us. And in turning away from humility, we seek to incapacitate all judgements made against ourselves, while sitting in judgement of everyone else according to our own self-defined and pleasing purposes.

When you as a Christian operate with the “don’t judge me” mantra, do you realise you are conforming to the ways of the world? Saint Paul tells us in his letter to the Romans… Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God—what is good and acceptable and perfect.

As Christians, instead of not judging, we are called to judge everything. You are not an untouchable being, unaffected by pride! You are judged in need of transformation through the renewing of your minds through Christ’s love so you might discern, or judge, what is the will of God and be led away from your sin and the delusions pride places upon you.

A Christian who makes no judgements is one who does not remain under the authority of God or his word. They put aside the authority God has given to them. And a Christian whose pride allows no judgement of themselves is one who turns away from the authority God has placed over them. A Christian who does not discern, and does not allow judgement of themselves, ends up being blown to and fro by every whim of the heart, and is neither a blessing to themselves, nor to God.

But rather we need to allow the transformation of ourselves to continue. And our minds are being transformed by hearing and remaining in the word of God and the continual turning away from the will of our pride. In allowing this work to happen in us we will be conformed according to the will of God.

In discerning the will of God, Paul continues… For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of yourself more highly than you ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned.

Paul here has made a judgement according to the word of God which tells us the pride of Adam resided in everyone. He calls us not to judge ourselves higher than we ought, but rather allow the word of God to sober us when our pride inflates us to dizzy heights.

In fact, we can’t even use faith to puff ourselves up! Here Paul clearly tells us that faith is assigned to us by God. And right the way through Scripture God shows us as faith is deepened and matured, humility further rises, as the hearer and believer of God’s word is led to a to wiser understanding of just how gracious God is, as God reveals more and more just how depraved we human beings are.

God calls all Christians to judge, or test, or discern, despite our culture telling us it’s politically incorrect to do so. However, when we judge we too stand under the same judgement that we make. So it’s imperative that our judgement is made soberly according to the will of God in his written word; and it’s done to call sin to account so the gracious gift of the forgiveness of sin can be administered, received, and believed. God calls us to judge, to love one another, and build our neighbour up in Christ. In short God calls us to allow Christ “within” to be the source of judgement, of ourselves, and each other so that a community of forgiving brothers and sisters in Christ might bring glory to God.

Jesus called Peter to make a judgement when he asked him, “Who do you say that I am?” To which Simon Peter answered, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” And Jesus answered him, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven. And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” (Matthew 16:15-19)

Peter is commended for his judgement because he remained on the solid foundation God had placed him on through Christ and the Scriptures which pointed forward to Christ’s coming. Because of this he names Simon, the Rock, or Peter as we know him today.

Yet just after this Peter stumbles because of his pride, when he rebukes Jesus for saying he must be killed and raised on the third day. And Jesus turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; for you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.” (Matthew 16:23)

Jesus was telling Peter to put his manners back in, to be once again transformed by the renewing of his mind, and not to be conformed to the will of his pride. Jesus was saying to Peter, “Put your pride away lest you conform to the ways of the devil!”

So as we live together as God’s community under his grace, bear each other in love and compassion as you continually seek to turn away from your pride. And forgive others when their pride tempts you into conforming once again to sin and death. Conduct yourselves with sober judgement. And allow yourselves to be judged with a view of letting God’s glory shine through you. For Jesus’ sake, Amen.