14th Sunday after Pentecost
Matthew 16:13-20
"Questions, Questions "
Life is full of questions, Questions abound everywhere. What am I going to do with my life? What will I be? Will the kids turn out all right? What will tomorrow bring?
Not only do these practical question beg for an answer, but also questions concerning my spiritual life. Am I saved? When I die will I go to heaven? Why does God allow such tragedy to exist on the earth?
Then there are the philosophical questions, which comes first the chicken or the egg, how many angels can fit on the head of a pin. Or the one I liked in my philosophy class in college was," If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it fall, does it still make a noise?"
We could go on and on. All of these questions have one common element to them which is illustrated by the following story: "A college sophomore tried to prove how smart he was one day by asking his professor the following question, "Is the bird I’m holding dead or alive???" If the professor said the bird was dead, the boy was going to free the bird and let it fly away; if the professor said it was alive, the boy was going to to crush the bird. The professor looked at the boy and said, "My boy, the answer is in your hands."
The common element with all questions is that the answer can and does lie with us. We can search for the answers to most questions. We can find it ourselves or we can surrender the question and the answer to someone else, namely God. But we can do something with all the questions of life and their answers.
I began talking about questions because this morning our gospel lesson and the second lesson pose some questions for us. In the gospel lesson, Jesus asks the disciples two questions: "Who do men say that the Son of Man is??" & " But who do you say that I am?" In the second lesson Paul asks, "For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor?"
These questions beg for answers from us this morning. Let us see if the answers lie in our hands.
In our gospel lesson Jesus asks the disciples what they have heard about about him. Jesus is taking a survey or a Gallup Poll. He hears the answers of the disciples, then He gets close and personal as He asks the disciples,"But who do you say that I am ?" Then Peter, good old Peter, responds for the group of disciples by saying: "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God." In his answer, Peter was saying a whole lot about Jesus. He was saying that he knew Jesus was more than John the Baptist, more than a prophet like Elijah, he knew Jesus was connected to God Himself. So, Peter calls him Saviour, Lord, son of God. Peter knew Jesus was unique, Peter knew Jesus was more than a man with dirty hair, a wrinkled face, dusty feet and soiled clothes, more because this man, who was at the same time God, had changed him. Peter was coming to trust and believe in Jesus more and more. Peter saw past the man and saw the divinity hidden in Jesus so he could cry out, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God."
I would like to illustrate this idea with a story. " An organist was practicing one day in a great church in Europe. A man came up to the organ and asked if he could play. The organist looked at him and thought to himself. I shouldn’t let this man play, just look at him, he is unshaven, his clothes are soiled, he looks like a bum. So he told the man no. But the unkempt stranger asked again and again. Finally the organist let him play thinking he couldn’t play very long, for what does a bum know about organs. The bums fingers danced over the keyboard in a way the organist hadn’t heard in his lifetime. The stranger played on and on. The organist was spellbound. When the stranger got up to leave, the organist could not contain himself and shouted, "Who are you, what is your name??" As the stranger, who looked like a bum slowly walked away, turned over his shoulder and said, "My name is Felix Mendelsohn." The organist gasped. He said to himself, " I almost did not let the master play."
In the same way, do you and I see Christ in the kind deeds of others, do we see Christ in the words of comfort offered during trouble, do we see Christ in someone who we regard as less or not as good as we are?? Peter saw the divinity in the man Jesus and I wonder if we see and feel the divinity of Christ today??
We can miss seeing Jesus who is all around us and in each of us, because at times we get so caught in the exterior stuff of our faith that we cannot see the God that is beyond all of that stuff to the God who is active, living, and interested in our individual lives.
"Who do you say that I am???" asks Jesus. The answer lies in your hands???
Paul is asking in his first question, the question of the motivation of God. What makes God tick?? Paul’s question takes Jesus’ question one step further. If God is in Jesus, why does God do what He does? He is saying, he cannot understand the mind of God. He searches for answers but comes to the conclusion, to the realization that all he and anyone else can do is worship God. Paul realizes all one can do is stand in awe of God. Paul finds that anyone in the presence of God can only worship him, praise him, fall down on knees before Him. But to understand, explain and comprehend all that God does, that is impossible.
But do we allow God to be God?? Do we stand in awe and wonder of His majesty and power? Dr. Raymond Gibson in his book, "Forever in Debt" says: "One of the great tragedies of our time is that we Christians have lost our sense of wonder and awe. We are a scientifically minded generation who consider all of living as a logical thing to be explained, analyzed and defined.
Do we allow God to be God or are we so preoccupied with figuring out how we can be gods ourselves, that in our own searching and wanting to be in control, we have lost sight of the majesty and awe that the early Christians had of God?? Do we see the church and all that God represents as something that makes us "feel good" and if it doesn’t meet our expectations, we leave to find something that does??
"Is the church a place that we hope will make us "feel good" because each day is such a bad experience that it makes our days seem more positive. Is it the kind of place that allows me to stay shut up in myself, get a few strokes and leave...is it a challenging experience that is simply like an inspiring lecture...is it an escape from the everyday madness of the world...is it like a drug that we expect will make us magically better able to deal with life or even escape the responsibilities of life?
People join and leave churches on the basis of how a church supposedly "makes a person feel". I would like to suggest that we cannot let a mere feeling control or subvert the function of the church in our lives." Let us look at our worship time as a time not to "feel good" but as a time for caring, sharing, loving and receiving each other in God’s name.
Is the church suppose to make us feel good or is it suppose to be the other way around. Being in God’s presence is not primarily a time where I "feel good", but a time where I worship God and respect His authority in my life as my Saviour and Lord?? Isn’t worship primarily a time that is suppose to be centered and focused on God and what He has done for me through Christ?
Let us use our worship time to regain that awe, that wonder, that sense of worshipping in the name and presence of almighty God. Let us use our worship time to regain the majesty, power and wonder of God who spell bounds us with His grace. Let us capture the image that worship is a time and place to allow God to bring us into a relationship with Him. Let us capture again the essence of worship which begs for Jesus’ question to be answered, "But who do you say that I am." and Paul’s question, "For who has known the mind of the Lord, or "who has been his counselor??"
The answer lies in your hands!!!!!
One final question which Paul asks, "Or who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid?" Paul is saying that one cannot repay God for all his gifts to us. There is nothing which we have that can repay God for all of us grace no matter how much we try.
We can however in our worshipping of Him in a crude sense repay Him as we bring Him into the hearts of others. For another way to worship God is to tell others about Him. In the act of telling others abut God, we are worshipping God, not ourselves, but God. At the same time, we are telling others how much He means to us. Telling others about God is an act of worship, because the emphasis is not on us, but on God.
And since it is worship, there is an excitement, and thrill in sharing God with others. There should be that same awe, majesty and wonder in our telling others about God as we use in our worship of God.
I would like to close with words from a song our young people sing. Listen to the words and capture the excitement, the love, the caring for God and His people we find in this song: "It only takes a spark to keep the fire going. And soon all those around can warm up in its glowing. That’s how it is with God’s love....Once you’ve experienced it you spread His love to everyone...You want to pass it on....I wish for you my friend this happiness that I’ve found....You can depend on Him....It matters not where you’re bound....I’ll shout it from the mountain top...I want my world to know....the Lord of love has come to me....I want to pass it on..."
amen
By Rev. Tim Zingale
