September 4, 2016

SIXTEENTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

The Rev. J.D. McQueen, II - All Saints’ Episcopal Church, San Diego, CA

Everything’s good – Jesus is a new charismatic, exciting figure bringing fresh words and mighty deeds. He’s grown more and more popular – but that’s not enough.

v Jesus: “Don’t be fair-weather fans, be disciples. And here’s the cost of discipleship.”

v Have to understand that we can’t fit Jesus into our lives and that we can only truly find our lives in Jesus

o If we try to fit him in, he’ll inevitably crush our existing framework; we’ll find that we can’t finish the tower because our foundation isn’t strong enough

o If we’re always struggling to avoid the cross, we’ll find that it’s a fight we can’t win

v No we have to understand from the beginning that we can’t fit Jesus into our lives and that we can only truly find our lives in Jesus

This is one of several so-called “hard sayings” of Jesus because it’s not immediately obvious how this makes us instruments of God’s love, or gives us a peace that passes understanding.

v Now first of all, we can soften this hard saying a little by recognizing that Jesus is using a common Semitic style of providing a sharp and even exaggerated contrast to drive home the point.

o Of course he’s not encouraging a kind of aggressive opposition with those dearest to us

o Would be contrary to loving our neighbor and honoring father and mother

v BUT the essence of this is still true, which is that we do need to hate, aggressively oppose whatever makes them like gods to us

o This is actually where true love enters the picture, because when anyone in our life demands our worship, they become a spiritually dangerous, to us and to them

Clearly the danger to us is that this keeps us from loving God with everything we have and everything we are

v So rather than moving closer to God, and placing our whole selves in his care, we’re putting more and more weight on a shaky foundation

The danger to them then is that instead of selflessly seeking their greatest good, which is the way God loves, we’re loving them in a way that’s actually about us

v This is what we mean when we describe cases of abuse by saying “they loved them too much”

v If our own dreams and happiness are somehow bound up in another person, it can eventually lead us to become manipulative or dominating

v It could also cause us to be too pleasing, needy and giving someone whatever they want simply isn’t good for them, doesn’t call the best out of them.

v Either way, whether we’re controlling or overindulging, we’re not revealing anything about God or disposing them to recognize his love at work in their lives.

What Jesus calls us to instead is a healthy, spiritual detachment, with him as the foundation and the cross as our example.

v Far from withdrawing from those around us, this detachment frees us to love those dear to us the way Jesus does, as a total gift of self.

v The end result is that we can love God first and last, and everything else, even our own lives, for his sake.

This is where we find the peace that passes all understanding, and it’s what makes sense of what we see in the New Testament and the lives of the saints.

v Of Peter and John preaching Jesus in the temple the morning after they miraculously escaped being imprisoned for preaching Jesus in the temple

v Of saints and martyrs who with total freedom heroically cast their lives aside as a way of scattering the seeds of the gospel

They could do that only because instead of trying to fit Jesus into their lives, they found their life in him through the cross – and he’s inviting us to do the same.

Is there something in your life that you simply love too much?

v Something that’s off-limits, non-negotiable; something you try to keep out of God’s reach?

v Don’t be afraid to loosen your grip, and trust Jesus to love you better than you can love yourself.

v Don’t worry about the cross or try to avoid it, you can’t. We all suffer.

o So take it up instead, and let Jesus share that burden,

o So that in following him all the way to the cross, you can follow him also all the way from death to life.