Julia de Beausobre and the gift of forgiveness
Sunday 30th of August 2020
Rev Dr John McCulloch
Jeremiah 15: 15-21
Psalm 26: 1-8
Romans 12: 9-21
St Matthew 16: 21-28
Grace mercy and peace are yours in Jesus Christ.
I’m John McCulloch, the minister of St Andrew’s Jerusalem & Tiberias Church of Scotland, and its great to be with you today on this 13th Sunday after Pentecost.
Let us pray
May the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable to you o Lord, my rock and my redeemer, Amen.
How quickly things can change.
In last weeks gospel reading from Matthew 16, Jesus blesses Simon Peter, and gives him the keys of the Kingdom of heaven. In today’s lectionary reading from the last section of that same chapter, we read in verse 23 Jesus’s rebuke of Peter:
Get behind Me, Satan! You are an offense to Me, for you are not mindful of the things of God, but the things of men.
A couple of verses before this rebuke, Jesus had told his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem. We read in verse 21:
From that time Jesus began to show to His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem, and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised the third day.
Jesus knows that to go to Jerusalem is to go to the place suffering.
He knows it is the place where he will confront the religious leaders and empire of the day.
He knows that to proclaim and embody a different kingdom, means that you need to be prepared to suffer, and even die.
He knows that the only way to change the world, is from within.
The only way to defeat death and hell, is to descend into it, and show that love will have the final word.
He knows that he must go to Jerusalem, for it is for this, that he was born into our world…
But Peter doesn’t fully understand this. He longs for it not to be so, maybe out of the good intentions of not wanting his master to suffer.
Before we become to critical of Peter, we should remember that the promised Messiah had been expected to liberate the children of Israel from foreign imperial rule. They were expecting someone to come who would win a military victory, like the biblical hero’s of old; like Joshua, Gideon, Samson and King David. But that was not Christ’s way.
Jesus, the true expression of God made flesh, reminds us that the way of God is the way of the cross. God the Son, will go to the place of suffering and death, to the place of sin and abandonment, taking upon himself the cruelty and bloodlust of humanity; and in the place of revenge, offering forgiveness and transformation through outpoured love.
We read in verse 24:
24 Then Jesus said to His disciples, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. 25 For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.
Jesus will go to Jerusalem, knowing that he will be going to his death; knowing that he will be treated as a criminal, cast out and forsaken, to be denied by his closest followers.
In our OT reading from Jeremiah 15 verse 15 onwards, we read these words:
O Lord, You know;
Remember me and visit me,
And take vengeance for me on my persecutors.
In Your enduring patience, do not take me away.
Know that for Your sake I have suffered rebuke.
16
Your words were found, and I ate them,
And Your word was to me the joy and rejoicing of my heart;
For I am called by Your name,
O Lord God of hosts.
17
I did not sit in the assembly of the mockers,
Nor did I rejoice;
I sat alone because of Your hand,
For You have filled me with indignation.
18
Why is my pain perpetual
And my wound incurable,
Which refuses to be healed?
Will You surely be to me like an unreliable stream,
As waters that fail?
Note how the prophet Jeremiah asks God to take vengeance on his persecutors. Throughout the OT we see kings and prophets calling down judgment on God’s people when they depart from his ways.
Throughout human history, we witness the cycles of violence and revenge that lead to conflict and war. And if we are honest with ourselves, when we look deep within our hearts, are there not times when we wish revenge on those who hurt us?
But note the change in this passage from Jeremiah. In verse 16 the prophet says:
Your words were found, and I ate them, And Your word was to me the joy and rejoicing of my heart;
When he allows himself to be transformed by the word of God, when the words become, as it were enfleshed within him, he goes from calling down judgement on his persecutors to lament. In verse 18 we read
Why is my pain perpetual
And my wound incurable,
Which refuses to be healed?
In his book ―, Prophetic Lament: A Call for Justice in Troubled Times, theologian Soong-Chan Rah writes:
Lament recognizes the struggles of life and cries out for justice against existing injustices. The status quo is not to be celebrated but instead must be challenged.
Jeremiah goes from pleading for vengeance to lament. Just as he wept over the captivity of Jerusalem by the Babylonian empire, he carries deep within his being the pain of the world around him.
Jesus, aligned with the prophetic tradition as we were reminded of last week, will be the
One who would come as the word made flesh. Word incarnate. A prophet whose life turned on its head our expectations of how God works, of how God intervenes in our world to change it from within. Not imposing his kingdom through force, but by inviting us to come and for our hearts to be transformed. To allow ourselves to be changed by his grace, so that we too can show the love that he showed. A love that came not only for his own, but which was poured out even for his enemies.
In our epistle lectionary reading from Romans 12, we read in verse 17 onwards:
17 Repay no one evil for evil. Have[e] regard for good things in the sight of all men. 18 If it is possible, as much as depends on you, live peaceably with all men. 19 Beloved, do not avenge yourselves, but rather give place to wrath; for it is written, “Vengeance is Mine, I will repay,” says the Lord. 20 Therefore
“If your enemy is hungry, feed him;
If he is thirsty, give him a drink;
For in so doing you will heap coals of fire on his head.”
21 Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.
We cannot do this in our own strength. Our world cannot do this in its own strength. We can only do this by the grace of God. We need God to come and change our hearts and our world.
Let us pray
Lead us from death to life,
from falsehood to truth;
lead us from despair to hope,
from fear to trust;
lead us from hate to love,
from war to peace.
Let peace fill our heart,
our world, our universe
Amen.
Go into the world, walking in the footsteps of our saviour Lord, prepared to take up the cross and follow him.
And the blessing of God almighty, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, be with you, and remain with you, now and forever more.
Amen
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