Readings: Matthew 16:13-20, Romans 12:1-8
Where: Trinity on the 27 August 2017
Minister: Rory Grant
- Peter sees something in Jesus that no-one else sees. It’s like, with eyes of faith, he can see beyond the here and now to some heavenly reality that is breaking into reality like rays of light breaking through a storm
- Oscar Wilde – Lying in the gutter, looking at the stars
- Earthly realities and heavenly promise
- Cynical and depressed
- So heavenly minded as to be of no earthly good. Credulous and disillusioned
- A life of faith is a life lived between these two realities, but always oriented towards the promise of heaven. Always looking at the stars
- See it in lives of faith in the Bible
- Abraham and Sarah
- Caleb and Joshua
- Ruth & Naomi
- Mary & Joseph
- Live into the unseen reality, feet firmly planted in the here and now
- Peter sees it in Jesus
- Paul in Romans – do not be conformed to the pattern of this world, be transformed
- Body of Christ
- Earthly reality and heavenly promise
- We are called to live between heaven and earth
- Our situation now
- If we allowed ourselves to be dragged down into the earthly realities, we would lose hope entirely
- If we think we’ve already made it, we’d better think again
- I look around and I see people who:
- Love
- Give
- Serve
- Care
- encourage
- Reach out
- Etc
- We are the body of Christ, together “in Christ we, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others.”
- Earthly reality: we’re far from perfect
- Heavenly promise: we are equipped for the calling to which we’ve been called
- Bonhoeffer
- These two things are in conflict, in tension – the earthly reality of our human frailty, and the heavenly promise that we are children of God, brothers and sisters of Christ
- This week Brent and I attended the Presbytery ministers’ cluster in Ashburton.
- Good chance for us to catch up after a few busy weeks
- A chance to lift our eyes above the earthly realities that we deal in day to day.
- Discussion around the life and ministry of Dietrich Bonhoeffer
- A leader, a minister, a pastor, a prophet of hope in the resistance against the cynicism and hate of the Nazi regime.
- Bonhoeffer is a hero for many, such a clear voice of hope in a chaotic world. He was lauded and lionised, He cut an iconic figure across the horrors of the mid-twentieth century.
- For many he came to represent the hope of the heavenly promise that we share in, we aspire to.
- Just as we do, Bonhoeffer wrestled with the heavenly reality of how people saw him, and the earthly reality of his own inner struggles and doubts.
Who am I? They often tell me
I stepped from my cell’s confinement
Calmly, cheerfully, firmly,
Like a Squire from his country house.
Who am I? They often tell me
I used to speak to my warders
Freely and friendly and clearly,
As though it were mine to command.
Who am I? They also tell me
I bore the days of misfortune
Equably, smilingly, proudly,
like one accustomed to win.
Am I then really that which other men tell of?
Or am I only what I myself know of myself?
Restless and longing and sick, like a bird in a cage,
Struggling for breath, as though hands were compressing my throat,
Yearning for colours, for flowers, for the voices of birds,
Thirsting for words of kindness, for neighbourliness,
Tossing in expectations of great events,
Powerlessly trembling for friends at an infinite distance,
Weary and empty at praying, at thinking, at making,
Faint, and ready to say farewell to it all.
Who am I? This or the Other?
Am I one person today and tomorrow another?
Am I both at once? A hypocrite before others,
And before myself a contemptible woebegone weakling?
Or is something within me still like a beaten army
Fleeing in disorder from victory already achieved?
Who am I? They mock me, these lonely questions of mine.
Whoever I am, Thou knowest, O God, I am thine!
- We are called to live in the space between heaven and earth, but always oriented towards heaven. Always looking at the stars.
- How do we find inspiration for this? The same place Peter did.
- He looked at Jesus, and saw in him the heavenly promise come into earthly reality.
- He called him Messiah, Son of the living God
- In Jesus we see the heavenly promise made complete. He comes to us, weighed down by our earthly reality, and gives the heavenly promise flesh and blood.
- And so, when we don’t know who we are, when we don’t know when to turn, we look to Jesus.
- For it is the gifts that he gives us, his body, that keep us living and breathing in the space between heaven and earth.
