Sunday, May 5, 2019

Sermon: Consequences


          As Anglo-Catholics, our church created what has been historically called the via media or the middle way.  We love traditional worship, but we also want to ensure that the words we say are meant with all our hearts, and not just memorized and said by rote.  At the same time, we believe that all people should be welcome in the Church, and that Christ's instruction to us is to love God and love our neighbors.  Not to judge others, as that's His job.  But one of the major differences between the Catholic and Protestant churches, is that we believe that grace is unearned, without justification, and given to us as the unmerited favor of God.  He gave His only Son that we should have eternal life.  That consequence is as a result of saying yes to God.
          Today's gospel lesson and reading from Acts, however, show that forgiveness is not something we earn, just as grace is not.  It is granted to us.  At the same time, however, consequences still happen.  For every action we take, we experience the consequences, both good and bad, and people have a tendency to start to doubt whether grace and forgiveness exists, particularly at times when life may suck.
          Peter, our beloved Rock, was actually forgiven for denying Christ three times before he ever did so.  Christ had told him that by the time the cock crowed, he would have denied Him three times:  being with Him, following Him and eventually knowing Him.  Christ forgave Peter ahead of time, even with the warning. 
          In today's gospel, Christ begins to allow Peter to experience his own consequences.  First, He asks him three times, do you love me?  When Peter assures him, even to the point of feeling hurt that Christ would repeatedly ask such a thing, he is given an instruction.  Feed my lambs, tend my sheep and feed my sheep.  Not only does Christ provide Peter the opportunity to acknowledge Him again, but He's giving Peter the consequence of once failing to believe, and now reaffirming his belief.  Christ is leaving His church to Peter to establish.  But He also gives him a warning that life is not going to be easy, and toward the end of his life, the people around him are going to lead him to what will eventually be his death.  His consequence of saying yes to Christ, while here on earth, is to establish the Church, to teach people about Christ, and to know that life is not going to be particularly easy or pleasant.  What Christ works toward getting across to all who believe in Him, is that through His own death and resurrection, we will have eternal life with Him.  That, too, is the consequence of saying yes and believing that Christ died for our sins, once, for all, and through grace we will have eternal life.
          Edward Bloom, the central character in the movie Big Fish, is a man who delights in telling stories.[1]  One of his mythic stories goes like this:  One night when Edward was only 10 years old, he and four curious friends hiked into a swamp seeking a ramshackle, vine-covered home and hoping to get a peek at the house's occupant-an old woman who was reputed to be a witch. It's only when they're crouched in the undergrowth peering at the eerie house that one of the young friends informs the others of rumors regarding the witch's menacing, mystical glass eye. "They say," he tells his companions, "that if you look right at her awful glass eye, you can see how you're gonna die." Quivering at the horror of such a possibility, the friends begin to dare each other to approach the house and knock at the door. It's a hard sale, though, for these youths are clear that they're not at all interested in catching a glimpse of their demise in a witch's enchanted eye.
          How many of us would react to having this choice?  Reading the final scene in John's Gospel could make a person feel like one of the children in Edward Bloom's story, for this text invites its readers to crouch in the bushes silently quaking as Peter looks into the eyes of his beloved Lord and catches sight of his life's end. The proverb, Jesus tells Peter, speaks about loss of control. If there's anything that we care passionately about in this culture, it is control. We want control over our destinies, our finances, our schedules, our emotions. As we grow older, one of the most frightening things that we can contemplate is a loss of control. Will I lose control of my body, my choices, and even my thoughts? Will I be able to dress myself and drive my car or will someone else be fastening a belt around me and taking me places I don't want to go? Jesus tells Peter that his destiny is to lose control. What a strange choice of parting words to speak to a dear friend. Is that what we can expect from God? If we confess our devotion to Jesus, will he also look us in the eye and promise that our fate is to lose control?
          After the four friends looked and saw their own horrific deaths, Edward has not gazed at the eye. He could leave without looking back, but curiosity gets the better of him, so he says to the woman, "I was thinking about death and all, about seeing how you're gonna die. I mean, on one hand, if dying was all you thought about, it could kind of screw you up, but it could kind of help you, couldn't it, because you'd know that everything else, you can survive?"  In the movie, Edward looks, but the camera stays on him, not on what his death will be.  We study his features as he witnesses his death.  He stares, transfixed, and then with a smile, he says, "Huh, so that's how I go."
          After Jesus tells Peter about his death, after Peter smiles and thinks, "Huh, so that's how I go," the Christ speaks two simple words, "Follow me." It's a challenge that Peter has accepted before and one that he will keep accepting until he breathes his last. For when fear has been vanquished and when control has been ceded to God, then following and service become possible.
          In the same way, Christ uses His clue by four on Saul, a Pharisee who has been persecuting the Christians.  Christ asks him, "Why do you persecute me?"  Christ has granted Saul a new name, a new life, and grace and forgiveness for his sins.  But the consequences of his past life will lead to a life filled with purpose, along with much pain in imprisonment, persecution and again, a painful death.  And again, turning around, following Christ, and leading so many others to Christ over the centuries – allow him to know that he already has eternal life with Christ.  His consequences help to form the early church, providing structure to the Church, and wise guidance to those who are where he has been.  Once again, he just has to cede control to God, and follow where he is led.
          So when we know through faith that we have been saved through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, we can say, "Huh, so that's how I go," no matter what that might be, because through faith, we have life eternal.  We practice as Episcopalians the middle way, and as we experience our own consequences, if we cede that control to God, we know that we're part of His plan, and we just have to follow Him.


[1] Taken from "Looking Death in the Eye", sermon by Rev. Dr. Scott Black Johnston, April 25, 2004.

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