Rev’d Jonathan Gale
Proverbs 1: 20 – 33
The Call of Wisdom
20 Wisdom cries out in the street;
in the squares she raises her voice.
21 At the busiest corner she cries out;
at the entrance of the city gates she speaks:
22 ‘How long, O simple ones, will you love being simple?
How long will scoffers delight in their scoffing
and fools hate knowledge?
23 Give heed to my reproof;
I will pour out my thoughts to you;
I will make my words known to you.
24 Because I have called and you refused,
have stretched out my hand and no one heeded,
25 and because you have ignored all my counsel
and would have none of my reproof,
26 I also will laugh at your calamity;
I will mock when panic strikes you,
27 when panic strikes you like a storm,
and your calamity comes like a whirlwind,
when distress and anguish come upon you.
28 Then they will call upon me, but I will not answer;
they will seek me diligently, but will not find me.
29 Because they hated knowledge
and did not choose the fear of the Lord,
30 would have none of my counsel,
and despised all my reproof,
31 therefore they shall eat the fruit of their way
and be sated with their own devices.
32 For waywardness kills the simple,
and the complacency of fools destroys them;
33 but those who listen to me will be secure
and will live at ease, without dread of disaster.’
James 3: 1 – 12
Taming the Tongue
3Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers and sisters,* for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness. 2For all of us make many mistakes. Anyone who makes no mistakes in speaking is perfect, able to keep the whole body in check with a bridle. 3If we put bits into the mouths of horses to make them obey us, we guide their whole bodies. 4Or look at ships: though they are so large that it takes strong winds to drive them, yet they are guided by a very small rudder wherever the will of the pilot directs. 5So also the tongue is a small member, yet it boasts of great exploits.
How great a forest is set ablaze by a small fire! 6And the tongue is a fire. The tongue is placed among our members as a world of iniquity; it stains the whole body, sets on fire the cycle of nature,* and is itself set on fire by hell.* 7For every species of beast and bird, of reptile and sea creature, can be tamed and has been tamed by the human species, 8but no one can tame the tongue—a restless evil, full of deadly poison. 9With it we bless the Lord and Father, and with it we curse those who are made in the likeness of God. 10From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers and sisters,* this ought not to be so. 11Does a spring pour forth from the same opening both fresh and brackish water? 12Can a fig tree, my brothers and sisters,* yield olives, or a grapevine figs? No more can salt water yield fresh.
Mark 8: 27 – 38
Peter’s Declaration about Jesus
27 Jesus went on with his disciples to the villages of Caesarea Philippi; and on the way he asked his disciples, ‘Who do people say that I am?’ 28And they answered him, ‘John the Baptist; and others, Elijah; and still others, one of the prophets.’ 29He asked them, ‘But who do you say that I am?’ Peter answered him, ‘You are the Messiah.’ 30 And he sternly ordered them not to tell anyone about him.
Jesus Foretells His Death and Resurrection
31 Then he began to teach them that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. 32He said all this quite openly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. 33But turning and looking at his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, ‘Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.’
34 He called the crowd with his disciples, and said to them, ‘If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. 35For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel,* will save it. 36For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life? 37Indeed, what can they give in return for their life? 38Those who are ashamed of me and of my words* in this adulterous and sinful generation, of them the Son of Man will also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.’
27 Jesus went on with his disciples to the villages of Caesarea Philippi; and on the way he asked his disciples, ‘Who do people say that I am?’ 28And they answered him, ‘John the Baptist; and others, Elijah; and still others, one of the prophets.’ 29He asked them, ‘But who do you say that I am?’ Peter answered him, ‘You are the Messiah.’*
You know that old joke: “The past, the present and the future walked in to a bar. It was tense.”
This is funny not merely because there is a pun involved. There is always a tension between these three drinking buddies because how we perceive and use time reveals something about us. No-one knew this better than Shakespeare but that’s another story.
Jesus ambushes his disciples a bit here. He knows they might get defensive if he gets too personal too soon so he places the focus of his question on others: ‘Who do people say that I am?’ he asks.
“Say” – he’s interested in the present, but the disciples reckon the people are fixed in the past. The three persons they venture as an answer to who people say Jesus is, are all in the past: 28And they answered him, ‘John the Baptist; and others, Elijah; and still others, one of the prophets.’
In every conservative society people are scared of new things. In Isaiah 43: 19 God cries out See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland. The new things god does are always positive!
Lamentations 3: 22 – 23 tells us
22 The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases;
his mercies never come to an end;
23 they are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness
If the disciples are correct in representing the people’s opinion, then they have the right instinct in looking to Biblical figures. But when they fix their understanding of Jesus upon figures whose place in history defines him and his mission, they prove themselves incapable of imagining the future.
Then Jesus gets personal: 29He asked them, ‘But who do you say that I am?’ God is always going to get personal. He is going to ask you, he’s going to ask me, ‘But who do you say that I am?’
It’s Peter who is listening to God the Father while Jesus is talking. Matthew includes something Mark leaves out. Jesus responds to Peter’s confession that Jesus is the Messiah with: Jesus replied, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by flesh and blood, but by my Father in heaven.
I don’t think Peter was particularly imaginative but he loved Jesus, and God was able to get through to him. He was a bit impulsive, a bit of a risk taker so he blurts out with what on the surface of things was an outrageous response: Peter answered him, ‘You are the Messiah.’
Peter had some past knowledge – after all he was a faithful Jew who was exposed to the Torah on a weekly basis if not more often. His knowledge of the past – namely the prophecies about the coming of the Messiah – enabled him to receive the fact that the person before him in the present was an individual whose impact would be astonishing in the future.
I’m going to repeat that because it has something to say to us: . Peter’s knowledge of the past – namely the prophecies about the coming of the Messiah – enabled him to receive the fact that the person before him in the present was an individual whose impact would be astonishing in the future.
Isn’t this why we read the Bible? We look back in order to look forward, especially in times of crisis. The Jews had been in crisis fairly frequently in the recent past. The Greeks had ruled with extreme cruelty in the intertestamental period. The Romans were only slightly less cruel but more systematically so. Crisis was something that forced people to look to the past (the Scriptures) for hope for the future, and much of that hope would have been centred in the figure of the Messiah. Consequently there were false Messiahs popping up all the time.
Every morning we face a small crisis too. We face the question on a daily basis: do I run my life today according to my priorities or according to God’s priorities.
Peter’s know ledge of the Scriptures and what they had to say about the Messiah must subliminally have resonated with things in the life and words of Jesus, and it suddenly dawned upon him who Jesus is. He articulated his sudden understanding too. He spoke it out in faith.)
Peter’s vision was blown open. His realisation that Jesus was the Messiah so animated him with a purpose and hope for the future (because messiahship impacted hugely on the future) that he spoke it out loud. The penny dropped and he got excited.
It is exactly the same for us. When we catch a glimpse of what it is exactly that Jesus can do in and through us as the church of Christ in Takapuna we will be emboldened to begin speaking, to begin positive talk about our future no matter what the nature of the past was and no matter how tough the present might appear to be.
I reckon God was telling the whole lot of them who Jesus really was but there was only one person listening, only one person flexible enough to consider the possibility. And when he saw what was possible – he got excited and blurted it out. Peter was faith and future focussed – at least at that moment.
By the time Jesus began talking about being crucified Peter had already developed a lightning opinion about what the King of Israel should be.
And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. “Hang on Lord! I’ve only just computed that you are going to be the King around here and now this. No!” Peter lost his flexibility. In one sentence he had gone from poor fisherman with a radical message to the right hand man of the King who was all about preserving the status quo. He lost his flexibility. He was suddenly concerned to protect something he thought was a comfortable number.
In our ministries we need to be based on the wisdom of tradition (especially biblical and church tradition) but flexible in the present when it comes to its implementation, and that implementation is going to be influenced by how we see the future.
The Scriptures say that “Without a vision the people perish”. (Proverbs 29: 18) Peter’s view of the future was influenced by his knowledge of the Scriptures. It was that, that enabled him to hear the still, small voice of God telling him that the man he had previously viewed as a remarkable Galilean was more than that. He was God’s messiah.
Sometimes God the Father spoke out loud. He did so at Jesus’ baptism and on the Mount of Transfiguration, but what Peter first heard was the still small voice. And only the listening will hear.
Our reading from Proverbs 1 tells us why we cannot here God’s voice even when it is crying out on the street corner:
29 Because they hated knowledge
and did not choose the fear of the Lord,
30 would have none of my counsel,
and despised all my reproof,
31 therefore they shall eat the fruit of their way
and be sated with their own devices.
There are 4 things:
- Hear
- Believe
- Speak and
- Do
In his hearing Peter went to Scripture – prophecies of the Messiah that opened him to being receptive to the new thing God was doing.
In his believing he cleared away all objections to what he was hearing
In speaking he acted courageously, even recklessly in faith
In the doing (where he faltered) he should have been looking to Jesus, he should have remained open and flexible rather than assuming how the revelation would outwork in action, for Jesus was doing a new thing.
We know, in that famous scene when Jesus asks him three times whether he loves him, that he eventually did have the courage to look to the future. Jesus needed him to confess with his mouth the fact that he loved him. It was then that Jesus could give him the responsibility of leadership of the church for the future. Peter embraced the new future because he trusted Jesus.
- God requires us to be a listening people. I trust that all of us are praying more now than we were at the beginning of the year. I trust that our prayer life will continue to grow. I trust that we are looking to the Scriptures to aid us in our prayers.
- I trust that our faith is growing, that it is not stagnant.
- I trust that we develop a greater courage to speak about our faith. And home groups are a great place to learn to do that – step by step.
- And I trust that we remain flexible – with an ear constantly attuned to Jesus – that the implementation of our faith into the future will be in step with him.
If that is in fact the case, we will learn to trust Jesus more and we will be better able to co-operate with God and develop the flexibility to face the future and the new thing God is doing.
Therein lies our hope.
God bless you.
Amen.
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