A sermon/reflection for The Twelfth Sunday after Trinity
The readings for this Sunday are those of Twelfth Sunday after Trinity Sunday:
Exodus 3.1-15
Psalm 105.1-6, 23-26, 45b
Romans 12. 9-21
Matthew 16.21-28
You might like to use the link below to find the above readings and click on any of the reading above that you wish to use:
http://www.katapi.org.uk/CommonWorship/CWLectionarySelV.php
Collect of the day
Let us just spend a few moments in silence
to centre ourselves,
to gather ourselves in our souls,
to come before the Lord just as we are with our joys and sorrows,
our hopes and our fears,
our loves and our pains.
Let us just focus our minds and hearts on Jesus
who is the answer for every problem.
Let us pray that the Spirit will work through our lives
to bring Christ to the world.
Silence is kept
Almighty and everlasting God,
you are always more ready to hear than we to pray
and to give more than either we desire or deserve:
pour down upon us the abundance of your mercy,
forgiving us those things of which our conscience is afraid
and giving us those good things which we are not worthy to ask
but through the merits and mediation
of Jesus Christ your Son our Lord and Saviour
who reminds us of your goodness and your mercies.
Increase your grace within us that our thankfulness may grow,
through Jesus Christ our Lord who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
Amen.
Prayer before the Sermon
Loving Heavenly Father,
we thank you for the words you have given us today.
We know they are words of life and salvation.
Open our hearts Father,
touch our souls,
forgive us our sins especially our lack of faith,
help us to respond to your word.
May we know that you are our Lord and Saviour
who promises us the power from on high,
your Holy Spirit.
May we experience in our hearts
your love and your presence always.
Amen.
Homily
Following Jesus…
Introduction
Jesus in today’s gospel: “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.” (Matthew 16. 24)
These are strong, uncompromising words coming from Jesus. These are words that you won’t hear from a politically correct society or even a politically correct Church. “If anyone want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.”
In this one sentence, Jesus clearly gives us the meaning of a ‘truly Christian’ life as different from a ‘merely worldly life’. He begins with a big ‘if’, that is ‘if’ you want to follow Christ – means there is a choice, it depends on you to choose a life with Christ or a life without Christ. ‘If’ you decide to follow Christ there are three central, clear proposals from the part of Jesus. They are first, “deny yourselves”, second, “take up your cross” and third, “follow me.”
“Deny yourselves.”
What does it mean to “deny” ourselves? (Pause….) We are daily bombarded by other messages: “Satisfy yourselves”; “enjoy yourselves”; “avoid every pain” …. Instant gratification, success, profit, pleasure, rather than pain, prestige and celebrity status, desire to be known, taken notice of and the rest. This is the world’s way.
Jesus, instead, says, “deny yourselves”. What he means to say is not that Christian life is a “kill joy”, that you have to go about with a glum, gloomy, sad face. What Jesus wants to tell us when he says, “deny yourselves” is, simply, don’t make yourself the ‘idol’ of your life. Celebrity status is not what fulfils your soul! In short, don’t worship yourself as the world wants us to, as Jesus himself says: “The Lord our God is one Lord, and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.” So, denying yourself means making God the centre of your life. It doesn’t mean to hate yourself!
“Take up your cross.”
The second proposal of Jesus if you wish to follow Jesus is, “take up your cross”. In the time of Jesus, the cross was not a punk symbol, a sign of protest or provocation or a fashion symbol as it is today. The ‘cross’ was an utterly distasteful sign and a symbol of punishment and shame. One wonders, how many of those who wear the cross today know about the ultimate sacrifice of Jesus on the cross when he saved us and gave us new life. The cross is the most powerful symbol for us Christians and it is time we salvage the saving aspect of this potent symbol.
What does it mean to take up your cross? (Pause….)
What about the ‘cross’ in our lives? Which are ‘our’ crosses? All of us have our own crosses, big or small, but we have them – the burden of our temptations, failures, sins, addictive habits…the cross of our weak, human frailties; the cross of sickness, alcohol, drug, a broken relationship, death, disability, age, loneliness, despair …for some, it is an unexpected or long drawn lack of physical or emotional well-being. For others, it is a problematic child in the family, a rebellious son or daughter or a child who has a disability…we all have our crosses….for some it is the place of work that is terribly unhealthy….an authoritarian and unjust employer….
For others, the cross may come in the form of a chronic illness or addiction to something…for someone else it is a marriage that went wrong…or the death of a loved one that makes us cry to heaven with that heart-wrenching ‘why’…..for others it is the pain of ‘waiting’ for someone or something to happen, a new job, owning a new house, paying off a mortgage or loan…we can go on and on…the list will never end… we have to carry our crosses no matter what they are…. But how do we do that? Is it possible? The answer is given in the third proposal of Jesus as we shall presently see.
“Follow me.”
The third proposal that Jesus makes us is: Follow me! And finally, Jesus tells us today, not just to deny ourselves, not just to carry our crosses, but above all to “follow” him. We don’t need to be Christians if we only ‘deny’ ourselves, if we only ‘carry our crosses’. We could be Buddhists or Hindus or anyone else. Christianity, instead, is utterly about a Person – Jesus Christ. It is all about following him by believing in him and committing your life to him.
Following Jesus is a personal decision to say “YES” to his invitation. As Karl Rahner, a great Christian disciple and teacher writes: “The discovery of the right way to follow Christ is always the result of personal decision. And the personal responsibility for this decision which cannot be pushed off on a moral book or a spiritual director, is an essential element in our imitation of Christ. Therefore, we must risk the loneliness of this kind of existential decision.”
In the 26 session Chichester Diocesan Course “Following Jesus” the absolute focus for every session is “Jesus”. Jesus is the “key” to understand the Bible; Jesus is the “key” to understand the world; Jesus is the “key” to understand life; Jesus is the “key” to understand love.
To conclude, following Jesus is “The Answer” for every human question and situation. This doesn’t mean you will have a bed of roses but it does mean a daily commitment with a clear focus in your life that leads you to discovering “hope” in spite of all, hope that is in Jesus Christ and as Paul writes discovering hope in “the power of the resurrection” in the midst of your life’s darkness and crosses.
“If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.” (Matthew 16.24)
Let pray in silence and see how and whether we really follow Jesus.
[ST Mattapally, Rector, Springline Parish]
A Prayer you can say now:
Lord Jesus,
I believe you are the Son of God.
Thank you for becoming one of us.
Thank you for dying on the cross for my sins.
Thank you for rising from the dead
to give me hope and the gift of eternal life.
I repent of my sins
and invite you into heart and life
as my Lord and Saviour.
Please grant me your Holy Spirit
so that I may know you, love you
and follow you every day of my life.
Amen.
