Jesus Our Liberator - Living in Community with All Creation - #SeasonofCreation2020
You can listen to this sermon here
Gate Pa – 23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time in Year A and 1st Sunday in Season of Creation - 2020
Readings:
Psalm Psalm 139: 12-16
First Reading: Genesis 2: 4b-22
Second Reading: Romans 13:8-14
Gospel: Matthew 18:15-20
What I want to say:
Maybe it is to be liberated from placing ourselves at the centre. Maybe it is to be liberated from seeing the point of creation is to serve humanities needs, rather then seeing that we join God in meeting the needs of creation.
What I want to happen:
This election year
- How will these issues affect how we vote
- What we vote for
Finish with words from Pope Francis sent out again this year
"this is the season for letting our prayer be inspired anew, ” a season “to reflect on our lifestyles ,” and a season “ for undertaking prophetic actions . . . calling for courageous decisions . . .directing the planet towards life, not death."
The Sermon
1. Introduction:
Last week we looked at theme of Jesus our liberator
I wondered what we are being liberated from and into
We spent some time looking again at Matt’s Jesus Story
How after baptism Jesus was driven out into wilderness by Spirit to come to terms with what it means to be the Beloved son
after 40 days prayer and fasting
Sorely tested by tester – the Satan
- Suggests that the beloved son should have all the wealth and power and comfort the world can offer
To which Jesus says – Be gone
- The beloved Son has come to live the kingdom of heaven
- And The kingdom of heaven is not of this way
Jesus calls some people who have been engaging with him
- fisherman and others
inviting them to follow
- to be liberated
- To embrace a new identity
- A new way of seeing the world
- A new way of understanding themselves in relation to this world
And after a short while he gathers them
Up a hill
Overlooking their world
All they had known of life
And gesturing at this world
he invites them
To imagine another world
a world where the most important people are:
the poor in spirit,
those who mourn,
the meek,
those who hunger and thirst for God’s justice,
the pure in heart,
the merciful,
the peacemakers,
those who are persecuted for the sake of God’s justice,
he invites them to be liberated from their known world
into the kingdom of heaven
- Reign of God
This is a world where all flourish
Where the common good is held as paramount
A world where the needs of the poor are placed first
Where ALL are treated with honour and respect
And given what they need to thrive
And then I used that to explore the second half of the story of Jesus in Caesarea Philippi
- Symbol of Rome’s power and authority
- Built to honour Caesar Augustus – prince of peace, son of god
- Represented all that the Satan offered Jesus
- All that his world and our world deem important and of value
In this place Jesus asks, “What do people say about me?”
“And what do you say?”
Peter responds
“You are the Anointed one, the messiah, the liberator” says Peter
You are the son of the living God”
You are the one we hope for every time we gather for Passover
Reciting the story of Moses,
We long for this liberation
We long for the God of our ancestors to hear our groans
We trust that you are the one to bring it.
Into that hope and anticipation Jesus then began to show his disciples that
- he had to go to Jerusalem
- suffer many things from the elders, chief priests, and legal experts,
- and that he had to be killed
- and raised on the third day.
And Peter is having none of that
In his way of seeing the world there is no liberation in Jesus’ death
“Jesus, Liberation comes from you leading like Moses
Continuing to show us the way”
Jesus replies
“Get back behind me, tester.
I lead
You follow
Otherwise you are a stone that could make me stumble.
I have already been offered all of that in the wilderness
But that is not the way of liberation.
It is not the way of the kingdom of heaven.
Then Jesus said to all his disciples,
“All who want to come after me must say no to themselves,
- take up their cross, and follow me.”
- You must be liberated from the old ways of seeing the world
- You need to be liberated into the kingdom of heaven, the reign of God
What does it mean to be liberated by Jesus /take up our cross and follow Jesus?
2. Covid-19
The last 6 months or so have put a particular spin on that question
What kind of world are we being liberated into?
Covid-19 has changed our world – at least in the short term
Provided an opportunity for many people to re-evaluate how they live their lives
- Re-examine what they give value to and prioritise
o Now giving more value to self care
o Many giving higher place to relationships
§ With family
§ With others
We have been liberated in part from our old ways of seeing the world and living
We have been liberated into a new way.
We have been given an opportunity to take up our cross and follow Jesus into the Kingdom of Heaven in some small steps
Paying attention to relationships is important part of that
3.
Relationships
What we read today in gospel reading makes that clear
Lifegiving relationships are at heart of way of Jesus
- Who lived that out even with Judas
- Even with Peter when he kept getting it wrong
o Or only partly right
To be follower of Jesus was to be called into relationship with all those who followed
No matter their race, social stature, family background, economic status, gender
All things that normally divided were set to one side
Common call into new way of being with each other came first
Very hard for us to realise how radical that was
And how hard it was to live that out.
4. Season of Creation – Year of Jubilee
For some, these last few months have offered a chance to reflect on our place on this planet
And to take the learnings from this time and to reduce their carbon footprint
This Sunday is the first Sunday in annual ecumenical world-wide Season of Creation
- we join the worldwide Christian family for this celebration of prayer and action to protect our common home.
This year we are invited as followers of Christ from around the globe to reflect on our relationship with not only each other
- but also, God’s creation
do that in shadow of COVID-19 pandemic
warnings of many scientists that this pandemic and groans of creation under man made climate change are all symptoms of the same thing
- our broken relationship with this world
- our rapid unravelling of the web of life that sustains life on this planet
This is God’s creation
But we in the west have replaced God at the centre of the story
- Christians have played particular damaging role in that
Rather than seeing Creation as God’s to delight in and cherish
We have seen this world as ours to use for our own benefit
We have been tempted by the tester
Placed our wealth and power and comfort ahead of the needs of our brothers and sisters around the world
And ahead of the needs of plants and animals of this world
We have lost the vision of reign of God as described in the beatitudes and sermon on the Mount
- a world where all flourish
- Where the common good, including the good of all created beings
o is held as paramount
- A world where the needs of the poor are placed first
- Where ALL, including all plants and animals
o are treated with honour and respect
- And given what they need to thrive
Theme of this year is Year of Jubilee
The Jubilee (Hebrew: יובל yōḇel; Yiddish: yoyvl) is the year at the end of seven cycles of shmita (Sabbatical years) and,
According to the Book of Leviticus,
- Hebrew slaves and prisoners would be freed,
- debts would be forgiven,
- land returned
Time of reset
- Start again
That is what we need here
Hear again invitation of Jesus in Beatitudes
Remind ourselves of our common role as caretakers of creation
to see that our wellbeing is interwoven with the wellbeing of all,
- and of this planet
- place our wellbeing first is ultimately destructive
invited to rejoice in this opportunity to care for our common home and the sisters and brothers who share it.
5. Conclusion
How do we live as individuals and as a community that places relationships first
- family
- each other
- brothers and sisters around the world
- this world – God’s creation – our common home
This election year
How will these issues affect how we vote?
What we vote for and who we vote for?
We might need to take some time to think about that
Finish with words from Pope Francis sent out again this year
May this be a … " season for letting our prayer be inspired anew,”
a season “to reflect on our lifestyles,”
and a season “for undertaking prophetic actions . . . calling for courageous decisions . . .directing the planet towards life, not death."
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