Pentecost 14: Paradox of Faith

“God forbid it, Lord! This must never happen to you.”

These words are Peter’s impulsive response to the devastating news that Jesus –
his friend, healer and teacher, beloved:
his divine Lord and savior – would suffer.
MUST suffer, be killed and be raised.

Peter, like most of us, reacts to the fact of suffering with fear and denial.

Jesus famously replies: “Get behind me Satan!
You are a stumbling block to me,
for you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”

In his human concept of time,
Peter has reacted out of fear of suffering and loss in the short term.
He has focused on the fact that Jesus must suffer and be killed.
His focus on suffering--
ignoring the good news that follows is a stumbling block to Jesus’ work in the
world--
Leaving Jesus to liken him to Satan--
As one who cannot see the good to come.

Jesus continues with a paradox:
“For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for
my sake will find it.”

“It” refers to eternal life.
A great and glorious future--
Jesus is instructing Peter to focus on this glorious future:
To focus on divine things:
Not merely human sensibilities of time, suffering, and pain:
But the Divine promise that Jesus will be raised, and in the last day, we all shall be
raised.

And Peter already knows this.
Just prior to the conversation, we heard Peter answer the question:
“Who do you say that I am?”
Peter declared that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of the living God.
Jesus complimented him on his great faith and offered him the keys to the
Kingdom of Heaven.

Yet here’s the Christian paradox:
One that Peter demonstrates quite well:
Of being a faithful yet human Christian.
We, like Peter, believe Jesus’ words that suffering will ultimately be eliminated.

At the same time, we live in the world:

A world where suffering exists.
And Jesus reminds us, over and over again--
To work toward alleviating this worldy suffering wherever we can:
feeding the hungry, healing the sick, blessing the dying, loving our neighbor.

It seems that we are to set our minds on both human and divine matters.
And Jesus too demonstrates this paradox:
As Jesus himself is the point where the reality of God,
enters the reality of this world.

Fully human, and fully God:
Where the human and divine purposes are fully united.

Our lesson from Jeremiah shows this suffering (and the paradox) in a real way.
Jeremiah laments in his pain unceasing, his wound incurable.
And also proclaims that God’s words became a joy and delight of his heart.
And in Jeremiah’s lament:
God still says: “I am with you to save you and deliver you. I will deliver you out of
the hand of the wicked and redeem you from the grasp of the ruthless.”

It’s the constant paradox:
The pain, grief, and mess of life:
Right next to the joy and delight promised by God.

Theres another lesson appointed for today:

That we didn’t read. And it’s a well known one from the book of Exodus:
Where the Holy Mystery meets the reality of this world.
The paradox of God’s great power, amid human mess.

It’s the famous story about Moses and the burning bush.
Where Moses is going about his daily routine.
Tending the flocks, doing nothing out of the ordinary.

Yet in the burning bush, God says to Moses:
“Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is
holy ground.”

We see that the first response of the human to the divine encounter must be of
reverence.
But that is not all:
God is clear that reverence is to be followed by action.
The Divine meeting the human world.

Moses is given the task to lead the Israelites out of slavery.
A human task:
Given by God.

When Moses asks God’s name:
God says “I am who I am,”

Which is also translated: “I shall be who I shall be.”
God is now and God is eternal.
And so are we.

In his letter to the Romans, Paul gives instructions for living a faithful life today:
But he also talks about this paradox:
The tension between the now, and the eternal future.
Paul says: “Rejoice in hope, be patient in suffering, persevere in prayer.

Yet when Paul speaks of rejoicing in hope, he is speaking of the hope of the
resurrection: The Kingdom of God on Earth.
Be patient in suffering because suffering WILL cease.
Persevere in prayer because this is the reverent response to the divine.
Yet pray the prayer that always leads to action:
extending hospitality to strangers.
Rejoicing with those who rejoice and weeping with those who weep.

And do it now.
Jesus reminds us that we do not have much time.
“Truly I tell you, there are some standing here who will not taste death before
they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.”

In the early Christian communities there was a strong sense that the Kingdom of
God was coming soon.
And Jesus portrays this urgency:

By telling his disciples to live with the paradox of faith.
As he embodies the greatest paradox of all:
Christ himself:
Both fully human and fully divine:
MUST suffer and die before he is raised to eternal life.
JESUS: is the embodiment of both the reality of the world:
Which always includes suffering and death,
And the reality of the divine: Which is eternal life.

Jesus even instructs the disciples in the form of a paradox:
“For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for
my sake will find it.”

We are to live the way of the great “I Am” and the glorious “I shall be.”
Because we ARE
We also SHALL BE.
We are to live a life of reverent prayer and a life of faithful action.
We are to live as if we have not much time and as if we have all the time in the
world.

German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, in prison during World War II, faced
great suffering, alongside great faith.
He wrote:
“What remains for us is only the very narrow path, sometimes barely discernible,
of taking each day as if it were the last and yet living it faithfully and responsibly
as if there were yet to be a great future.”

This is the divine way.
It is also the human way.
This is the mystery and the paradox of faith.

Amen.