13th Sunday after Pentecost-Rev Melanie Lemburg
13th Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 17A
August 30, 2020
This week, our gospel reading invites us
to sit for a moment with paradox. Just last week, Matthew tells us, Jesus and
his disciples have traveled to the district of Caesarea Phillipi, a Mecca of
Roman wealth and civilization built by King Herod on the Mediterranean Sea and
nestled in the heart of Israel. In this
lavish, overly-Romanized area, Jesus asks his disciples who people say he is
and who they say he is. It is Peter,
impulsive, impetuous Peter, who wears his heart on his sleeve, who gets it
unexpectedly right: “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” And Jesus commends Peter saying, “Blessed are
you, Simon son of Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but
my Father in heaven. And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will
build my church...”
Then there is this week, which follows
immediately on the heels of last week’s gospel, when Jesus offers the first prediction
of his death and how it will happen in Matthew’s gospel, and Peter just cannot
hear it. He takes Jesus aside and begins
to rebuke him, but Jesus in turn rebukes Peter saying, “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 a short
span of time, Peter goes from being the rock upon which Jesus will build his
church to a stumbling block for Jesus. In
this instance, both Peter’s strength and his weakness are coming from the same
source and are on full display in this gospel pair. It is Peter’s courage, his boldness, than
allows him to proclaim Jesus as the Messiah, and it is that same boldness which
causes him to speak injudiciously and threaten to become an impediment to Jesus’s
mission. And that’s a paradox—how something
that is strong enough to serve as foundation can also be something that causes
another to trip or stumble; that our very strengths are also, at times, the
source of our greatest weaknesses.
I did a little research on the word
paradox. It’s from the Greek word paradoxos.
“Para can mean both ‘next to’ and ‘in relation to.’” And we know doxos, right? We use the word Doxology weekly. “Doxos…literally means ‘praise’ [or glory]
but also ‘awe’ or ‘celebration.’ A near-literal
translation of paradoxos would be ‘things that, placed in relationship
to each other, inspire awe and praise.’”[i]
What if, instead of thinking of our strengths
and weaknesses as opposites, we see them as shadows of each other, qualities
that, “placed in relationship to each other inspire awe and praise”? What would that look like for ourselves and
for others we come into contact with? Last
week, a colleague spoke about wrestling with herself to create space in her
heart for the weaknesses of others, to know them in that weakness and to love
them in that as opposed to being frustrated or angry with them? What would that look like for us to do this
for ourselves and for others, to recognize that strengths and weakness are from
the same source and that they dwell side by side in each of us?
So many folks that I talk to speak about
the chaos of our lives and this current moment in time. As I contemplated that, I found this blessing
in the chaos, by artist and clergyperson Jan Richardson that is its own paradox. May you find blessing in your strengths and
weaknesses this week; may you find love in your heart for both the strengths
and the weaknesses of others. May you
find the love of God and its blessing, even in the midst of chaos.
Blessing
in the Chaos by Jan Richardson
To
all that is chaotic
in
you,
let
there come silence.
Let
there be
a
calming
of
the clamoring,
a
stilling
of
the voices that
have
laid their claim
on
you,
that
have made their
home
in you,
that
go with you
even
to the
holy
places
but
will not
let
you rest,
will
not let you
hear
your life
with
wholeness
or
feel the grace
that
fashioned you.
Let
what distracts you
cease.
Let
what divides you
cease.
Let
there come an end
to
what diminishes
and
demeans,
and
let depart
all
that keeps you
in
its cage.
Let
there be
an
opening
into
the quiet
that
lies beneath
the
chaos,
where
you find
the
peace
you
did not think
possible
and
see what shimmers
within
the storm.[ii]
[i]
Howard, Ken. Paradoxy: Creating Christian Community Beyond Us and
Them. Paraclete Press: Brewster, MA, 2010. P 141.
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