The Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost - Matthew 16:13-20 - The Rev. Colette Hammesfahr

 

There is a community in Paraguay called Cateura. It sits beside a massive landfill, and for many of the families who live there, the landfill has been part of everyday life. People make a living sorting through what other people have thrown away, looking for things that can be recycled, sold, or somehow used again.

Several years ago, a man named Favio Chávez began teaching music to some of the children who lived there. There was just one problem. There were more children who wanted to learn music than there were instruments. And buying instruments wasn't really an option. A violin could be worth more than a family's home. So they began looking around at what they had. And what they had was trash. Oil drums. Pieces of wood. Forks. Pipes. Old cans. Scraps of metal. Things other people had decided were worthless.

But a local craftsman named Nicolás Gómez began taking those discarded things and turning them into instruments. An oil can became the body of a cello. Scraps of wood and metal became violins. Pipes became flutes. And slowly, something remarkable happened. An orchestra was born. It became known as the Recycled Orchestra of Cateura, and these children who were playing instruments made from trash eventually performed around the world.

I love that story because everyone was looking at the same things but saw things differently. One person looked at an old oil can and saw garbage. Someone else looked at it and imagined a cello. One person saw a pile of discarded metal. Someone else heard music. And I wonder if that isn't part of what Paul means when he says in Romans, “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds.”

We hear that verse and sometimes assume Paul is simply telling us not to behave like the rest of the world. Don't do bad things. Don't follow the crowd. Be a good Christian.

But I think Paul is asking for something much deeper than that. He is talking about learning to see differently. Because one of the things the world is very good at doing is deciding what things—and people—are worth. We rank people. Successful or unsuccessful. Important or unimportant. Educated or uneducated. Rich or poor. Insider or outsider. Useful or not useful. People who have something to offer and people who don't.

And Paul says: Don't let the world teach you to see people that way. Be transformed. Let Christ change the way you see. And notice what Paul says immediately afterward: “Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought to think.”

Then he begins talking about the body of Christ. “We have many members in one body, and not all the members have the same function.” Some have the gift of prophecy. Some ministry. Some teaching. Some encouragement. Some generosity. Some leadership. Some compassion. Different people. Different gifts. One body. And none is more important than another.

That's what humility looks like in this passage. Humility isn't pretending that you aren't good at anything. Humility isn't making yourself smaller. Humility is recognizing that whatever gifts God has given me are gifts—and that God has given gifts to you, too. I need what you have. And you need what I have. And together we become something that none of us could be by ourselves. That's the church.

An orchestra doesn't work because every instrument sounds the same. Imagine a conductor walking into an orchestra and saying, “I've decided the violin is the best instrument. From now on, everybody needs to sound like a violin.” That wouldn't be much of an orchestra. The beauty of an orchestra comes from the differences. The cello needs to sound like a cello. The trumpet needs to sound like a trumpet. The percussion needs to do what percussion does. And somehow, when all of those different sounds come together, they make music.

The same is true of the church. We don't need everybody to think alike. We don't need everybody to have the same background. We don't need everybody to have the same experiences. We don't need everybody to have the same ideas. And we certainly don't need everybody to have the same gifts. We need each other.

But that's not always easy. Because churches can create their own ways of deciding whose voices matter. Sometimes it's the people who have been here the longest. Sometimes it's the people who give the most. Sometimes it's the people who know exactly how everything is supposed to be done. Sometimes it's the loudest voice in the room. And sometimes, without even realizing it, we can become so certain that our way is the right way that we stop listening to what God might be saying through somebody else.

Someone brings a different experience. A different perspective. A different idea. And our first response can be: “But that's not how we do it.” Maybe a transformed mind asks a different question: “What gift might God be bringing us through this person?” That's a much harder question. Because it means I have to believe that God may speak through someone who doesn't think like I do. God may work through someone who doesn't do things the way I would do them. God may even give a gift to someone I don't particularly like.

And maybe that's where this gets really uncomfortable. Think about someone you admire. It probably wouldn't take you long to name their gifts. Kindness. Generosity. Wisdom. Faithfulness. Compassion. Now think about someone who gets on your nerves. Someone you disagree with. Someone you find difficult. Could you name their gifts just as easily? Because Paul says they are part of the body, too. And if they are part of the body of Christ, then God has given them something that the body needs.

Our Gospel gives us another side of this. Jesus asks the disciples, “Who do you say that I am?” And Peter gives the right answer. “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” Peter gets an A on the theology exam. He knows who Jesus is.

 

 

But here's what I find fascinating. Immediately after today's Gospel, Jesus begins telling the disciples what being the Messiah actually means. He will go to Jerusalem. He will suffer. He will be rejected. He will be killed. And Peter says, essentially, “Absolutely not.” Peter knows who Jesus is. But he still doesn't understand what that means. He has the right confession when he says, You are the messiah, before he has a transformed imagination.

And I wonder if Christians can do exactly the same thing. We can know the right answers. We can know the Bible. We can know the Creed. We can know the prayers. We can know when to stand, sit, or kneel. We can say, “Jesus is Lord.” And still resist Jesus when he asks us to change. Because it's not just about knowing Christ. It's about being transformed by Christ. And transformation means allowing Jesus to change the way we see ourselves, the way we see other people, and maybe even the way we see the church.

Because here's another thing about an orchestra: You have to keep listening. If every musician simply decides, “I'm right, and I'm going to play this my way,” you don't get music. You get noise. Making music requires listening to the people around you. Sometimes you play. Sometimes you rest. Sometimes another instrument carries the melody. And sometimes your job is simply to support what someone else is doing.

Maybe there are times when being the body of Christ looks a lot like that. Listening. Making room. Recognizing gifts. Allowing somebody else to carry the melody for a while.

And I think this goes beyond the walls of this church. Because perhaps one of our greatest dangers is assuming that all the gifts God wants to use are already here. What if God has gifts waiting for us in people we haven't met yet? What if there are voices in this community we haven't listened to? What if there are people outside these walls who have something to teach us? What if someone walks through our doors with a completely different background, a different story, a different way of looking at things—and God says, “I brought them here because the body needs what they have”? Will we recognize the gift? Or will we only see what is different?

The people in Cateura were surrounded by things the world had thrown away. But someone looked at those things differently. Someone looked at an oil can and imagined a cello. Someone looked at scrap metal and heard music. And maybe that's what a transformed mind does. It learns to look again. At the church. At the world. At our neighbors. And especially at one another.

So perhaps this week we should ask ourselves: What gifts has God given me? What gifts has God given the people I love? And then the harder question: What gifts has God placed in the person I have the hardest time appreciating? Because they may be carrying something this body needs.

God is still building the orchestra. God is still bringing people through our doors. God is still calling us outside our doors. God is still creating music through people we might never have chosen ourselves. And our calling is not to make everyone sound like us. Our calling is to be transformed enough to hear the music God is already making through them. Amen.