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Twenty-Third Sunday after Pentecost, 10/23/2016
Sermon on Matthäus 13:54-58, by Beth A. Schlegel
Matthew 13:54-58
54 and coming to his hometown he taught them in their synagogue, so that they were astonished, and said, “Where did this man get this wisdom and these mighty works? 55 Is not this the carpenter's son? Is not his mother called Mary? And are not his brothers James and Joseph and Simon and Judas? 56 And are not all his sisters with us? Where then did this man get all these things?” 57 And they took offense at him. But Jesus said to them, “A prophet is not without honor except in his hometown and in his own household.”58 And he did not do many mighty works there, because of their unbelief.
………….
In Holy Baptism, you were made disciples of Jesus –
Being disciples is not simply a fact,
- like being named to the National Honor Society
- and getting the tassel and pin and certificate
- that gets put in a keepsake box for posterity
- but has no lasting significance.
No, what Jesus did at your baptism – and mine
– was to call us to a life of discipleship.
Being disciples has significance for every moment of our lives,
for from our Baptism on, we follow Jesus.
Following Jesus is not so much a physical location as it is a relationship with him that teaches us how to live the life God intends for us.
- It is imitating Jesus in relation to the Father and the Holy Spirit.
- Discipleship is relationship with Jesus and with others.
- And that means living in faith.
- Faith is trusting Jesus
- – trusting the love of God that calls us to be Jesus’ disciples.
- Faith is maintaining our relationship with God even when it seems God is not there.
So what does Jesus ask of those who follow him?
- Share the life of God’s people –
- Tell the story of God’s salvation
- Recruit others to be disciples of Jesus
- Live in gratitude to God for all things
- Pray without ceasing
Today, as we celebrate the baptism of Emma Marie and commemorate James the Just of Jerusalem, we add one more thing to what Jesus asks of us as his baptized disciples.
- To endure suffering for the faith.
Then Jesus said to them all, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me.
The cross was the common form of execution in the Roman empire, and the city of Jerusalem was surrounded by thousands of crosses on which were tortured and hung those convicted as criminals.
Jesus was among those crucified
- betrayed by his friend,
- wrongly convicted and
- shedding innocent blood for the sake of all humanity.
When we speak of the Passion of our Lord
we speak of his suffering,
the cross he endured
– and which he calls us to endure who follow him.
Now Chris and Lauren, I know that right now it doesn’t sound like good news that you will be presenting Emma Marie for a life that includes enduring suffering for the faith.
But keep listening – hopefully by the end, you will find it so.
Jesus doesn’t ask anyone to follow him anywhere he has not already gone ahead of us.
Matthew the evangelist tells us about a time Jesus went to his hometown to teach in the synagogue where he grew up.
But the people there who had known him from the time he was born considered him arrogant – pretentious
Behaving above his station as a humble carpenter’s son.
In other words,
they did not believe the Word he spoke was the word of God for them – for their life and salvation.
They rejected his divinity – they rejected his teaching and so he was not able to do many deeds of power there because of their unbelief.
Rejection by his own community was part of the suffering Jesus endured for the sake of his mission to be the Savior.
But he did not give up. He did not let this painful rejection stop him.
He recognized that elsewhere – where he was not the hometown boy made good – multitudes gathered to hear him.
Homes filled with people eager for what he had to say.
People’s lives transformed by the powerful word of God that offers a future beyond our capacity to be good.
A future only possible by the forgiveness and grace Jesus offers.
So it is that as we follow Jesus –as we live our baptismal life as his disciples, we will endure suffering.
We don’t need to create it, as some medieval monks did by whipping themselves on the bare back
It will come to us simply because we are people who live as Jesus people in a world that often rejects the Gospel.
It may even be that we will be asked to choose between Jesus and death, as the martyr James of Jerusalem did, along with many other disciples, ancient and modern.
Syrian Christians, Chinese Christians, N. Korean Christians, Nigerian Christians – all face the choice between Jesus and death as they endure persecution and the possibility of martyrdom for their faith in Jesus.
Christian faith includes suffering.
So why bother being Christian at all? It no longer has the social cachet it once did.
Nowadays, being atheist or “spiritual but not religious” is the popular choice.
But being Christian has truly never been the safe, comfortable, life.
To follow Jesus means enduring rejection, betrayal, suffering, and death.
But, as St. Paul proclaimed in Romans 6:3-4
Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? Therefore, we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.
This, dear brothers and sisters, is not only why the Christian faith surpasses atheism, “spiritual but not religious”, and all other faith or non-faith, but it is how we as disciples of Jesus can follow Jesus into suffering.
It is because the cross is not the end.
The cross – the rejection, suffering, and death we experience because we trust Jesus – is only the penultimate chapter in the story of salvation.
The final chapter – the last word – is our resurrection from the dead:
because we follow Jesus not only to the cross, but into the grave, and out of the grave to eternal life.
That is the good news about what God is doing as we present Emma Marie for the Sacrament of Holy Baptism.
She will not only be united with Jesus Christ in his death and burial – signified by the drowning in water – but she will be united with him in his resurrection as she is brought out of the water and sealed with the Holy Spirit – the Spirit of Jesus’ resurrection.
She will begin her life of discipleship today – if her parents and sponsors still want to present her for this life of discipleship.
And it may well be a difficult life. But no difficulty need cause despair or discouragement -- because her life has already been claimed to follow Jesus to the cross and beyond the grave.
What is important for her – and for all of us – is to remember this:To be taught who Jesus is and what it means to follow him.
To learn the whole story of God’s saving love – beginning with creation, and Noah, and Abraham, and Joseph, and Moses, and the prophets, and John, and Peter, and Paul, and James the Just, and Fred and Jan, and Chris and Lauren (parents), and James and Lauren (godparents), and everyone else who is part of the story.
That’s why, Chris and Lauren, you are asked to make promises today. For you are Emma’s first teachers of the faith.
From you she will learn of God’s love, she will learn habits of prayer and Bible reading.
From you she will learn how to trust God to provide for her needs and how to tell right from wrong, good from evil.
But you are not alone in this. You have chosen James and Lauren as Emma’s godparents. It is their particular responsibility to supplement your faith influence with their own investment in her growth in faith.
And beyond that, this congregation and any other you become part of as you keep the promises you make today will surround you as a community of faithful disciples to strengthen and encourage you.
Your promises are very important today, for they are the means by which Emma will come to know the power of what is happening to her today.
But your promises are made in the wholehearted trust that God is keeping God’s own promises to you.
One of those promises is to maintain the Church as the assembly of believers among whom the Gospel is preached in its purity and the Sacraments are administered according to the Gospel.
As James the Just reminded those gathered for the Council in Jerusalem: The Lord has promised;
After these things I will return. The kingdom of David is like a fallen tent. But I will rebuild it. And I will again build its ruins. And I will set it up. 17 Then those people who are left alive may ask the Lord for help. And all people from other nations may worship me, says the Lord. And he will make it happen. 18 And these things have been known for a long time.’Amos 9:11-12
Jesus is the restoration of the kingdom of David and the Lord builds up its ruins with every baptism; So that we who are witnesses of what God is doing here today might be convinced of God’s power to give life and salvation to all people who turn to him.
Recalling these promises of God enables us to make our promises of faithful discipleship – even to endure suffering – in the sure and certain hope of sharing in the resurrection of our Lord.
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen