The Church of St.
Paul and Incarnation, Jersey City NJ
August 23, 2020
Year A, Proper 16:
The Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost
Exodus 3:1-15
Psalm 105:1-6, 23-26,
45c
Romans 12:9-21
Matthew 16:21-28
The Foundation
It’s
hard to believe that it was more than twenty years ago now that Sue and I
bought a house just a few blocks from here, over on Highland Avenue.
It
was a little house, just twelve feet wide, but it was a big purchase for us and
I remember feeling really nervous about taking on this very adult
responsibility, and a little overwhelmed by the many hoops we had to jump
through before we got the keys to the place and could move in.
One
of those hoops was the home inspection.
Our
realtor recommended an inspector and one day we spent some time walking through
the house with him as he shined his flashlight into dark corners and poked
tools into the wooden beams.
I
remember him telling me that the most important part of the house was the
foundation – that everything else could be fixed but if the foundation was no
good, then the house was no good.
Well,
the inspection came back pretty clean and we signed all the paperwork, moved
in, and had some very happy years living in our little house.
After
I was ordained and then hired as the assistant at Grace Church in Madison we
tried to rent out our house but we quickly learned that we’re really not cut
out to be landlords. So, with a real sense of sadness and loss, we decided to
put the house on the market.
Now,
the new buyer must have hired a much more thorough inspector than we had,
because the report that came back was way thicker than what we had gotten – in
my memory it was like an encyclopedia or a phone book!
This
very thorough inspector found a lot of things wrong with the house. I remember
turning the pages and my stomach feeling sicker and sicker, convinced that we
would never be able to sell this place.
But then I
remembered!
The foundation!
The foundation!
So, I looked and
looked and finally found what he had to say about the foundation – and, thank
God, the foundation was good.
And
so, despite its many issues, and after many repairs and some negotiation, we
were finally able to sell the house.
If
you have been with us for the past few Sundays, you probably remember that we
have been hearing about the founding family of Israel – Abraham and Sarah,
Isaac and Rebekah, Jacob and Rachel, and all the rest.
As
I’ve been saying, they were quite a dysfunctional family and yet God chose them
to be the seed – to be the start - of God’s people.
And, for the last
two weeks we talked about the fourth generation, about Joseph and his brothers.
It’s a story of resentment and cruelty and surviving against the odds, a story that
ends with the surprising twist of forgiveness and new life.
With Joseph and
his family happily reunited in Egypt, it sure seemed like the people of Israel were all set.
But, you know how
it is: things always have a way of changing.
So, as we heard in
today’s lesson, a new Pharaoh is now in charge of Egypt and he is suspicious of
the numerous and prosperous Israelites (otherwise known as Hebrews) living in
his land. So, he devises policies to make their lives difficult – enslaving
them and working them ruthlessly – and yet the Israelites continued to
multiply.
Even more devious
and cruel, the Pharaoh tries to enlist the Hebrew midwives (it’s unclear if
they were Hebrews themselves or Egyptian midwives to the Hebrews) – Pharaoh
tries to enlist the midwives to kill all the newborn Hebrew boys.
When that doesn’t
work, Pharaoh orders all of his people to throw all the Hebrew boys into the
Nile – and notice there’s some irony and foreshadowing here because we know
that later it will be the waters that will devour the Egyptians and allow the
Israelites escape into freedom.
Anyway, it’s not
clear how many of the Israelite boys were able to survive, but, as we heard
today, at least one of them did: Moses.
And through yet
another surprising twist, Moses is rescued by Pharaoh’s daughter but raised for
a time by his own mother before being returned to the princess.
It’s an unlikely
start for the man who will be a central character in the story of Israel, a man
who will not think he’s up to the job, but who God chose lead the people to
freedom.
In today’s gospel
lesson, Jesus asks his disciples two questions.
“Who do people say
that I am?”
And the disciples
respond by telling Jesus all the speculation that they’ve heard from others
about Jesus’ identity: he’s John the Baptist or Jeremiah or some other prophet.
But then Jesus
asks his second, more difficult question:
“But who do you
say that I am?”
And, maybe to
everybody’s surprise, it’s Simon Peter who gets the exactly right answer. He
says:
“You are the
Messiah, the Son of the Living God.”
Now, it’s
important to notice what happens next.
Jesus tells Simon
Peter that he didn’t come up with this correct answer on his own, nor did
someone else tell him this Good News.
No, this knowledge
was a gift from God.
And, then, in a
twist maybe even more surprising than Simon Peter getting the correct answer,
Jesus makes a pun on the nickname Peter (which means “Rock), Jesus says, “…on
this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail
against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven and whatever you
bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be
loosed in heaven.”
What an enormous
responsibility.
What an immense
weight to place on the shoulders of Peter who - as we know and as we will hear
again next week - so often messed up, didn’t quite get it, so often proved to
be nowhere near as strong as a rock.
Throughout the
Bible, throughout the history of the Church, God seems to delight in choosing
the unlikeliest people for the most extraordinary tasks – people like Israel’s dysfunctional
founding family, and reluctant Moses, and the often confused and sometimes
unfaithful Peter, and so many others, they are given some really big jobs and
responsibilities.
Why?
Well, I don’t know
exactly.
Maybe it’s a way
for us to see people through God’s eyes: to see people as much more than the
worst things they’ve ever done.
Maybe it’s a way
to get us to look in strange places and to turn to unlikely people for signs of
God.
And, maybe God
chooses these flawed people as a reminder that it’s not all on them – it’s not
all on us.
Peter may be the
rock, but God is the foundation.
I’m reminded of
the theologian Paul Tillich’s description of God as “the ground of being.”
God – the God we
see most clearly in Jesus Christ – God is the foundation.
“The ground of
being.”
And, I don’t know
about you but I find remembering that God is the foundation to be a comfort and
a relief – especially these days when so many of the institutions we have
relied on our whole lives are looking very shaky and when many of our leaders
don’t seem to have our best interests in mind.
If we were to read
an inspection report of the world and the country our stomach would likely feel
sicker and sicker.
After flipping the
pages – Covid19 – unemployment and evictions – wildfires – hurricanes – the
post office – the presidential election – and on and on, we might very well be
tempted to despair, until we remember:
The foundation!
The Foundation!
And we flip to
that page in our huge imaginary inspection report and with a deep sigh of
relief we find there the God who used Abraham and his family and Moses and
Peter and so many others – the God who gives us the gift of faith and the
ability to recognize the truth - the God who is the ground of being – God the
Foundation.
Our world and our
country have many issues, and we definitely need a whole lot of repairs and
negotiation.
We have a lot of
work to do but, fortunately, it’s not all on us.
So, do not
despair, because God – the God we see most clearly in and through Jesus – God is
the foundation.
Amen.
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