AU United Methodist Community

Rev. Mark Schaefer
Kay Spiritual Life Center
August 28, 2005
Exodus 3:1-15; Romans 12:9-21; Matthew 16:21-28

Exodus 3:1 ¶ Moses was keeping the flock of his father-in-law Jethro, the priest of Midian; he led his flock beyond the wilderness, and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. 2 There the angel of the LORD appeared to him in a flame of fire out of a bush; he looked, and the bush was blazing, yet it was not consumed. 3 Then Moses said, “I must turn aside and look at this great sight, and see why the bush is not burned up.” 4 When the LORD saw that he had turned aside to see, God called to him out of the bush, “Moses, Moses!” And he said, “Here I am.” 5 Then he said, “Come no closer! Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.” 6 He said further, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God.
7 ¶ Then the LORD said, “I have observed the misery of my people who are in Egypt; I have heard their cry on account of their taskmasters. Indeed, I know their sufferings, 8 and I have come down to deliver them from the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey, to the country of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. 9 The cry of the Israelites has now come to me; I have also seen how the Egyptians oppress them. 10 So come, I will send you to Pharaoh to bring my people, the Israelites, out of Egypt.” 11 But Moses said to God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh, and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?” 12 He said, “I will be with you; and this shall be the sign for you that it is I who sent you: when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall worship God on this mountain.”
13 ¶ But Moses said to God, “If I come to the Israelites and say to them, “The God of your ancestors has sent me to you,” and they ask me, “What is his name?” what shall I say to them?” 14 God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM.” He said further, “Thus you shall say to the Israelites, “I AM has sent me to you.”” 15 God also said to Moses, “Thus you shall say to the Israelites, “The LORD, the God of your ancestors, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you”:
¶ This is my name forever, and this my title for all generations.

Romans 12 9 ¶ Let love be genuine; hate what is evil, hold fast to what is good; 10 love one another with mutual affection; outdo one another in showing honor. 11 Do not lag in zeal, be ardent in spirit, serve the Lord. 12 Rejoice in hope, be patient in suffering, persevere in prayer. 13 Contribute to the needs of the saints; extend hospitality to strangers.
14 ¶ Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them. 15 Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. 16 Live in harmony with one another; do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly; do not claim to be wiser than you are. 17 Do not repay anyone evil for evil, but take thought for what is noble in the sight of all. 18 If it is possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. 19 Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave room for the wrath of God; for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” 20 No, “if your enemies are hungry, feed them; if they are thirsty, give them something to drink; for by doing this you will heap burning coals on their heads.” 21 Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

Matthew 16 21 ¶ From that time on, Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and undergo great suffering at the hands of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised. 22 And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him, saying, “God forbid it, Lord! This must never happen to you.” 23 But he turned and said to Peter, “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.”
24 ¶ Then Jesus told his disciples, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. 25 For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it. 26 For what will it profit them if they gain the whole world but forfeit their life? Or what will they give in return for their life?
27 ¶ “For the Son of Man is to come with his angels in the glory of his Father, and then he will repay everyone for what has been done. 28 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.”

I. BEGINNING

My sophomore year of college, I took a course in Soviet history and culture called “Who Are the Soviets?” It was taken by Russian language majors like me, by Russian studies majors, and, because it satisfied a gen-ed requirement, by a lot of undergrads who were interested in learning about our Cold War rival.

There was a guy in my class who was known to my roommates and me as something of a joker. It was toward the end of the semester and our professor was inviting questions about our upcoming final. He said, “Here is your opportunity to ask anything that is unclear about what you’ve learned. Anything that’s still troubling you. Now, of course, I don’t want to have to go over any of the fundamentals so I don’t want to hear any questions like ‘What’s the difference between the Soviet Union and Russia?’ or anything like that.” It got a good laugh. It was at this moment, that this friend of ours—the joker—turned to my roommate and me and asked, “There’s a difference between Russia and the Soviet Union?” It wouldn’t necessarily have been funny now, when few folks college age even remember the Soviet Union. It wouldn’t even have been funny at the beginning of this course. But this was after an entire semester of Soviet studies. My roommate and I sat there slack jawed.

II. THE TEXT

You’ll probably encounter that kind of thick-headedness at some point in your college careers, if you haven’t already. There’s something of that kind of thick-headedness happening in the Gospel lesson for tonight.

From that time on, Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and undergo great suffering at the hands of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised. 22 And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him, saying, “God forbid it, Lord! This must never happen to you.” 23 But he turned and said to Peter, “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.”

Now, there are a couple of things that make this passage problematic, from the disciples’ point of view. The first is that these events take place immediately after Peter has confessed Jesus as the Messiah, the “Son of the living God” and for this confession of faith, Jesus calls Simon Peter “the rock” upon which he will build his church, against which not even the gates of Hades will prevail.

The very next thing Peter does is get it wrong. From teacher’s pet to dunce in one easy step. Jesus describes the fate of the messiah, to undergo suffering and be killed to be raised from the dead. Peter takes Jesus aside and says in effect, “I don’t think you understand what this being messiah thing is all about—you’re not supposed to die.” Jesus rebukes him and calls him a ‘stumbling block’—making a play on the name he has just given to Peter. Peter has gone from being “the rock” to being a stone that you trip over.

Perhaps the greater problem is that Peter and the other disciples had spent a lot of time with Jesus. Far more than a single semester. And none of them understood what Jesus was to do or the kind of messiah he was to be.

III. THE GOD WE’RE EXPECTING

We might wish that Peter were the only thick-headed disciple in Christian history. Alas, he truly seems to be the rock upon which the church is built. We are all too often thick-headed when it comes to God.

A. Looking for the God We Expect

Part of the problem is one of expectations. We know what we’re looking for and we go out looking for it. When we don’t find it, we get disappointed and confused, or worse yet, we go on pretending like we did.

We all come with preconceived notions of God. I suppose it can’t be helped. We all have ideas about what God is like. Very often, God agrees with us in all matters. Very often God likes all the same people we do and hates all the same people we hate. God prefers our presidential candidates and roots for our football teams. God is a big fan of the American Way of Life and can generally be assumed to take not only the Sabbath off, but the Fourth of July as well.

Sometimes the God we expect doesn’t like us at all. God is actually quite disappointed with us. Critical of us. Thinks ill of us and causes bad things to happen to us. God wouldn’t waste a red cent on us or a minute of God’s busy schedule. We don’t measure up. We’re the wrong race or ethnic group. The wrong class. The wrong sexual orientation. We are not part of God’s chosen people. We’re unworthy. Unloved, and ultimately damned. Left alone to a cold, meaningless life in a cold, random universe by a God who has cast us off for being colossal failures at pleasing God.

It seems that our encounters with God invariably begin with having to address our expectations of who God is and what God wants.

B. Our College Experiences

In many ways, we begin our college experiences with the same kind of attitude. It has been my experience that the most knowledgeable people in the world are college freshmen. Just ask one. We go to college to learn, but the paradox is that most people who show up are pretty sure about what they’re going to find. Would that I could say I was immune to this affliction when I was a college freshman.

No, pretty much we all start college full of expectation. Full of enthusiasm. Full of certainty. We know what we think and we’re here at college to get all the facts to prove that we’re right. This is really just about getting the facts to back up a view of the world that we bring with us and that we fully expect to leave with. …I wonder how that works out.

Because, it has also been my experience that some of the least knowledgeable people are college seniors. Just ask one. They’ll tell you. Ask one if everything they thought they knew when they came in to school has been left unscathed. Ask if they are more or less certain about things, if they have a lot more gray in their thinking than they used to. Chances are, they’ll tell you they are. Chances are they’ll tell you that they were never so certain as when they first started out. And that life has proven to be a lot of gray areas and uncertainty. It’s no shame for any of them to admit this—this kind of admission is the beginning of wisdom. The recognition of our own limitations, of our own need to be open to the possibilities.

IV. THE GOD WE FIND

Because whether we are talking about our lives in college or our lives in faith, we invariably find that the preconceptions that we had and the ideas that we brought have had to be deconstructed and reconstructed. We have expected one thing to be so only to discover that it is not so and we have had to figure out how to accommodate this new revelation.

Because the world we find, much like the God we find, is often a mystery to us. We expect the world to be a particular way and it turns out to be different. We expect God to be a certain way and instead we are rebuked and called a ‘stumbling block.’ And perhaps stumbling blockis an appropriate description:

We sometimes feel that we can only stumble across God, the way Moses did, who, it appears by sheer dumb luck while shepherding his flock in Midian comes across the Burning Bush. We feel like we are the “thick-headed disciples”, incapable of grasping who God is even when God is in our midst.

And so we find ourselves left adrift, craving certainty and solid ground and finding that God instead is giving us mystery and holy ground. We strain to find God and despair of our ability to do so with certainty.

V. THE GOOD NEWS

But here is the Good News: God finds us. Moses didn’t stumble across God by dumb luck: God went to Moses where he was. Out in the middle of nowhere. God manifested himself to Moses and invited Moses into a life of faith and service to the people of God. Moses wasn’t even looking for God when God called Moses by name. And lit a bush ablaze that did not get consumed to catch his attention. God reveals his name and promises to walk with Moses on his journey.

Nor does God stay aloof in the heavens, indifferent and uncaring for the lives of human beings. Rather the Son of God comes among us, in our midst, not to wield power and might to dominate and control us, but giving himself sacrificially in love to serve us and to reconcile God and humanity.
This is neither the God who rubberstamps all our cultural or personal predispositions, who looks, talks, acts, and thinks just like us; nor is this the God who is eternally disappointed with us, condemning us for our failings and shortcomings, for our spiritual thick-headedness.

This is the God we find—rather, the God who finds us.

Perhaps the biggest misconception that we often have about God is that we have to find God, that we have to do something to ensure that we are on the right path, to do the right things to make God happy, that we have to be a particular kind of person, or a particular kind of Christian to earn God’s love. And yet the power of the Gospel is the message that God’s love is freely given. This love is there for the taking. For you—whoever and wherever you are.

VI. END

College is the perfect time to grow in faith as a Christian. “Disciple” is just a Latin word for “student” after all, and we are called to be ‘disciples’ of Christ—students of Christ. That’s a lot different, by the way, than ‘soldiers of Christ’ marching in lock-step. It means that our lives in faith are going to be lives of discovery, growth, and learning.

Because ultimately, what makes a person a good student makes a person a good Christian: a sense of wonder and willingness to discover. That wonder helps us to see the burning bushes in our midst. Helps us to hear God calling. When we open ourselves to wonder we may not find the God we went looking for, but God will find us—the God who loves us all freely, the God who accepts us for who we are—thick-headed disciples though we be. The God who meets us where we are—whether we are in the middle of Kay Chapel or in the remotest deserts of the soul. The God who calls us by name, and the God who promises to be with us as we walk the journey of faith together.