A Sermon for the Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost
The Rev. Patricia A. Gillespie
Jeremiah 15:15-21
Psalm 26
Romans 12:1-8
Matthew 16:21-27
A seminarian's wife went out and squandered several months of their clothing budget on a single dress. Her priest-to-be husband was upset with the bill, but even more so with the dress itself. It was rather low cut, kinda short, and very clingy. Didn't matter that his wife had the figure to do the dress justice, it just wasn't suitable for a clergy wife. She tried to explain how when she put it on it made her feel elegant and that when she saw her reflection in the dressing room mirror she simply couldn't resist buying it. He responded rather piously that she should resist temptation with prayer, suggesting that she ought to have said aloud, "Get behind me, Satan!" Her response to him was "But I did. I said ‘Get behind me, Satan.' And he said ‘Hmmmm. Looks even better from back here!'"
Appearances are important. Our seminary wife knows that. Our seminarian does too, his concern about his wife's new dress was as much about what kind of impression her appearance would make on his future congregation as it was about holding to their tight budget.
Appearances are important. Peter knows about appearances. When in last week's gospel we heard Jesus asking, "Who do you say that I am?" Peter looked at what he had seen of Jesus – the healing and the authority, the miracles and the teachings – and it appeared to Peter that Jesus must be the Messiah. Peter had finally got something right. Jesus called him ‘blessed' when he said Jesus was "the Messiah, the Son of the living God.." Jesus looks really good to Peter.
Appearances are important. Episcopalians know that. We are a sacramental church ... a church where appearances make a difference. Where we understand concrete objects as sacraments, as "outward and visible signs of an inward and spiritual grace,"
Appearances are important. God knows that. Why else would God have appeared among us as a human like us?
Appearances are important. That's why our congregational decisions about our building matter. We want the appearance of our church building to say something about who we are – an historic church, a welcoming church, a church that values beauty, a church that is open to new ideas. A church that can say with the psalmist, "Lord, we love the house in which you dwell, and the place where your glory abides."
Appearances are important. But today's gospel reminds us that appearance is not everything. Peter looks at his teacher and sees the great Savior, God's own Son. But underneath the messiah's fancy dress, Jesus begins to show another picture, a picture of great suffering and even death. That's not at all what Peter saw when he looked at his Messiah.
Peter sees what he wants to see. He tries to clean up the picture of the Son of Man. He sets his mind on the human things, the clear logic that the one who is to save us certainly must not be killed.
Appearances can be sacramental ...signs pointing to an unseen truth. But appearances can also be deceiving and misleading, like Satan, and then it is time to put them behind us. When appearances blind us to the truth, then it is time to name them ‘stumbling blocks' and put them behind us. When we cling too tightly to appearances – to ‘the way things were' or even to our own lives as they are – that clinging can keep us from growth and from following Jesus. Then it is time to let go, to lose what appears to be our life in order to save our true life. Maybe it's time to try on a different dress.
Last week we pondered Jesus' question about himself, "Who do you say that I am?" This week, consider yourself. Who do people say that you are? Who do you appear to be? What do people see in you ? – not just the color of your hair, or the new dress, but your attitudes and your actions.
Who do you say that you are? What do you see in yourself? – maybe you like what you see – or maybe you see your mistakes and shortcomings, all the places you aren't perfect? – or the places you are hurting? Is that who you really are?
Who does God say that you are?
Another way to look at the question is: Are you living a sacramental life? – is your appearance "an outward and visible sign" of the person God made you to be? "I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God which is your spiritual worship."
In Christ the divine shows in the human. In Christ our human bodies become "holy and acceptable." So Christian appearances are important – our humanity can be a sign showing that we have set our minds on the divine.
Who does the Bible say that you are? You are Christ's image, let it show. Let it show in your smile and your tears, in welcoming and forgiving. Let it show in loving and growing. in grieving and celebrating. And, yes, even in suffering an death.
Appearances are important. Who do we say that we are? "We are called by your name, O Lord, God of hosts." We are Christians. Does it show?