Wednesday, August 30, 2023

Fraternal Following

 


God’s grace, peace and mercy be with you. … My focus is on Matthew 16:24 and Romans 12:10. Let us pray. Heavenly Father, the psalmist wrote, “I rejoiced when they said to me, ‘Let us go to the house of the Lord.’” Now that our feet are within your gates, we rejoice to hear your Word. As we listen, may your Spirit enlighten our minds and move our hearts to love deeply as Jesus loved. This we pray to you, Most Holy Trinity. Amen.

There’s an old cartoon that depicts Jesus clarifying his statement to a would-be disciple, “No, I am not talking about Twitter. I literally want you to follow me.” Other than the fact that Elon Musk changed the name to X. the cartoon illustrates a lesson about language. Words change meaning overnight, over decades, centuries, and millennia. So, let me begin by examining a few words from our texts – from Matthew, follow, and from Paul, fraternal or brotherly affection. Then I will tell you how two war-torn enemies became brothers, setting an example for us.

First, follow. The cartoon quote is funny because one can misconstrue our Lord’s words as social media chatter. The word follow comes from the Old English folġian or fylgan. I have said on several occasions that follow has several meanings. It means to come after in a sequence, such as B follows A in the alphabet. It means to go after, pursue or move behind in the same path or direction. Follow that car! When you operate a new power tool, follow the instructions. Fans follow an event, a team, or an activity. As Jesus used the term, He wanted people to devote themselves to Him, His Way and His teaching.

People quit their careers and families to follow Jesus. His closest disciples sat at His feet. They travelled by boat and foot to hear Him teach and witness Him heal. During His darkest moment, some followed at a distance and stood at the Foot of the Cross. A group followed His Body to the tomb and returned to anoint Him. After His Resurrection, the apostles followed Him to Bethany and stared into the sky as He ascended.

Today’s passage, however, made it difficult for some to follow Jesus any further. It was the first time Jesus predicted His passion. The passage also marks the turning point into the final section of Matthew, who wrote his Gospel for believers who knew the outcome of the story. Here, Matthew illustrated the reaction people had to Jesus’ revolutionary and unexpected teaching.

In its larger context, we see that Jesus’ original followers were common, ordinary men and women, but they knew and understood God’s plan for Israel and the world. They accepted Jesus’ teaching and witnessed the power of God working through Him. They saw His teaching and work evoked faith from the crowds and provoked persecution from religious and political authorities. With these parties plotting His demise, Jesus and His disciples retreated to a remote spot off the Sea of Galilee where He asked them who they believed Him to be.

Hearing the answer, Jesus showed His enlightened disciples what was required of Him – depart to Jerusalem to suffer many things from the elders, chief priests and scribes, be killed and raised on the third day.

Is it no wonder why – in this peaceful spot – Peter and the disciples reacted as they did? Why confront your enemies? Why provoke politicians? Why suffer? Why go to Jerusalem to be killed? These normal human questions arose from their sinful human minds. “If God’s mercy is to be found in Jerusalem’s Temple, then mercy and not murder awaits you there. That is how God works, Jesus!” said Peter, the man who declared Him the Messiah, the Son of the living God.

Peter was not simply confused, but took a firm stand against the Lord. Peter articulated God’s activity in the world in a satanic way, expressing the ‘things of men.’[1] When reprimanded, the only thing Peter could do was get out of Jesus’ way and not cause Him to stumble into disobedience that would have led to disaster for Israel’s lost sheep and the world. Jesus was the person to first say, “Lead, follow, or get out of the way.” By getting out of the way, Peter learned what it meant to follow this Christ, this Son of God.[2]

Because His disciples misunderstood how God works in the world, verse 24 is the heart and summary of Jesus’ teaching. If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.” … Only by yielding to His Father’s will and His opponents, and accepting suffering and death by crucifixion could people and creation be saved from sin and death. That is how God works in the world.

The primary obstacle to following Jesus was not in the world, but deep within the heart of every disciple. They had to reject the tendency of insisting God conform to their ways and deal with evil according to their expectations. They had to reject the tendency that if in charge, they would make things right. They had to learn that criticism, competition or quiet, prideful comparison disguised as sinful human ambition embraced and exalted not the Cross of Christ, but them. “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.”

The first disciples who followed Jesus learned they could not pre-determine the type of difficulty, suffering or martyrdom they would face. As early Christians who worshipped the Trinity and renounced Greek and Roman gods, their neighbors hated and rejected them. Ultimately, some Christians found their way to crucifixion or some other gruesome form of death.

When it was time for him, Peter deemed himself unworthy to die the same way as His Lord, and requested to be crucified upside-down. Others, like James, died by the sword (Acts 2:12). Of course, not all Christians were martyred. Christianity spread throughout the world, and to Rome, the setting for my second point, “Love one another with brotherly affection.”

Love one another with brotherly affection. Paul’s advice begs the question, “What was Paul trying to accomplish in these final chapters of Romans?” Paul was teaching Christians how to conduct their daily lives through the power and structure of grace.

Romans reveals God’s relationship to rebellious creation; how Christ reversed what Adam did; and how His death broke the power of sin. As human beings freed from the domination of sin and the law, we are now dominated by the Spirit. In chapter 9, Paul pointed towards the future and explained how from the beginning God’s plan of gracious election was at work, culminating in Christ who brought the law to an end by incorporating its goal in Him.

In chapter 12, Paul wrote about grace, which triumphed over human rebellion. Grace does not mean that anything goes. Rather, there is a structure to living the Christian life as individuals and communities. There is a structure to denying yourself, picking up your cross and following Christ.

If the Christian community responds appropriately to the structuring grace at work in it, it will display unity. Unity, however, is not uniformity, as Paul emphasized the necessity of diversity based on the abundance of God’s grace. Diversity is not based on race, ethnicity or gender preferences. Nor is diversity simply a few people with special skills contributing to the community. All church members have spiritual gifts, and are responsible for discovering what gifts they have and use them to glorify God.[3]

In Rome, people confused ego with grace. Some saw their gifts as more important than others’ gifts. That same problem arose in communities throughout the next 21 centuries across the globe. The solution to the problem of pride and over-inflated egos is simply love.[4]

Love one another with brotherly affection. That includes your enemies and those who displease you. Why? Because while we were enemies with God, we were reconciled to Him by the death of His Son (Rom 5:9-10). The point of heaping burning coals on your enemy’s head is not to get back at him. Rather, you feed and refresh those who displease you because it is how Christians effect reconciliation with their enemies. A small gesture compared to how God effected reconciliation with us, His rebellious enemies.

Paul’s advice was not to withdraw from the world into seclusion as an individual or Christian enclave. Instead, Paul encouraged Christians in 1st century Rome to live among others, but with a different set of values. Attempting to reconcile and win over your enemies through kindness, compassion and brotherly love was not an action people embraced, but Christians did.

Christians of 1st century Rome believed Jesus Christ died for their sins and rose from the dead. They believed that they, once rebellious enemies of God, were reconciled through Christ’s death and resurrection. When the Paschal Mystery is embedded in your heart, mind and soul, you do what God asks or commands. You even deny yourself, take up your cross and follow Christ by loving your enemies with brotherly affection.

All well and good, but what do the readings have to do with life today? How do we deny ourselves, pick up our cross and follow Jesus? How do we love enemies with brotherly love?

Let me tell you a story of two men, intent on killing one another in war, who became as close as brothers. While serving as pastor in Oakmont, I met Gerri Hamilton. Gerri was a faithful and loving member of our church. One day, she asked me to visit her husband, Howard, who was in the hospital. That was the spring of 1998. By December, he died from a long illness. Yet, Howard should have died in 1943. That did not happen. God spared Howard. After World War Two, he and Gerri, had three sons and a daughter. After a distinguished career in manufacturing, Howard became a professor of electrical engineering at the University of Pittsburgh.

You see, during World War II, on his 22nd mission as a bombardier in the Army Air Corps, Howard’s B-17 was hit by enemy fire on October 10th. It punctured his lung. He lost consciousness and regained it only to have his parachute pack strap catch on the door handle. He dangled as the plane spiraled. He did not have enough strength to free himself. His co-pilot risked his life to set him free.

Howard landed in a tree. The Germans captured him and took him to a hospital where he lay on a stretcher for 12 hours until an officer in charge of prisoners of war begged the one lone surgeon to treat him because he would die before morning.

In captivity for 19 months, initially in a hospital and then in Stalag Luft on the Baltic Sea, he was liberated by the Russians on May 1, 1945. After the war, Howard went to college on the GI bill, began his career and family.

Howard lived a successful life professionally and personally, but that is not why I tell you the story of what happened to a twenty-year old kid 80 years ago. You see, Howard and the German officer who begged that he be treated did not forget each other. The officer looked him up after reading a book about the raid. Howard and Gerri visited him in Germany, and he visited them in Pittsburgh.[5]

If two men on opposite sides of history’s bloodiest war, intent on killing one another, could reconcile and treat one another with brotherly love, who of us cannot reconcile with people we dislike and love them, as Christians should?

Friends, we may never fly as bombardiers, encounter our enemy on a gurney, or spend years as a P.O.W., but we have relatives and neighbors, co-workers and colleagues, and even church members who have wronged us. Some owe you money because they rent space in your head thinking of what they once did to you. And although sin keeps me from reconciling with God and them, as a Christian, I bear the cross of reconciliation behind Christ. Because of Jesus Christ and His grace, we can reconcile with people we dislike because God reconciled with us when we were enemies.

This week, treat one person you dislike or disliked with love, and see what happens. When you do, may the peace of God that surpasses all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.



[1] Jeffrey A. Gibbs, Matthew 11:2- 20:34. St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House (2010), 840.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Paul J. Achtemeier, Romans. Louisville: John Knox Press (1985), 196f.

[4] Ibid, 198.

[5] See among other sources with the same information: https://www.arlingtoncemetery.net/hbhamilton.htm.

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