I am who I am

Sunday 23^rd August – Trinity 11 (Proper 16)

This Sunday I am presiding at St. Peter’s at 10am and Rev. Karen Young is presiding at All Saints and St, Michael’s – 9.30 and 11.00am respectively. The lectionary readings are as follows.

Isaiah 51: 1-6. Written to a small remnant in exile, Isaiah reminds them that though they are few in number, their whole story started with just two people – Abraham and Sarah. That God produced a nation from such small beginnings he can do again. The creation story is cited referencing creating a new Eden from the ashes but then the lection takes a surprising turn by stating that creation is only temporary. It will “wear out like a garment”. The only reality that will remain in the end is God.

Romans 12: 1-8. A passage from Paul that sets up some ethical teaching to come, which says that we should be “transformed by the renewing of our minds”. This is a good description of “Metanoia” the process of being “born again”. Seeing and perceiving things from the perspective of a loving creator God rather than a purposeless pointless accident of nature, leading to a change in the way we act towards each other. Paul introduces the notion of the Christian community as a body, equal as fellow children of God but with different gifts and attributes to contribute to the body as a whole.

Matthew 16: 13-20. This is the turning point in the gospel narrative when Peter, or using his Jewish name “Simon son of Jonah” speaking on behalf of the disciples recognises the true significance of Jesus as being more than a prophet or great religious teacher but is the “Christ”(Greek) , which means the Messiah (Hebrew) which in turn means the anointed one. In a distinctive Christian re-working of that Jewish title Matthew adds “the son of the living God”.

The readings this week fit together perfectly. They are supposed to of course but some weeks fit together better than others.

We start with having to confront the reality that one day every single thing in the universe will die. Everything.

Us, our world, our sun, our solar system, our galaxy, the entire cosmos, will pass away.

Isaiah renders this prospect poetically by saying that “the heavens will vanish like smoke, the earth will wear out like a garment and those who live on it will die like gnats”

This idea is amplified in the gospels where Jesus confirms that “heaven and earth will pass away” (Matthew 24:35, Luke 21:33) and this is underlined in the book of revelation several times but most famously in Revelation 21 when John considers the end times – a reading often read at funerals.

So is that it? Does anything remain?

The Biblical revelation is quite sure that one reality does remain.

After the prophetic words in Isaiah foretelling our ultimate end Isaiah says

“But my salvation will be for ever, and my deliverance will never be ended”

Jesus says in the gospels that while heaven and earth will pass away, “my words will never pass away”

In revelation John prophesies “I saw a new heaven and a new earth for the first heaven and the first earth has passed away”.

The only reality that is eternal is God himself, so the only way of ensuring our continuing existence is to find ourselves joined to that one eternal reality – the only thing that is good and true and eternal – God himself.

But How? In the Christian revelation, the way to unite ourselves with God has been revealed to us uniquely in human form. Our way to the Father in classic Christian terms “through Jesus Christ, son of the living God”.

The transcendent eternal God reveals himself in time and space in a human form and that recognition that he is God incarnate is our gospel story today.

Peter’s famous confession “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God” is the solid rock on which the church is built.

This mind-expanding leap in consciousness is the subject matter of Paul’s letter today when he writes of being “transformed by the renewing of your minds”.

I love that phrase. It recalls for me Jesus telling Nicodemus that he can’t even see the kingdom of God unless he is “born again” from above.

We are the community of believers - the church - conforming ourselves to God’s will and as Paul writes today in words that are echoed in our Eucharistic prayer today “presenting our bodies as a living sacrifice”.

The way to the Father is through God-in-Christ who ordained the use of material things to make concrete our spiritual joining with the Father using bread and wine.

We are connecting our mortal selves to the eternal Father through Jesus Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit.

What we do every time we break bread together is mind expandingly, extraordinarily profound.

We are joining ourselves with the only eternal reality in the universe that will survive the death of all material things and ensure our salvation, a salvation that is eternal, because God is eternal.