A Rooted Faith

 February 21 2021

Luke 9:18-36

         As we have discussed before, the church, like the time we live in, has seasons. We had the season of Advent, those four weeks before Christmas, and then, of course we had the season of Christmas which as the song reminds us only lasts twelve days. Then, following Christmas, the Church has the season of Epiphany, which is the season where now that Jesus has arrived we take time to figure out just who this Jesus is. In Epiphany we want to have this A-ha moment where we suddenly have a glimpse of just who this Jesus is. This, of course is captured really well in the first verses of our scripture for today where Jesus, after he had finished his prayer, turned and asked his disciples two questions. The first question was, “who do the crowds say  that I am? And the second question which hit more close to home asked, “Who do you say that I am?” So, very much like us, the disciples have had a time, a season to follow Jesus around, to listen to him, to watch him perform miracles and exorcisms, and saw how the word that Jesus spoke proved worthy of its promise.What Jesus understood and what the church has also understood is that we must first understand just who Jesus is and then and only then will his mission be properly understood.

         This brings us to the next season of the church which is called Lent after the lengthening of days. It begins seven weeks before Easter on what we know as Ash Wednesday and it has been traditionally a time of preparation for those who would be baptized on Easter morning, those rising to new life on the Sunday when the rising of Jesus to new life is celebrated. But in order to successfully make it to Easter what must first be encountered is the cross. In fact, what this season is primarily about is preparing ourselves to follow Jesus all the way to Calvary, to know that if there is a cross for Jesus then there is a cross for us as well. Jesus anticipated our natural reluctance to accept that suffering and death may be required of those who accepted his word. He tells his disciple a parable, a story laid alongside the teachings of Jesus that is given to help us understand the teachings of Jesus in a deeper way. The main parable of Jesus is the parable of the sower, found in the eighth chapter of Luke where we read about the man who went out to sow some seed. Some of the seed fell along the path and the birds came and devoured it. And some seed fell on rocky soil and as it grew up it withered away because it had no moisture. And some seed fell among the thorns and the thorns grew up with it and choked it. But some seed fell onto good soil and grew and yielded a hundredfold. Now when we hear this story it might be hard to figure out just what any of this has to do with Jesus, the cross and the season of Lent but hold on it will soon make sense because Jesus goes on to explain this story. Further in that eighth chapter of Luke, Jesus tells his disciples that the seed that is being sown is the word of God. The seed along the path is the word that is heard  but instead of remaining long in these peoples hearts, the devil comes and quickly snatches the word away so that they might  not believe and be saved. This is what we have been learning about in the previous messages is that the word God gives to us is his command for us to do unto others as we would want others to do to us. The devil snatches this word from our hearts when he tells us the lie that there are those we cannot love because of who they are. This is called the victim mentality that it is because of what others have done this is what determines what we will do. When we follow this thinking then we become a slave because it is always someone else who gets to decide what we will do and who we will love. This is where the the devil wants to bring us through his lies to this place where we are slaves to sin. Yet what Gods word calls us to do is the freedom of loving others even those who do not love us.

         We need to understand how the devil takes God’s word from our hearts in order to understand what is meant by the seed that has fallen on rocky soil and as it grew it withered away because it had no moisture. Jesus explains that these are those people who hear the word and receive it with joy. But they have no root; they believe for a while and in times of testing they fall away. In Matthews version of this same parable, this time of testing is further described as being tribulation persecution on account of the word. If you go further and look up the original Greek you find that the word, “tribulation” was in fact, a threes sided tool for threshing grain. To thresh grain you have to rub the grain, put it under pressure so that the chaff, the hard outer shell is rubbed away from the inner heart of the grain. So, tribulation in a similar manner means that because of the word of God in our hearts we may find ourselves under pressure. The second word that Matthew’s version gives us is persecution which in the original Greek is a term that means to be hunted down. So, it is not hard to comprehend that it is a difficult calling we are under when we treasure the word of God in our hearts. The question we must ask ourselves is, are we able to endure to the end? Now, I don’t believe that Jesus taught his disciples and us this just to throw cold water on our enthusiasm that comes with being a follower of Jesus. No, if you listen closely he tells us what is needed in order to survive the trials and the sufferings. It is easier to hear in Matthews version where Jesus says that the reason some will fall away when trials and sufferings come is that they have no root in them. This then is the real purpose of this season of Lent to examine ourselves to see just how is our root system. If we are going to follow Jesus all the way to Calvary, if what happened to him can and may happen to us then in order for us to not fall away under pressure we had better have deep roots; shallow roots will do us no good when the heat of the day is upon us.

         This of course just begs the question, what does it mean for us to have deep roots? Well, fortunately for us, this image of being a well rooted plant has occurred elsewhere in scripture, in the first Psalm and in the seventeenth chapter of Jeremiah, where we read, “Blessed is the one who trusts in the Lord. They are like a tree planted by water that sends its roots out by the stream and does not fear when heat comes, for its leaves remain green and is not anxious in the year of drought, for it does not cease to bear fruit.”So, the key that we find here is that those who are like trees who have sent out deep roots by the stream are those who trust the Lord. So, it is not enough to hear the word of God and to receive that word in your heart you also must put your faith in God, trusting in his word no matter what. The other key words found in this passage from Jeremiah are fear and anxiety the very roots of sinful behavior. These will not be a problem as long as one goes deep in their faith of God. Lastly, what also happens is that this tree with deep well-watered roots will not cease to bear fruit. This fruit as we find in the fifteenth chapter of John’s gospel are the good works which bring glory to our Heavenly Father, the fruits that are the very marks of a disciple of Jesus.

         So, when we stand back and look at what we know so far what we discover is that the word of God calls us to love others, to do to others as we would have them do to us. We are not to blame others but instead we are called to be responsible people who will love no matter what. Further, if God brings us to a place where loving others requires we suffer and even give up our life we will be able to do so because we have a deep trust in God, that because of his unchanging nature our lives are safe with him doing what he calls us to do.This is the understanding that we are to wrestle with during this season of Lent. In our scripture for today we see the season of Epiphany, the season where we want the light to go on so that we can at last know just who this Jesus is at last given an answer that Jesus is indeed the Christ of God, the one anointed by God by the Holy Spirit.We remember the baptism of Jesus where we are told that the Holy Spirit descended upon Jesus in the form of a dove and a voice was heard from heaven saying, “This is my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.” Now even though this was a very public witness to who Jesus was, what Jesus wanted to know is if anyone had really accepted that this was true. Jesus first asked his disciples who the crowds said that he was and the crowds thought that Jesus was much like a prophet but could go no further than that. Then Jesus turned and pointed the question towards his disciples. We can only imagine the nervous squirming that came upon them until Simon Peter broke the silence by blurting out that he knew that Jesus was indeed the anointed one of God.

         It was at this point, when the disciples know who Jesus is, when this is finally brought out into the light, that the story takes a turn because at this moment is when Jesus announces that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests and the scribes and be killed and on the third day be raised. So, while the disciples now plainly knew that Jesus was the anointed one of God, what Jesus next revealed about his future was nothing like what they had expected or hoped God’s anointed one would be like. He was not going to be the long awaited king in the lineage of David who would unite the people of Israel in their uprising against the Roman occupation. No, instead of these disciples being leaders and warriors in the fight against Rome, Jesus instead tells them they must every day be prepared to take upon themselves the scourge of suffering, shame and death at the hands of their hated enemy. How very opposite from what they had expected! So, here they were those who had received the word of God with joy and the question for them no us would they remain, could they endure this way of Jesus, a way of being that none of them saw coming? Jesus in no uncertain terms told his students that in order to remain with him meant that they had to say, “No” to their self, their aspirations, their hopes, their longings, drawing their life from the well of their poisonous hatred and instead put upon their shoulders the dreaded crossbeam. There could be no retaliation, no seeking revenge and most importantly no fear at the worst that Rome could do to them. No, this is the time when they would need a deep abiding trust in the God they professed to know. The call Jesus makes to daily carry this crossbeam meant that they had to be always ready, to be prepared, to have deep roots, trusting that even though it would seem to be so counter-intuitive to the ways of the world that this way was the way that led to life. As Jesus asked them, “What does a person gain if they end up with the whole world but they lose or forfeit themselves? In other words, if God would grant that they could be victorious over the Romans and then they could go on by the help of God to be victorious over every country in the world what would they have gained because in the end they would end up being exactly like the very countries they had defeated. Who they were, the people God had rescued and redeemed to be a kingdom of priests to God, this self that God had so desired for them would be lost as they became just yet another power hungry country attempting to control the world by fear. No, this is the way of death; the way of life is the way of love, the way that knows that it is good that overcomes evil and not the other way around.

         This is why Jesus insisted that they and those of us who also follow him, that we take up our cross every day. We are to be ready, our roots sunk deep in our trust of God, to not demand that God preserve our life when we are called to give our life but to trust in the certainty of God, that in his hands is the safest place for our hands to be. Without this certainty, Jesus warns us in the parable of the sower we will fall away. The word translated here as “fall away” is the word skandalon and it means to hit our foot against a stone which causes us to stumble and fall. This is interesting wording that Jesus uses, a stone of stumbling in a parable about the lack of roots caused by what else, stones. But I believe that he used this wording to point us back to an important scripture where skandalon is used. In the eighth chapter of Isaiah, the prophet tells us, “Do not fear what they fear, nor be in dread. But the Lord of hosts, him you shall honor as holy. Let him be your fear and let him be your dread. And he will become a sanctuary and a stone of offense and a skandalon …and many shall stumble on it.” You see, when we take up our cross, we are saying is that we do so only because of our fear of God. All the other fears that the world can conjure up no longer affect us.We have this fear of God  because we are the people who know the kind of world that our God is bringing about, a world where each person cares for the other just as if they care for themselves. We stand in awe of God how he is bringing forth the victory that is bringing this world to its joyous conclusion. What we fear is that when at long last God is his power brings forth this world in all this glory that we will not be a part of it. This is why we are not ashamed of Jesus and his words which call us to stand unaffected by the all the fears produced at the hands of the world. We stand in fear and awe of God and his victory that will one day as Jesus tells us arrive in a moment of great glory.

         Now we can only imagine how very mind blowing this teaching must have been to those first disciples. I say this because even now two thousand years later this teaching of Jesus still shakes the foundation of how we believe we must live in the world. With these teachings of Jesus swirling in their minds, eight days later Simon, James and John follow Jesus up on the mountain side to pray. Luke’s nod to eight days points our minds to the resurrection which happened on Sunday, the first day after the seven days of the week, the seven days of creation, the eighth day the day of the new creation. It was there in the dim light of that evening that while they were praying, the appearance of the face of Jesus was dramatically changed. Luke records that the face of Jesus was altered, the exact words are that his face became other, or another.  Then we are told that the clothing of Jesus became dazzling white, the shining of the very glory of God. Suddenly, there were two men talking to Jesus who appeared with him in glory. They spoke with Jesus about his departure, his exodus which Jesus was to accomplish at Jerusalem. The word exodus is very important here as it helps us understand that what Jesus was going to Jerusalem to lead his people through his death into the Promised Land of resurrection. In this way Jesus would provide a way for the whole world, to be led out of slavery into freedom.

         Now it is a very human element to the story to find out that all the while this most amazing and miraculous event is happening in his midst, Simon Peter, who had so bravely confessed to who Jesus really was is found to be fast asleep. Simon Peter  upon waking tried to say something profound but his words just came off as awkward and clumsy. Then as in days of old, in the days of the tabernacle, there on the mountain came a cloud, the cloud of the presence of God. We are told that as the cloud overshadowed them , the disciples were afraid, the fear of God had gripped a hold of them. Out of this cloud, where sight was of no use, there came a voice, the same voice heard before at the baptism of Jesus, a voice saying the very words spoken at the baptism of Jesus, “This is my Son, my beloved, my chosen”. But added to these words were a command, “Listen to him.” Here was the beginning of the great commandment found in the sixth chapter of Deuteronomy,”Listen”. What follows is that the people of Israel are to love God with all of their heart, and all of their soul and all of their might. But there on the mountain this command is replaced by, “Listen to him, my Son my beloved.” This is the way God would be loved through our obedience to his Son. And what the Son speaks of is love. The images of Moses and Elijah call forth the Law and the Prophets and as Jesus taught these two hang on this, that we do unto others as we would want done to us. In the face of the other, the next person we encounter, this we remember is the face of Jesus. This encounter with glory was given to strengthen the faith of the disciples and us as well so that our roots grow deep in our trust of God. To his glory! Amen!