August 21, 2005 At Saint Mark Church in Norman, OK

Isaiah 22:19-12 + Romans 11: 33-36 + Matthew 16:13-20

As many times as I have heard these verses and studied them,

something new always pops out when I sit still long enough to listen.

This time around, two things came to my attention:

only in Matthew’s Gospel is the word “Church” used with Peter’s confession,

making it perfectly clear that this is not about Peter, but about us.

The second thing that came to mind was that this business of the keys

is about authority not power.

The two are not the same.

The problem with the man in the first reading is that he confused the two.

He had authority, but he thought it was all about power,

so he used his authority to exercise power for himself,

and that was the end of him.

This year, and especially last week,

we are celebrating one hundred years of what Matthew speaks of in his Gospel.

We sit in this grand church made holy

by the sacrifices of those who put it here and our own to keep it here.

The men and women who were here one hundred years ago may well have imagined and hoped that we would be here, but I wonder if they thought it would look like this?

This celebration of our centennial is about more than looking back with wonder

at how they did it, how they got around, how they managed to survive on this inland sea of grass, and what they managed to build.

This celebration of our centennial eventually must lead us to look ahead at what it will take to have another celebration one hundred years from now.

The reason we are here with a past to celebrate is because those men and women were not part-time Catholics, and matters of convenience never entered their thinking when it came to their faith and how it was celebrated.

Closer to the early church and the ideal of Jesus Christ, there were free riders

because membership was expensive.

It offered sacrifice and stigma, but also significance and satisfaction.

In the past hundred years, we have accumulated a lot free riders

who slow things down and lessened the efficacy of the mission.

Calling oneself a Christian is not the same as calling oneself a disciple.

In this part of the world, being a “Christian” is expected and easy,

but becoming a true Disciple of Christ is something else again.

It means being part of the mission, digging into your pockets and into your calendar.

Believing in Christ is not what is required.

Believing Christ is.

Those old timers hitched up the team, loaded up the kids, and took off across streams and grasslands when they heard that Mass was going to happen somewhere.

I doubt that they cared one bit about how long it took, whether Father had an accent, or what kind of music there might be.

Christ built them into “church”, and that church is what we are.

Day by day we ought to worry about whether or not we are worthy of what we have inherited.

We feel proud of having built one big church.

They built ten times as many in two decades.

What those men and women had to pass on

was authority, not power. They had no power.

The trouble these days is that we do,

and then we get more interested in power than in authority.

When that happens, everything is more important than faith and church,

because we want more power.

And so, getting a better job and making more money

is more important than what we do with it.

We educate our children first so that they can make money, be secure and have stuff

if there is any time left, and it’s convenient, they can learn about church and faith.

Authority is not won by promotion, but by prayer and tears.

Authority is maintained by self-surrender and courageous sacrifice.

We recognize people with authority because they have suffered, sacrificed, and risen up with courage from challenge and defeat.

We recognize people with authority

because they are not interested in themselves first.

In the synagogue of his home town,

the people recognized authority in Jesus, not power.

They listened and some followed him because of it.

That is what Jesus would give to us,

and that is what church will be built upon for the future:

sacrifice, suffering, courage, and prayer.

These are the ingredients of authority,

exactly what Jesus has to offer those who recognize him as Peter did.

Take a look at the cross again. No hint of power there,

only authentic authority, against which nothing can prevail.

August 14, 2005 At Saint Mark Church in Norman, OK

Isaiah 56:1,6-7 + Romans 11: 13-15,29-32 + Matthew 15:21-28

In an age when fear tightens our boarders,

this Gospel comes with a challenge not to be ignored.

Fear is driving much of our policy, decisions, and attitudes as a nation.

Even as a church, issues of language, sexuality, culture, and life style

threaten to split us into insiders and outsiders.

Gates, Fences, Boundaries, and Borders are getting very important, to the point that some of us are beginning to wonder if they exist to keep us in or keep us out.

The lines between insiders and outsiders always prove to be problematic.

“You don’t belong here.” or “You can come in, but this is how we do things.”

are the sounds of a circle tightening,

and that tight circle may strangle the life out of us.

Exclusivity does not become us.

The privilege of the covenant does not bestow the right to judge and exclude.

It brings a duty to embrace, to welcome, to seek, and search:

the very divine quality that has embraced us in our faults and failures.

The best lesson and revelation of this story comes from an unlikely source.

The teacher today is not Jesus, nor is it the apostles.

The one who proclaims good news today is the woman

who knows more about God than those apostles.

She knows where to go in her need, and she knows how to get relief.

The power of her persistent plea;

the fact that what she asks is not for her alone;

and the humility with which she takes insult and dismissal

is in sharp contrast to the “in group” apostles who want her sent away.

Another challenge to our culture’s prevailing mood of privilege

comes out of Matthew today

giving us cause to think again about the gifts we have.

None of them were earned, no matter how we may try to fool ourselves with that idea.

They were not earned, because we did not choose where we were born nor when.

As a parent willing to endure anything for her child,

this woman is an image of God for us

revealing Divine qualities in this very human moment.

A woman from Canaan teaches us today about God, about prayer, and about humility.

An outsider, she sill believed, and because of it, she was promised,

“Your wish will come to pass.”

She found her place at the table.

Satisfied with crumbs, it is life she seeks.

Even crumbs are part of a loaf that nourishes and sustains.

At this table it is crumbs that sustain us, just a tiny piece broken from the whole.

At this table it is life we seek and life we receive.

August 7, 2005 At Saint Mark Church in Norman, OK

1 Kings 19:9, 11-13 + Romans 9:1-5 + Matthew 14:22-33

We do not hear anything to indicate that the storm is what frightened the disciples.

These are fishermen.

They are on the lake every day and every night.

They know it well.

They know its moods and its weather.

They know how to handle the boat.

There is no hint of fear in this story until they see Jesus walking on the water.

They thought they were seeing a ghost, and it scared them.

They were a people simpler than we are.

If we saw someone walking on the water, we would start to wonder how they did that.

We would suspect some techno – hologram at work, and the curious would get interested. The rest of us would just go back to work.

But, what if we saw someone we knew was dead walking toward us?

Now remember, this story is being told by a people who have experienced the death and resurrection of Jesus.

More than anything, this story at this point of Matthew’s Gospel is theophany story

in which the divinity of Jesus is revealed.

The evidence of that comes when Jesus speaks and says:

Get hold of yourselves. It is I.

In the original language of this Gospel, these are words straight out of the Book of Exodus – I AM WHO I AM says the voice from the burning bush.

So the first thing we get on an August Sunday from Matthew’s Gospel is an affirmation about the identity of Jesus Christ.

The next thing we get is a description of his function – what he is here to do.

This Divine Messiah is here to save humankind.

In chapter eight there is another boat story

about a sleeping Jesus and a violent storm that is sinking the boat.

In that story, no one gets out of the boat, while Jesus calms the storm.

It concludes with the apostles wondering:

What sort of man is this, that even the winds and the sea obey him?”

In this boat story, they get their answer.

He is none other than the “I AM” who spoke to Moses

and called for obedience.

In that story, staying in the boat even if it’s battered by storms

is the way to get to the other side.

It is a church – story about getting from here to there:

from here to the other side.

In both stories, the “little faith” of the disciples is the issue,

but the second story has it’s roots in the resurrection experience,

and so Peter is willing to step out when called.

Had he not taken that first step, he would never have learned the meaning of faith.

Thank God for Peter!

Bounding out of the boat, onto the water.

What an act of faith, and then the sinking, and the panic, and the cry or desperation.

And then the hand extended in a powerful combination,

a kind of incarnation blending of friendship

and salvation,

and encouragement

and life itself.

And then those wonderful words.

I’ve never thought they were spoken in rebuke or aloof scolding.

I prefer to think that they were spoken with admiration and tenderness.

I think they were whispered, intimate encouragement:

“Oh Little-Faith-One. Why did you doubt?

Little faith is a marvelous thing.

Just a little will get you out of the boat and onto the water;

and that’s the first step sometimes.

It’s what Elijah learned at that cave.

It’s not the big wind,

the earthquake,

nor the big fire that matters.

It’s the tiny whispering voice.

In a world that thinks bigger is better,

might is right, and that being tough and unbending is virtue,

this is a hard thing to get right.

God loves faith in every form, big and little,

and little faith grows into great faith.