The Cross and New Life

A Sermon preached by
the Rev. Peter De Franco
at
St. Peter’s Episcopal Church
August 31, 2008

Last week, we heard the story of Peter identifying Jesus as the Messiah. Jesus thought that God gave Peter a unique insight into Jesus and his mission. Jesus was so impressed with Peter’s understanding that he called Peter the Rock on which Jesus would build his church. Peter must have thought himself very special.
I have some Spanish friends and they gave me a word to describe Peter: Especial. It means someone who thinks of himself as better than others, as velvet compared to cotton, a Don Perignon champagne to Boon Wine, a Lamborghini rather than a banged up Impala. People who feel themselves to be Especial usually have a bit of an inflated ego. And that was Peter.
After all, Jesus singled him out from all the apostles and let him know that he saw things that they did not understand. Since Peter recognized that Jesus was unique, Peter must have felt that he needed to protect Jesus. He must have felt, as any friend would feel, that he had to protect Jesus from harm, shelter him from danger, shield him from disaster. We all would feel the same. None of us would want any disaster to fall on our best friend. If Peter was anything to Jesus, Peter was his dear friend.
Just after Jesus called Peter the rock on which Jesus would build the church, Jesus then goes on to tell the disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and undergo great suffering at the hands of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised. Peter hears those words and goes into protective mode. Just imagine Peter as a huge Israeli shepherd; Peter would not allow anyone to touch his Jesus. Suffering at the hands of the elders and chief priests, being killed, and that nonsense about rising on the third day – Peter would have none of that for his Jesus. We all would have felt the same. We all would have tried to protect Jesus. All of us except for Jesus.
Just as quickly as Jesus inflated Peter’s balloon, so Jesus did not fail to pop that balloon. “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; for you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.” Satan – that is what Jesus called Peter. The Rock becomes the demon. The most important becomes the least important. Apostle Especial becomes first class devil.
If the rest of the disciples do not understand what Jesus is saying, Jesus spells it out for them in no uncertain terms: If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. 25For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.
Those are very hard words. But let’s just look at the week that has passed. I am sure you read the newspaper articles about two young boys, athletes both, who died tragically while preparing for the football season. On Thursday, we received the tragic news that Fred Richter, a beloved parishioner of many years, died suddenly and his funeral was on Friday. Another member of the parish buried her aunt. Another member of the church underwent major surgery. We could go through a litany of woes that we are all carrying, problems with children, spouses, finances, work and health. Just because it is summer does not mean that problems take a vacation.
As we gather on this the last Sunday of the summer, we find that Jesus is talking to us about a cross. Perhaps this is God’s offer at making sense of the crosses that come our way. To be a follower of Jesus involves us in a process of death and resurrection.
Now I don’t want you to imagine that I am endorsing a Christianity that is all about suffering. Let’s thanks God that Jesus suffered once for us all and we do not have to repeat that cycle of suffering. I think its bad theology to imagine that we have a God who delights in disrupting our lives with anguish, pain and suffering. God does not send pain into our lives to crush us, to punish us, to get back for those offenses we committed at one time or another.
But Jesus knows that suffering is part of all our lives. When Jesus invites us to take up our crosses, Jesus is asking us to enter into the life process where we let go and surrender the old patterns of life that new forms of life might begin.
There is a tendency in all of us, when we listen to these passages about death and resurrection, that we stop at the death part and don’t move on to the life part. We get stuck. Jesus is addressing that pattern of getting stuck.
In today’s Gospel, Peter got stuck. When Jesus told the disciples about the process of death leading to life, Peter could only hear the death part and not engage the life part. For that reason, Jesus calls Peter Satan since the Rock was caught and could not imagine how life could come from death. But God could imagine that process. God could think of a way to get beyond death and make the way of the cross a way of life and peace.
I invite you this day to find those places in your heart where you are suffering, where you feel the pain of the cross, and ask yourself what you need to surrender of your old life to allow space for new life. I invite you to look into your soul, to find those places where you feel the weight of the cross, and ask yourself what you need to surrender in order for resurrection to happen. For in this holy process of life and death, we are not in it alone. God is the one who is drawing new life out of the old. God is inviting you to leave behind the old patterns and enter into the new life God is preparing for you. God is the one who is inviting us to leave behind the womb of our old lives to enter into the new birth of a life we cannot imagine.

Let us pray.
Almighty God, whose most dear Son went not up to joy but first he suffered pain, and entered not into glory before he was crucified: Mercifully grant that we, walking in the way of the cross, may find it none other than the way of life and peace; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord. Amen.

Hunger for Heaven

A Sermon Preached by the Rev’d Peter De Franco at St. Peter’s Episcopal Church on August 3, 2008

Nothing about the history of Sara Miles would have brought her to the place where she is today. An avowed atheist who was raised by atheist parents, A radical reporter on the staff of the left wing publication, Mother Jones. A journalist who covered the 1980’s war in Nicaragua. A sometimes cook in New York restaurants. A Mother of one. A wife of another woman. She is the last person you would have expected to walk into a church. But stranger things have happened.
When Sara Miles walked in St. Gregory of Nyssa Episcopal Church in San Francisco, little did she anticipate it would be the day of her conversion? Why did she do it? This is what she said: “I was curious. You know, I'm a reporter, and it's a big, beautiful, wooden-shingled building. And it has this gorgeous mosaic icon outside and a sign that says, "All That Is Prays to You." You walk inside and you are struck by this huge mural of dancing saints, only the saints are people like Malcolm X and Cesar Chavez. It's very surprising.”
Sara Miles walked into St. Gregory of Nyssa Church and heard the invitation to receive communion: “Jesus welcomes everyone to his table and so we offer everyone, without exception, the bread and wine, which are Christ’s body and blood.” Deacons and priests came into a congregation standing around a circular altar giving to all a piece of bread broken from a loaf. They passed around chalices with wine. Sara describes her experience in these words: “A woman put a piece of fresh bread in my hand and gave me a goblet of some rather nasty, sweet wine. And I ate the bread and was completely thunderstruck by what I felt happening to me. So I stood there crying, completely unsure of what was happening to me. I thought I’ve got to get out of the church as quickly as I could before some strange, creepy Christian would try to chat with me. And I came back the next week because I was hungry, and kept coming back and kept coming back to take that bread.’
Completely Thunderstruck by what was happening. Now how many of us are thunderstruck when we receive communion?
Here is another way she describes communion: "It was pretty good bread, a nice whole-wheat bread. The other was that God was alive and in my mouth. It was bread, and it was God."
But that was only the beginning. She came back, week after week, drawn to satisfy a hunger that she had long known but could never find the food to fill her. Sara knew that the invitation to receive the body and blood of Christ echoed the radical welcome Jesus gave to all whom he invited to share his table.
We heard that invitation which Jesus extended to 5,000 men. I wonder why Matthew did not include the women and children. To all of them, to girls and boys, women and men, anyone who could eat food, Jesus and the apostles spread out, like those priests and deacons spreading out through the church, giving to one and all a lunch of bread and fish. It was a bountiful meal. There was so much food that they put together doggie bags, twelve baskets of leftover food.
Let’s recall that the gospels speak in symbolic language and when they talk about 12 baskets of extra food, they mean food to feed the 12 tribes of Israel, all of God’s people have enough to bring home. Sara knew something of that generosity of Jesus. She knew that hunger not only touches the heart, as it touched her. Hunger cripples the body.
San Francisco is close to the bountiful fields of northern California. People in the city began to organize food pantries where the bounty of the fields would be sold to food pantries. Sara had the bright idea of starting up a pantry.
St. Gregory’s church does not have a parish hall. The church is a double room. One room has chairs that are set up to face one another. The other room has only one piece of furniture in it: an altar. Sara asked to set up the food pantry in the church, with tables surrounding the altar. Food would be brought in every Friday morning. Volunteers would set out the food on tables surrounding the altar. Melons, fruit, tomatoes, lettuce, rice, beans, boxes of cereal, pasta. People would come with their bags and slowly enter into the church. Candles would be burning in front of icons. Flowers decorate the church. Five tons of food would be handed out to 450 people. They do that every Friday.
The Food Pantry at St. Gregory’s Church was only the start. When you do God’s work, God sees that the work will spread. Money started to come into her pantry and she gave the money to other places to start pantries. Only one church joined her effort. But parents in schools, people in the projects, volunteers started to come from all different places to find food. It all sounds a lot like us.
I invite you this day to come to this table that Jesus sets for us, come with your hunger, come with your heart desiring to be filled. Perhaps this day you too can say with Sara: God was alive and in my mouth. It was bread, and it was God."