Ordinary 22 Year A

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As Moses was commanded in our first reading to take off his shoes because he was on holy ground, so do we lift of the burdens of the world and our lives, as we gather here today on holy ground. I runga i te īngoa o te Matua, o te Tama, o te Wairua Tapu. Āmine.

Peter says it absolutely cannot happen! Jesus can’t simply be allowed to die. 

This challenge to Jesus follows closely the passage where Jesus asks of Peter, “Who do you say that I am?” Peter proclaims that Jesus is “the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” 

Jesus says, that’s right. That’s who I am. I am the Son of God, and as such I will die. 

And Peter says this simply can’t happen. 

This reminds me of an occasion almost 15 years ago when a close university friend told us, his friends, that he was parking his university studies to re-enlist in the Defence Forces as an Army mechanic, and join an imminent deployment of New Zealanders to Afghanistan. He’d served in the Army some years before, before leaving to pick up university studies.

We, his friends were shocked and concerned, having heard of some of terrible experiences Kiwi personnel were having over there, and of some of some of New Zealanders that had died during insurgences.

I remember saying to him “you can’t go! You might die!”

He was a person well versed in scripture and replied simply “you’re no Peter, and I’m not Jesus. I might die, but I’m prepared to take this risk, as I feel it is the right thing for me to do.”

Thankfully he didn’t die, but he did return traumatised as so many who served in that conflict did.

In the novel ‘Good Omens’ by Neil Gaiman, he wrote reenvisioned version of the story of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.

In a particularly spooky part of the novel, three of the four horsemen of the apocalypse ride into a town in which it was predicted Armageddon would happen. War, Famine and Pollution are all riding motorcycles and arrive in search of the fourth horseman, Death. 

Arriving dressed completely in black, Death opens up his helmet displaying a  terrifying face of fleshless bones.

One of the horsemen asks scornfully, “Where have you been?” 

Death ominously answers, “I never left.” 

Of all the grim and morbid stories in the Bible, death is the most real to us. The most threatening, and terrifying to us. And, the most relevant to our lives. It indeed has never left. It has been with of us from the very beginning of humankind, long before any of us came into this world.

In the Bible, Death is the last enemy to be destroyed. Death is the opposite of life. And death is everywhere, striking all the time. 

Death strikes all the time, one our roads, and in our suburbs, and as wars rage and terror unsettles the world. 

Death has struck this week, in every tragedy that made the news. In Nepal, one of the most prayerful places in the world, the death toll rises by the hour.

We often think that it won’t impact us and our families. At least we pray that it won’t. And that if it does, we hope our faith sustains us through the experience.

There are people in our lives, and in society, we just don’t think will ever die.

When Queen Elizabeth died in September 2022, we were shocked, and in a state of disbelief, despite her grand old age, and declining health.

This week when the great and much-loved songstress Dolly Parton (St Dolly of Tennessee as she was known to some) passed away it was like the world let out a collective moan of sadness and disbelief. How could she die? It’s just so unbelievable many said.

Some powerful figures throughout history become so used to their omnipotence, they started to believe in their own immortality.

The famous New Zealand Wars chief Titokowaru of Taranaki once became convinced of this himself. After several close dalliances with death, and serval successful battles with settler soldiers, he proclaimed to his people, “E kore au e mate, ka mate ko te mate – I shall not die; when death itself is dead I shall be alive”.

And his people believed him. And when he did finally die of old age in the care of an English nurser from Manchester, his people were shocked, in disbelief, and sorrow-struck. They had quite literally deluded themselves into thinking that he would never die.

Before I left Auckland to join Reverend Clare and others for General Synod in Tonga, I visited my elderly Aunt Mary in her retirement village. She was in the hospital wing and very low. She had made it through several serious ill health episodes and brushes with death. We had a cup of tea and some prayer. I cheekily told her that she better not die was I was in Tonga. In a weak voice, and with a cunning look in her eye, she told me that she might pass just to annoy me. And that she was prepared to go. To lose this life, in order to gain the life eternal and be with God. As I left, I had an uneasy feeling that we might lose her while I was away. And indeed, she did pass while I was in Tonga. But I found consolation knowing that her faith had prepared for that imminent reality. And that she was indeed ready to be with God.

The majority of my humble little ministry activities and experiences have been around the passing of people. From this life into the life eternal. As a lay minister, in the Māori Church and in Tikanga Pākeha, I have mostly been engaged in funerals, unveilings, tangihanga, memorial events like ANZAC, and blessing of houses where someone has passed etc.  I’m grateful for these experiences. And am fond of this kind of pastoral ministry. You literally encounter the reality of death in all its sorrowful, shocking, and beautiful, tapu forms. And it compels you to apply yourself creatively, and sincerely to care and comfort of those grieving. But you can easily drift into auto pilot and even become blasé or insulated from the sorrowful reality of death if you’re not careful.

We don’t really like to talk or think about Death. We push it away. Which is why we have some sympathy with Peter and understand exactly why he says what he says in this Gospel story. His beloved mentor, tuakana, friend and teacher, Jesus tells him that he will suffer terribly. That he will die. Peter’s friend for whom he gave up everything to follow.

Peter pulled Jesus aside and began to rebuke him, saying, “God forbid it, Lord! This must never happen to you.”

Some of us may think, well I would do the same!

Others might be thinking, rebuking the Son of God is a bit of precarious move!

I think most of us, maybe all of us, if we were in Peter’s shoes, would’ve said exactly what he said.

He left everything for Jesus. He loved him. Jesus brought meaning to his life, the kind he’d not known before. And what on earth would he do if Jesus did die?

And of course, Peter didn’t know the ending of this story. He didn’t have the benefit of the full story as we do.  All he knew was what he knew at the time. He knew that death was final, from which there was no coming back. It would all be over.

And yes, Jesus talked about resurrection, but hearing about something miraculous is very different than witnessing it with your own eyes.

So, Peter pulls him aside and says that it just can’t happen. 

It is at this moment that Jesus answers with his famous imploration for the disciples to take up their cross and follow him. The cross has come to have a special meaning in our lives, in Christian culture, and in the culture at large. A symbol of glory, of life over death. The cross doesn’t mean to us in these times what it did then, before Jesus ever tortured humiliated and died on one. 

Back then, the cross was an instrument of cruelty, removal of mana and dignity, of torture, and death. To take up a cross was to meet Death, face to face. 

But we have the privilege of knowing the end of this story. We know what Peter didn’t know at the time; That death will come for Jesus, but that won’t be the end. 

Death may have never left, but Death doesn’t get the final word. 

The worst thing that can happen is never the last thing. There is usually something hope and grace giving which will follow something awful.

Peter says it can’t happen. Jesus says, Get Behind Me, Satan, because Jesus knows what will come after death comes.

Jesus reminds us that he is here, and Death no longer has the final word.

And though we cannot say “No” to Death, we can say “Yes” to resurrection, “Yes” to Life. Because with all the world’s saddens and horror comes all its beauty, also. 

I runga i te īngoa o Te Atua puna o te ora. Te Tama, i whakawhiti i te mate ki te ora. Wairua tapu, kaiatawhai i te wā o te pōuri, kaiwhakahoki ki te hari. Āmine.

I the name of God, the source of all creation. The Son, who died and lived again. And the Holy Spirit, comforter in times of grief, restorer of all that is joyful in life. Amen.

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As Moses was commanded in our first reading to take off his shoes because he was on holy ground, so do we lift of the burdens of the world and our lives, as we gather here today on holy ground. I runga i te īngoa o te Matua, o te Tama, o te Wairua Tapu. Āmine.

Peter says it absolutely cannot happen! Jesus can’t simply be allowed to die. 

This challenge to Jesus follows closely the passage where Jesus asks of Peter, “Who do you say that I am?” Peter proclaims that Jesus is “the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” 

Jesus says, that’s right. That’s who I am. I am the Son of God, and as such I will die. 

And Peter says this simply can’t happen. 

This reminds me of an occasion almost 15 years ago when a close university friend told us, his friends, that he was parking his university studies to re-enlist in the Defence Forces as an Army mechanic, and join an imminent deployment of New Zealanders to Afghanistan. He’d served in the Army some years before, before leaving to pick up university studies.

We, his friends were shocked and concerned, having heard of some of terrible experiences Kiwi personnel were having over there, and of some of some of New Zealanders that had died during insurgences.

I remember saying to him “you can’t go! You might die!”

He was a person well versed in scripture and replied simply “you’re no Peter, and I’m not Jesus. I might die, but I’m prepared to take this risk, as I feel it is the right thing for me to do.”

Thankfully he didn’t die, but he did return traumatised as so many who served in that conflict did.

In the novel ‘Good Omens’ by Neil Gaiman, he wrote reenvisioned version of the story of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.

In a particularly spooky part of the novel, three of the four horsemen of the apocalypse ride into a town in which it was predicted Armageddon would happen. War, Famine and Pollution are all riding motorcycles and arrive in search of the fourth horseman, Death. 

Arriving dressed completely in black, Death opens up his helmet displaying a  terrifying face of fleshless bones.

One of the horsemen asks scornfully, “Where have you been?” 

Death ominously answers, “I never left.” 

Of all the grim and morbid stories in the Bible, death is the most real to us. The most threatening, and terrifying to us. And, the most relevant to our lives. It indeed has never left. It has been with of us from the very beginning of humankind, long before any of us came into this world.

In the Bible, Death is the last enemy to be destroyed. Death is the opposite of life. And death is everywhere, striking all the time. 

Death strikes all the time, one our roads, and in our suburbs, and as wars rage and terror unsettles the world. 

Death has struck this week, in every tragedy that made the news. In Nepal, one of the most prayerful places in the world, the death toll rises by the hour.

We often think that it won’t impact us and our families. At least we pray that it won’t. And that if it does, we hope our faith sustains us through the experience.

There are people in our lives, and in society, we just don’t think will ever die.

When Queen Elizabeth died in September 2022, we were shocked, and in a state of disbelief, despite her grand old age, and declining health.

This week when the great and much-loved songstress Dolly Parton (St Dolly of Tennessee as she was known to some) passed away it was like the world let out a collective moan of sadness and disbelief. How could she die? It’s just so unbelievable many said.

Some powerful figures throughout history become so used to their omnipotence, they started to believe in their own immortality.

The famous New Zealand Wars chief Titokowaru of Taranaki once became convinced of this himself. After several close dalliances with death, and serval successful battles with settler soldiers, he proclaimed to his people, “E kore au e mate, ka mate ko te mate – I shall not die; when death itself is dead I shall be alive”.

And his people believed him. And when he did finally die of old age in the care of an English nurser from Manchester, his people were shocked, in disbelief, and sorrow-struck. They had quite literally deluded themselves into thinking that he would never die.

Before I left Auckland to join Reverend Clare and others for General Synod in Tonga, I visited my elderly Aunt Mary in her retirement village. She was in the hospital wing and very low. She had made it through several serious ill health episodes and brushes with death. We had a cup of tea and some prayer. I cheekily told her that she better not die was I was in Tonga. In a weak voice, and with a cunning look in her eye, she told me that she might pass just to annoy me. And that she was prepared to go. To lose this life, in order to gain the life eternal and be with God. As I left, I had an uneasy feeling that we might lose her while I was away. And indeed, she did pass while I was in Tonga. But I found consolation knowing that her faith had prepared for that imminent reality. And that she was indeed ready to be with God.

The majority of my humble little ministry activities and experiences have been around the passing of people. From this life into the life eternal. As a lay minister, in the Māori Church and in Tikanga Pākeha, I have mostly been engaged in funerals, unveilings, tangihanga, memorial events like ANZAC, and blessing of houses where someone has passed etc.  I’m grateful for these experiences. And am fond of this kind of pastoral ministry. You literally encounter the reality of death in all its sorrowful, shocking, and beautiful, tapu forms. And it compels you to apply yourself creatively, and sincerely to care and comfort of those grieving. But you can easily drift into auto pilot and even become blasé or insulated from the sorrowful reality of death if you’re not careful.

We don’t really like to talk or think about Death. We push it away. Which is why we have some sympathy with Peter and understand exactly why he says what he says in this Gospel story. His beloved mentor, tuakana, friend and teacher, Jesus tells him that he will suffer terribly. That he will die. Peter’s friend for whom he gave up everything to follow.

Peter pulled Jesus aside and began to rebuke him, saying, “God forbid it, Lord! This must never happen to you.”

Some of us may think, well I would do the same!

Others might be thinking, rebuking the Son of God is a bit of precarious move!

I think most of us, maybe all of us, if we were in Peter’s shoes, would’ve said exactly what he said.

He left everything for Jesus. He loved him. Jesus brought meaning to his life, the kind he’d not known before. And what on earth would he do if Jesus did die?

And of course, Peter didn’t know the ending of this story. He didn’t have the benefit of the full story as we do.  All he knew was what he knew at the time. He knew that death was final, from which there was no coming back. It would all be over.

And yes, Jesus talked about resurrection, but hearing about something miraculous is very different than witnessing it with your own eyes.

So, Peter pulls him aside and says that it just can’t happen. 

It is at this moment that Jesus answers with his famous imploration for the disciples to take up their cross and follow him. The cross has come to have a special meaning in our lives, in Christian culture, and in the culture at large. A symbol of glory, of life over death. The cross doesn’t mean to us in these times what it did then, before Jesus ever tortured humiliated and died on one. 

Back then, the cross was an instrument of cruelty, removal of mana and dignity, of torture, and death. To take up a cross was to meet Death, face to face. 

But we have the privilege of knowing the end of this story. We know what Peter didn’t know at the time; That death will come for Jesus, but that won’t be the end. 

Death may have never left, but Death doesn’t get the final word. 

The worst thing that can happen is never the last thing. There is usually something hope and grace giving which will follow something awful.

Peter says it can’t happen. Jesus says, Get Behind Me, Satan, because Jesus knows what will come after death comes.

Jesus reminds us that he is here, and Death no longer has the final word.

And though we cannot say “No” to Death, we can say “Yes” to resurrection, “Yes” to Life. Because with all the world’s saddens and horror comes all its beauty, also. 

I runga i te īngoa o Te Atua puna o te ora. Te Tama, i whakawhiti i te mate ki te ora. Wairua tapu, kaiatawhai i te wā o te pōuri, kaiwhakahoki ki te hari. Āmine.

I the name of God, the source of all creation. The Son, who died and lived again. And the Holy Spirit, comforter in times of grief, restorer of all that is joyful in life. Amen.