We have been invited to join the work of God, whose promises are good, and true, and unabashedly full of love.

Sermon from Guest Preacher, the Rev. Steven Tomlinson, Ph.D.

Late in her career O’Connor reflected that she was an author ‘with certain preoccupations,’ namely ‘that belief in Christ is … a matter of life and death.’ That conviction, she observed, ‘[has] been a stumbling block for readers who would prefer to think it a matter of no great consequence’…

Both the prophetic context of our theme and its echo later in the Gospel call us Trinitarians to become – ourselves! – a living prophecy: From These Stones we live as an embodied witness to God’s hopes, past and future …

When the world feels like it is falling apart, where do you see hope? Where do you see the fractures coming together? Today’s gospel reminds us that God is always seeking to restore humanity through presence, love, and compassion. Where are you seeing that love today?

If I’m honest, more than once I have prayed: “Lord, please lead me, but please don’t lead me there.” And when we follow Jesus with conditions, when we set the terms of our discipleship, our prayer becomes an echo of Peter’s rebuke. Before we know it, we’re no longer followers, but stumbling blocks.

The Confession of Peter is our reminder that when we believe we have figured it out, when we believe we have arrived, that it is actually not of our own doing, and we are never not impacted by the world around us, which will always offer us a better, an easier deal.

How often do we miss the point because we are trapped in our own perspective? How often do we dismiss the “other” because we think we already know the end result? Today’s gospel reminds us that God seeks us all out, not just the chosen, ALL of us to walk this path together. One step at a time.

No matter or situation or status, we identify ourselves as the hungry Jesus has come to feed – the captives Jesus has come to set free.  Making a show of our suffering, we bring the world’s puritanical, polarized tactics to our altar … not for renewal but for retribution, anywhere we can get it.