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On our last night before the Governor and Mayor shut us down again - Nancy and I went to Panda Express. The fortune cookie had been there a while - it was really chewy - but the message made me laugh... (great things happen outside your comfort zone).If that’s truth - we as a church and as individuals are in for some really great things because we are and have been outside our comfort zone since March - and some of us long before that.“Conquer evil with good...” St Paul says. There are so many things St. Paul said that I know are the right thing, meaning the godly thing, to do - but rarely do I have the ability to actually do it and sometimes I don’t even have the inclination to try. There is so much evil right now - and I wonder just how much good it would do to try and conquer it with good.There are a few people who are not outside their comfort zone right now. I think most of us are - especially since every day we have to find out what today’s truth is because yesterday’s truth was - well yesterday’s truth. Some people thrive on having their dinner and groceries delivered, working from home in their pajamas, having an excuse not to answer the door and as long as Netflix and Amazon post new content - life is good. But from watching and listening to my neighbors and some of you - most of us are and have been “done with this” for a while. And so when St. Paul to tell us, “conquer evil with good” - it goes over about as well as when he told us in Galatians 6, “don’t get tired of doing good, you will reap a harvest at the proper time if you don’t give up. Therefore, as you have opportunity, work for the good of all, especially for those who belong to the household of faith.”I want to say he doesn’t know what we’re going through - but I’ve read 2 Corinthians 11, “Five times I received 39 lashes from Jews. Three times I was beaten with rods by the Romans. Once I was stoned by my enemies. Three times I was shipwrecked. I have spent a night and a day in the open sea. On frequent journeys, I faced dangers from rivers, dangers from robbers, dangers from my own people, dangers from the Gentiles, dangers in the city, dangers in the open country, dangers on the sea, and dangers among false brothers; labor and hardship, many sleepless nights, hunger and thirst, often without food, cold, and lacking clothing.” He does know what pain and suffering and persecution is all about - which means I need to listen to him. If he went through all that - and was able to remain faithful - my life suddenly looks pretty simple and safe. Lead on, St. Paul, take me deeper into the heart of God.Our text from St Matthew’s Gospel continues the story of Peter’s Confession. Last week Jesus asked the disciples, “who do you say that I am?” Peter answered, “You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God.” Things were going so well for Peter - but this week is a very different story. Instead of “well done, Peter,” - it’s, “get behind Me satan” - which is probably not something you want to put on your resume. Words and actions, like words and faith do not always match. We say one thing but believe something else. We say one thing - but someone else with greater authority comes along - as happened in quite a few local press conferences lately - says something different. Which is why St John said in his first letter, “Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to determine if they are from God...” We cannot simply believe something just because someone said it - even if it’s obvious they believe what they are saying. To “know” God is far more complicated than just believing He exists. It is also far simpler than trying to be a good enough little boy or girl.Christ is not Jesus’ last name. It’s His title. It’s interchangeable with “Messiah” - which translates as, “anointed one.” In Jesus’ day your last name was your father’s first name. Jesus ben Joseph - or Jesus, son of Joseph is what everyone called Him - although we know it should have been, “Jesus ben God.” For Peter to confess Jesus as the “Christ” was either to proclaim He was the anointed one - the fulfillment of ancient prophecy - or it was flat out heresy. And often that is a very fine line.C.S. Lewis, in the BBC wartime radio lecture that later became Mere Christianity said, “I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say: “I'm ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don't accept his claim to be God.” That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic - on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg - or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God - but let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to. ... Now it seems to me obvious that He was neither a lunatic nor a fiend: and consequently, however strange or terrifying or unlikely it may seem, I have to accept the view that He was and is God.”The first time Peter and Jesus meet there comes an amazing moment after the great catch of fish where Peter realizes Jesus is more than just a rabbi. He falls at Jesus’ feet and says, “go away from me Lord, I am a sinful man...” And Jesus lifts him to his feet and says, “follow Me and I will teach you to fish for people.” Fast forward 3 years - Jesus has been arrested and beaten and Peter denied he knew Jesus - not once, not twice, but three times - and this came after promising he would die with Jesus if necessary. It’s a few days after the first Easter - Peter goes fishing and like that day three years earlier the net is empty. A stranger on the shore tells him to throw the net on the other side of the boat - Peter does - and there are so many fish the boat starts sinking. Peter doesn’t hesitate - even with his thrice denials hanging heavy over him and the words, “get behind me satan” echoing in his heart - Peter jumps out of the boat and swims to shore to be with Jesus. And here is where the confession of the lips and the confession of the heart are bound together in love. The confession of our faith is intricately connected to the confession of our sin. And yes, I know I used the singular “sin” instead of “sins” and there is a reason for that. We are sinful not just because we sin - we are sinful because we are disconnected from our God. And so we are saved from our sin as a whole - not just from our sins. To know Jesus as the “Christ, the Son of the Living God” is to come to Him with all your sins and failures and wishes and dreams and hurts and pains and know His arms will be wide open and your name will be on His lips. Peter’s confession - the one about Jesus being the Christ - ends with Jesus saying, “you are Peter and on this rock I will build My church.” Before we think Jesus is going to build His church on Peter or on a particular rock - we step back and get some perspective and realize Jesus is going to build His church on Peter’s confession - both the “You are the Christ the Son of the Living God” AND the “get behind Me satan, you do not have in mind the things of God but the things of men.”As much as we want to always be the star student with all the right answers and right actions - dressed in our Sunday best, holding our perfect attendance award while bowing before all the applause because of our amazing answers - that’s not how life or the church works. The church is not about perfect people who don’t need Jesus - it’s about imperfect people who are “saved by God’s grace through the gift of faith” because otherwise they wouldn’t be saved at all.Jesus didn’t choose Peter because he was the perfect pastor. He didn’t choose him because he was loyal. And He certainly didn’t choose him because he always got the right answer. Jesus chose Peter because one minute he would confess Him as the Savior - and the next he would deny he even knew Him. Only a forgiven sinner can truly preach the Gospel when we understand the Gospel is good news for those who don’t have any good news but really need it.At some point in the last few thousand years the church decided its leaders were to be clones of Jesus - perfect in every way. Most quickly figured out their pastors couldn’t be just like Jesus - so they settled for Mary Poppins who was “practically perfect in every way.” In my experience those perfect pastors - with their fancy suits, white teeth and polished sermons - are not always what the church needs. I know they look and sound great - but I sometimes wonder if they understand what it’s like to be a sinner like me.Some of the best pastors I know are people who I would hesitate to trust with the keys to my truck or house - but I have no problem entrusting them with the keys to God’s Kingdom. And that is exactly the point.Only a lost, yet redeemed sinner can understand the sanctity and privilege of the keys of the kingdom. Jesus said, “Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” And good pastors don’t let that go to their head.This church and especially its pastor will fail you - it’s not a question of if, but how often and how badly. And the only justification and hope for such failures is in this: whether the failures are forgivable. And for them to be forgivable is not always an easy thing to define. This past week another well known preacher resigned - then unresigned - and then I think he resigned again. He’s not alone. Over the past few years far too many pastors have been the subject of headlines that would have made King David blush. And we are not done with the headlines yet. And the only thing that seems to separate these headlining pastors from all the other pastors who fail, but don’t wind up in the headlines is - the headliners believe they have been charged by God to judge others - but no one has the right to judge them. They hold everyone else accountable - but are free to live any way they want. Their failure is not their sins - at least not their sins alone. It’s the disconnect between their lips and their soul.During the absolution the pastor says, “in the stead and by the command of our Lord Jesus Christ...” That’s King James speak for “Jesus asked me to stand here and talk for Him.” And this is perhaps the most sacred part of anyone’s calling. To be a faithful steward of the mysteries of Christ - means you understand and accepts you cannot fully comprehend the mercy and grace of God - and yet you have called to both live as a forgiven and redeemed sinner and have been given the privilege of telling others they are forgiven and redeemed sinners. This is the requirement to be a believer and a pastor. For all his faults and failures - it is his imperfect stewardship of those mysteries of Christ and the tension of sin and forgiveness in his life that allowed Peter to be the model pastor for the church then and now. Had he not failed - he could not have been who Jesus and us needed him to be: a redeemed sinner in the arms of a forgiving God - not a perfect pastor who stands in judgment because he’s better than those he judges.Peter knew what it meant to really mess things up and have to rely on God’s grace to get up in the morning and go to work. He knew what it meant to be bound up in sin - and then set loose by God’s mercy. That first church, way back in John’s Gospel, could only be built on someone who knew how it felt to be in desperate need of forgiveness - leading him to confess with his lips and more importantly confess with his heart - that Jesus really was the Christ. That is the one thing a pastor cannot forget - because when they do - they wind up in the headlines and we are all the poorer for it.The church cannot forget confessing their faith is deeply connected to confessing their need for grace and love and forgiveness. There is a lot of loosing that needs to be done in this world. We have been bound by our failures and anxieties and fears. None of us are who we should or need to be. And the crazy thing about the Gospel is - Jesus tells us to walk up to our friends and family and people at work and occasionally even a stranger and speak for Him - reminding them they are forgiven. But we cannot do that unless we first understand we are forgiven.We all need to be loosed from the things that weighs us down - our sin and shame and despair. We need to be loosed from pride, anger, resentment, guilt, our work, our laziness, our inability to live up to our own expectations and the expectations of those who think they are Jesus - our addictions to things that are not Jesus. Forgiveness of sins was very important to Jesus - He got in trouble with the Pharisees a lot because He ran around forgiving people who they didn’t think deserved it. And all those people who say, “Jesus never said He was God in the Bible” - He told His disciples “preach repentance and forgiveness of sins in My Name.” Since the only one who has the ability to forgive sins is God - sounds like Jesus knew who He was and He wanted everyone else to know as well - not so they would erect monuments and shrines to Him - but so they would know He came to set them free and begin living like it. It’s been 2,000 years - but there is no expiration date on Jesus’ love. You have been given the authority to speak for Jesus and tell others, “you are loved and forgiven.” Confession is good for the soul and the mind and the heart and especially for our eyes and our smile - because when we know we’re forgiven, it’s a lot easier to look others in the eye and smile - even if it’s under our face covering. And we’re getting pretty good at knowing what’s happening behind people’s face masks and I’m pretty sure if we actually understand who Jesus is and what He’s done for us - we won’t be able to hide that behind our face mask.Maybe that fortune cookie was right - “Great things [can] happen outside our comfort zone.” There is a lot of evil in this world - but there is more than enough of God’s love to conquer it - In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen ................
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