Think of South Dakota and one thinks of Mount Rushmore. Carved into the mountainside are the heads of some of the great leaders of the United States. It\u2019s ironic that this monument is in the heart of an area sacred to the Lakota and Dakota people whose ancestors possessed the land centuries before George Washington\u2019s family, for instance, came to America.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Thousands of Americans visit Mount Rushmore each year. Many come away with tee shirts reading, \u201cGod Bless America,\u201d small flags, and other patriotic symbols. Perhaps they feel a rush of pride and make resolutions to be better Americans in the future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The famous writer Dr. Samuel Johnson once said, \u201cPatriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.\u201d He wasn\u2019t saying that patriotism is wrong. He might have also have said, \u201cthe church is the last refuge of a scoundrel.\u201d Just as many people seek to hide behind the cross as others do around the flag. It\u2019s a good exercise to ask the question, \u201cWho do people say I am?\u201d Is my religious life an attempt to be recognized, to hold power, or to cover up my \u201cpast\u201d \u2014 or am I living into the faith?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The writer of the part of Isaiah we heard read this morning speaks to all this in these words:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nLook to the rock from which you were hewn,
and to the quarry from which you were dug.
Look to Abraham your father
and to Sarah who bore you;<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\nMany of the lessons during the past few weeks have spoken of the tension that exists between what the Bible often calls \u201cthe world\u201d and the Christian community. It is not easy for us to understand the radical nature of Jesus\u2019 claims.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWho do people say the Son of Man is?\u201d asks Jesus in St. Matthew\u2019s version of the story. As we read these words we are rather like people who read the last chapter of a book before starting at the beginning. We are so familiar with the ending that we can use words like Christ, Messiah, Lord, without a second thought. It\u2019s easy to say \u201cJesus Christ\u201d after we hit our fingernail with a hammer, or repeat it offhandedly in the same way as we might say, \u201cFred Smith.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The story about Jesus asking his disciples the loaded question, \u201cWho do people say the Son of Man is?\u201d is set in the far northwest part of the Holy Land. It was an area where Jews mixed with Gentiles and where Roman rule was immediate and not exercised through local Herodian kings. Peter\u2019s revolutionary answer challenged not only the religious establishment but also the power of Caesar. Jesus replied:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n\u201cI tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
This famous passage has been used in many ways. It is a pity that all too often it has served as a \u201cproof text\u201d to justify exactly the sort of power Jesus opposed. The power Jesus claims and gives to his followers has nothing to do with force, coercion, dominance, or \u201ccontrol.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Just before his Ascension, Jesus gave his followers a number of instructions. He told them that they would receive power \u2014 same word as dynamite \u2014 to be witnesses. A witness is literally a life-giver. Power to give one\u2019s life doesn\u2019t sound like the power we are used to. Power is used to command, to control, to \u201cget things done.\u201d The rock of Simon Peter\u2019s faith, the rock from which we are all hewn, is the extraordinary idea that God loves wildly and extravagantly and that God forgives with the same generosity. The key to the kingdom is the authority to say, \u201cGod has forgiven you,\u201d and to say to those who use power to hurt others, \u201cGo to hell!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Jesus knew the risk of telling about this sort of \u201cpower.\u201d There are plenty around who want to keep people in their place; keep people down. \u201cWhat\u2019s the use of being respectable, upright, responsible, and thrifty,\u201d these people might say, \u201cif the church is open to the riff raff?\u201d Empowering the poor threatens the authority of those \u201cborn to rule.\u201d When we slide into such attitudes we forget that we are part of the rock. Jesus didn\u2019t tell Peter and the disciples to form some kind of \u201cpure\u201d cult for respectable folk. He told them that the rock of faith, the key to the kingdom, is the simple message we are all empowered to proclaim and share. God loves us, liberates us, forgives us, and gives us a new \u201cself-image.\u201d We are now granite, hewn from the Rock, radiant faces on the kingdom\u2019s Mount Rushmore, symbols and pictures of empowered living. This message is more powerful than all the armies and weapons in the arsenals of the powerful. You have been trusted with \u201cthe greatest story ever told,\u201d now made alive in your own experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This sermon was written by Anthony F.M. Clavier<\/strong>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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