How Does What We See Inform Our Encounter With Jesus And Our Choices?

Good Morning Friends,

Where people say what they say can add great meaning to the words shared. The backdrop acts as a stage set with a message of its own that can give power to words. Think of Martin Luther King in front of the Lincoln Memorial. Think of Ronald Reagan at the Berlin Wall. Think of Jesus on the Mount giving a sermon about a field of flowers and birds in the air. But perhaps what you have not thought of is the backdrop for Jesus in Caesarea Philippi. Here, in this place of all places, Jesus turned to His disciples and asked them who the multitudes thought He was. They responded that some thought He was John the Baptist, some Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets. But the Gentile setting can inspire a deeper conversation. So, How Does What We See Inform Our Encounter With Jesus And Our Choices?

Scripture: Now Sarai, Abram’s wife, had borne him no children. But she had an Egyptian slave named Hagar; so she said to Abram, “The Lord has kept me from having children. Go, sleep with my slave; perhaps I can build a family through her.” Abram agreed to what Sarai said. So after Abram had been living in Canaan ten years, Sarai his wife took her Egyptian slave Hagar and gave her to her husband to be his wife. He slept with Hagar, and she conceived. When she knew she was pregnant, she began to despise her mistress. Then Sarai said to Abram, “You are responsible for the wrong I am suffering. I put my slave in your arms, and now that she knows she is pregnant, she despises me. May the Lord judge between you and me.” “Your slave is in your hands,” Abram said. “Do with her whatever you think best.” Then Sarai mistreated Hagar; so she fled from her. The angel of the Lord found Hagar near a spring in the desert; it was the spring that is beside the road to Shur. ⁸ And he said, “Hagar, slave of Sarai, where have you come from, and where are you going?” “I’m running away from my mistress Sarai,” she answered. Then the angel of the Lord told her, “Go back to your mistress and submit to her.” The angel added, “I will increase your descendants so much that they will be too numerous to count.” The angel of the Lord also said to her: “You are now pregnant and you will give birth to a son. You shall name him Ishmael,  for the Lord has heard of your misery. He will be a wild donkey of a man; his hand will be against everyone and everyone’s hand against him, and he will live in hostility toward all his brothers.” She gave this name to the Lord who spoke to her: “You are the God who sees me,” for she said, “I have now seen the One who sees me.” That is why the well was called Beer Lahai Roi; it is still there, between Kadesh and Bered. So Hagar bore Abram a son, and Abram gave the name Ishmael to the son she had borne. Abram was eighty-six years old when Hagar bore him Ishmael.

Genesis 16:1-16 (NIV)

“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’ “Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash.” When Jesus had finished saying these things, the crowds were amazed at his teaching, because he taught as one who had authority, and not as their teachers of the law.

Matthew 7:21-29 (NIV)

Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, ‘Who do people say that the Son of Man is?’

Matthew 16:13 (NRSV)

He said to them, ‘But who do you say that I am?’ Simon Peter answered, ‘You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.’ And Jesus answered him, ‘Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven. And I 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.’ Then he sternly ordered the disciples not to tell anyone that he was the Messiah.

Matthew 16:15-20 (NRSV)

And he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became dazzling white.

Matthew 17:2 (NRSV)

A Song of Ascents. How very good and pleasant it is when kindred live together in unity! It is like the precious oil on the head, running down upon the beard, on the beard of Aaron, running down over the collar of his robes. It is like the dew of Hermon, which falls on the mountains of Zion. For there the Lord ordained his blessing, life for evermore.

Psalms 133:1-3 (NRSV)

My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and behold the face of God? My tears have been my food day and night, while people say to me continually, “Where is your God?” These things I remember, as I pour out my soul: how I went with the throng, and led them in procession to the house of God, with glad shouts and songs of thanksgiving, a multitude keeping festival. Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you disquieted within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my help and my God. My soul is cast down within me; therefore I remember you from the land of Jordan and of Hermon, from Mount Mizar. Deep calls to deep at the thunder of your cataracts; all your waves and your billows have gone over me. By day the LORD commands his steadfast love, and at night his song is with me, a prayer to the God of my life.

Psalm 42:1-8 (NRSV)

Message: I think the things around us inform us as to God’s nature. Take for example Caesarea Philippi, not to be confused with Caesarea along the Mediterranean coast. Here is a place marked by a kind of spiritual restlessness, littered with a variety of spiritualties with the seekers for the most part lacking direction in their spiritual search. It does seem to have tangible social objects and a nature of spiritual energy but also a pathological busyness, with a critical problem of balance. So, what can we learn from a place like this? It seems the seed of the church planted here in today’s scripture is equal parts mystery and mess. But then that is the nature of the church even today.Thankfully Jesus brought some redemption to this place of Baal worship and Roman and Greek God niche worship. The transfiguration occurred in the vicinity of the city. Think about the synergy and unity of the imagery. Imagine what this meant for the Hebrew culture that had slaves to build the pyramids. Picture the Great Pyramid white in its glory with polished limestone reflecting the rays of the sun with the Sphinx in front of them near the Nile. Now picture Jesus, the Lion of Judah, in front Mount Hermon with the river Jordan springing forth. One was a religion that was built by those enslaved and the other one to be built by God with Christ as the cornerstone and shared as a gift of unity… grace. You see every person has a fire burning inside them, bright and shining as the sun and a river flowing inside them just waiting to overflow. Here at Caesarea Philippi, Jesus sets the stage for people to understand his message and not only redeems a bit of history but also reveals to us that what is on the outside can be reflected on the inside. Today Caesarea Philippi is called Banias. But it was originally called Panias after the Greek God of Shepherds, Pan. Yeah, the one with the pipes and the goat legs…the pagan giver of revelations. From his name we get the word panic. So here, at the source of the Jordan, at the foot of Mount Hermon, the highest point in Israel, and here 25 miles north of the Sea of Galilee we have Jesus saying words that would change the world. It was in this area that the first king of Israel (Jeroboam) led the northern kingdom of Israel into idolatry. The ancient Canaanites built a sanctuary to Baal at Panias, the Greeks and Romans both built sanctuaries there because of the cave of Pan and the pagan Gate of Hades. Inside the cave was a seemingly bottomless pit with an unlimited quantity of water which made the pagans marvel. It was here at Caesarea Philippi that Jesus chose to reveal who He was, and His plans to build His Church. The place of Jesus’ great revelation was mentioned only twice in the Bible, both referring to the same event where Jesus chose to reveal to His disciples that He was the Messiah. However Mount Hermon and the Jordan River are mentioned as well. Indeed, it is a bit of a mystery and a bit of a mess why Jesus chose this place to reveal who He was to His disciples. It is easy to imagine the disciples from here looking out on a lush oasis of life… the very fertile northern portion of the Jordan River Valley. David is the author of today’s psalms, writes about this place and interestingly he was one to appreciate the blessing of unity. Under David’s leadership the twelve tribes of Israel were united. They put aside tribal jealousy in a spirit of cooperation and became a united kingdom. Maybe the disciples saw more on that day of revelation in Caesarea Philippi than we can imagine.

And So, the scripture selection today is a bit all over the place. But let me connect the dots.  From Genesis we have an explanation of the problem and as Pogo shared it is us. Then from Matthew we have guidance on being good disciples. Jesus concludes his Sermon on the Mount with a statement about true and false disciples and a story of two builders – a good builder and a bad builder. Jesus had some very straightforward advice in this regard. You build on the rock, Jesus says. Of course Jesus’ words are not aimed fundamentally at master builders or at new home buyers. The story of the builders is a parable about life, and about ways in which people respond to Jesus’ own words. And whether we trust God and follow God’s plan. The two builders represent two different ways in which we can respond to the teaching Jesus has given in the Sermon on the Mount. One way is to make his teachings foundational to everything we do in our lives. Take those teachings in, reflect on them, apply them, and allow those teachings to shape and direct everything we do. That, Jesus says, is how we build our lives on a solid foundation, like a builder who builds his house on solid rock. And yet there are other ways to respond to the words of Jesus. We can disregard his words. We can admire His words for their poetry and beauty and then bind them up in a book that we keep on the shelf alongside your copies of the works of Shakespeare. We can even get very excited by the teachings of Jesus, turn up to church every week so that we can tell the world how much we love those teachings, and then go home and get on with our lives as if we have never heard a single word that Jesus said. To take any of these approaches, Jesus says, is to be like the foolish builder who builds his house on the sand, and when the storm comes ’great is the fall’. Jesus is here playing the role of a wisdom teacher – passing on practical instructions for life to all that care to listen to him. We are either trusting in God’s plan of wisdom or trying to work out our own salvation on our own. Friends, the world has been full of wisdom teachers. These people are wisdom teachers. They are men and women who give themselves to the task of teaching others how to build a secure future for themselves. My point is that there is nothing particularly radical about the role Jesus is playing in the Sermon on the Mount and there is nothing particularly mysterious about the parable. It is a parable that encourages us to live wisely in accordance with Jesus’ wise teachings. What is radical of course is the nature of Jesus’ wisdom. Indeed, what we need to appreciate in this parable is that, especially when compared with the wisdom teaching of the modern financial gurus, Jesus’ wisdom teaching almost always runs in the diametrically opposite direction. We do not like to face it of course, but so many of the values of our culture are simply directly opposed to the teachings of Jesus. I am not saying you have to like these teachings. I did not make them up.  But they are the teachings of Jesus, and they are the teachings that He said we have to make fundamental to the foundation of our own lives if we want to be like the wise builder, if we want to be and make good disciples. By all means reject these teachings, stand up for your own rights and never let anybody use you, invest in your own future first and last, and model your financial strategies on beavers or ants or squirrels rather than on birds who have no nest eggs for retirement, but just be clear that such approaches are not compatible with the teachings of Jesus, however much we might wish that they were.If we want to be good disciples we need to be all in. Make no mistake about it, a tithe is ten percent. Not all that much. And the offering is in addition to the tithe. Maybe that is a start.

Pray for the blessings of unity. Pray that we store up riches in heaven. Pray we realize that unity among Christians does not require uniformity but a shared identity in the Body of Christ. Pray we become a community rooted in relationships formed by social objects that give visible shape of what God is like. Pray that we do not resist the call to community. Pray that we see that unity cannot be manufactured by human effort; it is a gift produced by the Spirit. Pray we imagine scripture in the setting in which it occurred. Pray we find direction from our unity in Christ.Pray that we find strength in the Lord. Pray we feel the freshness and fertility of nature as a symbol of blessing. Pray we realize that the greatest lessons about Christ’s person are often learned in places of fear and panic and high anxiety. Pray we realize that scripture can help us when we feel afraid. Pray we have the passion, perspective and praise that helps us experience God. Pray that we follow God’s plan. Pray we build our lives on the foundational wisdom of Jesus.

Blessings,

John Lawson