The Good Life - the Problem with Certainty

This week's Scripture: Exodus 3:1-15 and Psalm 105:1-6, 23-26, 45c (or Jeremiah 15:15-21 and Psalm 26:1-8); Romans 12:9-21; Matthew 16:21-28

 

Last week Peter was walking on air. He exclaimed that Jesus was the Christ, and was told that upon this rock, Jesus would build his church, giving him the keys to the kingdom. This week, after Peter thinks he knows what that kingdom will be like, and tells Jesus not to talk about suffering a humiliating and horrible death, Jesus calls him Satan, and says to get behind him. What is going on here? How can the kingdom of God be established if it's leader, the Messiah, is to suffer death at the hands of the Romans and the entrenched Jewish religious leaders? We see Moses encounter God in the form of the burning bush, burning without be extinguished. Moses, who was a Prince of Egypt, and now tending the sheep of his father-in-law. How would he, with a speech impediment and loss of esteem, lead God's people out of bondage to the promised land? How can this be?

 

We are given the name of God in this lesson. God speaking to Moses, and Jesus to his disciples says "I AM WHO I AM," or I am becoming who I am becoming - the great "I AM" - the essence of existence, the presence of eternity. Through this power, like the yeast in the parable we considered a few weeks ago, the kingdom rises and spreads.

 

We are called to help bring about the kingdom. God engages us through Christ, the Word and the Holy Spirit. Through a power and paradoxes we may not understand, the kingdom comes. Consider, "God's Economic Plan, " in the Rev. Dr. Gary Charles'  "The Good Life." Our own Father Rodge Wood tells us about "The Problem With Certainty." Fr. Bill has told us about losing or dying to putting our will ahead of God's will.

 

We learn more about the kingdom, and ourselves.