Take up your cross
Then Jesus told his disciples, ‘If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.’ (Matthew 16:24)

Peter is reprimanded
Peter found it difficult to accept that the mission of Jesus would end with the cross and crucifixion. He didn’t see why pain and suffering were necessary for discipleship, and was anxious that the Lord avoid this course of action. He was outraged at the idea that such happenings should take place.

Like most of us, Peter failed to grasp the role of suffering in God’s plan. He thought that being part of the kingdom was a matter of power and success. Words were powerless to rid him of the idea of a Messiah of earthly splendour and glory. Peter had yet to learn that the standards of Christ were not those of prosperity and privilege.

The outcome was a reprimand from Jesus, who cautioned him against adopting the standards of the world, ‘for you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things’.

The gospel ends with a challenge from Jesus to welcome hardship and embrace pain and personal suffering, for to hold on to this life is to lose eternal life and everlasting values.

Suffering is a reality of human life
In the grand scheme of things we’ll face a whole series of tests. The road is never a straight one and suffering is a reality of human life. Our earthly pilgrimage is so beset with trials and tribulations that it’s sometimes aptly named a ‘valley of tears’. We’ve all experienced our share of hardship in the form of sickness, loss of job, or death in the family.

Down the ages the problem of pain has been the debating ground of so much human thought, and the torment of so many noble souls.

When things go wrong and affliction comes our way, we cry out and protest in bitter rebellion. It’s a natural tendency to turn our back’s on trouble; but running away from pain can never bring joy, for to hide from it, is to pretend that it doesn’t exist.

A demanding honour
Being a Christian is a demanding honour, because God’s way of doing things is contrary to human expectations. In the gospel, Christ tells us plainly that discipleship involves denying ourselves, taking up the cross in trust and confidence, and following his footsteps across the hill to Calvary.

It’s a hard teaching, but the measure of greatness in the kingdom of heaven is the standard of the cross.

Our commitment to Christ
This is an occasion to reflect on our own commitment to Christ, because it’s easy to lose sight of our final goal in life.

Our hearts are tempted to seek comfort in material things, and to avoid hardship.

And yet, we don’t want to be like some church-goers, who think only of themselves and reluctantly give God an hour on a Sunday morning. But if they were asked to identify themselves, they would profess to be Christian.

We all need to remember, especially when times are at their hardest, that being a Christian is for life, not just for Sundays.

Station One — Jesus is condemned to death
Station Two — Jesus receives his cross
Station Three — Jesus falls the first time
Station Four — Jesus meets his mother
Station Five — Simon of Cyrene helps Jesus carry his cross
Station Six — Veronica wipes the face of Jesus
Station Seven — Jesus falls for the second time
Station Eight — Jesus meets the women of Jerusalem
Station Nine — Jesus falls for the third time
Station Ten — Jesus is stripped of his garments
Station Eleven — Jesus is nailed to the cross
Station Twelve — Jesus dies on the cross
Station Thirteen — Jesus is taken down from the cross
Station Fourteen — Jesus is laid in the tomb

How Christian is Violence?
John 2:13-22

Children at School
When our children first started school, many years ago now, I was quickly faced with one of the dilemmas perhaps all parents face. These tiny children, whom we’d carefully nurtured at home for four and a half years, were suddenly thrust into a world, which could be quite tough for them, the world of school.

As a Christian parent, when my children came home in tears because somebody had upset them or hit them, what should I do? Tell them to fight back? Say: “If someone kicks you, you must learn to stand up for yourself?” Or suggest they tell the teacher? Or go in myself to talk to the teacher? Or confront the culprits myself? Or should I say: “Don’t worry about it. If you ignore them they’ll leave you alone?” Or should I say: “It’s wrong to fight. No matter how anybody treats you, you must always turn the other cheek?”

What would be the Christian position? As Christians, how should we respond to conflict?

Peace in the Bible
At first sight, the Bible message seems to be very clear: at all costs, resolve your conflicts by peaceful means. “Blessed are the peace-makers,” said Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount. And the idea of peace is at the heart of Christianity. “The peace of the Lord be always with you,” we say when we exchange a sign of the peace. And many services end with: “The peace of God which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in the knowledge and love of God and of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.”

It seems peace, and especially God’s peace is extremely important to us. So surely we who are made in his image should strive to emulate his ways in our lives, and seek above all else for peace with each other.

Violence in the Bible
But that’s the Bible at first sight. On a second glance, it doesn’t seem to be quite so simple. In the Ten Commandments, we’re told, “Thou shalt not kill.” But God himself doesn’t seem to be bound by such a law, and in the Old Testament often orders his people not only to kill, but also to massacre in a way, which nowadays we would regard as utterly horrific.

The God of the Old Testament generally seems much more war-like and threatening than the God revealed by Jesus. Perhaps as the centuries rolled past, and people became more mature and more civilised, so they were able to become aware of the benefits of peace, and slowly to become aware of God’s more peaceful characteristics. So that by the time we reach the New Testament, the new revelation of God seen in Jesus is one of peace and gentleness.

Luke
In Luke’s version of today’s New Testament reading of the cleansing of the temple, we hear that when Jesus came in sight of Jerusalem, he wept over it and said: “If only you had known the way that leads to peace!”

But his very next act, according to St. Luke, is one of considerable violence. He went into the temple and began driving out the traders. He overturned the tables of the merchants; and, according to today’s reading from John’s gospel, made a whip for the very purpose of driving out the money-changers. Considerable violence. No wonder they hated him and sought to crucify him, for it seems violence almost always breeds violence. And this violent act, according to John, took place at the very beginning of Jesus’s ministry, although all the other gospel writers place this incident much later, as one of the events which sparked off the first Easter.

Contradictions
So on the one hand we have a gospel, which seems to speak of peace. On the other, a God who throughout the time of his relationship with his people, both before Christ and through Christ, suddenly breaks out in violence against them.

How are we supposed to handle this contradiction?

Perhaps we could say God’s violence is justified, for it’s only against evil or evil-doers. But that doesn’t always seem to be the case. Sometimes God’s violence is against those who practise evil, but at other times it seems to be capricious, inexplicable.

Uzzah
The story of Uzzah is told in the first book of Chronicles in the Old Testament (1 Chronicles 13:9f). Uzzah was one of the bearers chosen to accompany the Ark of the Covenant. The Ark was where God himself resided before a permanent home, the temple, was built for him. Because the Ark was so holy, it had to be carried on long poles on a sort of cart pulled by oxen. It couldn’t be touched by human hand. On this occasion the ground was uneven and one of the oxen stumbled. Uzzah instinctively put out his hand to steady the Ark, to prevent it falling.

The story goes on: The anger of the LORD was kindled against Uzzah; he struck him down because he put out his hand to the ark; and he died there before God.

Ananias and Sapphira
An incident which is similar, but in which God appears to have perhaps slightly more justification for his actions, occurs in the New Testament, in the book of Acts. The very earliest Christian church was a kind of experiment in Communism. No one claimed private ownership of any possessions, but everything they owned was held in common. We’re told there was not a needy person among them, for as many as owned lands or houses sold them and brought the proceeds of what was sold.

But Ananias, with the consent of his wife Sapphira, sold a piece of property. With his wife’s knowledge, he kept back some of the proceeds, and brought only a part and laid it at the apostles’ feet. Because of his deception Ananias fell down and died. And about three hours later, when his wife came in, she too was convicted of deception and instantly dropped dead. And not surprisingly, great fear seized the whole church and all who heard of these things. (Acts 4:32-5:11).

Admittedly Ananias and Sapphira did wrong. They sinned. They lied and deceived. But even so, the end result was incredibly drastic and very violent.

What are we to make of this God who apparently condemns human violence, but who is sometimes violent himself? And how does it help us to handle our own conflict?

Integrity
Perhaps the answer is something to do with striving after peace whenever possible, but not peace at any cost. Integrity seems to be very important. Perhaps there are occasions when we need to confront evil, even if it means being violent.

Many people believe the policy of appeasement just prior to the Second World War was wrong. And in the end, it seems violence was necessary to stop the terrible evil that occurred. We’re seeing something similar in Libya today — violence to stop violence.

Perhaps as Christians we’ve become afraid of conflict because it’s so difficult to handle. We’ve become “awfully nice” people, but maybe the price, to some extent, has been our integrity. The world speaks with a smooth tongue. And perhaps we in the Church have persuaded ourselves that polite niceness is Christianity.

But throughout history, God’s prophets have been rarely smooth or comfortable. Like God himself, they’ve often been angry, and sometimes even violent in their confrontation of evil.

Most of us, of course, aren’t like the prophets. We’re a mixture. We’re neither wholly good, nor are we wholly bad. But, if there’s never any sign of conflict, perhaps we should beware! The prophets were angry because their faith was so important to them. And perhaps God’s anger in Old Testament times and his anger through Christ, is because he cares so deeply. Although Jesus is the Prince of Peace, he also said: “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.” (Matthew 10:34)

The Cross
Ultimately a violent event lies at the very centre of our faith. A very violent cross. Some people find the cross an offensive symbol, because of its violence. But perhaps the cross is actually the violence that ends all need of violence.

The cross kills. If I was really able to take up my cross, to face anything which has such a hold over me that it’s crushing the life out of me, perhaps then I’d learn how to handle conflict, but find the need for violence had largely disappeared.

Station One — Jesus is condemned to death
Station Two — Jesus receives his cross
Station Three — Jesus falls the first time
Station Four — Jesus meets his mother
Station Five — Simon of Cyrene helps Jesus carry his cross
Station Six — Veronica wipes the face of Jesus
Station Seven — Jesus falls for the second time
Station Eight — Jesus meets the women of Jerusalem
Station Nine — Jesus falls for the third time
Station Ten — Jesus is stripped of his garments
Station Eleven — Jesus is nailed to the cross
Station Twelve — Jesus dies on the cross
Station Thirteen — Jesus is taken down from the cross
Station Fourteen — Jesus is laid in the tomb

The New Wisdom
Isaiah 33:13-17 — Matthew 6:19-end

A Jewish Gospel
Saint Matthew begins his Gospel with the words,

However, he doesn’t just have a dry-as-dust interest in family trees, though it has to be said, the first chapter of Matthew’s Gospel, isn’t the most exciting place to start reading the Bible!

and on through forty-two generations in all, I’m sure you don’t want me to read them all: the list finishes with,

Matthew wants to give Jesus his place in history. He wants to show the Jewish roots of the Christian gospel.

Saint Matthew’s has been described as the most Jewish of the Gospels. He never misses a chance to show how the events of Jesus’s life, are a fulfilment of patterns and predictions in the Old Testament. Jesus is the climax of the process, which began with the Jewish kings, prophets, and lawgivers.

Wise people
But there was another strand in Jewish religion, which we often forget about, and which Jesus also fulfilled. These were the wise people — although all of them were male, I’m hesitant to call them ‘wise men’, because you’d most likely think of them as the three wise men who visited Bethlehem, but those were non-Jewish, or Gentiles. These ‘wise people’, who I’m referring to, were secretaries in the court of the Jewish kings.

As the job of these ‘wise people’ was reading and writing, they were frequently called ‘scribes’. They most likely based their work on the example of the Egyptian courts. There, the scribes of the Pharaohs wrote books describing the wisdom, that was needed by those who were to advise the monarch, often in the form of proverbs or wise sayings.

The Jewish scribes in the court of King Solomon, which had close contacts with Egypt, made collections of wise sayings, several of which appear in the biblical Book of Proverbs.

Matthew may have seen himself as standing in this tradition — our New Testament reading (Matthew 6:19-end) this evening certainly has that feel about it. And he’s the only one of the Evangelists to record Jesus saying,

Wisdom
What then was this wisdom that the scribes wrote about? To a large extent it was practical common sense. The scribes would’ve most likely learnt to write by copying out proverbs written by their predecessors. And as they wrote they would’ve absorbed much of what they were reading, and so learnt to be a good advisor to the king.

Along with the Book of Proverbs, the scribes are credited with writing several other books, such as Job, Ecclesiastes, and several of the Apocryphal books, which, together, we call the ‘Wisdom Literature’.

Many of these contain poems in praise of Wisdom, who is imagined as if she were a wise teacher. One such, from the Book of Proverbs is:

The moral teaching of Jesus
Saint Matthew’s Gospel then probably regards the moral teaching of Jesus, as not only fulfilling the Jewish Law, but also taking on the mantle of the teachers of wisdom. His wise advice on loving God and loving your neighbour is common sense.

The teaching of Jesus, as presented by Saint Matthew, could justly be called, ‘the New Wisdom’.

The call of the tax collector
It’s hard to believe sometimes that this is the same despised tax collector whom Jesus called to be one of his Apostles.

The people despised tax collectors in Jesus’s day, because they’d bought — from the hated occupying Roman government — the rights to collect customs dues from everybody who crossed the provincial boundary, in a particular place. They were able to charge whatever they liked, and did — extortionately.

So Matthew wasn’t only a cheat and a swindler, but he robbed his own people on behalf of their enemies — he was a quisling and a traitor. No wonder he was hated. But Jesus saw through all of that, and was able to see the potential in the despised and hated tax collector.

Only by grace
Perhaps though, it’s because of his own recent history, that Matthew knew so well, that it’s impossible to put that New Wisdom into practice. On your own, that is.

As Saint Paul said, describing his days as a Pharisee,

It’s impossible to follow the wise teaching of Jesus, until we receive grace.

The Cross
So in the second part of his Gospel, Matthew moves on from wise teaching and describes the death and resurrection of Jesus. His suffering and his triumph bring us the grace that enables us to obey his commandments, and to begin to follow his wise teaching ourselves, to begin to behave wisely.

Without the cross, wisdom is just wishful thinking. With the cross at its centre, the Christian teaching isn’t just wisdom, but Gospel — the good news that God loves us. It’s this that elicits our love for God in response, and gives us the grace to serve with wisdom.

Thank you
Thank you, Matthew, for writing your Gospel to bring us the good news of God’s grace, which is more precious than jewels, and nothing we desire can compare with it.

The Trouble Tree

The carpenter I hired to help me restore an old farmhouse had just finished a rough day on the job. A flat tyre made him lose an hour of work. His electric saw quit, and now his ancient pick-up truck refused to start.

While I drove him home, he sat in stony silence.

On arriving, he invited me in to meet his family. As we walked toward the front door, he paused briefly at a tall tree, touching tips of the branches with both hands. When opening the door, he underwent an amazing transformation. His tanned face was wreathed with smiles and he hugged his two small children and gave his wife a kiss.

Afterwards he walked me to the car. We passed the tree and my curiosity got the better of me. I asked him about what I had seen him do earlier.

“Oh, that’s my trouble tree” he replied. “I know that I can’t help having troubles on the job, but one thing’s for sure. Troubles don’t belong in the house with my wife and children. So I just hang them up on the tree every night when I get home. Then in the morning I pick them up again. “Funny thing is,” he smiled, “when I come out in the morning to pick ‘em up, there ain’t nearly as many as I remember hanging up the night before.”