Patrick Comerford
We are continuing in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar and the week began with the Tenth Sunday after Trinity (Trinity X). The Church Calendar today (9 August 2024) remembers the life and work of Mary Sumner (1921), founder of the Mothers’ Union. Today also marks the 79th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki on 9 August 1945.
Before today begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, for reflection, prayer and reading in these ways:
1, today’s Gospel reading;
2, a reflection on the Gospel reading;
3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;
4, the Collects and Post-Communion prayer of the day.
Matthew 16: 24-28 (NRSVA):
24 Then Jesus told his disciples, ‘If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. 25 For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it. 26 For what will it profit them if they gain the whole world but forfeit their life? Or what will they give in return for their life?
27 ‘For the Son of Man is to come with his angels in the glory of his Father, and then he will repay everyone for what has been done. 28 Truly I tell you, there are some standing here who will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.’
This morning’s reflection:
In this Gospel reading (Matthew 16: 24-28), Christ and the disciples are near the villages of Caesarea Philippi, in today’s Golan Heights. Christ has both commended Peter for his faith and warned him of the danger of being a stumbling block.
To their dismay, Christ now speaks openly about his imminent death and resurrection. He then describes true discipleship: first, a disciple must follow him and renounce self-centeredness (verse 23). Those who are prepared to give even their lives for his sake and for the sake of spreading the good news will find true life verse 24). But those who opt for material well-being deny their true selves and lose out (verse 26).
There is a cost to discipleship, but the challenge to take up the Cross and to follow Christ is open to all.
God in Christ has come to enfold humanity. The cross will not stop the proclamation of the Good News, nor will it keep salvation history from breaking into the cosmos.
So often, in the face of criticism, the Christian response is either to shut down or to retreat to a different understanding of God and Jesus. But Christ tells the people that if they want to follow him on the journey, there is a cost to discipleship.
We are challenged to take up our cross and follow Christ on that journey.
Christianity cannot be reduced to an individual mental or philosophical decision. It is a journey with Christ and with not only the disciples but with the crowd, the many, who are also invited to join that journey.
If Saint Peter knew what was ahead of him, perhaps he might have been even more vocal in rebuking Christ in yesterday’s Gospel reading. But the triumph comes not in getting what we want, not in engineering things so that God gives us what we desire and wish for, so that we get a Jesus who does the things we want him to do. The triumph comes in the Resurrection.
True discipleship and true prayer mean making God’s priorities my priorities: the poor, the sick, the imprisoned, the isolated, the marginalised, the victims, the unloved. If that is difficult, nobody said that being a Christian was going to be easy, that being a Christian would not cost anything.
As the German martyr and theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer might have put it, being a disciple means having to pay the cost of discipleship. There is no cheap Christianity and there is no cheap grace.
Pope Francis puts it another way. Referring to discipleship and the traditional Lenten fast, he once asked, ‘Do you want to fast this Lent?’ And then, he answered:
Fast from hurting words and say kind words.
Fast from sadness and be filled with gratitude.
Fast from anger and be filled with patience.
Fast from pessimism and be filled with hope.
Fast from worries and have trust in God.
Fast from complaints; contemplate simplicity.
Fast from pressures and be prayerful.
Fast from bitterness; fill your hearts with joy.
Fast from selfishness and be compassionate.
Fast from grudges and be reconciled.
Fast from words; be silent and listen.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer distinguishes between cheap grace and costly grace, and reminds us of the ‘Cost of Discipleship’Today’s Prayers (Friday 9 August 2024):
The theme this week in ‘Pray With the World Church,’ the Prayer Diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘Understanding each other by walking together’. This theme was introduced on Sunday with a programme update from the Right Revd Eduardo Coelho Grillo, Anglican Bishop of Rio de Janeiro.
The USPG Prayer Diary today (Friday 9 August 2024, International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples) invites us to pray:
Father God / Kthhe Mnedo (Great Spirit), we pray to you for freedom from unjust systems that exist and continue the oppression of Indigenous people around the world.
The Collect:
Faithful and loving God,
who called Mary Sumner to strive for the renewal of family life:
give us the gift of your Holy Spirit,
that through word, prayer and deed
your family may be strengthened and your people served;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
The Post Communion Prayer:
Father,
from whom every family in heaven and on earth takes its name,
your servant Mary Sumner revealed your goodness
in a life of tranquillity and service:
grant that we who have gathered in faith around this table
may like her know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge
and be filled with all your fullness;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Yesterday’s reflection
Continued tomorrow
Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicised Edition copyright © 1989, 1995, National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. http://nrsvbibles.org
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