First an earthquake shook us, and then a hurricane came. When I was talking with the Bishop this past week, I said I thought I would start praying for some time in which nothing much happens—at least in my world. I tend to minimize what weather reports tell me. I slept through the storm that toppled a large oak tree in our backyard. (It fell away from our house and narrowly missed our back yard neighbors by landing in between two houses.)
But on Thursday one of the backyard neighbors called me to ask if she and her husband—and their two cats—could take shelter in our house if the storm was too bad. Evidently, at that point Newark had not designated any shelter areas, and she wanted to be prepared. I didn't tell her that my basement in the dark might be scarier than any storm!
Then my children's aunt from Florida called to make sure I knew how to prepare for a hurricane. I had done most of the things she suggested—but not in preparation for the storm. I've just been trying to stay organized because of the extra duties I have had during Fred's convalescence. We even have extra ice frozen in 16 oz. bottles to use in the ice machine for his knee!
So on Friday with my denial shattered, I purchased a good stopper for the bathtub—so I could fill it with water—and two shrink-wrapped cases of bottled water. Then I moved the large and the small Weber grills into the garage, along with the grilling paraphernalia that was strewn around our patio. Despite doing all this, I wondered—or maybe worried—whether I really was prepared.
What I was doing on Thursday and Friday was living in “the tension.” This tension—between what is and what might be—or what should be—describes much of our lives, doesn't it? Living in the tension occurs when the stakes are high—an important decision must be made, a critical situation faced. But we also may find our selves living in the tension of competing demands in our lives—what is easy or what is expedient or what is right.
We see both these types of situations in our scripture readings this morning. In the story of the bush that burned, but was not consumed, God called Moses to the role of a prophetic leader for the Israelites. Moses did not want God's call—the more familiar job of tending the flocks of his father-in-law was working well for him. But God called him to live in the tension between security and freedom—in this case the freedom of his people.
The Gospel of Matthew depicts Peter as being pushed by Jesus to live in the tension between what Peter had believed about the Messiah and Jesus' teaching about a suffering Messiah. In the portion of Chapter 16 we heard last week, Peter boldly declared that he believed Jesus to be the “Messiah, the Son of the Living God.” This was good, for he expected the Messiah would break the oppression by political leaders just as Moses had. And Jesus called Peter “blessed” for having received this revelation from God. But there was more to the story—and Peter could not accept the idea of a suffering Messiah. Matthew said Jesus pushed the point: “If any want to be my disciples, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.”
We know that Peter did not live very gracefully in this tension between following the Messiah he—and most Jews—hoped for and the suffering Messiah that Jesus became. Matthew tells us Peter fell asleep in the Garden of Gethsemane after Jesus asked him to watch with him as he prayed for a reprieve. By tradition, Peter was the disciple who drew a sword on one of the men arresting Jesus. And finally, in the courtyard of the High Priest, he denied he was one of Jesus' disciples.
And, yes, there was St. Paul, who always seemed to be living in the tension between preaching the gospel and dealing with dysfunction of one sort or another in various early Christian communities. In the passage from Romans we heard this morning, Paul wasn't issuing platitudes about being nice. He was addressing real difficulties the members of the Christian community in Rome experienced with each other. He wanted the members of the community to show “genuine love,” that is, humility, caring concern, and peaceful behavior towards one another and towards their “enemies!” The Oxford study edition of the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible labels this section: “Marks of a True Christian.” So Paul's preaching called the Roman Christians to live in the tension between the sinfulness of their human nature and the transformed nature that came (or should have come) from following Jesus Christ.
Where does this leave us? What tension are we living in? We could well find ourselves in the same one the Roman Christians lived in. What marks us as true Christians when we find ourselves tempted to pride or anger or vengefulness? From personal experience, Paul knew how difficult it was to follow the directives he gave to the Romans. In the 7th chapter of Romans he writes, “. . . but I am of the flesh, sold into slavery under sin. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.”
Knowing about his own human nature, Paul still preached the good news to the Romans—and through his writing to us. Paul proclaimed that through our faith in following Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior, we are no longer trapped in the tension between sin and goodness. The grace of Christ and God's love frees us from sin to choose what is good. Of course, we know sometimes we will be overcome by evil and fall into sin. But God's grace continues to bless us and give us another chance and then a third, and a fourth and a fifth . . . .and on and on . . .as many as we need. So with God's help, let us act with genuine love toward others, including those we call our enemies. And may we always seek to overcome evil with good!
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