Matthew 16:13-20

A Sermon for the Season of Pentecost

In the Gospel text for today from Matthew 16, Simon Bar-Jona confesses: “You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God.” And Jesus says to him: “You are Peter.”

What do we make of this famous text? One New Testament professor has said this exchange between Peter and Jesus took place near Caesarea Phillipia where there is a big rock dedicated to the Greek god Pan. What happened is that Jesus was standing there and he said: “You’re Peter and on this rock, that is, on me, not that rock for the god Pan, that huge idol, I’ll build my church.”

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Romans 11:1-2, 29-36
A sermon for the Season of Pentecost
The first eight chapters of Paul’s Letter to the Romans set out in logical form how salvation works. Then in Romans 9-11 he gives an example of how salvation works, a case study. Why have the Jewish people not followed their Messiah? Paul is also on his way to Spain through Rome (Romans 15:24). In Rome there are both Jewish and Gentile Christians, and he is writing to introduce himself to them. (The Letter to the Romans could also be called Paul’s last will and testament.)

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Romans 9:1-5

A Sermon for the Season of Pentecost

Commentators on the Epistle to the Romans are divided in two ways, depending on how they deal with 1) Romans 9-11, and 2) Romans 10:4.

#1: Romans 9-11. Romans 9:1-5 points out that the Jewish people did not accept Jesus Christ as the Messiah and Savior. How is that possible? Paul was one of the Jews. The question then in the Epistle to the Romans is: Is this section 9-11 a case study, an example of how God works. (By far the majority of commentaries on Romans see 9-11 in this way, that is, as a case study.) For others the point of chapters 9-11 is to bring out how the Jews are included even though they did not accept Christ.

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A Sermon for the Season of Pentecost

If we could travel back in time to 1912 and imagine ourselves sitting around a table talking about current events and the future, we would find there was a lot then to look forward to. The future looked promising.

Of course, there had been a war in 1870 between Germany and France. Germany took over the Alsace-Lorraine territory from France. That was already forty years back. In 1905 the Japanese had destroyed the Russian Navy at Vladivostok. But that, too, was far away and didn’t seem to affect us. In 1910 there was a World Mission Conference in Edinburgh, Scotland, where they said: “We’re going to bring the Gospel to all the people of the world in this generation.”

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Romans 8:28-30

(This text, Romans 8:28-30, is not in the current lectionary, but it’s a great text. A sermon on Romans 8:31-39 coming next week.)

A sermon for the Season of Pentecost

In the middle of the Nineteenth Century, about 1850, when the British had control of most of India, there was a problem of something called Sati. It was customary that when a husband died, they cremated the body, and the widow was expected to jump into the funeral pyre. Sometimes they had to push her, but this was expected. This was against the law under British rule, but the leader of the Hindu community came to the Governor General of India and said: “This is our custom, and you have to allow us our custom.” The Governor General replied: “Yes, I understand that this is your custom, but our custom is that when somebody does that, we hang him.”

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