Pentecost 14 – 2026
Exodus 3:1-15, Romans 12:9-21, Matthew 16:21-28
Marian Free
In the name of God who calls us to die to self and live to God. Amen.
“When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.”(sic) So wrote Dietrich Bonhoeffer in his book The Cost of Discipleship. Bonhoeffer was to live the truth of these words after his arrest and eventual execution by the Nazis at the end of the second World War.
Our lectionary readings are intended to be sequential not thematic. Right now, we are making our way through Exodus, Romans and Matthew. Every now and then though a common thread appears. (This, you might argue, is hardly surprising given that the Bible in its entirety is the story of our relationship with God.) Today, if we exempt the Psalm, a common theme that emerges is that of “call” or discipleship.
We begin with Moses. Moses, who has fled Pharaoh’s court after killing an Egyptian, is minding his business, watching sheep in Horeb when God grabs his attention by way of a burning bush. God describes the suffering of the Israelites and informs Moses that he is to be the means through whom his people are saved. If you read further, you will see that Moses has a number of objections to this plan not least is the fact that because he has offended both the Egyptians and the Israelites, he can be certain that neither side will listen to him. God, who usually doesn’t take “no” for an answer, convinces Moses that these are mere details that can be overcome with God’s help, so Moses reluctantly accepts the call to join God in the liberation of God’s people.
Moses was right to be cautious. Being called by God is not a call to a life of ease. Exodus continues by recounting how Moses lived out his call in the face of the resistance and rebelliousness of the Israelites, the dangers and deprivations of the desert and finally in the knowledge that despite it all, he would never see the promised land. In the end though, all those difficulties are outweighed by Moses’ intimate relationship with God with whom on more than one occasion he speaks face-to-face.
The gospel continues this theme of call. Jesus’ disciples have responded Jesus’ call and though they have left everything to follow him, they have yet to really understand the cost of discipleship or indeed the true nature of Jesus’ mission. In the passage immediately before this morning’ gospel, the disciples have finally admitted that they believe Jesus to be the Christ, the Son of the Living God. To their minds, this means that he is the one who will save Israel from its oppressors. Discipleship in this context is as an adventure that has victory as its end.
It is almost impossible to imagine the shock and surprise when Jesus not only turns this idea on its head by telling them that he must suffer and die but also insists that they must lose their life to find it. Peter’s reaction to this news tells us that this is not what he thought they signed up for. He doesn’t understand that Jesus’ meaning is both literal and figurative. Some of them will physically die, but all who are called to follow Christ are called to “die” – by giving up a life focussed on themselves and endeavouring to live lives entirely focussed on and directed by God.
That Paul has understood what Jesus’ meant by “taking up one’s cross” is evident in all his letters. In Galatians for example, he wrote: “Ι have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me” (Gal 3:19b-20). Physically Paul is very much alive, but in the light of his relationship with Christ, he can see that everything he once strove for, everything he once relied on, has been reduced to garbage. He is dead to his past and alive to Christ. The theme of dying and rising was explored earlier in the letter to the Romans (5-8). In chapter 12, Paul applies his theology to the life of the community. What does it look like to die to self and rise to Christ to be, as he says in verse 1, “a living sacrifice”?
His answer is that those who are called to follow Christ are called to die to the need to dominate and possess, to die to the desire for vengeance, to die to ambition, and to die to anger, hatred and evil. They are called to put the well-being of others before their own needs, to stop protecting their own interests, and to measure their lives by kingdom values, not by earthly values. They are called to understand the upside-down world of discipleship in which “suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint.” (Rom 5:3b-5).
Disciples of Christ are called to die to self-centredness and to all that deals death to joy, peace, and love, so that that greed, selfishness and hatred no longer have a place in our lives or therefore no longer have a place in the world. We are called to meet evil with good, greed with generosity, despair with hope, judgement with understanding and forgiveness, and competition with cooperation.
When Jesus calls disciples to take up their cross, it is not to seek a life of suffering or to welcome death. Rather it is to let go of all the attitudes and behaviours that are life-denying and to replace them with those that are life-giving.
Only when we truly surrender our egos and all the things that bind us to our earthly existence, only when we answer God’s call with all that we are and have will we truly know God’s peace and joy and discover what it means to be truly alive. The journey, like that of Moses, of Jesus and of the disciples may be filled with difficulty and may, at worst lead to our death, but it will be a journey unencumbered by our human frailties and needs and will be inspired and directed by our connection with the divine. What we lose will be nothing compared to what we (and thus the world) will gain.
Swallowsrest 