What does following Jesus actually ask us to sacrifice?

Welcome to this weekly sermon from Trinity of Physical Church, and I'm here in Argentina, and thank you for joining us.

Now let's listen to the next one.

At least the portion of the sermon was in the office this morning and somebody sneaking away, so I apologize for that.

But that's what happens when you have a meeting before church.

Forget the little things, right?

Well, also the second thing I told them.

I felt like maybe this Sunday we should try something different.

And maybe we can do a choose your own adventure Sunday with the sermon.

I have a sermon scripted and beautiful, and I have another sermon that takes me at the night, but maybe being better than the first one.

So choose your own adventure, beloved.

Which is it gonna be?

A or B?

B?

B?

It sounds like B is the answer.

You don't know what you're getting into, beloved.

Don't be looking at the box! When you choose B, you gotta go with the spirit.

Well, how about a mixture of both?

Shall we go that route?

Yes.

Yeah, yeah.

I love choosing adventure books when I was a kid.

You know what I'm talking about?

When you read into the book so far, and then it gets to a certain page, and it says, if you want to choose to go down this path, turn to page 86.

But if you want to go into the fours, choose page 12.

And then you read there, and then like it can go into a different direction too, and you get to that next line in the room and you have to choose a different path, and you don't know which path to take.

And then sometimes that path will be chosen, page 12, the next section of that book is page 422 and it's all done.

You just like two seconds.

But if you were to change page 86, guess what?

You'd go back to page 14 and then you'd end up reading the next 300 pages before you ended up at the end of the book.

And that's good stuff.

Unexpected surprises.

And the best part is for a book nerd like me, you got to read the book like four or five times.

And for my mom, whenever she bought those books on a troll, you know, if I say the troll book club, you know what I'm talking about when I was a kid.

You'd get a little piece of paper once a month from the teacher, and have all these books you could buy.

You could buy a choose your own adventure for 99 cents.

She was gonna get her weddings worth out of that book because I'd have to read it four or five times before I actually finally read all the adventures that could be had in the box.

Good stuff.

Good stuff.

Life is about adventure, right?

Choose your own adventure.

I'm gonna tell you about a movie that came out in 1986, and you may know it, may have heard of it.

It's called The Mission.

Anyone know it?

Yes, no, maybe?

And it's one of my favorites, especially the moving music that is in it, because I'm also a music nerd.

And it relates the story of an actual event that happened in South America.

Two Jesuit priests go into the interior of South America to convert the native people.

They were called the Guananin.

And they were pretty much successful at it eventually, but not until after they had actually killed one of the priests.

So they were successful, but one of them had to die to make it happen.

Well, then a mercenary who had been killing these same native people kills his brother and his wife for having relations with one another.

And so the church sentences him to penance, a penance of helping the surviving priest in the jungle of South America, which really, for all intents and purposes, was a death sentence.

But the native people, they see his love for them that eventually begins to build, and they begin to accept him, and then they begin to accept Christianity on a much broader scale because if this murderous guy could find the love of Jesus, maybe the love of Jesus was something worth finding.

But meanwhile, while all this is happening, in a whirl away, the treaty is being signed in Europe that gives the same lands that have been being converted and missions built.

Well, they've given the control of that land over to the Portuguese.

And while the Spanish were interested in the conversion of God, new people to the faith of Christ dies, buried, and crucified, and risen again, and the Portuguese were just interested in getting slaves and money.

Well, once news reaches the new world that the Jesuits have a problem, because all those new missions are now on the Portuguese side of the world, as ordered by the treaty.

And they have to leave.

And leave without their flaw.

Well, they refused to do that, even on the pain of excommunication by the Pope.

And it reached such a fever pitch that the Pope actually sent a papal legate to South America to decide what should happen with these rogue Jesuits and the Guananese.

Good work is being done with the Guananini.

But if he signs with the Guananini, then Catholic Portugal might leave Holy Mother Church.

And so he does something.

He chooses instead to sacrifice the Guananese for the good of the church.

And in so doing, those same priests, because the mercenary is now a priest as well, well, they're killed.

Because the mercenary decides to take up the sword again in defense of them, and the other priest decides to take up the blessed sacrament and pray with them as they process with the blessed sacrament to confront the soldiers who have come and killed them.

That day a sacrifice was made as well.

The question that this presents from this film is which sacrifice was the right one?

What do you think?

I'm not going to answer that for you today.

Because guess what?

I'm still wrestling with which answer is the right one.

It seems like it would be easier.

Of course, if one and eat should have been saved.

But what would have happened to Holy Mother Church in Europe?

Would there have been another religious war?

I'll let you chew on that for a while.

Beloved, you see, in the gospel today, we hear about sacrifice from Jesus.

About those things to come in his earthly journey.

But Peter, you know, Peter the Rock, he's not having any of it.

And I actually think it's just a little bit humorous.

This is another one of those moments in the gospel that makes me chuckle, is that Jesus actually tells him that he's a stumbling block.

Do you get it?

The rock?

Stumbling block?

Ha ha.

Okay, bad joke.

I'm sure none of us has ever stumbled over a rock, right?

But Peter is literally and figuratively getting in the way of what Jesus believes and knows as the path forward.

A sacrifice needs to be made.

But why is Jesus telling them this?

Because Jesus is getting them ready for something far more than maybe they have ever bargained with in following Jesus of Nazareth.

Jesus is saying that the road is going to get very bumpy, y'all.

Bruises are gonna happen.

Buckle up.

It's time to go.

More importantly, Jesus is telling them that what he just said would and could and probably happen to them as well.

Jesus' teachings call for the disciples and for us to be with those in the margins of society.

And while we might want bankers and executives in our pews during pledge season, we have to make room for the widow's money.

Right?

And we must teach that, like Jesus said, sacrifice is just that.

Sacrifice.

We have to fill it a little bit before it becomes sacrifice, right?

But it's easy to put sacrifice in only the terms of money.

But what about our time and our talents?

I'm always reminded of two things at this time of year: the cross and this movie I told you about earlier.

The question I ask myself is what is more important?

The needs of the few or the needs of the many?

Jesus knows Peter, and the disciples don't want him to die and to leave them.

They're his friends.

They're his family of choice.

But he knows that he has something to do that will help the many.

Thank you very much.

You just learned a little bit about satisfaction during atonement today.

So we find ourselves asking maybe how we would respond to what Jesus has to say today to us.

Would we love it and beg him not to go through with this thing he speaks of?

Or would we simply say, okay, if you must, I'll be with you in your suffering.

When we stand with the marginalized, we won't end up saying that more often than not.

You see, beloved, those Jesuits chose to stay and to walk the way of suffering, knowing that their strength came from one place.

Jesus.

Like so many others who have found this to be the answer.

Those who have given their lives, either their lifetimes, or their very life.

Like the Reverend Deacon Jonathan Daniels, who threw himself in front of a bullet to save an African-American girl during the civil rights movement.

A deacon who would never be a priest, and instead became a saint.

Or the Baptist saint, one of my favorites, Lottie Moon, who gave her whole life to service in China to spread the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Or the Reverend Polly Murray, who gave her life to tell people that the church was wide enough and large enough to receive women and people of color into our day of ministry.

Or the Reverend Ashwin Jones, the first African-American priest in our denomination, who cried out for justice for God's people.

And then there's old Saint Stephen, the first deacon, who would be stoned in Jerusalem for acknowledging and preaching about this new life he had found in Christ Jesus.

Then there are the ones who heard his teachings and did as the master called them to do in this scripture.

They gave up their life.

Some of them on the cross.

James, son of Zebedee, or otherwise known as James the Great.

He would be beheaded at Jerusalem.

The Apostle John.

He is the only one believed to have died of natural causes.

Andrew is martyred in Greece, crucified on a cross in the shape of an axe.

Bartholomew, otherwise known as Daniel.

Nathaniel, would be martyred in India.

Philip also would be martyred in India by beheaded.

Thomas would also be martyred in India.

Pierce with a spear.

Matthew would go to India as well.

And Matthew, the author of this gospel, would be beheaded.

James the Lass would be beheaded in India as beheaded.

Simon the Zello would be headed.

And Judas Stadius would be headed.

But as true followers of him, they would need to be prepared to make a sacrifice.

Sacrifice for his sake and for the children of God.

And all the generations between men and now.

So I ask you, beloved.

May we be faithful followers of Jesus.

And his sacrifice.

Each and every day.

We invite you to join us each and every Sunday and to follow the podcast so that you can stay connected with future messages.

Until next time.