The Twelfth Sunday after Trinity by Fr Jack

Exodus 1.8-2.10
St Paul’s Letter to the Romans 12.1-8
St Matthew 16.13-20

Today’s readings in various ways are pointing at one of the fundamental realities of the Christian life. And that is, that we are called to always be developing a God’s-eye view of life.

The readings offer this idea in a number of different ways, but they are all presenting this central reality: having a God’s-eye view of life. That’s what I want to explore together this morning.

Because very often we do the opposite. We make plans, we design the universe in our heads, we tell ourselves who we should be, what life should be, who those around us should be, and then we send that upstairs hoping for ratification from the management (ie God). And we get furious with ourselves, God, or the people around us when that isn’t what happens.

But the Christian life, by contrast, is a pilgrimage of daily dispensing with the cardboard cutouts of me, us, and God, and accepting, and embracing - discovering - a life that is real.

And we do that again and again, Eucharist by Eucharist, prayer by prayer, Scripture by Scripture, meditation by meditation, act of love and mercy by act of love and mercy, all of it, day by day, until this life ends. And then, then, we see God face to face. And, as St Paul tells us in his first epistle to the Corinthians (13), then we will fully know, for the first time, as we are fully known. We will look Love, that is to say God, in the face and finally (for the first time) see God, and thereby for the first time see our true selves too.

So seeing through God, seeing with God’s eyes, seeing God and being seen - all this is an image of truth, revealing and becoming. It is an eschatological image, that is to say of the eschaton (the end of the world), when all things will be brought into the fullness of life. You know they say ‘it’s not the end of the world’, well, in this case, it is actually, and it is very good news.

Anyway, my point is, that seeing God, being seen, becoming, our vision and mind becoming one with God, in God, is an image of heaven. And as always with the things of heaven, our job is not to sit around waiting for them to be dropped off by Jesus the Deliveroo cyclist. Our job is to begin to actively live those realities now.

That’s why the Eucharist - this foretaste of heaven - is the heart of the Christian life. That’s why we work and pray for the justice and peace of the Kingdom in the world today. That’s why we begin to see the world in God and through God even now, falteringly and incompletely as may be.

Does that make sense? A God’s eye view of life - it really is everything. So, let’s canter through today’s readings and spot how they help us to be growing a God’s eye view of life? Here’s a few ideas of mine, grab one if it strikes you, or let them float past; please do spot and savour your own.

Moses the immigrant child who’s little Hebrew life is worthless; or maybe worse even than that: malignant in the eyes of the mainstream. But God (as God does again and again) will take those the world has thrown on the rubbish dump, or made an outsider and use them. God sees different. So can we.

St Paul to the Romans - today’s epistle. Bodies hadn’t gained much value in the centuries since poor little Moses, to be honest. Not problematic Hebrew bodies this time, but St Paul is writing in a time when women’s bodies and those of children had little value. When enslaved people’s bodies were not their own. When familial duties mattered more than people’s own selves, and seedy sexual exploitation was enshrined in elite life.

So for St Paul to say that our bodies are ‘holy’, that they are a means of ‘worship’ is amazing. Women, children, slaves - the Church in Rome had them too. And they heard this epistle, as we should: your body is beautiful. Not because your body conforms to some plastic unreal magazine cover nonsense. But the beauty that God sees: our bodies carry the finger prints of our creator, the in-dwelling of the Holy Spirit in every one of us, and the saving humanity of our Brother Jesus who gave His body for the love of ours. His beautiful Body, that our beautiful bodies are, by baptism, a part of. That is what God sees, your body: holy, wobbly, creaky, tricky, fragile, holy and beautiful. God sees different, so can we.

And what about the value of the people around us - in church, work, home, community. There are leaders and followers, important people and less important? Well St Paul suggests again that God sees different. He makes no ranking today between those who lead, and those who give, or show compassion, or who cheer others. Maybe the king and the jester aren’t ranked differently in the Kingdom? Who has value? And what’s a God’s-eye view.

So to the Gospel. And here, for a change the Apostles are getting it right. St Peter sees with God’s eyes: the truth that Jesus is God’s anointed saviour, and even more: God with us. An amazing insight.

And Jesus has one eye on God’s timing, not only the cut and thrust of events. Why does He tell them to tell nobody at the end of today’s Gospel? Because things have to unfold according to all those Old Testament prophecies that the Gospels will tick off. God’s-eye here means ancient mystery and not our timetable.

One final thing to notice here. Jesus gives St Peter the ‘keys of the Kingdom’, as it were, in today’s Gospel. It is because of this Gospel that St Peter is usually depicted with keys, and becomes the pearly gatekeeper in popular imagination. Here, through Peter, and the Apostles, then through the Bishops who succeed the Twelve, and then through the priests those bishops ordain, right across time and space, a great artery system of God’s mercy and grace flows. The Sacramental life of the Church in Eucharist and Baptism, blessing, anointing and absolving. It all flows from the heart of God through St Peter seeing with God’s eyes today - realising who Jesus is.

And God sees this probably illiterate, impulsive, and so often foot-in-mouth smelly half naked fisherman as so much more than he appears. How does God see you? How does God see the people around you? What might God do with us, if only we could see things God’s way?

So, you see, it’s all a matter of seeing with God’s eyes. That is what we will do for eternity, ‘lost in wonder, love and praise’. So we start today. And, as in today’s readings, if we begin to see the world, others, our bodies, ourselves, the church, our faith, and what God is doing through you and me, with God’s eyes, then anything can happen.