A traditional Indian story tells of a penniless beggar who sat in the streets of a town. Day after day, he would beg passers by for a little rice for his evening meal. At night, he would sleep on his mat, with only a few old rags to protect him against the cold night air.

          Most days, he would be given enough rice for a small meal at night, and enough coppers to buy a little firewood to cook the rice. And so his life continued, day by day. Until one day he heard that the maharajah was coming to the town for a state visit.

          “Surely,” thought the beggar, “the maharajah is a good and saintly man. He will give me good gifts. He will not pass me by with a mere handful of rice.” So the next day, the beggar made sure that he was sitting on the route where the maharajah was going to pass by.

          Soon, the sound of the imperial procession was heard, and the beggar placed himself by the side of the road. As the maharajah’s coach approached, the beggar was about to step out to ask for alms, when to his great surprise, the maharajah himself got out of the coach, came up to the beggar, greeted him warmly and humbly, and asked the beggar for a little gift of rice.

          The beggar was shocked and disappointed. He, after all, was the poor man, struggling to survive and dependent on the generosity of others, yet here was the rich and powerful maharajah begging a little rice from the poorest of the poor. He could scarcely conceal his indignation. Yet he could hardly refuse the maharajah’s request so, very reluctantly, he counted out five grains of rice from the meagre supply in his bowl and gave them to the maharajah, who received them graciously, thanked the beggar warmly and went on his way.    

That night, the beggar began to prepare his meal. As he cleaned the rice, he noticed something shining in amongst the grains. Yes, there was a nugget of gold amongst the rice. And then, another. And another. The beggar sifted through the rice with utmost care, and to his amazement, he found five nuggets of gold. He sifted again and again, but without success. Five nuggets of gold among the rice, and no more.

He thought back to his encounter with the maharajah. For each of the grains of rice he had so reluctantly given to the maharajah, he now had a nugget of gold. The emperor had returned his grudging gift with its equivalent in gold.

“How mean and foolish I have been,” he said to himself. “How I wish I had given the maharajah every grain that I possessed.”

Our Gospel reading this morning tells us about identity, both of Jesus, and of the Christian community, represented by Peter, who generally seems to be the leading disciple of the Twelve. Peter’s statement of Jesus as Messiah is not unique – in John’s gospel Martha, sister of Mary and Lazarus makes a very similar statement, as we heard in our sentence of the day. It is not even the first time that Jesus has been acclaimed as Son of God in Matthew’s Gospel, after Jesus came to the disciples walking on the water in our Gospel reading two weeks ago the disciples affirmed the same thing.

In this reading, Peter affirms Jesus’ identity, and in response, Jesus affirms Peter’s identity, and through him, the role of the Christian community. Peter is to be the rock on which the community is built – not perfect (as we will hear next week when Peter does not accept the kind of Messiah Jesus will be), but with authority to exercise God’s mission of compassion and justice in the face of destruction and death in the world. This mission is to bring the good news of God’s love, and Jesus’ saving acts into our world.

For Paul, writing to the churches of Rome, this mission is carried out in many different ways by people with different gifts, but underpinning these gifts is the disciples offering their whole selves, body, mind and soul. This whole-hearted offering transforms relationships with God and with each other. The generosity of God demonstrated by the self-giving love of Jesus leads to disciples living in a way that reflects that self-giving love. Indeed, giving and generosity is in the list of the gifts in the final verses of our epistle reading.

This is just as true in our Christian communities today as it was for the little house churches of Rome to whom Paul was writing, communities likely about the size of ours this morning (10 to 40 is the estimate of scholars). Just as they were called to respond to the transforming love of God, so are we, and our response is not limited to, but definitely includes the way we use our resources, our financial giving. You have heard and read in our pew sheet about the financial needs of the parish, and I will speak more on this next week. For this week, I encourage us all in our thoughts and prayers, to consider how well our giving reflects our faith in a loving God to provide us with what we need. Does what we put in the plate or transfer from our bank account reflect the generosity of God in our lives? How well does our giving reflect who we say Jesus is?

SERMON August 23 Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost