September 28, 2014: Matthew 21:23-32

Facing the truth

Year A Pentecost 15                                                

                                                               

            I have talked to several rectors about what we miss most about being an assistant.  Most of us miss knowing that if there was a tricky question that we did not know the answer to or did not want to answer, we could always say, “I need to ask the rector.”  Of course the reason that most assistants are called to be rectors eventually is that more often than not, we would rather be the ones answering the questions.  Most assistants get a little sick of asking the rector about everything.  Occasionally we just want to make the decision ourselves.  But like the Hebrew people who longed for the food of Egypt, we remember those experiences through rose colored glasses, especially when we are stressed and frantic about what we are experiencing right now.

            The people that Jesus is talking to in this Gospel reading are the chief priests and the elders, also known as the Sanhedrin.  The Sanhedrin was essentially the Supreme Court of the Jewish people.  In some ways, they had even more power than the Supreme Court because they were involved with legislation, administration, and justice.   One of their jobs was to ferret out the false messiahs.  You would think that there would not be too many of those, but there were often several false messiahs lurking in parts of Israel.  We don’t know about them now because they were false.  

            The chief priests and elders are never portrayed very kindly in the gospels.  They were after all, at least partially responsible for the death of Jesus.  We often hear them questioning Jesus, often rather condescendingly.  When Jesus tells parables (like the one we hear today) religious leaders usually look pretty bad.  So it is understandable that we might have bad opinions of the chief priests and elders. 

But they weren’t all bad.  They were committed to their faith and to God.  Perhaps not all had the best of intentions, but many did.  The reason that they questioned Jesus was because that was their job.  They needed to prove that these messiahs were false.  Otherwise the false messiahs would lead the people astray and possibly cause huge problems between the Jews and the empire that controlled them, Rome.  The chief priests and elders were trying to keep the peace and ease the tensions that these false messiahs created.

            What they did not anticipate was that not all of these men were false.  John the Baptist was neither false nor the messiah.  He was the person pointing to the true messiah.  One would have hoped the priests and elders would have learned something from John the Baptist, but they never really gave him a chance.  And if he was false, well then Jesus must be false as well.  While it was their job to judge these potential messiahs, they were supposed to allow for the possibility that this person could be the real deal.  However, as we know it’s a lot easier to be cynical than hopeful…a lot easier to be negative than positive. It also did not help that Jesus did not fit the messiah mold.  He was a peasant with no formal education.   The educated and well-bred religious leaders of the day could not have a  messiah like that as their king.

            Instead of giving Jesus a fair hearing, they tried to trap him with questions.  Being the teacher that he was, Jesus would always turn those questions on them.  Many people believe that this technique of Jesus was a bit of a mind game, but I think it was a teaching technique.  I believe he hoped to open their minds, even if he knew it was almost impossible.  Jesus was not the kind to give up on lost causes.  Unlike their typical questions, this question we heard today was a pretty clear cut question.  They asked him where he got his authority. 

            There were a couple of recent events that concerned the Jewish leadership and led them to ask this question.  Right before this interaction, Jesus had paraded into Jerusalem while people shouted “Hosanna to the Son of David!”  This was a pretty magnificent claim and not one he denied.  It would appear that he even encouraged this representation.  He then went into the temple, the very seat of the power of God and in many ways, the power of the Jewish leadership.  He drove out the people who were buying and selling goods saying, “My house shall be called a house of prayer.”  Can you imagine the response of the elders and chief priests?  “Did he just say: ‘my house’?”  Of course they had to confront the man who made such claims. 

            So they did.  Instead of answering their question, Jesus asked them, “Did the baptism of John come from heaven, or was it of human origin?”  That question put them in a bit of a bind.  They were in the midst of people who were followers of John, who had just been killed.  The elders and priests knew that if they said that the baptism of John was of human origin they would offend all these people…and that offense would potentially end in violence.  They also knew if they said that the baptism was from heaven, then they would be admitting that Jesus was potentially the messiah because that was what John had said all along.  How could someone who baptized on behalf of God be so wrong when it came to the coming messiah? 

            What I find rather interesting is that we never hear what they really believe.  Perhaps they did believe that John’s baptism came from heaven. Maybe there was disagreement among them.  However, the text indicates that they really believed that the baptism was of human origin and they were just afraid to say that. This is where I lose a little respect for them.  They took the easy way out.  Instead of just telling the truth, they answered, “I don’t know.” 

In general I have no problem with that answer.  I would much rather people admit they do not know than bluster through an answer that is not even correct.  But they did know.  They had a very definite opinion and they didn’t give it because they were afraid of how it would affect them.  They were not answering on the basis of truth, but on what was safe to say.  It wasn’t what was safe for anyone else. They were not protecting the feelings of others. They were only protecting themselves.  Because they were unwilling to answer honestly, Jesus refused to answer their question.  It’s not because he was being evasive, he just knew that they were not interested in the truth.  They only wanted to protect their beliefs and their lives.  If Jesus’s answer did not comply with that, they did not want to hear it. 

            While I lose a little respect for them in this interaction, I can also sympathize.  There were many times when I was an assistant when I knew the answer and it was absolutely in my power to give it, but I took the easy way out.  I used my lack of authority to avoid the harder questions.  While I know it was a little cowardly, I miss it sometimes!  Haven’t most of us done that at one time or another?  Either we have avoided answering or provided the answer we just knew the person wanted to hear because that was the safe way to go.  While it is the safe way; it’s not the true way.  Because in avoiding the hard questions and the even harder answers we are avoiding conversations that can open up new possibilities and futures that we can’t even imagine. 

            We all have some truth in our life that we are fighting.  It could be something that we are afraid to acknowledge or something we are just not sure of.  Let us all take some time in the next week, month or year to consider what truth it is that we are avoiding.   God will help us answer the hard questions of life, but only if we are willing to provide honest and authentic answers.  We get frustrated when God doesn’t answer our prayers and our questions.  But maybe it would be easier to hear those answers if we weren’t working so hard to avoid the truth in our own lives. 

Exodus 16: 2-15: September 21, 2014

When whining is a good thing

         Year A, Pentecost 14                                             

                                                            

Robert Leahy recently wrote a book entitled: Anxiety Free.  In it, he refers to the time that we live in as the “age of anxiety.” He wrote that the average child today has the same level of anxiety as the average psychiatric patient in the 1950s[1].  I am not exactly sure how he came to this conclusion; but it is a rather startling claim. I don’t think any of us would deny that we live in a time that is riddled with anxiety.  I remember getting on the metro in our nation’s capital and seeing the terror alert listed.  It was orange at the time. It felt like I was living in some dystopian novel.  Around that same time I was talking to an environmentalist and he mentioned something called “eco-anxiety” which describes a heightened anxiety that people experience regarding the state of our environment.   We are anxious about everything from the air we breathe to the terror that seems to surround us. I doubt there is anyone here who has not experienced some type of anxiety; some that is completely rational and some not so rational. 

            Keeping that in mind, it might be more difficult to judge the Hebrew people who were anxious about starving to death.  I remember in one church I served, there was a lay reader who generally read in a monotone, except when it came to the Exodus story.  Then she moved into this rather nasaly whine that woke everybody up and elicited a raised eyebrow from the rector.  People love to imitate the whine of the Hebrew people.   They get a bad rap and I wonder if they really deserve it. They were after all in the desert with very little food or water.  It’s not like they were just on a long stretch of highway between Starbucks.  So why are we so quick to judge them?  

To some, they just seem ungrateful. God just saved them from slavery and parted a body of water so that they could escape and now they are complaining again!  I admit that their comment that it would have been better that they had died in Egypt where they had plenty to eat was a little obnoxious.  But they were hungry and scared.  People say desperate things when they are in desperate situations.  Plus, the God that they had experienced, the all-powerful God who rained down plagues and killed thousands of people was not necessarily the same tender hearted God that we picture.  In their minds, they had a God who was a warrior and a deliverer, but maybe not a provider of food and love.

            While Moses was a little annoyed with the people and their complaints, God showed no such judgment.  As soon as they complained to Moses, God said to Moses, “I am going to rain bread from heaven for you…”  Problem solved.  Yet he provided an interesting caveat.  “…each day people shall go out and gather enough for that day.  In that way I will test them, whether they will follow my instructions or not.”  The instructions were pretty clear.  The people were to gather only enough…only enough as they needed for that one day.  But these were hungry people who had just been through a period of slavery and uncertainty.  Sure, God had freed them from slavery but that was after a long period of suffering.  Some Bible scholars surmise that they were enslaved for 400 years.  The people who were freed had seen many of their loved ones die in slavery.  They had seen infants killed.  That was a high price to pay and not one that would be easily forgotten.  The people needed more than a miraculous act to believe in God.  They needed a relationship with God.

            God addressed that need in a couple of ways.  He started with communication.  He communicated directly with the leaders (Moses and Moses’ brother Aaron).   Then he did something rather surprising, even as we look at the story in retrospect.  Aaron told the people to “Draw near to the Lord, for he has heard your complaining.”   With those words, the glory of the Lord appeared to them.  All the people saw it.  Imagine if after every time I recommended that you grow closer to God, he appeared.  That would be effective, would it not?  People would take those words pretty seriously.  What I find particularly interesting is that God never told Moses or Aaron that he would appear to the people.  He said that he would provide food, but he never mentioned that cloud of glory. It was an affirmation for not only the people, but the leadership as well. 

            The next way that God encouraged a closer relationship with him was by providing a test.  Most of us probably do not have warm and fuzzy feelings about tests.  I have not taken a test in about ten years and I still have nightmares about them.  Recently I read about a new method they are attempting in education.  The teacher starts the year with a test. It would be similar to the test that the student would take at the end of the year, but there would be no grade.  The idea is that the student would see what was expected of them for the year.  The teacher would also know what areas needed more time than others.  The classes that have used this method ended up doing much better on their final exam. 

This is similar to the kind of test that God was providing.  There was no grade, but there were results.  It was not a test as much as it was another teaching opportunity.  The people were only supposed to gather as much as they needed.  But they were hungry. They were used to having to grab everything they could get because they did not know where the next meal was coming from.  Need is a relative term.  They probably felt they needed as much as they could gather.  Of course they could not eat all that they gathered, so they stored it for the next day….just in case God did not deliver the bread from heaven.   When they woke up, the food that they had stored was infested with worms AND the manna from heaven rained down again.  It was a test but it was also a lesson and it was one that they learned pretty quickly.  This God was not a warrior, and not merely a deliverer.  This God was God who cared about their day to day needs but also a God who expected obedience.  

            Perhaps we are quick to judge the Hebrew people for their complaints because we are also quick to judge ourselves for our own lack of faith, our lack of confidence in God.   That is what complaints about or to God seem to indicate to so many…a lack of faith.   Yet the complaints of the Hebrew people actually resulted in a closer relationship with God.  Now I am not encouraging you all to start complaining…especially not to me (unless it is non-church related in which case, fire away)!  However there is something to say about complaining to God.  Sometimes when we are questioning our faith or when we are frustrated with our own life, it is tempting to shut God out, but that is the time when we really need to talk to God, even if it sounds like whining. 

This is an age of anxiety. It might be tempting to try to ignore that anxiety or pretend we are not really that anxious.  It is best not to ignore it or to perceive it as a lack of faith.  The best thing we can do for our own mental health and our relationship with God is to share those things that weigh us down.  We might not always get the answer we want.  Or the answer might seem as though it takes years and years to come, but the answer will come.  If you find that you have grown closer to God in the process and if in that process you catch even a glimpse of the glory of God, then you might discover that you don’t even need the answer anymore. 

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[1] http://www.forbes.com/2006/12/13/most-common-fears-forbeslife-cx_avd_1214commonfears.html

September 14, 2014: Exodus 14:19-31

When the water is up to your nose...

Year A, Pentecost 14                                    

                                                        

            I have to admit that getting ready for this Kick-off Sunday made me a little anxious.  It felt like some sort of unveiling, but there is nothing new that we were actually unveiling.  I’m old news at this point as I have been at John’s for 11 months.  I keep telling people that I am looking forward to the one year mark, that time when I have been through everything once.  That means I will have seen Christmas at St. John’s before experiencing it. I will have walked through the Palm Sunday procession before having to lead it.  Leading a service that you have never experienced when everyone else knows exactly what to expect is well….kind of terrifying. 

In the last year, I have found myself identifying a little with Moses, except without the superpowers.  Moses was a leader, but he was not really sure where he was going.  It was all very new for him.  Of course Moses had some things on his side:  a direct connection to God and some pretty astounding miracles. 

We usually associate miracles with Jesus, but there were plenty or miracles in the Old Testament as well.  There are a lot of different definitions of miracles.  At one point, I looked it up on the internet and found one from the skeptics dictionary.  The skeptics dictionary defined a miracle as "a transgression of a law of nature by a particular decision of the Deity..."[1]  While that describes some miracles, it is certainly not all inclusive.  Miracles are so much more than transgressions of the laws of nature. Each one of us would probably define a miracle in a different way, but most would say it is a time when God intervenes directly in our lives. 

            Consider the parting of the Red Sea. Would that fit into the skeptics definition? We have all seen the dramatic depictions of this event in the movies.  There is usually a man with a long white beard that is being whipped around by the wind.  Suddenly a tunnel is created in the water and the Hebrew people walk through without a second thought.  This depiction would definitely fit the skeptic’s definition.  But if you look at the text itself (and not the Hollywood rendition), you might see something slightly different.  “Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea. The Lord drove the sea back by a strong east wind all night, and turned the sea into dry land, and the waters were divided.  The Israelites went into the sea on dry ground, the waters forming a wall for them on their right and on their left.”  What is interesting about this is that instead of a violation of the laws of nature, it would seem as though nature is working with God.

In fact, God is using many resources to accomplish this miracle.  First, he asks Moses to stretch out his hand over the sea.  Then he uses the wind to separate the water. He uses both a human agent and a force of nature.  Couldn’t God have parted the sea without Moses stretching his hand out? Did God really need wind? If we really believe that God is an all powerful God, then of course he could separate water without any wind and without any human assistance.  Yet it would seem that God is not working alone in this instance, that he wants it to be a joint effort.

You will find that is true of many miracles in the Bible. In the feeding of the 5,000 a boy brings forward five loaves and two fish, which is what Jesus multiplies. In the healing miracles, people had to take the initiative to request the healing. Most of the time, they had to find the courage to approach Jesus. It is easy to think that miracles are something that just come to us, that all we have to do is sit back and wait.  However, most of the time, we need to work with God. 

The Jewish people have volumes and volumes of commentary on the Hebrew Scriptures. They refer to this commentary as the midrash.  Sometimes the midrash will analyze the scripture. Sometimes it fills in perceived gaps to give a more complete picture. The midrash provides some fascinating insight into the Exodus story, which is one of the most important stories of the Jewish people. One particularly insightful comment focused on the line, “The Israelites went into the sea on dry ground, the waters forming a wall for them on their right and on their left.”  From a careful study of the Hebrew, which is what the midrash is working with, the writers concluded that the Hebrew people entered the sea before it was actually parted.  The water did not part until they were so far in, it had reached their noses.[2]  In other words, God’s miracle required human initiative.  They had to take the first step. They had to believe that God would not let them drown.

If we consider this depiction of the story, then I imagine Moses standing on the side with his hand over the sea while the people walked through.  While he was technically leading them, they were the ones who were walking out in front.  This reminds me a lot of my experience at St. John’s.  I am the rector, which apparently makes me the leader.  But for much of the time, I have found myself standing to the side to see how it all works.  After Oct. 13^th, I will have been here one year and will have at least some experience on how things work here, but there will still be times when I have to stand aside while you all wade into the water.  We are all on this journey together. There will be times when we will feel incredibly lost and there will be times when God’s guidance is so clear it is like a pillar of light in the night sky.

But most of the time, it will be something in between.  We will have a general idea where we are going, but we might lack the energy or the confidence to keep going.  Maybe we will be a little worried that the water won’t separate and we are not sure that we are in the mood for a midnight swim.  It’s those times when things don’t feel miraculous, when the rector is not new and shiny…it is those times when we have to keep moving forward together and have faith that God will either divide the water or give us the strength to swim.  In the end, it does not really matter who is in front.  What matters is where the wind is coming from, where the power is really coming from.  If we are truly the Church of Christ, then our guidance and strength is always in God’s hands.

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[1] Hume, David. http://skepdic.com/miracles.html

[2] Talmud, Sotah 37a; Midrash Rabbah             

Sept. 7, 2014: Matt 18:15-20 & Romans 13:8-14

Year A, Pentecost 13                                                             

            As a priest in the Episcopal Church, one of the things I have been taught is how to handle conflict when it happens in the parish.  While conflict is not something that most people seek out, it also should not be avoided.  It can be healthy and help people grow.  If it is ignored or handled in an unhealthy way, it can be quite corrosive.   Some things about conflict management are pretty obvious.  Never handle it over e-mail.  The best thing to do is to deal directly with the person with whom you have the conflict.   Yet even with this knowledge, I find it a very hard thing to do especially outside of the church. 

Just recently I had a conversation with a very close friend of mine and she said something that really upset me. I acted like it did not upset me because at the time, I was not sure that I should be upset.  I always find it helpful to take some time to consider why I am upset.  Often it has little to do with what the person did or said and more to do with what is going on with me.  But pretty quickly, I realized that I was not going to get past this which meant that I had to talk to my friend.  By this time I was a little mad and I did about the stupidest thing you can do.  I called a mutual friend and talked to her about it.  Even as I was doing it, I knew it was stupid. I felt that I needed to talk to someone about it who would know the people involved and who might have some helpful advice.  My friend asked, “Well should I talk to her for you?”  Now these two friends and I go way back and that was how we dealt with conflict when we were teenagers so it was tempting to regress, but I said no.

            I was pretty ashamed with myself. I’m a priest. I should know better than this! Yet it is human nature to want to avoid conflict and seek comfort and support from a third party.  There is a technical term for it.  It’s called triangulation and in ministry it’s like the 8^th deadly sin.  Can you imagine Jesus going to Peter and saying, “Can you believe what Thomas just did?  Of course you can’t…Thomas can’t even believe what he did…he’s such a doubter.  I mean bless his heart, but seriously…”    Jesus would never have done that. He always addressed  conflict straight on because he realized how corrosive unresolved or poorly resolved conflict could be in a community. 

I believe that is what he was teaching about in the Gospel lesson for today.  Like much in the Bible, this particular Gospel reading has been misappropriated.  It has been used to call out sinners in front of the congregation.  I have heard of churches that will actually ask people to publically confess their sins in front of the congregation.  I would think that would have a rather negative effect on the people involved.  However, a lot of people would use this passage to defend that kind of treatment.

If you were to read this passage alone, without the benefit of the surrounding readings, it might sound pretty harsh…which is why you should always read something in context.  Right before today’s reading, we hear the parable of the lost sheep.  Jesus told a story about a shepherd who left 99 sheep to find the one who had wandered off.  After today’s reading Peter asks Jesus how often he should forgive someone.  Jesus recommends 7 times 77.  Does this sound like the kind of God who would recommend that members of a community castigate someone in front of everyone and then throw them out? 

This is not supposed to be a handbook for managing conflict in a community any more than the story about the sheep is a handbook for shepherds.  However, it is demonstrating a critical point. Jesus cares about the individual, but he also deeply cares about the community.  He knows that the health of the community depends on the relationships between the individuals within the community.     That means that the health of the body of Christ depends on us.  That is a pretty big responsibility.

            In Paul’s letter to the Romans, he also talks about the importance of the community.  “Owe no one anything except to love one another; for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law.”  Paul then went on to mention a couple of commandments.  All of the commandments he quoted were regarding how we treat one another.  He wrote that all the commandments could be summed up in this phrase, “Love your neighbor as yourself.”  How do we reconcile Jesus demand for confrontation and his call for us to love one another? How can we love our neighbor as we love ourselves while also holding one another accountable?

            When Paul told the Romans to love one another as they loved themselves, he was quoting something that Jesus said in the Gospels.  In order to love others we have to know what it is to love ourselves, to see ourselves as beloved children of God.  If that is how we love one another, then one would assume that is how we confront one another or hold each other accountable.  Before we address the sins of the other, we must first address our own sins.  That way we will approach that person with humility. 

In my situation with my friend, I kind of did the first part.  I tried to examine what my own part in the argument was.  But then instead of approaching her with the appropriate humility, I talked to someone else about it.  Thankfully my friend was a good friend and she talked to me directly.  She apologized to me and by then I was able to also apologize for not handling it well.  While I am not proud of how long it took me to talk to her directly, I did spend that time examining my own actions.  If we had left it at that (the self-examination without the conversation), we would have just been ashamed.  But when we addressed it directly, it was a very healing experience. 

It is important to remember whenever we are dealing with conflict, even when we are almost certainly in the right, we are still sinners in need of forgiveness.  That is one of the reasons that we have the communal confession.  We don’t say, “Ok, whoever sinned this week, why don’t you come up to front and say the confession.”  We assume that we have all sinned and so we say the confession together as the body of Christ.   That does not take the place of those direct conversations, but it’s a good start, especially if we really think about what we are reading and consider our own sins as we read that confession.   I always try to provide a moment between when I announce the confession and when I begin it to allow for people to personally reflect.  (Now you know that when I give you a little longer than usual, it’s because I have a few more sins to confess.)

            I have a little disclaimer for this sermon.  Direct confrontation is almost always better than going to someone else to vent your frustrations.  But this method is never an excuse for cruelty.  You can’t just say the first thing that pops into your head whenever you want to.   Jesus could get away with that but none of us are God incarnate.  We can’t be sure that everything that comes out of our mouth is the word of God.  Why do you think I write these sermons down?  Sometimes the Holy Spirit comes to us later when we refine our thoughts, when we have had time to cool down.  Loving one another is not easy.  It doesn’t always come naturally.  If it did, Jesus would not have had to repeat it as often as he did and we would not still be talking about it today.   Love one another as you love yourselves.  Confront one another gently, but do so with the knowledge that you are just as sinful as the person you are confronting. 

August 31, 2014: Matthew 16:21-28

Getting Behind Jesus

Year A, Pentecost 12                                             

                                                             

            I confess that there are few things I enjoy more than getting the right answer.  For that reason and more, I empathize with Peter.  He was kind of the star pupil, or apostle.  At least he thought he was.  In the Gospel reading from last week Jesus asked the big question: “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” There were a couple of theories that the disciples tossed around.  “Some say John the Baptist, but others Elijah, and still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” Jesus knew what people were thinking.  What he really wanted to know was who they thought he was.  “But who do you say that I am?” This time it was not all the disciples who answered, it was one.  Simon, Peter, the first disciple to be chosen by Jesus said: “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” 

            I imagine that Peter was a little worried when he answered this question.  It seemed like an obvious answer.  But Peter was a simple fisherman.  He was not a rabbi or an academic.  He did not know what Jesus wanted to hear.  So he went for the truth.  He answered not on what he had seen, maybe not even what he knew for sure.  His answer was based on hope and faith.  He anticipated that Jesus would be the Messiah, the strong and powerful king who would save them all from the tyrannical Roman rule. 

Thus far, Jesus had done almost nothing to indicate that he would be that kind of leader.  But he had given them hope, hope that he would be greater than the prophets who had come before.  They knew that he was special and unique because they has seen his miracles and witnessed the influence he had on the crowds. So they put this special and unique person in the only category they could imagine, that of the Messiah.

            Had this been a simple written test, maybe a short answer, Peter would have done quite well.  Jesus commended him on his correct answer.  He responded:  “Blessed are you,… I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it.” That is quite a commendation.  Who needs grades when you are told that your answer is so good--so very insightful, that even the gates of Hades could not stand up to you and your correct answer?  I bet Peter was feeling pretty good about himself.  He had finally gotten the right answer.  And not only did he have the right answer but he was the star student and the teacher was the Messiah.  It could not get much better than that.  And it didn’t.  It got much worse…at least it seemed like it did. 

            Soon after that moment of clarity, that moment where everything made sense and all was right in the world, things took a dramatic turn.  Has that ever happened to you?  Perhaps things had been difficult and then something happened that made you think that God was looking after you and you were on the right track.  All the bad things that had happened were finally making sense. God had closed the door, but you found that window of opportunity that provided the explanation for all those closed doors.  Then suddenly with no warning nor any good reason the window was slammed as well. You could see what was on the other side, but you could not get there.  It has happened to me.  Just at that moment when all the pieces finally fell into place, then it all fell apart. 

            As soon as Peter had figured out who Jesus was, Jesus started telling his disciples, his friends, that he would soon have to suffer and be killed.  This would happen at the hands of the elders, the chief priests and the scribes…the religious authorities, the people who were supposed to know better.  Wait a minute…didn’t Jesus just admit to Peter that he was the all powerful Messiah?!? Those scribes and chief priests should be bowing to him, paying him homage.  Why would the Messiah, the son of the living God, suffer at the hands of mere humans?  Did that mean that Peter, the star pupil had been wrong? 

Since he was the star pupil, the very special disciple of Jesus, it clearly fell on him to clarify this.  Surely there was a misunderstanding. Jesus loved teaching moments.  This must have been one of those.  Jesus could not desert his disciples so soon after he had called them, so soon after they had put their faith and hope in him.  That would be a cruel joke.  Why bother even calling these disciples if he was just going to die?  If they wanted a dead messiah, they could have found that person anywhere.  This was the man they had tied their hopes and dreams to.  This was the man who had showed them love, grace and forgiveness. He could not die. 

            So Peter did what any good student would do.  He challenged his learned teacher.   “God forbid it, Lord! This must never happen to you.”    Perhaps when we hear that now, it sounds a little disrespectful.  I imagine it made perfect sense at the time.  It would be like when your best friend or spouse says something negative about themselves.  Of course you would tell them they were crazy and to stop talking such foolishness.  And then they would look at you sheepishly and admit that was what they wanted to hear, what they needed to hear.  Because let’s face it, no one wants to hear the person they love telling you that they are going to suffer. 

Yet Jesus did not reply with a sheepish grin.  He did not say to Peter, “Right again my friend.  You get another gold star!”  Instead he replied: “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; for you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”   That seems harsh and so contrary to what he had just told Peter.  He had told him he would stand up to the gates of Hades, and now he is calling him Satan, the landlord of Hades. 

There are many theories about why Jesus called Peter Satan.  He wanted to teach Peter that he was a different kind of Messiah, not the victorious kind that was expected. Instead he was the Messiah who would choose to suffer and die instead of conquer an army.  He called Peter Satan because Satan had already tempted Jesus to forgo the suffering and rule through earthly power.  That would have been easier for Jesus, but he knew it would not work.  Jesus knew that was not the kind of Messiah who was needed.  The Messiah that was needed would not free them from the Romans.  He would free them from sins, an entirely different kind of bondage.

It must have crushed Peter to hear those words because he thought he had figured it out. He finally had the right answer and now the answer that was before him was more suffering, more unanswered questions.   Jesus said that he would rise after three days, but I don’t think Peter heard that.  He tuned out after he heard that part about suffering and death.  Isn’t that so often the case in our own lives?  We get stuck in the struggling and the death and we forget that something comes after that.

It is natural to assume that life should get easier, maybe even smoother when we have the answers. Pop psychology tells us that we will find peace when we have accepted the truth.  But the reality is that there are no easy answers and no easy ways.  There are merely struggles that require more strength than we can possibly muster.  Sometimes faith does not lead us to peace, happiness, or the easy answer.  It leads us to a desperate cry.  It leads us to the realization that we do not have the answers, but we do have the guide.  So we follow.  “Get behind me Satan” sounds like an insult and perhaps it was.  Yet it is intriguing that he tells Peter to get behind him and then instructs his disciples to follow him.  You have to get behind someone to follow them. In a sense, he was telling Peter that even if he was the rock that he would build his church on, he was still a follower of Jesus.  Jesus demands that kind of humility from all of us. It would be transformational (perhaps even revolutionary) if all of our church leaders, our government leaders, our military and our law enforcement could display that kind of humility.  Even when we are convinced that we are right, we are merely followers of Jesus.  No more, no less. The only answer we need is the suffering Messiah that we follow.