Pentecost 15

May my words and my thoughts be acceptable to you, O Lord, my refuge and my redeemer. (Psalm 19:14)

SEASON: Pentecost 15
PROPER: 17A
PLACE: St. John’s Episcopal Church, Kingsville
DATE: September 1, 2002


TEXT: Matthew 16:21-27 – “Get behind me, Satan! Your are a stumbling block to me; for you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”

See also: Romans 12:1-8 – “I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God – what is good and acceptable and perfect.”

ISSUE: In this passage from Matthew, Jesus sees Peter the Rock, as a stumbling block or a rock people will stumble over and fall. The issue is that discipleship is walking with Christ in a sacrificial way that lays down one’s life for their friends. St. Paul also picks up this theme urging the Roman Christians not to be conformed to the way the world thinks, but to be transformed in their thinking, discerning the way of Jesus Christ, the way of God. The teachings of Jesus emphasize a reversal of thinking differently from the fallen world to achieve our true humanity with Christ.
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Just last week we read the passage from Matthew’s gospel in which Simon bar Jonah is renamed to be Simon Peter. He is Peter the Rock. It is what we would call a nickname. In our time it would be Rocky. The result of this renaming comes when Simon identifies Jesus as messiah, Son of the living God. Peter is seen as perceptive person who has discerned that Jesus is Lord. In the continuing passage, however, Peter is not nearly so honored. HE is seen as a rock that people will stumble over. He is a ‘skandalon’; he is a stumbling block. Poor Peter. Peter gets to walk on the water and then sinks. Peter is called the Rock and given the keys, but then becomes a stumbling block. He seems faithful enough, then denies our Lord. Peter seems to be a metaphor of the struggling early church community. It gets the message, but then slips.
Peter had declared that Jesus was the messiah of God, Son of the living God. But Peter’s perception as to what the messiahship of Jesus was not what Jesus himself had in mind. Peter is thinking the way the world thinks. He is thinking the way a large segment of the people of his time was thinking about what to expect from their messianic hopes.
This scene between Jesus and Peter is very similar to the scene where Jesus is in the wilderness being tempted by the devil. Satan, or the evil spirit in the desert, tempts Jesus to make some unique claim or do some mighty convincing act: feed the multitudes turning stones into bread, jump from the pinnacle of the Temple and let angels catch him, or compromise with evil for the greater good. Jesus refuses all temptations. “Get behind me, Satan.” In this scene Jesus is telling Peter, and the early church disciples what his messiahship is like: He must go to Jerusalem, undergo great suffering at the hands of the leadership and the government, be killed, and then raised.
Picking up on the suffering aspects of Jesus’ messiahship, Peter rebukes Jesus. There is no honor or status in suffering persecution and being crucified. This suffering was not the expectation of what the world (the Jewish community) expected from its messiah. The Messiah was thought of in largely military terms. It would be a militant powerful leader that would be like King David in the past. He would be a winner of battles, a giver of national prestige, and a provider of economic stability, and unify the nation. To this notion Jesus tells Peter, “Get behind me Satan. You think like the world thinks.” Jesus did not want word spread around until he had made it clear of what it meant that he was God’s Messiah. Jesus seems to have adopted the notion of Messianic servant as that description given by Isaiah of the Suffering Servant. But Jesus is describing another kind of messiah that was described in Isaiah's passage and especially the Suffering Servant passages. The messiah will have the Spirit of God, be one who will bring good news to the poor, healing for the broken-hearted, and freedom for prisoners. (Isaiah 61:1-2) The Suffering Servant messianic image is also one who shall have no particular dignity or beauty, despised and rejected by men, enduring suffering and pain, and wounded and beaten for the sins of the people. He would be as a lamb led to slaughter. (Isaiah 5213-53:12) Peter following the more popular trend of a 'warrior' messiah rejects the suffering servant image. The 'suffering servant' image was not at this time an honorable image. Remember, a person's honor was most important in this period. People who suffered and died, especially on a cross were not honorable people. Peter wanted no parts of this kind of movement. He wanted honor and success, of course. So he challenges Jesus. "God forbid it! This must never happen to you." But Jesus is not convinced that what the world wanted was what it in fact truly needed. He also knew that in the face of the enemies he had that his death would have been inevitable. In the face of what many people needed was something really quite different.
The passage calls the disciples, the early church and the world today to have transformed minds. It is a passage of baptism, whereby people are immersed in death of the world and raised to a whole new way of thinking and being in resonance with God through the ways and teachings of Jesus Christ. There are things and ways of thinking to be sacrificed, to be given up, and to grow in new understandings of the ways and teachings of Jesus Christ. The way of Jesus in the world over and over again was often a sharp contrast to what the world taught. For Jesus messiahship and the church for early Christians had a significantly different way of seeing things. The Beatitudes of Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew are only one example. The Blessed, Unique, Honorable for Jesus were those who were the poor, those who mourned, the meek, those struggling for justice and hungering for righteousness. Turning the other cheek, walking the extra mile, giving up your shirt was not dishonorable. It was in fact the honorable thing to do in the sight of God. How the world perceived you was of little value for Jesus. When you fast hide it. Do it in secret. When you give don’t announce it for all to see, and you get accolades for your generosity. Do it only in the sight of God. For Jesus it was not what a person put into their mouth that made them unclean and impure, it was what came out of their mouth is what made them unclean and impure. Always for Jesus, he was thinking the way God thinks, and not concerned with what the world thought of him.
Think of our own world and what people seem to think is really important. We live in a world where people are very intent on getting revenge. We live in a world where sometimes people are intent on abandoning God, or becoming very angry with God when life doesn’t seem to be fair. We kind of like revenge; and the death penalty is seen as largely appropriate. We see wealth and community status and power as our comfort, and what gives us stability. Forgiveness, rehabilitation, being on a level with those we think are below us, love versus power, are more often the values that capture our attention over the justice that God in Christ reveals.
I know of a pastor who used to walk with his children through the town on summer evenings. He was severely criticized by some members, because he wore Bermuda shorts. Little was ever said of his devotion to his children. How shallow worldly values can become.
A congregation was once very taken with its historical significance, maintaining and preserving its pride and historical treasures. It wanted to be remembered for that fact, even though is survived in the midst of a ghetto having had little or no effect on the lives of its surrounding people. Many of the members thought of themselves as religious peoples.
I think that it is important to realize that this scripture this morning is not to be taken literally in the sense that we see Christian discipleship as a matter of groveling, or seeking out ways to die on a cross, or to seek out humiliation, and suffering. Surely that is not what Jesus himself did. Actually he went in the eyes of many people from a non-significant carpenter from Nazareth from where nothing good comes, to a highly respected human being who brought new hope and good sense, love and forgiveness, restorative healing, to an otherwise pitiful world. His crucifixion came by a world that did not want to be transformed and refused to think as God thought. They put him on trial and tried to finish him off. However, he was acquitted! God raised him up again. What the world thought was foolish and of no account continued to be present and haunting, a haunting reality of what is right and just. Jesus Christ simply carried on living the life of a servant of God.
The life and calling of discipleship, and the church for that matter is just that, living the life of the servant. The church building may not always have the grandest towers and the finest buildings, but it can have a spirited people who love one another and love God’s world, willing to give up some things to serve in the Spirit of God’s love.
Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God – what is good and acceptable and perfect – increased in the knowledge of true religion, nourished with all goodness, and bringing forth good works, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Sometimes we fumble and stumble, and sometimes we are the stumbling block. But we are not beyond redemption. “Therefore, thus says the Lord: ‘If you turn back, I will take you back, and you will stand before me. If you utter what is precious, and not what is worthless, you shall serve as my mouth.’” (Jeremiah 15:15-21)