31
Then he began to teach them that the Son of Man must undergo great
suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the
scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. 32 He said
all this quite openly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke
him. 33 But turning and looking at his disciples, he rebuked Peter
and said, "Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind
not on divine things but on human things." 34 He called the
crowd with his disciples, and said to them, "If any want to
become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross
and follow me. 35 For those who want to save their life will lose it,
and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the
gospel, will save it. 36 For what will it profit them to gain the
whole world and forfeit their life? 37 Indeed, what can they give in
return for their life? 38 Those who are ashamed of me and of my words
in this adulterous and sinful generation, of them the Son of Man will
also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the
holy angels."
"Get
behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things
but on human things."
- Does this seem to you to be a very serious criticism of Peter by Jesus? He calls him “Satan.” That's taking it pretty far to call someone the devil.
- I think we all know that Peter and Jesus were pretty close. Peter and the two brothers, James and John were usually the ones singled out to accompany Jesus on very special occasions. Those three were the ones present on the mountain of the Transfiguration. Those there were the ones Jesus asked to go with him in the garden of Gesthemene. It is Peter who is the first to confess that Jesus is the Messiah when the disciples are asked “Who do you say that I am?”
- And here he is called “Satan.” Now this is not because Peter has turned evil and it is not a foreshadowing of his denial of Jesus during Jesus trial. Peter's arguement with Jesus is part of Jesus' on-going temptation. It was Satan who tempted Jesus in the wilderness and it is Satan who is sometimes called “the Adversary.”
- It seems that Jesus was tempted on one way or another throughout his entire life. Some of his followers wanted to make him a king. Some looked for him to overthrow the Roman occupation of Judea. Some wished him to be the great healer of all diseases and the giver of unlimited bread.
- In truth, Jesus could have been any of these things. And he struggled with these expectations. More than once, he had to run and hide to avoid being made a king or some sort of earthly leader. In the garden on the night of the Last Supper, he asked his Father to take the coming suffering and death from him.
- Yet, in the end, he said “Not my will, but your's be done.”
- In this passage, Peter is really the mouthpiece for a often-occuring attitude. Peter was not alone in this, but since he talks alot in the Gospels, he voices the concern that was probably found in many of the disciples if not all of them. It is also an attitude that is still with us today.
- Jesus is often called upon to solve problems, give riches, heal problems, even to intervene with great power and majesty. When he doesn't do those things in the expected ways, he's called false or fake.
- As with Peter in today's Gospel, this is the earthly way of thinking, and Jesus would still respond and say “...you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things."
- Divine and human things are very often opposites. What are priorities for us might not be priorities for God. What seems right and proper for humans might go totally against what is right with God... things like revenge, refusal to forgive, or the persuit of advancement or power or riches. To set the mind on divine things requires a chage of mind and heart, a true reform of a person's life. In other words, repentance.
- It might then be no surprise that Jesus then goes on to say that living requires dying and losing one's life leads to keeping it. His disciples must take up the cross and follow him. The cross was a brutal and shameful and humiliating means of execution in those days, reserved for traitors, rebels, and those whom the Romans wanted to make a special example of. The taking up of the cross by each disciple is troubling and humiliating... and it is the emulation and imitation of Christ.
- Those who follow Jesus in the carrying of the cross are behind him in their following. They only know the way by following. Those who refuse to follow Jesus are also behind him, but they are behind him in the sense of being left behind and moved away from. Both are behind Jesus, but in two very different ways; some follow behind and some are left behind.
- For Jesus, death leads to life. For his disciples, the same is true. Following Jesus is a dying to self and a surrender of life to “divine things.” These divine things may look very earthly in some ways. Sometimes the divine is seen and expressed in how human things are done. Often our very human lives are woven through with the divine.
- Many of our fellow Christians have known the cost of discipleship and there are those who know it quite intimately today.
- Better thinkers than I have said this before. Here are the words of the German theologian, Dietrich Bonhoeffer: Costly grace is the gospel which must be sought again and again and again, the gift which must be asked for, the door at which a man must knock. Such grace is costly because it calls us to follow, and it is grace because it calls us to follow Jesus Christ. It is costly because it costs a man his life, and it is grace because it gives a man the only true life. It is costly because it condemns sin, and grace because it justifies the sinner. Above all, it is costly because it cost God the life of his Son: 'Ye were bought at a price', and what has cost God much cannot be cheap for us. Above all, it is grace because God did not reckon his Son too dear a price to pay for our life, but delivered him up for us. Costly grace is the Incarnation of God.”
- It is a very different path we are called to walk.
"If
any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up
their cross and follow me.”
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