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<\/a>Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and undergo great suffering at the hands of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him, saying, \u201cGod forbid it, Lord! This must never happen to you.\u201d But he turned and said to Peter, \u201cGet behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; for you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\nI think we all look at Peter with hidden envy, disdain, and gratitude.\u00a0 Sometimes, all at once.<\/p>\n
He\u2019s the kid in the class who gets out in front, flailing around with frantic answers to the teacher\u2019s questions.\u00a0 Sometimes \u2013 as in the passage we read last week \u2013 he gets it right.\u00a0 \u201cYou are the Messiah, the chosen one.\u201d\u00a0 Peter goes to the front of the class and we find ourselves thinking, \u201cDamn \u2013 uh, darn \u2013 I wish I had thought of that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Then in the middle of Jesus telling his disciples that the cross is going to be an inescapable necessity, Peter protests, \u201cGod forbid it Lord.\u00a0 This must never happen to you.\u201d\u00a0 And we find ourselves thinking, \u201cWhat a moron.\u201d\u00a0 I mean, how many ways did he get that one wrong?\u201d<\/p>\n
But before we are really through thinking both of those things, we are secretly relieved and grateful.\u00a0 After all, Peter gets out there with what we were thinking, too, and he takes the hit.\u00a0 So, we can just nod and roll our eyes.\u00a0 Better to stick with the cool kids.\u00a0 Or, as we used to say in school, better to be thought<\/em> of as stupid, than to open one\u2019s mouth<\/em> and remove all doubt.<\/p>\nBut the very fact that Peter prompts these reactions in us should also prompt us to pay attention.\u00a0 Because Peter\u2019s missteps are ours and that is probably why the stories of about him were remembered by the early church.<\/p>\n
The value of reflecting on Peter\u2019s response to Jesus is not immediately obvious.\u00a0 In part, Peter insists that the cross isn\u2019t necessary for reasons that are grounded in religious commitments and realities that have no obvious connection to our own.\u00a0 Israel had been occupied by foreign powers or in exile for hundreds of years.\u00a0 The solutions that Peter\u2019s contemporaries included compromise with Rome, all out rebellion, retreat to the desert, and carving out a safe space for their own religious practices.\u00a0 Like most people, Peter didn\u2019t anticipate a deliverer who would pay so little attention to Rome, never mind one that might finally bear the brunt of Roman power.<\/p>\n
There was also no precedent for a suffering Messiah.\u00a0 The Messiah was a deliverer, a judge of the wicked, and the architect of a new future, but there was nothing in Jewish lore and reflection that had prepared them for a Messiah who would place himself in harm\u2019s way.<\/p>\n
So, over two thousand years later, these concerns can feel pretty foreign to us.\u00a0 But, if we are honest, we have our own reasons to refuse the cross.\u00a0 And although those reasons may not be grounded in the thought world of Peter\u2019s day, they are not all that far removed from those of his day.\u00a0 We have our own thoughts about how to get from here to a new future, and we have our ideas about what the perfect Savior looks like, and neither of them involves crosses or suffering.<\/p>\n
That is why contemporary Christianity might be stuck with the cross but doesn\u2019t act like it finds it particularly necessary.\u00a0 It\u2019s a generalization, of course, but today there are two basic themes running through far too much of our preaching.\u00a0 One belongs to what might be called the traditionalist wing of the church: \u201cJesus is the original guru and master-therapist.\u00a0 Follow Jesus and your life will be squared away.\u00a0 You will find peace and fulfillment.\u00a0 You will escape pain and loss.\u201d\u00a0 The other message belongs to what might be called the progressive wing of the church: \u201cJesus is the original community organizer, the architect of social harmony.\u00a0 Follow Jesus and our nation will become everything you ever dreamed of.\u00a0 Inequity will evaporate.\u00a0 Justice will prevail.\u201d<\/p>\n
If you doubt that\u2019s the case, take some time to study the sermons you hear from one part of the church or the other.\u00a0 Or just listen to the campaign speeches that we have heard over the last two weeks.\u00a0 Set aside your political preferences and listen to the promises being made and the language that is used.\u00a0 These speeches aren\u2019t the stuff of public policy or dreary day-to-day management.\u00a0 It isn\u2019t language that admits we have a lot of hard work to do.\u00a0 There is no admission that we have made mistakes or will make mistakes (unless it\u2019s a matter of saying that the other guy made all<\/em> of the mistakes).\u00a0 There is no admission that, though there are things we should do, that whatever we do the sun will rise on a less than perfect, often frighteningly broken world.\u00a0 Clearly, we have a new kind of \u201cMessiah Complex.\u201d\u00a0 We don\u2019t want the one that God has sent.<\/p>\nFar too often, then, what we are offering the world is Peter\u2019s version of the Good News.\u00a0 A Messiah who is (by our lights) relevant, rather than a revelation of God\u2019s nature.\u00a0 A personal coach or campaign worker, rather than God\u2019s Christ.\u00a0 A Kingdom that we can control. \u00a0Lives that we can curate.\u00a0 \u00a0Discipleship without sacrifice.\u00a0 You see, we might not have Peter\u2019s reasons for saying, \u201cNo, Jesus, God forbid,\u201d but the fact of the matter is, we don\u2019t want a suffering Messiah and the discipleship of the cross any more than Peter did.<\/p>\n
And, yet, until we find a way to embrace what Jesus has to tell us, we won\u2019t completely live into God\u2019s calling.\u00a0 The cross can change the lives of individuals and it can change the world, but it is a path through<\/em> a broken, bleeding world, not a path out<\/em> of it.\u00a0 It is not a therapy regimen, a political program or an escape clause.<\/p>\nSo, while Peter is licking his wounds, let\u2019s drop the pretense that we are better students than he is and commit ourselves to asking how the path of discipleship can make us available to the purposes of God in the world.\u00a0 If it is the path of the cross, we will recognize it by the way in which it leads us back into life alongside people who are struggling, alongside people in pain, alongside people who go unnoticed or uncared for, alongside people whose burdens frighten us.<\/p>\n
It will be the path that costs us something.\u00a0 We won\u2019t be able to hide behind a priority for \u201cself-care,\u201d and we won\u2019t be able to say, \u201cI\u2019m sorry, I only signed up for 2 hours a week of this religious stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n
It will be a path that is grounded in God\u2019s truth, that resists the need to be accepted or applauded. And it will be something that makes a claim on us.\u00a0 We won\u2019t be able to say, \u201cI voted.\u201d\u00a0 \u201cI think that the next President should do this or that.\u201d\u00a0 There are no body doubles in the life of discipleship.\u00a0 No proxies.\u00a0 No farming it out to \u201cexperts.\u201d<\/p>\n
There is just Jesus, us, and poor Peter \u2013 who said what we were thinking out loud.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Photo by Adrian Dascal<\/a> on Unsplash<\/a><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and undergo great suffering at the hands of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him, saying, \u201cGod forbid it, Lord! This must never […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":240,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3246,3240,3243,3241],"tags":[3249,3252,3255],"class_list":["post-3087","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-discipleship","category-messiah-complex","category-peter","category-suffering-messiah","tag-messiah-complex","tag-presidential-candidates","tag-suffering-messiah"],"yoast_head":"\n
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