Matthew 16:21-28
From that time on, 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, “God forbid it, Lord! This must never happen to you.” But he turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a hindrance to me, for you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”
Then Jesus told his disciples, “If any wish to come after me, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it. For what will it profit them if they gain the whole world but forfeit their life? Or what will they give in return for their life?
“For the Son of Man is to come with his angels in the glory of his Father, and then he will repay everyone for what has been done. Truly I tell you, there are some standing here who will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.”
Last week, Peter was sure Jesus was driving the bus in the direction he had been taught and expected the Messiah to drive the bus. Toward rallying the people, raising an army, expelling the Romans, and sitting on the throne as King of Israel! That’s why last week we heard him say, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” This week, Jesus dramatically turned the bus away from the direction Peter had been taught and expected the Messiah to go, and Peter’s reaction to that shocking development was, “God, forbid it!”
This week Jesus turned the bus toward sacrifice rather than power… toward peace rather than violence… toward the Kingdom of Heaven and not toward a Kingdom of Israel. To Peter all that sounded like horrible woke nonsense! It was weak! What Peter expected… what Peter wanted… what Peter understood to be the ONLY thing the Messiah could be about, was embracing the world’s form of power… might makes right and power over, to make Israel an independent, religious nation with the Messiah occupying a throne that was religious, political and military. Peter wouldn’t have used the term, but what he expected… what he wanted… was what we would call today… Christian Nationalism.
Jesus saying that the way to change the world for GOOD, was for him to go to Jerusalem, be tortured, and die did not feel like a winning strategy to Peter! Today, in our country, people STILL don’t see how sacrificial love could ever be a winning strategy either! Today, we’ve all seen or read the stories of self professed Christians, who, when they are shown what Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount say, “the world just doesn’t work that way any more”. They say “that idea is weak” and instead of turning themselves to follow Jesus, they like Peter, insist that Jesus turn and follow them. Christian Nationalists today insist that Power Over and Might Makes Right is the only way forward and as long as they slap a Jesus sticker on whatever means they use to achieve that end, no matter how cruel it might be, the ends justify the means and they are certain it will meet with Divine approval. That’s Christian Nationalism.
What that creates is a “Christian” Nation where the words of Jesus have been completely expunged. What that creates a “Christian” Nation where the Gospel is not just ignored, but actively demonized. What that creates is a “Christian” nation without a welcome for the stranger, without the hungry being fed, without the sick being healed, without the oppressed being freed, without the sword being put away, and certainly without all our possessions sold and the money given to the poor. What that creates is a nation filled with people who only care for themselves and for those who look, think, and believe the exact, same way.
But Jesus and the Gospel insist on the direct opposite… Jesus and the Gospel insist that the outsider comes first… the foreigner, the stranger, the down trodden, the oppressed and the sinner… Jesus and the Gospel insists they come first! Jesus pushes on that idea so hard that at one point he says we need to put the other first so much it looks like we are hating our own mother and father! Of course Jesus isn’t asking us to hate our parents but he uses that shocking language to warn us that we must not let our little loves… our love for those who look, think, believe, and act just like us… get in the way of the big love to which we are called… the love for the outsider, the stranger, the outcast, the foreigner, and even for our enemies.
The Jesus truth is that we can not love God and hate other people. We can not love God and abuse the immigrant. We can not love God and oppress the poor. We can not love God and bully and exclude the outcast. Each and every one of our neighbors bears the Divine image. In our neighbor is nothing less than the face of God and Jesus makes it completely clear that our neighbors include every single human being starting with the ones we find hardest to love!
Jesus acknowledges that driving the bus in that direction will lead to suffering. He calls us to drive in that direction anyway. Jesus admits that driving that direction will lead to sacrifice. He calls us to drive that direction anyway. Jesus calls us to drive in that direction, not because he demands sacrifice or wants us to suffer, but because he knows the direction we need to go to affect the change this world so desperately needs is very hard and incredibly painful, and yet THAT is the Way to, as Bishop Curry always said, “change the world from the nightmare it too often is, into the dream that God intends it to be.”
Peter was, in his way, the very first Christian Nationalist. He demanded that Jesus follow his ways… the ways of the world… the ways of might makes right and power over. Jesus’ response to Peter’s demand was, “Get behind me Satan!”
Today, Christian Nationalists continue to demand that Jesus’ name be attached to the ways of the world… to might makes right and power over. But to those demands, Jesus’ own words once again ring out, “Get behind me Satan!”
May the Christian Nationalists of today hear Jesus’ rebuke and turn around as Peter eventually did, and instead of demanding the Messiah follow them, return to a life of following the Messiah… walking in Jesus’ footsteps… no matter how strange or how woke they might look and follow Jesus no matter where Jesus leads. Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment