The thing about Jesus’s rebuke of Peter is that we don’t see it coming. But we should. We’re often in Peter’s shoes.
the paradoxical reality of discipleship
Lent 2B | Mark 8:31-38
This is the center of Mark’s gospel.
Literally. Halfway through.
It’s also the gospel’s centerpiece. This story of Jesus scaring his followers with talk of death, Peter flexing to protect the movement, Jesus rebuking him by calling him Satan no less, and then saying to the crowd that everyone will have to sacrifice.
This story is the most essential story in the gospel. This is how we’re supposed to understand that this is “good news.”
Of course, you could be forgiven if the importance of this story gets lost in the translation. It doesn’t neatly match the way we like to package the good news. We usually dress it up in nice clothes and a pleasant demeanor.
And this certainly makes sense! We are following Jesus’s Way of Love. So we want people to get that love is the point. And as Beacons of Christ in this community, we show our love by loving, right?
No wonder this story cuts and confuses us! It doesn’t match our expectations.
But that’s also why it is so important. It’s a story of transforming expectations!
The Worst News
The teacher starts talking about the future with all of its gloom and doom:
“the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed,”
This kind of talk would be unsettling to his students. And we know this because we bristle at negativity. We are unnerved by negative talk generally.
But these students aren’t being frustrated by any negativity. They are hearing the Messiah, the anointed one, tell them that he will be killed when he is supposed to be victorious.
Jesus is delivering bad news precisely when his followers expect, and in the case of Peter, demand good news.
Given what they believe is to happen, Jesus is giving them the worst news possible.
Out in the open
Then it says
“He said all this quite openly.”
The this being
“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.”
This isn’t actually doom and gloom. The rising repaints the previous statements, not as bad news, but prophetic news. News that he has up to this point in the story, kept pretty quiet.
Now he is being open and clear.
Most importantly, it isn’t negative. It is the mission. Jesus isn’t here to suffer. But that he will suffer and be killed and then rise. This is the plan. And Peter is obviously flummoxed by how this challenges his expectations.
Can you see how he’s jumping to conclusions? First about the negativity and second about the purpose?
Peter hears this plan as scary. So he intervenes to stop it.
Is this any different from the times we fear for the future of the church? When things look deadly, even as we follow the Spirit faithfully. And we want to intervene and stop them?
Peter Breaks Away From Jesus
Peter isn’t just having a little chat with Jesus. He physically takes himself out of line from behind Jesus and puts himself in front of him. Peter literally stops following Jesus and demands Jesus follow him. Follow him away from God.
Mark highlights the physical action to reveal the metaphorical truth of this moment. Peter is being Satan, the Adversary, the Tempter in the Wilderness, the Stumbling Block. The one preventing God’s will from being done.
We need to understand just how significant this moment really is.
Peter is trying to save Jesus’s life. He’s trying to protect the movement. Peter is doing the right thing! The right thing…at the wrong time.
Who would condemn a person’s attempt to save Jesus’s life? This is not objectively bad. It is good. The right thing nine hundred and ninety-nine times out of a thousand. Objectively good.
But the broader point of making the Kin-dom of God real is not the preservation of Jesus’s life that one time.
This is the mistake we keep making.
And it blinds us.
Because this is also how good people do terrible things. Not because they stop being good. But because sometimes good gets flipped around.
In trying to protect our people, we will crucify Jesus. To protect our culture of slavery, we will launch a civil war. And even after a war is over, we’ll drop an atomic bomb. To be good people.
To save our lives, we give them up.
This is the central statement of faith in Christ.
And it comes to us as a paradox. Impossible and yet simple. Like the pious young man, may run away crying because it is tough. And we’ve got a lot of stuff.
That’s the truly frightening part. We run away from the challenge or fight to protect what we love, not because we’re bad, but because we’re good and afraid of losing it.
We are called to sacrifice because we need to give some of this up. This power. Control. Old patterns of having our way. Not because we are bad. And not because the patterns are objectively bad. But because so much of what we want prevents the Kin-dom from coming here.
Stuff like racism and white supremacy. Bigotry and idolatry. Violence and abuse. Tools we use to gain while others lose. Justification for our wealth as others are starving.
The right thing that keeps allowing evil outcomes.
Flipping the Script
Jesus flips the script so we can see that it isn’t about “the right thing” at all.
It’s about God. And getting out of the way.
Putting our egos below God, where we all can be one. Our love can be shared; given without regret or dishonor. A generous gift; like water to the thirsty, like healing to the sick, like hope for us all. That there is something left in the tank. A future. And room for every last one of us.
And when we give up control, we can see it. Not as accountants measuring stocks in a bear market, but free of it. Getting up from the table and out the door to a bigger life. With a sky that never recedes, a table dressed for a feast, and friends in every chair.
Where there is no hunger because we know there is enough for us all.
We give up that other life to gain the world.