Matthew 16:21-23 “Human Things and Wilderness Times”
There are a few Bible passages that most ministers avoid at all costs…..Ephesians 5:22-23 for example, Psalm 137:8-9); pretty much anything from the book of Judges …and then there this one, Matthew 16:21-23. Following right on the heels of Peter’s incredible confession from last week that Jesus is indeed the Messiah this week starts off with the words “From that time on…”. I would imagine that most of us likely expect those words to be followed by something motivational and uplifting. “From that time on the disciples couldn’t stop high fiving”; “From that time on Jesus crushed out miracles the likes of which no one had ever seen”; “From that time on all those who heard Jesus easily came to believe that he was The One sent by God the Creator”; “From that time on everything was smooth sailing”.
But that’s not what we get. What we get is “From that time on Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem, undergo great suffering…and be killed…” (Mathew 16:21-22). The “wait…what?” vibe leaps from the page as the high hopes and high fives fade. The Spiritual whiplash between this passage and the one that directly precedes it is enough to make us que the Benediction hymn and head for the doors …and I haven’t even gotten to the Satan part yet…I took a peak…it’s sunny out there…just saying it’s an option.
As Jesus starts sharing with his followers what the next few weeks are going to hold for him Peter picks up on the confusion and discomfort of those gathered around. So he does what any good friend would do, he pulls Jesus to the side and in a whisper says to him “What is wrong with you? Suffering? Death? This is not the image we’re going for here. Not to mention that it’s not going to happen…God won’t let it happen. I won’t let it happen. I will not let you die.” It’s a perfectly “Peter-y” kind of thing to say: I will save you. I will protect you. I will do anything to keep you safe and alive.
These weeks as we’ve allowed our hearts to wander with his we’ve seen Peter do some unhinged things. Dropping everything to follow a stranger, jumping out of a boat in the middle of a storm, publically proclaiming Jesus as Messiah without thought to the fact that to do so was considered heresy, totally illegal, and would very likely get him killed. But with every bonkers thing he says and does Jesus looks at him with love, compassion, the occasional bout of frustration for sure, but overall acceptance. Jesus just accepts Peter for who and what he is. I mean just minutes before our passage today we are offered the moment where Jesus names him Cephas, which is Aramaic for Peter, which is Greek for “Rock” and doing so showed everyone there exactly what Peter meant to him.
Frederick Buechener wrote “A rock isn’t the prettiest thing in creation or the fanciest or the smartest, and if it gets rolling in the wrong direction, watch out, but there’s no nonsense about a rock, and once it settles down, it’s pretty much there to stay. There’s not a lot you can do to change a rock or crack it or get under its skin, and, barring earthquakes, you can depend on it about as much as you can depend on anything. So Jesus called him the Rock, and it stuck with him for the rest of his life.”
Knowing all this we likely expect this exchange today between Jesus and his Rock to be met with the same patient and loving response Jesus always responds with. Some kind of “there there Peter, it’s ok. Remember you’re getting the keys to the kingdom. All will be well.” But for the second time today we don’t get from Jesus what we expect from Jesus. Instead we are offered something that makes us good United Church Folk squirm in our pews…Jesus turns his back on Peter, the one who just five verses earlier was called “blessed” the only person besides Mary in all of Scripture to get a personal beatitude and says “Get behind me Satan”.
Now I don’t talk a lot about Satan mainly because…well… I don’t wanna…and also because it feels like the kind of thing we should probably talk about sitting down…with snacks…and a whole lot of time…after we’ve all had a really good night’s sleep. Because let’s face it, everyone has a different idea about it, and for lots of us the thought of “satan” is deeply triggering and upsetting, not to mention that it’s disconcerting to hear Jesus telling his best friend to go to hell. But if you think it’s uncomfortable for us here and now imagine what was going through Peter’s mind at the time. It must have felt like a gut punch and for the first time, in his whole life, Peter is speechless. Stone silent.
But here’s the thing…I think that Peter, as wild and wandering as he was, understood Jesus better than anyone. According to Matthew he was the first to follow and the first to call him Messiah, and even though he was overly zealous and far from perfect, and asked so many questions, he also saw things in a way those around him didn’t. His brain just worked differently than everyone else’s. So maybe once he got over the initial shock of Jesus’ biting words he took a deep breath and gave space to what he knew was happening with his friend.
Because I would imagine that at some point during the last three years Jesus would have told him about the desert. I imagine that one night sitting around a fire, a million stars blazing overhead, Jesus shared about those days he spent fasting and wandering, 40 days spent in the wilderness alone with nothing but his own thoughts, fears, doubts, anxieties, it was awful. I would imagine that Jesus would have shared how the Tempter arrived and made offers that were hard to resist: food, invincibility, unquestionable acceptance… he had to battle his own heart to resist those things.
Now, three years later, as he faces a different kind of wilderness he’s offered protection, he’s handed an “out”. I’ve often wondered just how tempting that was. How tempting to just accept Peter’s offer? To turn away from Jerusalem, hide in the hills, live a quiet life. I suspect it wasn’t only tempting but familiar. With flashes of the one who found him years earlier in the wilderness on his mind he lashes out at the one he trusts the most. It’s understandable. We all tend to do it. He does so as a way to avoid stumbling and then he asks his friend to help him stay focused on divine things, not human things.
I suppose what Peter really wanted was to avoid the suffering that wilderness times bring and who can blame him? Standing in the presence of the Messiah he not only wanted justice for his people, he wanted the world to see what he had come to see, that this man was going to change everything. And he Peter, the Rock, was going to be there, strong and steady, right by his side. Instead he was being asked to face an unknown future, one that was going to be filled with more pain, suffering, regret, shame, and loss then he could ever imagine. He was being asked to make room for God’s movement rather than the desires of his own human heart. And it knocked the wind out him.
In time of course he would come to understand God in a much deeper way, as Sarah Bessy wrote “…the wilderness isn’t a problem to be solved, it is another altar of intimacy with God” (Field Notes For the Wilderness Practices for an Evolving Faith pg 5). He would come to see that “God was already there making a way” (Pg 9), but for this moment…he just had to hold on.
That’s the inconvenient thing about the wilderness …we rarely know it’s coming until we’re knee deep in it, we never know how long it’ll last, or how much it’ll hurt, or who we’ll lose along the way. We can’t even be sure who we will be when we come out the other side. But what can know is that ours aren’t the first hearts to wander here.
Barbara Brown Taylor wrote “Like Hagar, like Ishmael, like Joseph, Moses, and Miriam, and Elijah, Jesus joined a long parade of people who both lost their lives and found them again in the wilderness, the wild places. They went in one way, and they came out another way. They went in heavy, and they came out light…. With that kind of tradition behind him, Jesus didn’t try to protect anybody from the wilderness. Instead, he led them into it, dragged them into it, every chance he got….” (BBT EvolvingFaith.com). Peter was no exception. Neither are we.
We simply join the long parade of incredible people, both Biblical and non, who found their way into the wilds and while there discovered this incredible truth, one that Peter will come to learn, one that we will have to learn and relearn a million times over before we’re through. That it’s never been about avoiding the suffering, the pain, the regret, the loss, anyone who tells you that is lying, it’s been about facing all of it. Facing the darkest parts of the world and of ourselves, facing the sorrow and the loss and the disappointment. And I know this isn’t a super high point to end a sermon on, that wilderness times come to us all. But maybe if you’re in one right now, it’s good to hear, you need to hear that you don’t travel alone. And maybe it’s good to remember that when we do come out the other side, changed and a little worse for wear, we will discover that have found more love then we knew existed, more grace then we could have imagined, and an abundance of life that knows no end. We will be changed, we will not be the same, but we will be stronger. Amen.
