Are You a Rock or Aren't You?

In response to Matthew 16:21-28
Baileyton United Methodist Church, August 31, 2008


I would say, as a rule, one should not make a habit…of rebuking Jesus.

That may be Peter’s great mistake here, it may not be.

Though if Peter felt a little schizo…who could blame him? He has been on an incredible journey with Jesus. He makes one revelation with the others, and then one incredible revelation of his own ("You are the Son of the Living God—The Messiah")


Jesus seems to take a shine to him, show him a little favor even--and tells him he’s going to be the rock that Jesus builds his church on even! (see "Quite the Endorsement")

And so, naturally, when Peter makes a statement in defense of Jesus—basically shouts in fear—out of love, so Jesus wont leave them…Jesus tells Peter to get out of his face! And he calls him Satan. Naturally.


So here’s the response. GET BEHIND ME SATAN!!!
This is a response that gets our attention, folks.

You could be nodding off in a fine sermon, maybe because you stayed up a little too late, maybe because your preacher did, and the sermon seems less than riveting.

Still, this verse will get you!

Maybe its 11:55, or dare I say 12-noon! And the keys are jingling, and the paper’s a shufflin', and we have one foot out the door.

This verse will get you!

You may have read this in a Bible Study, Sunday School, you may have heard ‘umteen’ sermons on this throughout your life, think you have it all figured out and then BAM!

It gets you!

Yes, friends, this gets us because Jesus here invokes the name of Satan, and I’ve never heard that name come out in a good way. It captures us, and it scares us a little...and with good reason.

What is the big penalty? Why is Peter blasted in such a way?
It’s the same reason Peter received such laude and praise last week (or 6 verses back, or one blog down). We earn admiration or admonition based on our ability to tell the difference between the worldly and the divine.

Well great day! The last thing we would want is for Jesus to call us Satan! I mean, come on!
I don’t know about you, though I think that’s a safe assumption. And who cares what anyone calls us, we don’t want our God to think of us a Satan—our God’s foe.

That’s not the side we want to be on, though sadly, tragically, fearfully, sometimes that’s exactly who we become.

I don’t mean that when a Jeffrey Dahlmer or Ted Bundy or any other mass murderer turns up, that’s Satan (it is evil allowed to be set loose).

I’m not talking about nuclear annihilation, war, bringing on genocide of a whole country or culture or race (though that’s also evil allowed to be set loose)

I’m not referring only to how we ignore those who suffer, or we allow oppression to stand, how we oppress, how we set one race or class of people above another (again, evil)


I don’t mean when we abuse a loved one, steal from a friend, take our spouse for granted, dishonor a parent, disrespect God given authority…though these acts are of evil origin too…


When our thoughts and our words and our deeds center on the worldly, we take our focus away from the divine, and that my friends is a triumphant act of the Tempter, and that is the path to evil and sin and yes, Satan. Get behind him. Jesus that is, not Satan.

Jesus was right, you know.

(I know, big surprise to hear a Christian preacher say that Jesus is right…)


quick survey:
raise your hand high if you love..
ice cream...
football...
sunshine...
rain...

…suffering...

I’m not all that surprised if suffering comes in last. Suffering would probably come in somewhere even below homework, working on weekends, taxes, and diarehha…

People probably consider all those things suffering. Though anyone who does think those things, or anything like them is real suffering, then they have lived a charmed life.

We don’t know real suffering, at least not all of us, and not in all the ways it comes.
Those among us who do know suffering knew the whole time while reading my little list that those things weren’t all that bad…

Those who have lost a child. Those who suffer with addiction, or cancer, those who see their marriage fade away, those who think they’ve lost faith in God.

Those that know not hunger, but starvation. Not doubt, despair. Not discomfort pain, anguish. Not being alone, but down-right loneliness…

These things are suffering, and these things are a real possibility…

for every one of us who claims that cross as our sign.

Everything I just said, keeps people like chief priests, scribes, elders of the church away from a real liberating gospel…

This way of the cross is hard, the way of Jesus costs something!!!


It will make you starve and cry from loss, and pass out from pain, you will be broken at times, broke at times you will be humiliated and castigated, your reputation will be destroyed, you will have question and doubt, and you will at times despair and pain and anguish when others suffer these things.

And it will set you free to this world, and it will let you live in the world of the divine.
And friends…that’s good news.

Elders of the church don’t always get that, people outside the church don’t get it, and perfect people with perfect faith don’t get it (well, if there were such people they wouldn’t get it)

Its down right peculiar. It’s a foreign concept—letting go of this world. It's not something that’s all too popular, not something we’re used to. Its not something that’s easy, but my friends its business as usual for the Kingdom of God. Its life with the Rock of Rocks. Rock on up! Amen.