Sunday, September 03, 2023

From the Lectionary for 3 September 2023 (Proper 17A)

Matthew 16:21-28 (NRSV Updated Edition)

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 stumbling block[1] 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.”

[1] The NRSV has "hindrance" in the main text, and "stumbling block" in a footnote. I have reversed it as the latter is the more literal translation, and also contains a subtle pun to the previous episode in Matthew's gospel, where Jesus gives Simon the name "Peter" (rock).

~

"Here is the same doubleness we have seen threaded through all the Gospel accounts. Peter’s picture of God forbids the Messiah’s identification with a victim. Peter rejects the idea of Christ’s suffering because of his natural human attachment to Christ, the attachment that leads us always to prefer victims who are not part of our closest circle. And he rejects it because he is hoping for a violently victorious God who will crush the enemies of Israel. Jesus says Peter is a “stumbling block” to him, offering a real temptation to deflect him from his path. If Peter were flatly wrong, this would not be a live temptation. But Jesus’ reaction makes it clear that it is.

"The objection affects Jesus for different reasons than it appeals to Peter. It appeals to Jesus because of its fundamental truth. This should never happen to Jesus, or to anyone. The wrongness in the cross is precisely what Jesus aims to oppose and overcome in bearing it. If Jesus’ death can oppose that evil, then that is why he will do it. But that injustice is also the strongest possible argument why he should not accept it. For all the wrong reasons, Peter has hit on the weakest point of Jesus’ resolve, and played Satan’s strongest card: to go through with this trip to Jerusalem is to implicitly cooperate in the most unjust in the long line of unjust sacrifices.

"Why would Jesus want to do Satan’s business for him? Precisely because Jesus is innocent, the strongest temptation to deflect him from his path is the simple truth. This injustice ought not happen. It “ought” to happen only if it can be unlike all the others from the foundation of the world, if it can reverse the practice. We can hardly blame Peter for not seeing how that might be. It requires resurrection, and a new spirit."

- S. Mark Heim, Saved From Sacrifice, pp. 152-153

~

"As we saw last week Jesus’ messiahship is at stake, the question of his character, how he will act, whom he will imitate is at the forefront. Will he be a Son of the Living God or a messiah in the service of just vengeance? This is the critical question posed by the New Testament about Jesus.

"The second critical question posed by the New Testament is how we shall perceive ourselves as his followers. This is explored in vss. 24-26. The fact is, the reality of discipleship consists of cross carrying, a willingness to be persecuted, but more so, a willingness to die forgiving and not retaliating as the Master has done. Jesus is not saying that his followers are to seek persecution, they are not to be masochists. But every follower of Jesus must be willing to die every day, forgiving.

...

"The supreme sacrifice is not service to country but service (death) for the kingdom of God. Bearing witness to peace, as Jesus did, being a peacemaker, as Jesus was, is the counter-cultural expression of faith. Standing for peace robs culture of it’s masking and mything of war and it’s continued use of scapegoats. Bearing witness to peace reveals that cultural justice is not righteous. Peacemaking, or ‘losing one’s life’ is the essence of Christian spirituality. It is the essence of Jesus’ person and work and thus stands at the center of what it means to be a child of God."

- Michael Hardin

~

"In today's reading in the Gospel from St Matthew we're continuing directly on from where we were last time. You remember, Peter somehow surprised Jesus by being able to say who he was - the Son of the Living God. Jesus recognized that this was something that he had been given - this wasn't something he'd made up or worked out - that he'd actually had an insight that was going to make him something very remarkable. And ... Jesus confirmed that by giving him the power of the keys, as you remember.

"So, what we have today is the direct continuation from that: the Davidic son who told his disciples not to let anyone else know that that's what he was at this stage because he had to enact that in Jerusalem now, from this period on. Now that the disciples have discovered for themselves who he is, he has to try and teach them what that actually means.

...

"Then Jesus told his disciples - this is where we get into the meat of this, if you like, ... because effectively he's saying something to all of them: if any want to become my followers; in other words, at this stage he's saying, 'you can get off this bandwagon now if you want' - “If anyone wants to become my followers let them” - our translation says: “deny yourselves” but the word is “disregard” in classical Greek, that's the way this word is used - disregard yourselves, count yourselves as nothing - “and take up your cross and follow me.”

"And people say, well is Jesus prophesying that he's going to be crucified here? We don't know. What we do know is that the cross was the ultimate shameful death. It was a death that the Jewish authorities wouldn't allow themselves to apply to other people. It was something that the Roman authorities used in particularly egregious cases, where they really wanted to humiliate somebody. It was their most humiliating form of execution, and carrying your cross was the person who is walking the walk of complete shame. So basically saying: if you want to follow me it's going to be a shame walk.

"Those who want to save their lives - grasp onto themselves, build themselves up, security, fine reputation, all of that - they'll lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake - those who prepared to go down the shame walk - will actually find themselves being brought in to be. “For what will it profit them if they gain the whole world, but forfeit their life?” In other words, you can have the highest reputation, the most the property, the greatest security in the world, and have completely lost who you are. We see too many examples of that all around us the whole time. “What will they give in return for their life?” There's nothing commensurate with becoming who you are called to be, and for that being something that will not know death.

"“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 he has done.” In other words, who I am will be known from a place of shame, and the Father's glory will be bringing that place of shame into life and making it radiant and dwellable in, and the angels will carry this news to the four corners of the earth so that the true reputation of who God is and how God loves will be known. “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.“ So he's prophesying that this is going to happen soon. They're on a learning process and they're going to see this shame held in glory and if they're going to be able to follow that then they'll be on the inside of it."

- James Alison, from video "Homily for Sunday 22 in Ordinary Time Year A" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5s9-YLqu-4o)


[Source of S. Mark Heim and Michael Hardin quotes, and for analysis and discussion on all the lectionary texts for this Sunday, see also: http://girardianlectionary.net/reflections/year-a/proper17a/]

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