Today’s Gospel lectionary text follows Jesus to the region of Caesarea Philippi, at the north end of Israel, and home of several pagan shrines. With him are the twelve disciples and other unidentified people, possibly the 120 relatives and friends who followed Jesus around and identified themselves also as disciples.
Jesus asked the twelve, “Who do men say that I am?” They respond by reporting local gossip. They’ve heard him referred to as John the Baptist, as Elijah the prophet, and as one of the other prophets of old.
“Okay,” Jesus said. “Who do you say I am?” Peter answers that he believes Jesus is the Messiah.
Jesus then begins to tell them how he will go to Jerusalem, be rejected by the priests and scribes (the Sadducees), suffer shame and torture, and be put to death. The graphic description refers to death by crucifixion. He also tells them that after three days he will rise again.
Peter is aghast. How can the Messiah be treated that way? Can’t be! Apparently he didn’t hear the “rise again” part because he was so upset about the suffering death part. So he pulled Jesus aside to help him out, to rebuke him.
“Get behind me, Satan!” Jesus returns. “You are not mindful of the things of God, but of the things of men.”
Peter was concerned because Jesus’ description of what would happen to him when he went to Jerusalem did not match with popular desire for the Messiah. The rabbis taught, and everybody believed, that Messiah would surely come into Jerusalem, probably one Passover, and run out the Romans and replace their brutal regime with the glorious kingdom of David. The temple and priesthood were in place, and all it would take would be the right man, anointed of God, to do the job.
Wrong. Jesus said these ideas, grand as they were, were the things of men. Things of God included sacrifice and death before resurrection. They meant suffering and being put to death on the most brutal form of torture ever devised, after carrying it through the streets naked, while organized mobs gathered to jeer and spit and hurl objects and insults. Those were the things of God.
We use the phrase things of God loosely these days. Usually it refers to something vague and is many times associated with things that give us warm fuzzies, just as Peter’s vision of Messianic victory over the Romans help him feel all warm inside.
But in this case Jesus gave specific examples. After rebuking Peter loudly and in full hearing of the other eleven, he called the people around to further humiliate Peter by making him a public example. “If you want to follow me,” Jesus said, “ you have to deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow me.” The application is clear. Following Jesus as disciple means self-denial and sacrifice, along with the willingness to take up the instrument of torture and death, and be paraded through the streets in utter shame.
To find life you have to lose it, to be buried with Christ so that you can live in the hope of the resurrection. Disciple-making means bringing people, through committed learning relationships, into a life-commitment of selfless service to Jesus. Christian baptism is the entry point in this kingdom commitment of eternal life, beginning now and extending into the hereafter in the resurrection.
I am afraid that, for the sake of counting nickels and noses, we are attracting people to a “cheap grace” as Bonhoffer called it, where we deceive ourselves in finding glory when in reality we are being mindful of the things of men. Numbers of back-pew believers consuming “ministries” do not make disciples. They are not following Jesus to the cross of crucifixion of the flesh. They are gratifying the desires of their hearts with a “Christian” rubber stamp. We have sold our soul to make friends with the culture, but in the end what will we have accomplished?
I believe Jesus is calling us to be counter-cultural. He is calling us to build the resurrection kingdom of God in the present by making disciples and changing lives. We knowingly and willingly risk ridicule, resistance, and our own convenience to do God’s good work. It is a calculated risk. Disciple-making means calling others to work alongside us, allowing Jesus to rub off onto them until they are ready to take the plunge through baptism into a life of death to self, new life in Christ.
Jesus asked the twelve, “Who do men say that I am?” They respond by reporting local gossip. They’ve heard him referred to as John the Baptist, as Elijah the prophet, and as one of the other prophets of old.
“Okay,” Jesus said. “Who do you say I am?” Peter answers that he believes Jesus is the Messiah.
Jesus then begins to tell them how he will go to Jerusalem, be rejected by the priests and scribes (the Sadducees), suffer shame and torture, and be put to death. The graphic description refers to death by crucifixion. He also tells them that after three days he will rise again.
Peter is aghast. How can the Messiah be treated that way? Can’t be! Apparently he didn’t hear the “rise again” part because he was so upset about the suffering death part. So he pulled Jesus aside to help him out, to rebuke him.
“Get behind me, Satan!” Jesus returns. “You are not mindful of the things of God, but of the things of men.”
Peter was concerned because Jesus’ description of what would happen to him when he went to Jerusalem did not match with popular desire for the Messiah. The rabbis taught, and everybody believed, that Messiah would surely come into Jerusalem, probably one Passover, and run out the Romans and replace their brutal regime with the glorious kingdom of David. The temple and priesthood were in place, and all it would take would be the right man, anointed of God, to do the job.
Wrong. Jesus said these ideas, grand as they were, were the things of men. Things of God included sacrifice and death before resurrection. They meant suffering and being put to death on the most brutal form of torture ever devised, after carrying it through the streets naked, while organized mobs gathered to jeer and spit and hurl objects and insults. Those were the things of God.
We use the phrase things of God loosely these days. Usually it refers to something vague and is many times associated with things that give us warm fuzzies, just as Peter’s vision of Messianic victory over the Romans help him feel all warm inside.
But in this case Jesus gave specific examples. After rebuking Peter loudly and in full hearing of the other eleven, he called the people around to further humiliate Peter by making him a public example. “If you want to follow me,” Jesus said, “ you have to deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow me.” The application is clear. Following Jesus as disciple means self-denial and sacrifice, along with the willingness to take up the instrument of torture and death, and be paraded through the streets in utter shame.
To find life you have to lose it, to be buried with Christ so that you can live in the hope of the resurrection. Disciple-making means bringing people, through committed learning relationships, into a life-commitment of selfless service to Jesus. Christian baptism is the entry point in this kingdom commitment of eternal life, beginning now and extending into the hereafter in the resurrection.
I am afraid that, for the sake of counting nickels and noses, we are attracting people to a “cheap grace” as Bonhoffer called it, where we deceive ourselves in finding glory when in reality we are being mindful of the things of men. Numbers of back-pew believers consuming “ministries” do not make disciples. They are not following Jesus to the cross of crucifixion of the flesh. They are gratifying the desires of their hearts with a “Christian” rubber stamp. We have sold our soul to make friends with the culture, but in the end what will we have accomplished?
I believe Jesus is calling us to be counter-cultural. He is calling us to build the resurrection kingdom of God in the present by making disciples and changing lives. We knowingly and willingly risk ridicule, resistance, and our own convenience to do God’s good work. It is a calculated risk. Disciple-making means calling others to work alongside us, allowing Jesus to rub off onto them until they are ready to take the plunge through baptism into a life of death to self, new life in Christ.
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