He turned and said to
Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You
are an obstacle to me.”
Today’s
gospel is a continuation of last week’s gospel, which recounted for us the
discussion between Jesus and his disciples at Caesarea Philippi. There we heard Jesus ask his disciples,
“Who do the people say that the Son of Man is?” All the disciples respond by saying, “Some say John the
Baptist” (who had already been executed at that point in the life of Christ), “others
Elijah, and still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” So the leading popular opinions
concerning Jesus’ identity involved regarding him as some kind of reincarnation
of John the Baptist or one of the long dead Old Testament figures. Finally Jesus addresses the disciples
more personally: “Who do you say that I am?” Only St. Peter responds: “You are the Christ, the Son of the
living God.”
For
this response Jesus praises Peter in the highest possible terms: “Blessed are
you Simon, son of Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you but my
heavenly Father.” Peter is praised
as one inspired directly by God.
And Jesus bestows on him a new name: “So I say to you, ‘You are Peter,
and on this rock I will build my Church.”
Jesus’ admiration seems absolute.
But
in today’s gospel we hear of the sharp turn taken in this encounter between
Jesus and his disciples. Jesus
predicts his own suffering and death.
After Peter’s confession he describes the events of Holy Week: his
arrest, condemnation, and his physical anguish and death. He adds, too, an indication of his
resurrection, but this passes his disciples by unnoticed. Peter notices only Jesus’ predictions
of his suffering and death and clearly cannot stand the thought: “God forbid,
Lord, No such thing shall happen to you.”
For this objection, Jesus condemns Peter in terms no less absolute than
his former praise: “Get behind me,
Satan. You are an obstacle to me,
because you are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do.”
Having
been condemned as “Satan” must have been pretty shocking after having been
extolled moments before as “The Rock.”
Perhaps the most basic lesson we can glean from this 180 degree turn is
that it is one thing to know the truth of an abstract principle, and quite
another to understand the practical implications of that principle. Peter understands very well that Jesus is “the
Christ, the Son of the living God,” but he cannot yet see how this is not only
consistent with, but even demands all that Jesus indicates regarding his
suffering and death.
I
once heard a comedian describe what a poor basketball player he was when he
was in high school. He said that
in his own mind he was very good at basketball. In his mind he knew exactly how to dribble the ball down the
court, shoot, score, and everything else that requires. The problem he had was that his mind
had to “outsource” the job of actually playing basketball to his awkward body that was incapable to doing all that his mind was telling it. He was describing something we all
experience, the gap between what we understand and what we are able to do.
Perhaps
we should understand this in terms of the word “obstacle” that Jesus uses to
describe Peter. Peter is an
obstacle to Jesus because he has within himself an obstacle that prevents him
from recognizing, let along enacting, the practical consequences of his
faith. His confession of Jesus as
the Christ encounters an obstacle as it tries to move to an understanding of
what Jesus’ status as Christ will mean in terms of the living out of that
vocation.
We,
of course, deal with something similar.
We make brilliant confessions of faith. We recite the Creed precisely every Sunday. We address Jesus as Lord and Savior, we
kneel before him in the Eucharist.
All of us, though, are forced to admit that our lives are not fully
intelligible in terms of the faith we profess. There is something inside us that prevents the faith we have
in our minds from translating itself into the concrete fabric of a life lived. We cling to attitudes contrary to the
gospel; we harbor and feed resentments and prideful sentiments. In ways we cannot fully perceive, we
maintain within ourselves obstacles to a full expression of our Christian faith,
and so, to varying degrees, we must all admit to being an obstacle to
Christ. We can tell people about
the faith we profess, but the lives we live in our bodies are less than
transparent to that faith.
In
his letter to the Romans St. Paul us “to offer our bodies as a living
sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God.”
This he says will be our spiritual worship. The offering of our bodies, bringing our bodily actions –
the things we do and say – into line with the faith we profess is the progress
of our sanctification. This is the
offering we struggle to complete every day as disciples of Jesus. This offering requires that we clear
away the obstacles that exist within us, and Jesus today refers to the means by which
we are to do that. He tells us
to take up our crosses every day.
By disciplining the body in order to conform it to the example we have in
Christ we will bring our outward behavior into conformity with the faith we
profess. By receiving generously
the example given to us by Christ in his sacred humanity we will bring the
flesh and blood of our lives into conformity we the faith we have received from
his Spirit.
Daily
prayer, examinations of conscience, the practice of sound disciplines: these
help us accomplish the far greater task of what St. Paul describes as “taking
every thought captive for Christ”: of biting our tongues when harsh criticism
leaps to mind, of reining in lustful thoughts, of working to see the best in
others. The substance of our
spiritual offering is what has been called “spiritual combat,” the daily
struggle to bring our passionate responses into line with the faith we profess
with our lips. The daily
commitment to this undertake this combat is our contribution to the work of removing from
within ourselves the obstacles that stand between our faith and the holy life
we are called to live.
We are not left to our own devices in this work. God
makes his contribution as well.
God works within us to remove obstacles, so long as we are open to this
work, which can be painful. One of
my favorite passages from St. Paul is from his letter to the Philippians where
he writes that he does not regard himself as having attained the goal of a
perfect likeness to Christ. Even
so, he says he “presses on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has
called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.” In the next line Paul exhorts all to think this way, and
notes that “if on some point you think differently, that too God will make
clear to you.” I take this to mean
that if we remain faithful to our striving after Christ, if we remain faithful
to the work of discipleship, God will, in time, bring to light the obstacles
that exist within us. Perhaps by
growth in wisdom and purified vision, perhaps by being subjected to painful
trials, he will help us recognize what we have placed between ourselves and
him, and we will be able to confront formerly hidden obstacles head on. And as this process moves forward over
time, we will arrive at a more perfect integrity as disciples of Christ.
We
see exactly this occurring in the life of St. Peter. In the course of the wild swing between praise and
humiliation that Peter experiences at Caesarea Philippi, Peter becomes aware of
an obstacle that exists within him.
Something similar happens in the far more painful experiences of Holy
Week. On Holy Thursday we hear his
protests before the Lord that “Even if all fall away, I will not.” We can hear in these words, I think, a
subtle indication of what may be the worst sort of abuse among those in
authority, to lord it over subordinates.
Peter says, in effect, “All others may be liable to betrayal and
treachery, but I am not. They may
very well be inadequate, but not me.”
Instead of insisting vainly upon his superiority to the others, he might
have looked for ways to shore up his brothers’ weakness.
The
events of Holy Thursday are, of course, a prelude to Peter’s betrayal of Christ,
and this prelude provides a glimpse of the obstacle on which he will stumble
just a few moments later when he denies Jesus. On Easter Sunday, when Jesus forgives and restores Peter, he
asks Peter, “Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?” Jesus’ question recalls Peter’s boastful
claim from Holy Thursday. Does he
still regard himself as superior to the others? Peter shows a small but significant increase in maturity. “Yes, Lord, you know that I love
you.” He declares his love, but
not at the expense of the others.
Peter’s stumble at Caesarea Philippi and his stumbles during Holy Week
are not without progress. We see
that with the Lord’s help, Peter is recognizing and overcoming the obstacles
within him. The Lord is making
known to Peter the obstacles within him, and so long as Peter remains eager to
work to over come them, the Lord grants him progress.
This
continues throughout the whole of Peter’s life. There is a well known story concerning St. Peter that people
are sometimes surprised to learn does not come from the Gospels. The story occurs during the time of
Emperor Nero’s persecution of the Christian church at Rome. Peter himself is fleeing along the
Appian way when suddenly he sees the risen Lord walking the other way, back towards
Rome. Peter asks him, “Where are
you going?” (Quo vadis?, in
Latin). Jesus replies by saying,
“I am going to Rome, to be crucified again.” Peter receives this as the Lord’s indication of what he
should do, and so Peter turns around and walks back to Rome where eventually he is crucified. In the end, therefore, after many mistakes and failures, after many efforts at beginning again, Peter is finally is
conformed perfectly to the example of Christ. There, his body, like that of Jesus, is offered upon a
cross. Finally, at the end, after
many stumbles, Peter is able to offer himself fully - body and spirit - as a
sacrifice to the Lord.
During
the Gospels and beyond, throughout the whole of Peter’s life, he struggled with
the obstacles that stood in the way of expressing his faith fully in the manner
of his life. He never gave up, and
we too must never give up. We too
must always be ready to start and start again in our lives as disciples, always
confident that the work begun in us by the Lord will come to completion.
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