Proper 19 / 17th
after Pentecost — 16 September
2018
St. Peter’s, Bettendorf – 8:00 & 10:00 am
I: Proverbs
1:20-33 | Psalm 19
| James 3:1-12 | Mark
8:27-38
[Jesus] asked them, “But who do you say that I am?” Peter answered him, “You are the Messiah.”
And he sternly ordered them not to tell anyone about him.
I’m assuming that you here at St. Peter’s have heard this
story before. Obviously we hear it every
three years on this Sunday, and we also hear St. Matthew’s slight padding of it
every three years in August in the “A” cycle (last year, and two years from
now). St. Luke also tells this story
(again, borrowing from St. Mark), but we never hear that version on Sundays,
though we do read it every year in the Daily Office. In addition, as you all are aware, we also
read St. Matthew’s version of this story every year on January 18, the Holy Day
called “The Confession of St. Peter.”
But “The Confession of St. Peter” is something of a
misnomer. Because Peter was wrong, in
confessing Jesus to be the Messiah.
Well, yes, of course in retrospect
we know that Peter was right, but at the time Peter did not understand how and why he was right. And that
is why Jesus “sternly ordered them not to tell anyone about him.” In short, when Peter says, “You are the
Messiah!” Jesus retorts, “Shut up!”
In recent generations of New Testament studies, scholars
often talked about what was usually called “the Messianic secret,” particularly
in St. Mark’s Gospel. (More recently,
many scholars have walked that idea back; but that doesn’t mean that they are
right or that the earlier scholars were wrong!
Nowadays there’s a lot of “walking back” earlier statements. But I digress.) The idea was that although Jesus was indeed
the Messiah (Hebrew for “The Anointed One”), at least from our perspective now,
or the Christ (Greek), he tried to keep it quiet, with mixed success, because
everyone would misunderstand. Which was
certainly true. Including Peter. And actually even including us today to a
great extent.
(Another digression:
Doesn’t Jesus in St. John’s Gospel go around all the time telling
everyone that he is indeed the Messiah?
Yes, he does. And I would share
with you my own reflections about St. John’s Gospel and what I think the Fourth
Evangelist is up to in the way he narrates this, but then we’d have to send out
for lunch. And maybe even for
supper. So I’m not going there
today!) (Whew!)
It may well be that “The Messianic Secret” is more a plot
device of St. Mark the Evangelist than a reflection of Jesus’ own
self-understanding (about which we can know very little!), but what it points
to is true enough. There were lots of
theories floating around in second-Temple Judaism as to who or what the Messiah
might be. Some were very political and
even revolutionary (kind of like our George Washington), a Messiah who would drive out
the British – no, I’m sorry, I mean the Romans – and lead the nation to independence
and liberty, like Judas the Maccabee had done two centuries earlier, only with
more long-term success. Or perhaps the
Messiah would be the “prophet like Moses,” [Deuteronomy 18:15-19] who would
restore the nation to full observance of God’s Law. Or a supernatural figure, like the Son of Man
in the book of Daniel [7:13-14], who would come on the clouds of heaven and
become Ruler of the Universe. (I don’t
think there was a Ring involved in that version.) There were lots of variants on all these ideas. But basically they were about a Messianic figure
who would lead Israel to victory through
power.
But you recall the words of Lord Acton a century and a half
ago, “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” (There are those who quibble with this
saying. They are usually those with power who feel a need to defend it.) Or, as Jesus says in the Gospel today, “If any want to
become my followers, 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, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it.” And elsewhere Jesus says, “You know that
among the Gentiles those whom they recognize as their rulers lord it over them,
and their great ones exercise authority over them. But it is not so among you; but
whoever wishes to be great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes
to be first among you must be slave of all.
For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and
to give his life a ransom for many.”
[Mark10:42-45; my italics] And in
the hymn which St. Paul writes or quotes to the Philippians: “Let the same mind be in you that was in
Christ Jesus, ‘who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality
with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of
a slave, being born in human likeness.
And being found in human form, he humbled himself, and became obedient
to the point of death – even death on a cross.’” [Philippians 2:5-11]
So we must realize why Jesus sternly tells his disciples
not to say anything about his being the Messiah. They may not tell who the Messiah is until they understand what the Messiah is. And
they don’t yet. No one in that world
did. The disciples didn’t. Peter didn’t.
We still don’t, a lot of the time.
And when Jesus explains that when he goes to Jerusalem it is not to take power,
it is to be crucified by power.
And Peter says, “No!
That can’t be! That mustn’t be.” And Jesus rebukes him: “Get behind me, Satan!”
Well, that seems a little harsh! But we should note that Jesus uses the very same
word to Peter that he used in the wilderness to the Devil in rejecting his
temptations – the very same temptations, by the way, that Peter now reflects: the temptiation to be a Messiah of Power.
Both to the Devil and to Peter, Jesus says – the Greek word is hypage – “Go! Get out!”
God is love. Well,
we already knew that. We’ve heard it
countless times. The problem is that
we’ve heard it so much that it may have become sentimental and trivial, a
religious Hallmark card. But it’s a
fundamental theological statement: God’s
very nature is self-giving love. That’s
who God is. The divine nature is not
only to be but precisely to share being. That’s what creation is. The universe exists, and everything in it,
including us, because it is God’s loving will to share being, as gift. Creation is not a loan. Creation is not conditional. To create is to let be.
The Deists of the European Enlightenment weren’t completely
wrong. (They were largely wrong, but not
completely!) God did create the universe
with autonomy – God does not fiddle with the laws of physics – but God did not
walk away from the world. God is not a
retired clockmaker.
God created us with autonomy and freedom also, but God
works in us by grace, with love, not by compulsion. God created us to share in God’s love, with
God and with one another. Well, we
screwed that up pretty badly, so God chose to come among us as God’s Messiah,
God’s Anointed One, to save us and heal us.
But not by power – what we
usually call power – but by God’s own
power, which is the power of love.
Eventually St. Peter did get it. Eventually maybe we will too.
“If any want to
become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and
follow me.”
