MT 16: 21-28 

Matthew in the Margins… 13th S. After Pentecost…Revised 2017

Oops! Peter’s in trouble! In deeper water than when trying to walk on water awhile back. Oops! Jesus has just called him ‘Satan’ after he tries to dissuade Jesus from going through with what will be required of Him as the Anointed One. Not long before, Peter’s recognised Jesus as the Christ, though clearly not fully understanding what this will entail. Who did? Who does?

Peter will soon be in trouble again - Oops! again -when he suggests prolonging Our Lord’s Transfiguration (in a reading that won’t recur as we’ve already celebrated that in preparation for Lent). The water will get deeper still in the High Priest’s courtyard when Peter will actually deny Jesus. Several Oopses!! [But the end of John’s Gospel tells of reconciliation that’s taken place.] To return to today’s passage, in calling Peter 'Satan' is Jesus seemingly shifting the ground towards today’s common understanding of Satan as God’s enemy? Away from the H.B. (n.b. Job) understanding of Satan as what in Australia we might call ‘Counsel Assisting a Royal Commission’? Whose job it is to get to the truth of a matter by teasing out the evidence in a case.

Our passage & what’s going on in it, centres on v.23 where Jesus dresses Peter down for ‘thinking in human terms, rather than God’s’. One lesson from Jesus & Peter today is that the more we discern 'the mind of God' on any matter with each other, the less we’re likely to experience a Satan-like fall from grace in lonely splendour. Today it’s Holy Spirit, not any human or other Satan who helps us discern the mind of God.

 Kosuke Koyama put it long ago¹, ^‘There is no convenient way to carry a cross....if we put a handle on the cross to carry it as a businessman carries a briefcase, then the Christian faith has lost its ground. Jesus didn't say “Take up your lunch box & follow me”. A cross is a juggernaut, an out-of-our-control consequence of discerning the unfolding of the mind of God in human affairs. Trying to get a handle on the cross can make us as much a stumbling block to God's Rule through God’s mind as Peter is accused of being here.

Jesus demonstrates that He must enter His Passion, as he demonstrates everything else - by going through with it! That's how we're called to follow, too; by going through with what we, in concert with other faithful, discern God’s mind for us to be. There are no handles on the Cross, or on Resurrection, for us any more than for Jesus.

Too much concentration on the Son of Humanity’s apocalyptic role can lead us into escapism. The very opposite of the engagement in human affairs that the very-much- earthed Son of Humanity represents. Take heart! God Rules in our margins as well as in religious centres & one day, in clouds of glory. The Son of Humanity brings the way God Rules to a head in His death & resurrection. Could any future coming, no matter how glorious, really challenge, up -stage that greatest of all Cosmic Events?

¹ No Handle on the Cross, SCM, London, '76, p.7]