There are certain experiences in life that I will never forget. I wish I could say that they are all happy memories, but unfortunately this also includes times like receiving the phone call when my grandmother died unexpectedly while I was in college, when my uncle was diagnosed with cancer, and later when my dad was on his way to come get me because we were flying down to Georgia to see my beloved uncle one last time. These moments hit so hard because the grief still feels so raw some days, especially now as I think about my life and I wish they could have been here to see me graduate from college and Seminary, get ordained, and some day get married. No matter how much we experience death in our lives, it can still be so incredibly difficult to believe that the world can keep spinning without our loved ones.
This is the mood of our Gospel reading today too. “From that time on, Jesus began to explain to the disciples that he must go to Jerusalem, to suffer many things at the hands of the elders, chief priests, and religious scholars, and that he must be killed, and on the third day raised to life. Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. ‘Never, Rabbi!’ he said. ‘This will never happen to you!’” (Matthew 16: 21-22). From that time on is the phrase that moves us forward from Peter just having proclaimed that Jesus is the Messiah! But, from today’s reading it seems clear that Peter still doesn’t fully understand what that means, or that he hopes it means something different, because he strongly criticizes Jesus for even saying these things that can’t possibly be true.
Peter, our rock, keeps bouncing back and forth between doubt and strong faith. First the sinking situation, then knowing that Jesus was the Messiah, and now back to believing that the words Jesus is saying cannot be true because how can they be true. They are too difficult to hear, so Jesus must be lying to them, right? Because he would rather have Jesus lie to him here than accept the reality that Jesus is going to die soon. Honestly, of all the passages in Scripture, I think this section here can connect to a lot of people and the feelings they have about the death of a loved one.
And, in some ways, I wish the reading would just stop here. To let Peter acknowledge his doubt and grief, even though it is clearly uncomfortable for both him and Jesus, but instead we move on with the passage to a portion that I think has often done more harm than good in our communities: ‘If you wish to come after me, you must deny your very selves, take up the instrument of your own death and begin to follow in my footsteps. If you would save your life, you will lose it; but if you would lose your life for my sake, you will find it” (Matthew 16: 24-25). This is Jesus’ take up your cross and follow me statement, which has been interpreted in many different ways throughout our history.
While I think the basis of it has some strong points, especially that Jesus didn’t come into the world to save it and then have people living exactly the same way as before, I say this portion is harmful for a few reasons. First, I think it can send people out looking for their cross to bear, taking on way more suffering than they should because suffering is already a part of life. I don’t think we need to search for it. And, this verse has been used to keep people, especially women in situations of suffering and harm because they are told by ministers that abusive home lives for one example are their cross to bear. Whenever we don’t want to hold people accountable for their actions, we can easily dismiss it as being someone else’s cross to bear, which I think places a lot of the blame for our suffering onto God and makes it easier for us to not work to end the suffering of those around us.
So this reading, coupled with the passage from Romans, often titled “Marks of the True Christian” can I think end up teaching us some harmful rather than helpful means for living life. We were breaking this Romans passage down in our Bible study at Foss this past week and there were several pieces I told them I was going to push back on, so here are just a few.
First is the idea of living in harmony with one another. Seems lovely, right? Except, we were taught in our leadership class at Seminary that as much as we want to avoid conflict and we especially want to avoid it in the church, conflict and challenge is the only way that communities continue to grow stronger instead of remaining stagnant. I gave the example of muscles during Bible Study, how our muscles only grow when they have been pushed to the point where there are little microtears that heal and expand our muscle mass.
And then we also have the idea of not being angry and taking revenge on our enemies. While I completely agree with the not taking revenge part, I think this outright dismissal of anger can be really harmful for how we understand our world and our place in it. It took many years of training and therapy for me to begin to unlearn all that we have been taught about anger because we are often taught that anger of any kind is bad. But, anger is neither good nor bad. Anger is and it tells us important information about ourselves, usually that one of our boundaries that we might not even know we had has been crossed.
Peter today seems angry to me, at this idea that Jesus could possibly leave him, that Jesus would leave him in this way. Peter’s rebuke is triggered by fear of death, fear of grief, fear of losing his dear friend. This doesn’t make Peter any less than the other disciples, in fact I think it makes it easier for us to connect with him because chances are that we have felt or we will feel this way at some point in our lives too. Peter didn’t need to hear today that they all have to risk their lives to follow Jesus, instead he needed to hear that it was okay to be scared and upset. To hear that his grief will ebb and flow like the tide, some days barely noticeable and other days hitting him like a tidal wave. I needed to hear that this week.
So, yes, while Jesus and Paul have some thoughts on what it means to be a Christian, I want to remind us that this isn’t another laundry list of tasks to follow, but rather an expansion on what it means to love God, love our neighbor, and love ourselves. And, I’m going to say that it’s okay if some days we need to focus on taking care of ourselves so that we can love our neighbors more fully in the days to come. To tend to our emotions and grief. Because when Scripture says that we love our neighbors as ourselves, I think this implies that we have love ourselves too. And, I think most days, that can be the hardest commandment to follow.
So, may you be gentle with yourselves this week. Love one another and support one another in carrying the burdens we bear. And know that Peter, nor Paul, nor any of the other examples of faith in Scripture were perfect either. That there is gift and grace in being human.