Aren’t we ready already?

Text: Matthew 16:21-28

[Previously on Matthew:

Jesus: “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?”

Disciples: “Some say John the Baptist, but others Elijah, and still others Jeremiah or one

of the prophets.”

Jesus: “But who do you say that I am?”

Peter: “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”

Jesus: “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven.”

And now the conclusion:] [1]

Remember last week, we had this thrilling moment where Peter “gets” who Jesus is. He calls him “the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” It is a highpoint of the story so far and serves to mark it off as significant. God, the Great Mystery, has revealed Jesus’s identity to Peter. But don’t think that these words of congratulations serve as a true conclusion. As Stanley Hauerwas puts it: “Simon’s recognition of Jesus changes who Simon is.” [2] It is this reason that Jesus gives Peter a new name, changing it from Simon to Peter, and it is this reason that he gives him a new position: not one of superiority but one of preserving the church’s gifts.

Hauerwas continues:

“By making Peter the rock on which the church will be built, Jesus indicates that the church will need to be so built because hell itself will try to destroy what Jesus has established.

It is not Peter’s task to make the church safe and secure or to try to insure its existence. Rather, it is Peter’s task to keep the church true to its mission, which is to witness to the Messiah.” [3]

Listen again to the opening words of this morning’s gospel: “Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem”. Jesus reveals to his disciples that 1) he must go to Jerusalem, 2) undergo great suffering, 3) be killed, and 4) be raised. The new man named Peter, with his rockish need to protect the mission not only attempts to stop this from happening, but he actually takes Jesus aside and rebukes him. This is the proof I promised last week for how Peter could “get it” without understanding it. Jesus’s response, seconds after commending Peter, after heaping on the praise, is to call Peter “Satan” and “a stumbling block to me”!

We all know that Peter is trying to protect Jesus. We all know that he doesn’t think that Jesus is ready to die. He doesn’t think that the disciples are ready to die. And he knows that he isn’t ready to die.

We have a lot of examples for those times in which we aren’t ready. Those examples are truly everywhere, aren’t they? This time last year the media was discussing whether or not we were “ready” for a woman president or a black president. There are currently 21 female heads of state, including three monarchs (Denmark, The Netherlands and the United Kingdom), eight prime ministers (Germany, Haiti, New Zealand, Moldova, Mozambique, The Netherlands Antilles, Ukraine and The Åland Islands) and seven presidents (Argentina, Chile, Finland, India, Ireland, Liberia and The Philippines). I should hope that we’re ready.

We also worry that we aren’t ready for disasters. Hurricanes Katrina and Rita didn’t paint a picture of readiness. But if we dig a little deeper, we can see that for decades, Louisiana had called for improvements to the levees. Katrina’s effect on New Orleans doesn’t represent a lack of readiness, but of federal short-sightedness and negligence. Better examples are of the way Kansans deal with tornados, Californians deal with earthquakes, and yes, Floridians deal with hurricanes. These people deal with their expectations and display a relative readiness for what they know is coming.

So why is it that we in the church sit in an active state of unreadiness? We evolve at a snail’s pace, dealing with small issues as if they are catastrophic (You picked what color? We sang that hymn?)—leaving us in a catatonic state when big issues arrive. For some, the solution is to stick fingers in the ears and sing “La la la la!” For others, the solution is to collect an unscientific poll with the predictable “We hate change” result. Or we give in rather than rock the boat.

No, for the most part, we aren’t ready to die, either.

But Jesus gives us real hope:

“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 will find it. For what will it profit them if they gain the whole world but forfeit their life? Or what will they give in return for their life?”

He’s not mincing his words here. Taken with the new identity of Peter, we can see how Jesus calls not just his disciples, but the church to act. To take up its cross, following Jesus to death in Jerusalem. Because this is a life-and-death issue, there isn’t time to get ready.

Jesus rebukes Peter because Peter is “setting [his] mind not on divine things but on human things”: demonstrating the polar opposite of what got him praise last week. He is worried about preserving the physical life of the Messiah, the son of the Living God so that this earthly king can rule the Kingdom of God on earth. Just like the Pharisees and Sadducees rebuked earlier, Peter is actually trying to preserve the status quo, the very world as he knows it; turning his mind to the revelation of a heavenly king on earth, Peter posits that this new earthly king will soon be ready to wage earthly war. In this way, Peter is obstructing the Kingdom of God from coming. A Kingdom with a spiritual king—not a militaristic one.

Remember the clue from last week? Making reference to the Son of Man, or Son of Humanity, is our cue that Jesus is talking about the Kingdom of God. Jesus brings it up again here to demonstrate that this is his primary interest. It is establishing the church as a means of bringing the Kingdom closer. That Peter couldn’t quite comprehend the Kingdom is no surprise: look at how easily we avoid the Kingdom. For Jesus, the issue has everything to do with death. Everything to do with our fear of death, the violence that can cause death, and how humanity uses the fear of death to manipulate others. By taking up our crosses, not just any crosses, but THE cross, Jesus’s cross, we are freed from death, the fear of death, the violence of death, and the manipulation of death because it is the Kingdom that matters. It is God that matters.

We fear death. This doesn’t surprise any of us. Death is scary. And the disciples surely felt that they didn’t sign up for that. But they followed him all the way to Jerusalem. It is there that they abandoned him. They walked up to the edge, but couldn’t do it. Fear prevented them. Some of the great stories in Acts and in traditions tell of how the disciples, decades later, accepted death, finally getting what Jesus had been saying years earlier. Their example is truly comforting, because this stuff is scary.

But Jesus promises us resurrection after 1) Jerusalem, 2) punishment, and 3) death. Our fear for our lives need not be predicated on our survival. This is Jesus’s great offering. That we can gather up God’s strength and become a people whose ministry is to bring the Kingdom closer is not just an awesome responsibility, but an awesome responsibility. Jesus was putting the church in the hands of fisher-men and -women who showed not just great devotion, but great willingness to give up on the safety and security of the world around them. How could that message not resonate with us? How dare we not hear that message in the midst of our own culture, with our jobs and our childcare and our responsibilities and our families and our sports and music and reading and gardening and on!

We are church not because we are friends or we like to dress up or we like to give to charitable causes: these things are a part of us: but we are church because we have accepted that responsibility. We, like Peter, have answered Jesus’s question by calling him “the Messiah, son of the Living God” and because we believe that Jesus’s challenge for us is worthy. The grace revealed in this gospel is that we can deny ourselves, take up the cross, and follow Jesus. That we have nothing to fear in death. As Jesus often told his disciples, “Do not be afraid.”

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[1] For the 9:30 service only.

[2] Hauerwas, Stanley. Matthew. (Brazos Press: Grand Rapids, 2006) p. 150.

[3] Ibid.