Sermon for Proper 17, Year A

Last week, we heard the story where Peter gave the “right” answer about who Jesus is. This week, we have the comfort of hearing Peter give the “wrong” answer. Faith isn’t about having all the right answers.

Immediately after Peter confesses Jesus to be “the Messiah, the Son of the Living God,” Jesus explains what “being the Messiah” really means. It means going to Jerusalem, being betrayed into the hands of the religious leaders, suffering, dying, and rising on the third day.

And Peter has a bit of a conniption over this. He says, in effect, “No way, José!”

The text says it a little more eloquently. It says, “God forbid it, Lord! This must never happen to you.”

And Jesus rebukes him quite harshly. He calls him, “Satan.”

I think we should not be too harsh on Peter for giving this response.

First of all, Peter gives the wrong answer because he had several culturally-shaped ideas about who the Messiah was supposed to be. According to the views of that time, the Messiah was going to be a victorious king who was going to restore freedom and prosperity to the land of Israel, who would finally get people back on track spiritually, teach them to obey God’s commandments, whip this country back into shape. People were really excited about that kind of Messiah. That’s the image that Peter had in mind when he confessed Jesus to be “the Messiah.”

Jesus, of course, did not come to be a conquering king. He came to do something different. We know that today, but Peter hadn’t quite got the memo yet.

Second of all, Peter says what he says because he loves Jesus. Any one of us can imagine that, if a friend came up to us, while facing a challenging situation, and sounded like they were on the verge of giving up, we would say, “Hey now. Hold on. I know it’s rough right now, but we will get through this. I believe in you, my friend.”

That’s what Peter is trying to do with Jesus. He loves Jesus and is trying to encourage him. I can empathize with Peter, especially in his love for his friend.

I have two teenagers at home who are currently learning how to drive. (Pray for me.)

As many of you know, if you have kids and grandkids: When they reach that stage of development, your relationship with them begins to change.

Up until this point, I had been the one who drove my kids around. I put them in the car, checked the mirrors, used the turn signals, watched the speed, hit the brakes.

It was my job to get them to where they’re going. But now, they are learning how to get themselves there.

My job, at this stage, is to move over, get out of the driver’s seat, grab hold of that bar above the door, and try hard not to scream obscenities. It’s hard, but it’s also good. The goodness does not eliminate the hardness, but neither does the hardness eliminate the goodness of this transitional stage. The time has come for me to move out of the driver’s seat and into the passenger’s seat.

That’s similar to what is going on with Peter in today’s Gospel. When Jesus says to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan,” he’s not just being offensive or calling names. He’s also not kicking Peter out of the community of disciples.

He says, “Get behind me.” That word choice is very specific. In the very next verse, Jesus says, “If any want to become my followers, let them take up their cross and follow me.” The Greek word for “follow” is the exact same word as “get behind me.”

So, when Jesus rebukes Peter, he isn’t saying, “Get away from me.” He’s saying, “Follow me.” Peter had become a stumbling block by trying to get ahead of Jesus, but Jesus is saying to him, “I need you to get behind me. I need you, Peter, to get out of the driver’s seat and trust that I’m leading you in the direction where you need to be going.”

That is very much the point of the Christian life: Following Jesus.

When Jesus, in this reading, talks about his own journey of death and resurrection, he is also giving us the primary metaphor for the Christian spiritual life: It is a process of death and resurrection.

We are not used to thinking about this, but it’s been right under our noses the whole time. We frequently hear in church that Jesus died for us, but the Scriptures of the New Testament and the liturgy of the Book of Common Prayer also say that we die with Christ and are raised with Christ.

In our Baptismal liturgy we pray a blessing over the water in the font. We say of that water, “In it, we are buried with Christ and his death. By it, we share in his resurrection.”

In our funeral liturgy, we have a beautiful phrase that I love: “For your faithful people, O Lord, life is changed, not ended.”

I love that phrase because, as we are going through our own journeys of death and resurrection, it’s tempting to think that death is the end, so we need to be reminded that there’s also a resurrection on the far side of it.

I think that point is especially pertinent for Peter, because he seems to be only half-listening to Jesus. He hears the part about being killed, but doesn’t listen to what Jesus says about being raised from the dead.

You and I have the benefit of knowing the rest of the Gospel story, but Peter didn’t. He hadn’t yet witnessed the empty tomb and the risen Christ. We have celebrated nearly 2,000 Easter Sundays since that first conversation happened. It’s as if the end of the movie has been spoiled for us, but Peter is still in the middle part of the story.

Today, many of us are still in the middle part of our own stories. We going through the metaphorical deaths and resurrections in our lives.

Maybe, like me, you too are teaching your teenagers how to drive. (If so, bless you.)

Many of us remember the experience of being a kid who is growing up to take their place as an adult. As adults, we get married, become parents, lose jobs, getting new ones, get divorced, and retire. We take on changing roles in our families, as it becomes our duty to care for our parents, who once took care of us.

All of these events involve a death to one way of life and a resurrection to another way of life. That image, which Jesus gives us in today’s Gospel, is one that we can use to guide our way along life’s journey. Once we start looking for it, we begin to find it everywhere.

It’s not just that Jesus died for us; it’s that we continually die with him, and are also raised with him. We might not always know what that resurrection will look like, just as Peter didn’t, but that’s okay.

Jesus doesn’t ask us to have all the answers; Jesus just asks us to keep following him and keep trusting him.

As you “walk through the valley of the shadow of death,” hear Christ saying to you, “I am with you,” and “Death will not have the final word in this story.” Because for us, his faithful people, “life is changed, not ended.”