Thought for the Day – Sunday 30th August
‘From
that time on, Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem
and undergo great suffering at the hands of the elders and chief priests and
scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised. And Peter took him
aside and began to rebuke him, saying, “God forbid it, Lord! This must never
happen to you.” But he turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are
a stumbling block to me; for you are setting your mind not on divine things but
on human things.” Then Jesus told his disciples, “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? For the Son of Man is to come with his angels in the glory of
his Father, and then he will repay everyone for what has been done. Truly
I tell you, there are some standing here who will not taste death before they
see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.”’ (Matthew
16: 21-28)
What is going on here?
Just moments before Jesus is offering
Peter the keys of the Kingdom and telling him the church will be built on him the
Rock and now he is a stumbling block! Is Jesus being contrary – has he in a
single moment following Peter’s response to being told that Jesus must die
changed his mind about Peter and no longer feel that Peter is up to the
challenge?
Now, I know it is only one possible
interpretation of Jesus’ words but I think that Jesus’ ‘rock to stumbling
block’ response is more to do with him feeling that Peter is just not taking
the challenge of following Jesus seriously enough. Peter has not truly counted
the cost involved in following Jesus – the cost of being a disciple.
Jesus has been teaching them for years
now and still they often do not quite get what he is trying to teach them. Only
now as his death approaches does he begin to elaborate on all that teaching and
highlight the hardships involved in following that teaching and what does he
find? Well, that his disciples try to somehow deflect that teaching and indeed
even brush off his call of sacrifice.
I know, we all do this, we are after
all only human, we try and make light of difficult circumstances and challenges
– we almost see making light of them as a way to cope. However, Jesus is at the
point in his teaching where he needs his disciples to wake up and actually
appreciate just how much he is asking of them and that requires them to
understand fully the cost of discipleship.
Discipleship does not mean people just
coming and joining a fun-loving, friendly community of people who follow Jesus,
love God and try to serve both God and Jesus – rather Jesus is trying to get
across that following him might be a hard path to walk, it might not always be
fun, people might not always want to be your friend, there will be sacrifices
to be made - he is asking them take up a cross.
Now that’s probably not the type of
invitation to come and join us that people seeking to follow Jesus might want
to hear or that we would feel willing offering to folk but that nonetheless is
the reality of our faith, faith is not a walk in the park, discipleship is not
easy and we should be honest about that and never just brush that challenge
off.
Perhaps that is why Jesus was so harsh
with Peter calling him ‘Satan’ at his response.
Or, maybe it was because even Jesus
himself was tempted to take an easier route, maybe he would have preferred to
stay and continue on his adventure with his disciples, maybe he felt he had so
much more to teach, to achieve and to do.
However, that was not God’s will, the
cross was looming and the only way was the way of the cross and however, tempting
it may have been to remain with his disciples Jesus knew there was only one way
to achieve the salvation of the world and that was by death on a cross. That
though for us is the Good News – because Jesus was obedient to God, he refused
to be swayed from his mission and persisted on his way to the cross.
For us today, discipleship, while not
an easy task, is nothing compared to what was being demanded of Jesus. Yes, we
are called to obediently give of ourselves in loving and serving God and to
give of ourselves in serving our neighbour but what we must never do is underestimate
the cost or the effectiveness of such service. We are not being asked to die
when we take up the cross – Jesus did that for us – but we are being asked to
live a life dedicated to serving God and serving those all around us, in love.
Now, we know that task can be much more difficult that it sounds because it
means loving the unlovable, serving the miserable, the grumpy and the
ungrateful and so on, but if we are to take up our cross then that is what we
must do!
Crosses to carry are not so hard to
find for us as Christians today!
However, maybe we like Peter, need to
realise just how much it takes to be such a loving and serving Christian – it
is extremely hard work, it may not come easy to us, it will take a lot of
effort but it will be worth it, for then individually and together as a
community we can be obedient to that call of Jesus to be one of his disciples
and be more of a ‘rock’ and less of a ‘stumbling block’ to his mission here on
earth.
Prayer
A prayer
on this text by John van de Laar:
It is too easy,
God for faith to become an escape - a way to avoid the pain of being human and
alive;
or a path to
success - a way to persuade the universe to give us the things we want;
or a system of
control - a way to bend others to our will
But the faith
you offer is different, Jesus, more dangerous and compelling;
It's the faith
that carries the cross, that embraces death and lays itself down for the sake
of others;
It's the only
faith that can lead us to resurrection, to life renewed and overflowing.
We praise you
for this faith, God, and open our hearts to receive it. Amen.
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