Matthew 16:21-28
Proper 17 (22) - Year A
What kind of self-image did Peter have of himself?
One moment he was praised and named "Rock."
The next he was shunned and named "Satan."
I expect Peter simply felt he was doing the best he could with what he had at the time.
What kind of identity do you have as you do the best you can with what you have at the time?
Sometimes you come through, gloriously. Sometimes you come through, flat on your face. Sometimes you come through, just barely.
Do you have names for the various ways you come through?
I suspect that having a way to identify your various identities would be helpful in trying to methodically move toward wholeness.
Peterson, in The Message, talks about Jesus' suggested self-evaluation in a way that could be turned into a scale from 1 to 10 rather than using the personification of names such as Rock or Satan.
Q1: On a scale of 1 to 10 (with 1 being the least and 10 the most), how far did you run from suffering today?
Q2: On a scale of 1 to 10 (with 1 being the least and 10 the most), how closely did you embrace suffering today?
Or would you rather use the old religious imagery of denying yourself and taking up your cross? This shift of our relationship to suffering is clearer and more helpful to me than across-the-board denial of or aspiring to messiahship. It aids us in simply and unswervingly doing the best we can with what we have and with whom we are - in being an ever present presence.
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2002/september2002.html
What a difference a slightly different sentence structure makes!
"... and those who lose their life for my sake will find it."
"... and those who lose their life, for my sake, will find it."
It is all to easy to read the first as a narrowing of the beneficiaries of Jesus' incarnate living.
It is easier to read the second as a widening of GOD's expansive love and some expression of universal love and salvation that includes our slips and foibles as well as our moments of coming through.
Which reading gives you the greatest pleasure as you look at your own life or the life of someone who bombs occupying troops or authorizes unconscionable debt of another individual/nation or individually tortures, BTK-style, or avoids every external sign of sin?
We find it easier to see Jesus' intention, for his sake, that everyone find their way to paradise here and onward, than to see Jesus' intention to separate folks forever on the basis of a latest piece of information rather than a possible next piece.
Stand by for payment and repayment that comes from Jesus' intention, not our deserving. This follows up on not blocking Jesus' intention (16:23) and anticipates a generosity past our usual way of doing business (20:15).
(Our bias is to end this pericope with verse 27 and to attach verse 28 to the transfiguration story. More about this next Transfiguration Sunday.)
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2005/august2005.html
"This must never happen!" is the cry of the past as it confronts possibilities yet available that will transform it. A part of the hubris of all of us is that our experience becomes normative. A part of growth is being aware of the experience of others.
Instead of denial about the mystery of GOD and Neighbor (as though we have them covered with creeds and dogmas and stereotypes) it is helpful to say, "What is that about for you?" and "What options are open for a response in such a case?"
It is instructive to consider what we are willing to do to avoid having any real information that might lead us to grow beyond where we have come. The very struggle to get this far slows us from going further.
Political issues of the dead have come back to haunt a president who has studiously avoided that reality. Intellectual sloppiness of allowing a comparison of content (science) with no content ("intelligent" design) keep confusing school boards and church members. We could go on regarding sexuality, faith, mental health, and topic after topic that we subvert by crying out that we have enough information and that which we have conspires with itself to put forward the lie that anything other than what we have is impossible.
Know that change is the nature of life. As such we ought to at least grin each time we hear someone claiming there is no choice but to stay where we are. A grin is much healthier than an anger that leads to simply saying the opposite. A grin helps us find balance in the midst of living. We do so get caught up with the words of scripture alone, so it would have been nice to have seen Jesus grinning, instead of scowling, as he deals with Peter's stuckness.
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2005/august2005.html
Questions can be stronger than answers. Moses turns aside toward a burning bush to ask, "Why?"
Only after this question is asked does G*D move in.
A question about who is speaking might be asked of Exodus 3:9. Does the cry of the Israelites "now" come to G*D or is this an affirmation of Moses, confirming G*D's observation of the Israelite's misery?
Even as Moses asked, "Who am I that I should go on this journey to Pharaoh's?" so does Peter deepen that with a question of Jesus, "Who are you that you should go to Pilate's?" The sign of the appropriateness of entering the halls of power will come later - Sinai and Resurrection.
Are you willing to wait confirmation, of that where you sense you should be going, until after you have gone? If so, enjoy your journey. If not, don't go.
- - -
let love be genuine
live toward a better tomorrow
do no harm
live toward a better tomorrow
hold fast to good
live toward a better tomorrowone love added to another
leads to mutual affection
one honoring of another
adds up to more
an ardent spirit
lives toward a better tomorrowrejoice in hope
tomorrow has begun
be patient
tomorrow has begun
persevere in prayer
tomorrow has begunextend hospitality
live tomorrow today
bless rather than curse
live tomorrow today
live in harmony
today of all days
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2007_08_01_archive.html
Jesus was a stumbling block to Peter, eliciting a "God forbid!" Peter was a stumbling block to Jesus, bringing forth a "Get behind me!"
In the face of mutual stumbling, looking in a common direction may be of benefit. To move beyond our disappointment in another, a reflection upon death is salutary. Death is a commonality usually recognized as larger than our temptations to stumble or just plain old stumbling iteself.
When focusing on our stumbling places we aren't able to recognize their false nature and get caught up in wasting energy on pseudo-death when a consideration of real death might clarify our mind and heart and aid us to regain our balance.
No matter how daily we lose and find life, there is a sense in which we won't move toward death, catch a glimpse of it, even, before we can see beyond it. Here is the contradiction: we are to see death before we can see life and we can't see death until we do so through a glimpse of life beyond.
Blessings upon our stumbling and our death watch. May our loss be our gain. May our rigidity be softened to appreciate that which we call both divine and human.
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2008_08_01_archive.html
It has been said that “The only thing that is real is the being in you that is going to die”. (Carols Castaneda) and that “Death is our eternal companion. It is always to our left, an arm's length behind us. Death is the only wise adviser that a warrior has. Whenever he feels that everything is going wrong and he's about to be annihilated, he can turn to his death and ask if that is so. His death will tell him that he is wrong, that nothing really matters outside its touch. His death will tell him, 'I haven't touched you yet.'” Likewise this Castaneda insight, “Only the idea of death makes a warrior sufficiently detached so that he is capable of abandoning himself to anything. He knows his death is stalking him and won’t give him time to cling to anything so he tries, without craving, all of everything.”
These perspectives help us look at Jesus’ understanding of his life, while alive, while not yet dead but moving in that direction. Time is precious, too precious to spend in fear, in denying death. The stumbling block of denial still reaches up to trip us. We still need to hear that losing our life in life, not expectations, not denial of death, is what will focus us. To simply wait to hear that we have died is to not taste death before its time.
Spoke yesterday with a dear man who has heard from his doctors that he has less than two years to live. Cancer and an infection will have their way. And he continues, not arguing, bringing peace where he can - not in a forced way because time is short, but naturally, because this moment is still available.
Too often we consider that death has a last word, while all it can do is advise us in the present about engaging life that is significant enough to echo on. May you not get caught by the stumbling illusion that death is more powerful and less helpful than it really is. Walk on.
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2011/08/matthew-1621-28.html
Remember to check out what went on before this text. That was the stimulus for this text and what is going on from there.
“God forbid it, Lord!” is one of those interesting lines for what it says and doesn’t say about the nature of G*D. It is as if Jesus got close enough to the disciples on a stormy sea and they were to exclaim, “Jesus Christ! Don’t scare us like that.” (If you remember, Jesus went on to say, “OK. I’ll scare you differently next time.”)
Well, here is a next time. Peter was scared enough, frightened enough, fearful enough, anxious enough, protective enough to want to hold Jesus close and rock him forever and ever (and, of course, be rocked by Jesus). [Note: there was no preconceived intention to play on the Peter/Rock connection, it was simply noticed as it came around.]
At the first scare Peter was invited on to the water, here Peter is dismissed. Make of it what you will.
This denial passage is not all it has been cracked up to be. It is not a penitential directive to get us to be reduced, but a reminder that our negative fear and our positive protectiveness, both, can keep us from paying attention to our work. A clearer way to say it would be, “Don’t deny the world your gift. Put everything else down and follow where it leads.”
I expect this jotting has taken at least one too many leaps. It would be appropriate to hope for better on the next posting.