Wandering Heart: “I’m fixed upon it”
Welcome & Passing the Peace
We are deep into our Lenten journey today on this fourth Sunday in Lent. In two more Sundays we will be waving palms and shouting Hosanna, but not today. Today we are focusing on one of the more difficult passages about Peter and his journey with Jesus towards the cross. Aren’t you glad you gave up an hour of sleep to be here this morning?
I’m glad you did and that you are here with me and with one another experiencing God’s presence. I’m glad we are here together as we experience the conflicted emotions that come with learning more about who Jesus is and realizing that, because of who is, Jesus’ journey will bring him to death on the cross.
We welcome all who would take this journey with us and with Peter and with Jesus. If this is your first time with us on Facebook Live, leave a comment and tell us more about you. If you too would like to receive more information by email, send us your email in a private message. Thank you for worship with us. We hope to see you in person sometime.
May the peace of God’s spirit be with you. And also with you. Let’s pass the spirit’s peace to one another. As we do, let’s tell one another how we felt when we got up this morning.
As we gather back together, let us welcome Ema and Susan back. We’ve missed you both and how you help to lead us to worship.
Reading from the Gospel: Matthew 16:21-23
21 From then on Jesus began to tell his disciples plainly that it was necessary for him to go to Jerusalem, and that he would suffer many terrible things at the hands of the elders, the leading priests, and the teachers of religious law. He would be killed, but on the third day he would be raised from the dead.
22 But Peter took him aside and began to reprimand him for saying such things. “Heaven forbid, Lord,” he said. “This will never happen to you!”
23 Jesus turned to Peter and said, “Get away from me, Satan! You are a dangerous trap to me. You are seeing things merely from a human point of view, not from God’s.” [NLT]
[silence]
Listen to the voice of the Spirit speaking to the Church. Thanks be to God.
Message
The gospel text this morning picks up right where we left off last week, and I invite you to enter into this story from Jesus’ point of view. As you may remember, last week Jesus was walking with his followers out of Galilee into the region of where Herod Philip rules, Caesarea Philippi. Perhaps Jesus has led them there to get away from the crowds that were seeking after him. Remember, he was asking his disciples on the way what these crowds of people were saying about him, and then who the disciples themselves believed him to be.
I imagine Jesus was curious what these disciples were making of all the speculation about who he was, why he was able to heal people, why he could speak with such authority, why he was spending so much time with those the religious authorities tended to avoid.
He had to know that he was alienating as many as he was attracting. He musts have known that there was only one way this was headed if he kept on this same path.
When Simon had so adamantly asserted that Jesus was the Messiah, the Son of God, Jesus must have looked in Simon’s face and simply loved him. Simon’s faith had been growing from the moment he encountered Jesus at the synagogue, and while he had faltered a bit during the storm at sea, he had bounced back full force, and Jesus saw Simon was already becoming a leader among the followers. His solidness was becoming more and more evident. Jesus had seen him as the rock on which the faith of others would rest. Jesus loved that Simon was so fallible too. He wasn’t perfect and that would inspire other followers to believe in themselves despite their own flaws. Yes, Simon was his rock and would from now on be named Peter.
It was time to begin preparing Peter and the others for what was inevitable. He began telling them about what he felt he had to do. He must go to Jerusalem, and when he did, those who felt threatened by his message of compassion, his disregard for hierarchy, his welcome to those on the margin would surely kill him. He told them, though, that that would not be the end. As he told them what was to come, he could feel the anxiety rising within himself. He was human after all, and knowing the suffering that was coming, even though he trusted his Abba would be with him and that his death was not the end, his fear was very real.
Perhaps Peter could see it in Jesus’ face, something in his eyes gave him away. He drew Jesus aside to assure him that he did not have to go to Jerusalem, that even if he did Peter himself would ensure that Jesus would not face these awful things.
And just for an instant, Jesus was propelled back to his experience in the wilderness after his baptism, when he was feeling called to begin his ministry of teaching and healing and was so very hungry, so hungry he was tempted to turn stones to bread, so ready to test how beloved he was by his Abba, so near to letting go of the difficult journey ahead of him and so tempted by the thought of an easier way. Just for an instant in Peter’s face, Jesus saw a way out of what he was facing, a way to become the Messiah so many had been expecting.
And in that instant Jesus recognized his old friend from the wilderness, the tempter himself in the guise of his friend Peter. He pushed Peter away, not seeing his faithful follower anymore, not seeing the rock – seeing only the snake from that long ago garden.
“Be gone, Satan! I am the Son of Humanity, but it is God’s plan I’m following, not yours!” Jesus turned away from Peter and began telling them how they too must deny their own desires and face suffering and even death to follow the path he was laying out for them.
May we too have ears to hear.
Peter, in the blink of an eye, soared from the heights to the abyss. He had only been hoping to protect his friend, his teacher, hadn’t he? But perhaps in his heart of hearts he believed Jesus would go to Jerusalem to become the Messiah they were expecting, the leader who would overturn Roman rule, who would usher in a new realm of peace, yes, but also of prosperity and of power. And the Jewish people would truly become the chosen people of God.
The ones who were on the margins would what? Become the ones on top? And the ones in power now would learn what it was like to be on the margins… But then what about Jesus’ teaching about compassion? How long before Jesus’ disciples became like the pharisees and Sadducees?
And Peter began to listen as Jesus said to them, “What do you benefit if you gain the whole world but lose your own soul?”
Peter’s view of the world was changing, at times practically from one sentence spoken to the next – from being named the Rock to begin called the father of lies.
His understanding of the Messiah was being challenged, his understanding of God was being challenged. He could have decided it was all too much and gone back to his fishing, but we know that was not the case. He did indeed become a leader in the Church. At Pentecost, the birthday of the Church, it was his sermon that was recorded for all of us to read and hear.
We know how Peter feels. Change has become a constant. Things we have understood, ways of living and worshiping and being, are shifting – all the time! Sometimes our heads are spinning, changes happen so fast. The Church is not immune to those changes.
Look at us. Only a few years ago, you would not have dreamed of calling a queer woman with a wife to be your pastor, yet here we are. A decade ago we would have had twice the number of people who were actively involved in this church community. Prepandemic, loyal active members would not have considered leaving Bethel for another faith community or to watch online. Heck! Watching worship online would have been considered impossible for a church like ours.
How many people do we know who have chosen not to be a part of a faith community at all because they don’t see how it has made a difference in their lives or in the lives of those who are suffering and isn’t that what church is meant to do? How many have chosen not to be a part of a faith community because they have experienced rejection because of their lifestyle? What about those who don’t want to be a part of a community who is supposed to be about love but who seems to be more about hate of the other? The world has changed and not necessarily for the better.
We could respond to all of these things with despair and say why bother to continue to practice our faith? We could react by holding on to what we’ve known and imagine that if we only went back to how we used to do things or tried simply to do what we’ve always done only better.
Or we could be like Peter – not perfect, not always getting it right, but willing to follow Jesus, his friend whom he loved and who loved and believed in him.
Will you pray with me?
O God, we love you like Peter loved his rabbi. Help us to have the faith to follow in the way of Jesus. Help us not to hold on so tight to what we think we know. Help us to open our hearts and our hands to learn a new way, to receive what you offer. Amen.
An Invitation to Open Heart & Hands
“Beseeching” by Hannah Garrity, Ink on paper
The image on the front of our worship folders and on the screen now is mean to depict Peter in the midst of beseeching Jesus not to let the prophecies become a reality.
As we spend just a few minutes focusing on this image, let’s think of how we often focus on human things to the neglect of what God would have us focus on. We can’t help it. We are human after all, but how might we focus more on what we sense God is calling us to do or be?
[Silence]
Amen.