Standing Under the Scriptures
August 31, 2008

Dear Fellow Voyagers,

Our readings for this Sunday are:

Romans 12.9-21: This passage, which is to be cherished, sets out how Christians are to behave, to fellow members of the body and to those outside it. “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.”

Matthew 16.21-28: We considered this already last Sunday (see below), in my belief that it was not intelligible apart from verses 13 to 20, which were the assigned reading. But surely there are additional truths in it. Perhaps we will be led to them.

In our first passage last Sunday, Romans 12.1-8, we read (verse 2): “Do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewal of your mind---that you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.” We found this liberating, in that it presupposes that we do not have to be conformed to world (or, better, this age and its spirit, the zeitgeist if you will) with its spiritual futility and deadness but instead can be transformed, transformed by the gospel of Christ which Paul is proclaiming and which conveys not death but life. In this we can rejoice. And the verse is the key to the rest of the passage. Having set forth how we are to relate to the world around us, it proceeds with how in the community of faith we are to relate to each other and indeed to ourselves. We are to remember our own limitations, how whatever good that is in us is from God not ourselves. We are to remember also that we are not autonomous individuals but instead members of Christ’s body, having distinctive but mutually supportive functions.

We saw the verse also as the bridge to our second passage, Matthew 16.13-28 (we went beyond the lectionary). Firstly, we noted that this passage functions as the hinge of Matthew’s Gospel. Prior to it Jesus is portrayed as showing his messiahship, through deeds and teaching, rather than telling it (and even here he exhibits reticence about it---“Tell no one that I am the Christ”---in marked contrast to John’s Gospel). Subsequently Matthew focuses on the working out of messiahship’s implications, for Jesus and his disciples.

We noted also that Jesus does not directly state his identity but instead evokes it from his disciples, asking first who others say that he is and then, “But who to you say that I am?” (This is a question that we ourselves cannot avoid answering, at least implicitly, if we have even heard of Jesus.) Peter, undertaking to speak for all of them, by inspiration gives the only real answer, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” Jesus confirms both the answer and its inspiration: “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood have not revealed this to you but my Father who is in heaven.” He goes on to proclaim Peter, or Peter’s faith, as the rock on which his church will be founded, with the authority to bind and loose both on earth and in heaven, known as the power of the keys. As an aside we took note of the role of these verses in subsequent history, how they were the basis of claims for the authority of the popes as successors of Peter, especially in the Middle Ages.

But then Jesus sets out the implications of his messiahship, how he must go to Jerusalem, suffer at the hands of the elders and chief priests and scribes, be killed, and then be raised. And this is too much for Peter, perhaps conceiving of the Messiah traditionally, as the Davidic king bringing political liberation to his people. So he rebukes Jesus, saying “God forbid, Lord. This shall never happen to you.” In effect he is telling the Messiah how to be Messiah. And this is a serious matter, indeed the most serious, for if we undertake to decide this question ourselves rather than leaving it to God, we deprive ourselves of the ability to turn to him for guidance.

Jesus’ rebuke in turn of Peter is stinging: “Get behind me, Satan. For you are viewing things from the human standpoint rather than from God’s.” But it is not uncalled for. In effect Jesus says about Peter what Paul urges against above, namely that he is conformed to this age rather than renewed in his mind---by Jesus’ gospel. Herein we see the essential connection between our two passages. And does not Jesus’ rebuke in some sense apply also to us?

But Jesus does not dismiss Peter on this account, which gives us hope that he will not dismiss us either. Instead he explains the implications of his messiahship for his disciples. “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.” As the world sees things this makes no sense at all. For who would want to accept the sort of suffering that Jesus underwent. But he answers this objection, characteristically, with what is a paradox from the world’s standpoint but not from God’s: “For he who saves his life while lose it, but he who loses his life for my sake will find it.” And this, he adds, is hard to gainsay even from the world’s standpoint, “For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world but loses his own soul?” As for how the one who loses his life for Jesus’ sake is to be rewarded, when the Son of Man comes in his glory, “he will repay every one for what he has done”.(verse 26) This repayment will not be all negative. On the contrary it will be positive as well, especially, we may believe, for those who have taken up their cross to follow him; they will have their reward. As for the timing of the Son of man’s return, Jesus continues that “some standing here will not taste death before they see [it].” This has been subject to varying interpretations, among them that early Church expected an imminent return, which expectation was destined to be disappointed. However that may be, the Second Coming remains a central part of the biblical-theological framework that we stand under, with implications not just for the future but also for the present.

On this basis we may be confident that in enduring while trusting in Christ the difficulties that arise in our lives, in persevering in the face of seeming futility in enterprises that we have undertaken in his name, we will not fail to be rewarded. And our reward will come to us in a meaningful time.

Faithfully, Fr. Ted