He then began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and after three days rise again. He spoke plainly about this, and Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. But when Jesus turned and looked at his disciples, he rebuked Peter. “Get behind me, Satan!” he said. “You do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns.” Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me and for the gospel will save it. What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul? If anyone is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of them when he comes in his Father’s glory with the holy angels.”
(Mark 8:31-38)
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
In 1997, the British TV station Channel 4 broadcast a television show called “Didn’t You Used To Be Satan?” It was actually a documentary of sorts; a biopic about the life (to that point) of American actress Linda Blair. Some of you may not know who Linda Blair is, because she doesn’t do much acting any more, and really, in terms of anything significant, her entire acting career came down to one character, in a role she took on at the age of 6 and who she portrayed in two movies. Linda Blair played Regan - the possessed little girl in “The Exorcist” and “Exorcist II.” Now, there are some things that are just so painfully obvious that you don’t have any need to think twice about them. If you ever watch the movie “The Exorcist,” for example, then you know that Regan is Satan in a little girl’s body the moment you see her crawling down the stairs backward in that creepy, spider walk. It’s just obvious. Well, OK. Regan wasn’t possessed by Satan. It was actually a demon who called himself “Mister Howdy” and whose real name was Pazuzu - but I’m pretty sure that he was an acquaintance of Satan! Now, in the movie, Regan was the last person you’d ever expect to be possessed by any type of evil. Regan was a sweet child, she was shy, she was devoted to her mother, she would make her mother clay animals as gifts and she left a rose on the kitchen table for her mom every morning. Sweet kid, indeed! If anyone had told her mom or anyone else who knew her that this child was going to turn out to be evil incarnate, they would have been incredulous. It’s not possible, is what the response would have been. Truth be told, that’s kind of the reaction we have when we hear today’s Gospel passage. As Jesus intones the words “Get behind me, Satan” in Peter’s direction, we’re shocked. This is Peter. The first of the apostles called by Jesus, the first to proclaim Jesus to be the Messiah, the rock on which the church will be built. He’s the leader of the apostles. “Get behind me, Satan.” Really - what’s so satanic about Peter? What had he done to provoke such a response?
There’s no doubt, I suppose, that Peter’s words to Jesus were harsh. The passage tells us after all that “Peter … began to rebuke him.” But, really, I can understand Peter’s reaction to what Jesus had just said. Jesus said that he would suffer and be rejected and be killed and rise again. “Rise again” is hopeful, but, frankly, Peter may well have tuned out by then. Perhaps all he heard was that Jesus was going to suffer and be rejected and killed. That’s important, because you really have to understand what it was that Peter was objecting to. According to Matthew’s version of the event, Peter’s words of rebuke to Jesus were, “Never, Lord! This shall never happen to you!” I can understand that reaction. Let’s face it - we don’t like suffering. Many people go to great lengths to avoid suffering. We don’t want to suffer ourselves and if we could, we’d like to spare others from suffering. As I’ve said to many people, I don’t think that most people are afraid of death - what they’re afraid of is the process of dying; the possibility that it might be unpleasant and that it might involve suffering. So, given that, and given that Jesus had just told Peter and the others that he was going to suffer, it seems to me that Peter’s reaction was completely understandable - in some respects, maybe even commendable.
So, given Peter’s intention - which was to spare Jesus from suffering - isn’t Jesus’ reaction a bit harsh? “Jesus rebuked Peter … ‘Get behind me, Satan.” Comparing Peter to Satan - just because Peter wanted to spare Jesus from suffering? That does seem harsh. We’re not talking about little Regan here, who’s head was literally spinning and who was crawling around like a spider. We’re talking about Peter, who wanted to spare Jesus from suffering. How in the world is that satanic? And maybe here’s the key to really understanding the passage: we have to come to grips with the concept of “Satan.” Is it a name? Is it a being? Is it a thing? Is it an image? Is it a word? Those are valid questions.
To me, “satan” is primarily a word that’s used to refer to any of those things that tempt us to turn away from the path God has laid out for us. Is Satan an actual being of some sort? Well, I’m not going to say that he isn’t, but I am going to say that in some ways the concept of Satan becomes even more frightening when we stop thinking of Satan as a being and start thinking about Satan as those things that tempt us to turn away from God and God’s plan. Generally speaking when Satan appears in the story of the Bible it’s in the form of a temptation or a testing: whether it’s Job’s faith being tested by hardships or Jesus being tempted in the wilderness. And if we think of “satan” in that way - not as a being who is evil itself, but as the power of temptation, then we start to understand the passage.
Jesus knew what his path was; Jesus knew what his calling was; Jesus knew what God had laid before him. The text says that “he spoke plainly about this.” “... the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and ... he must be killed and after three days rise again.” The word was “must.” This has to happen, Jesus was saying. And Peter tried to say “no.” Peter tried to stop him from doing what God had sent him to do. Any attempt to turn him away from that path or to save him from walking that path - no matter how well meaning - was “satanic” - it was an attempt to tempt him away from God’s path. A paraphrase of what Jesus meant when he said “Get behind me, Satan” might be, “Follow me and my way, Peter - don’t oppose me by trying to tempt me off the path.”
So - what’s so satanic about Peter? It’s the fact that in this case, he was trying to turn Jesus away from the path Jesus had been called by God to follow. And that’s where things get tough. Because the path being followed by Jesus is the way that Jesus’ followers are called to follow as well. Maybe not to suffering and death, but certainly to sacrifice. “If anyone wants to be My follower, he must give up himself and his own desires. He must take up his cross and follow Me.” It's not "you might be asked to make a sacrifice now and then," it's "you must give up yourself." Maybe it's important to think about that idea on the first day of a Confirmation class. Here, in brief, is what our faith is about. This isn’t only the path that God has laid out for Jesus. This is the path that God has laid out for the followers of Jesus as well. To give up ourselves - to submerge our desires for ourselves and to commit ourselves to the service of others regardless of the sacrifice that may call for. And that’s tough.
Peter wasn’t Regan from “The Exorcist.” He wasn’t possessed by any evil spirit and he hadn’t become the being called Satan. But he was trying to convince Jesus to veer off the path - meaning he was willing and even anxious to leave that path himself. When Jesus said that he was “the Way” - he meant it. He was the way to follow; his was the way to follow. And there are temptations all around us that try to get us to veer off that path and follow a different way - which is usually the way of self indulgence for our own sake rather than self sacrifice for the sake of others. That’s what was so satanic about Peter at that moment - he found himself focussed on himself and his own wants and his own needs and his own desires and his own priorities, and he put those things ahead of serving God by following Jesus. May we not make that same mistake.
No comments:
Post a Comment