Matthew 16:21-28
A
disaster happens. Something unforeseen occurs. Even though every conceivable
precaution has been taken, every known safeguard has been put in place, and
every potential error and pitfall has been thought about, something goes wrong.
Disaster strikes. Lives are lost. In the fallout, in the aftermath, when people
are trying to understand why the tragedy happened, why the crisis occurred,
someone says, “It was a failure of imagination.”
These
words were spoken in the HBO miniseries, “From the Earth to the Moon,” about
NASA and putting a man on the moon. I believe it was after the fire in the
capsule that took the lives of astronauts Gus Grissom, Ed White and Roger
Chaffee. With everything the NASA engineers, scientists and controllers
considered, they had not considered what would cause that fire. It was a
failure of imagination.
That
same phrase has also been used to describe September 11, 2001 . It is hard to believe that 16 years
have passed since that terrible day in 2001. But I remember in the aftermath
and the fallout of the days that followed, when the whole country was in shock
and grief, that there were people who said it was a failure of imagination that
brought us to that point. We just could not imagine that something of that
scope, that devastating magnitude would take place. It was a failure of
imagination.
I’m
not sure if Peter failed at imagination, but he certainly showed a lack of it.
Last week we read the verses immediately preceding these. Peter answers Jesus’
question about who Jesus is with,
“You are the
Messiah, the Son of the living God.”
And for that
correct answer Jesus rewarded Peter with these words,
“Blessed are you,
Simon son of Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my
Father in heaven. And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build
my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it.”
In the verses we
read this morning, from that moment on Jesus began to tell the disciples what
it meant for him to be the Messiah, the Son of the living God. It meant
suffering at the hands of the elders, the chief priests and the scribes. It
meant being killed, and being dead for three days. But on the third day, it
meant being raised.
Peter heard this
and was appalled. He pulled Jesus off to the side and rebuked Jesus, saying,
“God forbid it,
Lord! This must never happen to you!”
But Jesus turned
away from him. He didn’t thank Peter for caring. He didn’t reassure Peter that
it would all be okay. He rebuked 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.”
Get behind me,
Satan? Satan? Peter has gone from being the rock, the foundation of the
community of the faithful Jesus would build to a stumbling block. The Greek
translated as “stumbling block” can also be translated as “scandal”. Peter’s
words to Jesus were scandalous. Our ears hear the word “scandal,” as something
lurid, but a scandal can also be something that causes others to fall away in
their faith. So Peter’s words were indeed a stumbling block. He was,
unwittingly, trying to pull Jesus away from Jesus’ divine purpose. From building
rock to stumbling block, Jesus’ words must have devastated Peter. I picked the
picture on the front of the bulletin because I thought it represented how Peter
must have felt hearing them. Jesus’ back is to Peter with his hand pointing at
him accusingly. Peter is on his knees, head bowed down in shame, hands up in a
pleading gesture. I feel sorry for Peter. I know he was wrong to say what he
said. But I don’t think he could imagine what Jesus was truly going to do. Even
though he got it right when he confessed Jesus’ true identity, I think Peter
had a failure of imagination when it came to understanding what that identity
meant.
It’s commonly
believed that Peter and the other disciples – and probably many people who felt
compelled to follow Jesus – thought that he was a Messiah of the warrior/
heroic/kick butt variety. As Dr. David Lose wrote, if Jesus were that kind of
Messiah, that warrior/savior, he would overthrow the violent Roman occupation
with violence only to eventually be violently overthrown by someone else. The
wheel of violence would just roll on and on. Jesus knew this. He knew that the
only way to truly disrupt the wheel of violence was to allow himself to be
crushed underneath it. He knew that he was not a Messiah in the worldly and
earthly understanding. He was a Messiah who would not overthrow, but transform.
He would not convert one form of violence into another; he would break through
that violence – even if it meant that sacrificing himself to the violence.
But Peter did not
understand that. Peter could not imagine that. Peter could not see or envision
anything beyond what he already knew – not yet anyway. It seems to me that when
he rebuked Jesus, it was not so much out of anger or out of arrogance, it was
out of fear. We are unable to hear tone or expression in the words we read, but
imagine if you will Peter’s words sounding something like this, like someone
who is in agony at what their beloved Rabbi is saying.
“God forbid it,
Lord! This must never happen to you!”
As in, “Please
Jesus, don’t say such things. Please don’t talk about your suffering and dying.
I cannot bear to hear it. I cannot bear to think about it. I cannot bear to
imagine it. It hurts too much.”
A failure of
imagination; Peter could not bear to imagine the painful truths Jesus spoke.
But beyond that, Peter and the other disciples could not imagine the reality
that those truths would bring. That was the struggle for them every moment,
every day they spent with Jesus. They could not imagine the reality of the
kingdom Jesus spoke of. They could not imagine the reality of the world that
could be when humans lived completely for God and for one another. They could
not imagine true and perfect love, true and perfect peace. They could not
imagine it until the power of the Holy Spirit came upon them – then their
imaginations were given free rein.
True, even after
the Holy Spirit came upon them, the disciples/apostles were limited in their
imaginations. So are we, but with the power of the Spirit they had a bigger
view of what the world could be, should be.
I think that we,
the church, have been given that gift, that empowering of the Holy Spirit. I
think we have been given the ability to imagine more than what we can see. We can
imagine a world where we live completely for God and for one another. It’s
funny; it is often in a crisis, in the aftermath of a failure of imagination,
when we have those times, when those kingdom
of God Houston
right now, when you see images of ordinary folks rescuing other ordinary folks
– not because they have to but because it is what you do for another human
being. You see it in the video of people making a human chain to rescue an
elderly man from his car that was swamped in water. How wonderful would our
world be if we were intentional not only about imagining the kingdom
of God
Let all of God’s
children say, “Alleluia!” Amen.
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