Get behind me, Satan!

A sermon for the fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost, September 3, 2023

Trinity Episcopal Church of Morrisania, Bronx, New York

Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and undergo great suffering at the hands of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed and on the third day be raised.

At Caesarea Philippi, Jesus asked his disciples to reflect on who he was and what his significance was. They talked for a while about what other people thought Jesus was, who he resembled and so forth, and then Jesus asked them, “But who do you say that I am?” Peter was the one who responded: “You are the Messiah, the son of the living God!” Peter was perceptive and correct. He knew that Jesus, the man who he knew by his teachings and his actions was bringing the healing compassion of God into the world. And this insight was so important that it was the foundation of the church, the assembly of the forgiven. So, Jesus gave Peter his name: Rock—Petros is simply the Greek word meaning rock.

Why is this important to know for our Gospel reading today? Because there’s a dramatic moment in today’s reading when Jesus tells Peter that he must go to Jerusalem to suffer and die, And Peter responds: “God forbid it, Lord!” And then Jesus says: “Get behind me, Satan!”

Jesus just called Peter his rock and now he’s calling him Satan? What, indeed, is going on here?

Today’s reading has to do with the real love and compassion of God. It’s not what we like to think of as truth and compassion – something that doesn’t disturb our comfortable lives, our routines, our safety. That’s what Jesus was going to encounter in Jerusalem – people who were living untruthful and self-serving lives, believing they were entitled to their comfort.  And Jesus knew what the result would be of speaking to them of God’s truth and compassion. Someone once said to me in another context, “if you poke a narcissistic system, all you will get back is rage.” Jesus was realistic, far more realistic than so-called realists who counsel avoiding the truth if it creates difficulties.

Like the rest of us, Peter had grown up surrounded by that kind of realism and so we see him reacting just the way one would expect. He had been Jesus’ friend for a long time and Jesus had just told Peter that he was the foundation of his church that was to come. So, Peter reacted like any friend steeped in the realism of the world would have, he took Jesus to task and said, “God forbid it, Lord!”

            “Get behind me Satan!”

Peter was responding from the position of the demons of this world—those forces that push for untruth and avoidance of responsibility; those forces that easily accept the suffering of others to avoid the discomfort of encountering the truth. It’s easy to think of such things as “smart” or “grown-up” when what they are is cowardly and what they do is build up evil consequences. Given enough time those evil consequences will no longer be associated with the people who created them, they will seem to come out of nowhere.  In other words, demons are created. Those people who caused Jesus’ suffering weren’t especially evil; they were ordinary, worldly leaders, urbanely sophisticated, with good connections. They were regarded as having prudent judgement. And they arranged to have our healer and Lord killed.

Jesus didn’t so much take this personally; he wasn’t worried about himself. Jesus was concerned about bringing the love of God, the mercy of God, the compassion of God to all people, including those he had to face in Jerusalem. After setting Peter straight about what is wisdom and what is demonic, Jesus began to teach all his disciples. I think we can read that to include us: “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.” The love that Jesus lived is not limited or unique to him. The depth of truth and compassion that took him to Jerusalem also guides his followers, and the consequence of following Jesus may well be painful, it may indeed involve loss. Certainly, in Christian history, it has even involved the literal loss of life. To be sure, when I talk about deep truthfulness, I am not talking about delivering facts in a way calculated to hurt our competitors or enemies, or even “inadvertently” saying things out of resentment or anger that might be true, but are not compassionate. Living in the compassion of Christ involves the courage to be truthful, even to ourselves about our own lack of compassion. (Sometimes that’s known as confession.)

“For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.” Abundance of life involves the boldness to live for others and being serious enough to continue that when it is not easy—putting the priority on one’s own life is the surest way to end up wandering in dissatisfaction and misery—we see it daily: the voracious need for affirmation and adulation among the most selfish and entitled who already have the most. Surely, they are losing their lives.

It is a challenge living, as we do, in a context of great wealth, where we and our children hear over and over again from people around us, that the basis of value is in having things and money. Those things are not life, that money is not value. Value is in human caring, caring that extends beyond ourselves, that rejoices in abundant happiness of others. Jesus says it right here: “For what will it profit them if they gain the whole world but forfeit their life? Or what will they give in return for their life?” Take up your cross, and follow him. Do not be afraid. You will be surprised at the abundance of joy, when you give away your fear, and your anxiety about what you might keep.

Let us pray again in the words of our collect for today:

Lord of all power and might, the author and giver of all good things: Graft in our hearts the love of your Name; increase in us true religion; nourish us with all goodness; and bring forth in us the fruit of good works; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Collect for Proper 17, Book of Common Prayer

Your spiritual worship

A sermon for the thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost, August 27, 2023

Trinity Episcopal Church of Morrisania, Bronx, New York

I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.

Usually when people think about Christian teaching, they talk about Christ’s sacrifice for us, not about us presenting ourselves as a sacrifice. God came to us, and he sacrificed his life that we might have eternal life. That’s true enough, in outline. But what was really going on? How did that sacrifice happen?

Our Gospel lesson today is where Jesus asks Peter: “Who do you say that I am?” And Peter answers: “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” Jesus had been healing many people and he had fed another crowd of four thousand people with seven loaves and a few small fish. He continued to have disputes with the Pharisees and Sadducees who had asked him for a sign. Peter admired all that and spoke from those feelings of admiration. So, Jesus blesses Peter after he acknowledged that Jesus was the Messiah. Because that’s what the Gospel is based on: God’s acting through God’s Son Jesus. The church and its mission depends on that.

But Peter wasn’t ready for the implications of what he said that Jesus was quite aware of, and that we read in next week’s Gospel: “He would undergo great suffering and be killed and on the third day be raised.” Peter had not considered the sacrifice that was included in being the Messiah, the fact that the evil in this world would not tolerate the purity of Jesus’ healing compassion especially for the poor and the marginalized. That was the sacrifice that Jesus made on behalf of the world—he wasn’t naïve, he knew what would happen. Peter, being like most of us, didn’t understand that and, therefore, he reveled in his pronouncement.

Whenever I hear what political movements and opinion polls have to say, I see that people are a lot like Peter. They’re happy to mouth all the do-good slogans, and talk about principles. But if those things come at a cost, the real sacrifices that must be made to achieve justice, peace, honest dealings by the government and others in power, then they quickly lose their motivation.

Christ presented himself as a sacrifice for the whole world. Really. He knew what the cost of insisting on love and justice was. He faced what people usually don’t. And most Christians like to think that Jesus’ sacrifice gets us off the hook. That makes no sense. If we are one with Christ, we are signing up to take part in the costs of his love, not just the benefits. That is why St. Paul wrote to the Romans: “I appeal to you sisters and brothers, by the mercies of God to present your bodies as a living sacrifice.” Unlike his other letters, Paul wrote this to a congregation that he had never met. So this appeal is not to specific individuals in the context of a specific problem, he’s writing to the whole church—he’s writing to us. And what does he mean, when he says, “present your bodies?” It is quite clear. In the next sentence he says, “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds.” Just as Jesus refused the dishonesty and cruelty that are the hallmarks of the “ways of the world,” we are called to refuse that kind of worldliness, that self-serving dishonesty of life—even though that exposes us to risk, even to the “sacrifice of our bodies.”

There are many people who think they are smart and who think they have figured out how to make good use of power and influence. They somehow think that behaving otherwise is naïve. I won’t go to the trouble to compile a list—believe me there are specific examples that come to mind, even within the church—I am not just generalizing when I say this.  Conforming to the world is the kind of advice that people give and get all the time. And it leads us on the way to despair.

In his book, Souls of Black Folk, W.E.B. DuBois wrote about Alexander Crummell, a priest and missionary of the Episcopal Church. One episode in that account tells about the seminary where I was library director for a number of years:

Alexander Crummell

A voice and vision called him to be a priest, a seer to lead the uncalled out of the house of bondage. He saw the headless host turn toward him like the whirling of mad waters, he stretched forth his hands eagerly, and then, even as he stretched them, suddenly there swept  across the  vision the Temptation of Despair:

They were not wicked men, the problem of life is not the problem of the wicked, they were calm, good men, Bishops of the Apostolic Church of God, and strove toward righteousness. They said slowly, “It is all very natural—it is even commendable; but the General Theological Seminary of the Episcopal Church cannot admit a Negro.” And when that thin, half-grotesque figure still haunted their doors, they put their hands kindly, half sorrowfully, on his shoulders, and said, “Now, of course, we know how you feel about it; but you see it is impossible, that is—well—it is premature. Sometime, we trust sincerely trust all such distinctions will fade away; but now the world is as it is.”

W.E.B. DuBois, Souls of Black Folk, Chapter 12

The bishops involved have names. I could cite them. They were worldly and successful. But the reason I quote something from over 150 years ago, is that worldly leaders giving and taking this kind of worldly advice, are so common that there is no point in singling out individual cases from today. It is so tempting to take the shortcuts offered by the world, to allow others to have just a little suffering, especially, you know, if the group in power deems them as somehow lesser. And this is what brings St. Paul to his next sentence:

“I say to everyone among you not to think of yourself more highly than you ought to think… For as in one body we have many members, so we, who are many, are one body in Christ and individually we are members one of another. We have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us: prophecy, in proportion to faith; ministry, in serving, the teacher in teaching; the exhorter, in exhortation; the giver, in generosity; the leader, in diligence; the compassionate, in cheerfulness.”

Romans 12:3-8

When we present ourselves as a sacrifice, we give up the worldly pre-occupation with success or achieving distinction above others. It’s not necessary to be everything or to be the best. We are all called to be ourselves, giving what we really have to offer and respecting one another. It’s risky, and it doesn’t make sense to those who want to achieve power and domination. Jesus never made sense to them either, but he is the Messiah, the Son of the one and only living God.

Grant, O merciful God, that your Church, being gathered together in unity by your Holy Spirit, may show forth your power among all peoples, to the glory of your Name; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Collect for Proper 16, Book of Common Prayer