And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him, saying, “God forbid it, Lord! This must never happen to you.” But he turned and said to 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.” (Next Sunday's gospel passage is here.)
Peter may have thought, “What just happened? Look, Master, I left my family and business to follow you. I jumped out of a boat and walked on water for you. I see the truth about who you are. One minute I'm your Rock and the next I’m your stumbling block? How can you call me Satan? I don’t want anything bad to happen to you. Why are you being so harsh?”
How could Jesus be so harsh to such a devoted and beloved disciple and friend? For one thing, that’s how close a relationship he had with Peter – he didn’t have to be polite. And he really wanted his followers to find a new, more God-like way of thinking. “For my ways are not your ways, nor my thoughts your thoughts, says the Lord,” we hear from Isaiah, and from Jesus, “You do not have in mind the things of God but the things of men.”
Maybe Jesus this speaks fiercely because that’s how crucial it is that Peter get this right. If Peter is the “rock” on which Jesus hopes to build his community of Kingdom believers, then Peter of all people has to understand. He has to stop thinking in the world’s terms and start thinking in Kingdom terms. And in Kingdom terms, safety does not come first – faithfulness does.
I am wired toward safety and security. That can get in the way of faithfulness to God’s call, impede discerning God’s invitations. There’s nothing wrong with safety – God does not ask us to take risks for the heck of it. Sometimes, though, God wants to work through us in circumstances that are less than safe - after all, much of our world is less than safe.
When we know it’s God’s call, we might step into some risk; that is a matter of discernment and testing the call with others. Many people who feel called to mission or relief work are drawn inevitably to places of conflict and violence and trauama. But they feel God calling them to go, to be a witness to love; they surround themselves with prayer; and they go. Usually they came back in one piece.
But not always. The mission to which Jesus was called was not compatible with staying out of harm. We can see from the nightly news, with religious persecution on the rise around the world, that such tests still come. Today in prayer we might ask the Spirit if she is inviting us to participate in her transforming work in some way that involves risk. Risk doesn’t have to mean bodily harm – it might mean risking relationships or financial security, or working with difficult people or in areas that aren’t so safe. Where are you being nudged to open yourself to God’s Spirit in ministry? How does that feel? Talk to Jesus about it.
In the end, our criterion need not be, “Will I be safe,” but “Is this God’s work that I’m being invited to participate in?” If it is, and we are, then we walk in faith, trusting in the God we cannot see, trusting in the future on which we have staked our lives. God’s thoughts… how can we go wrong with those?
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