Tiffs between friends don’t usually escalate so quickly. This exchange between Jesus and Peter went from 0 to 90 in two seconds flat. Jesus told his followers that he would undergo great suffering, rejection by the temple leadership – and then be killed: And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. But turning and looking at his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, “Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”
Peter may have been out of line, but his heart was in the right place. Did Jesus really need to toss around the S word like that?
Maybe Jesus was just calling it as he saw it. Maybe he recognized too acutely the temptation in what Peter said, the temptation to look at his mission in human terms, in which self-preservation and security have the highest value. “Yeah. Who says I have to do it that way? Maybe I can do my father’s will by making more friends and fewer enemies…”
But he recognized it for the temptation it was, and knew full well where temptation comes from: the Evil One. So he called Peter, his closest human companion, “Satan.” And then he explained why he said that: “For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.’”
It’s not so easy, this following Christ business. Jesus taught again and again that there is conflict between the values of this world, and the values of God’s realm. When we let what we see, feel, hear, taste, and smell define what is real, we miss a huge dimension of reality, one that cannot be perceived with those senses but with the spirit. Our spiritual work is honing these other senses, becoming more attuned to where God is around us, and where we are being called to participate in restoring, reclaiming and renewing the whole universe.
That means we are invited to learn to think like God instead of in our natural human way. Can we do that? What does it mean? Obviously, the mind of God is much too vast for us to comprehend – and perhaps too simple. So we have to use our imaginations and the revelation we have received – imperfectly, in Scripture, and perfectly in Jesus, whom we have to use our imaginations to understand. Easy, right?
It’s not as simple as “What would Jesus do?” or “What would Jesus think,” but that’s a start. We come at it by asking God to show us God’s view of a situation or a person or a part of ourselves. If we start doing that in prayer, “God, show me what you see when you look at this,” we’ll be surprised at the responses we detect. We will probably find that God’s way of thinking is much more compassionate than ours, and at the same time less lenient than we might tend to be. We may discover that God is much less interested than we are in making sure people “feel good,” and more invested in loving them, which means desiring their spiritual growth.
I can’t tell anyone how to do it – all I can do is join you in asking the question that way and letting the Spirit gradually change my perspective. And I can invite Jesus to be more and more present in my life, in my thinking, in my interactions. As I allow his life to transform my life, I will find myself thinking more like God. You too!
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