12th Sunday After Pentecost, August 31, 2014
The Gospel: Matthew 16:21-28

From that time on, 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. 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.”

Then Jesus told his disciples, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it. 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? “For the Son of Man is to come with his angels in the glory of his Father, and then he will repay everyone for what has been done. Truly I tell you, there are some standing here who will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.”

Reflections: Last Sunday Peter confessed Jesus as the Christ, and in response Jesus founded his church on the “rock” of Peter. Here, mere sentences later, Jesus calls him “Satan.” What gives? In these two gospel readings, we see the drama of discernment that is daily at play in our lives: God’s vision, or our own?

       As I see it, the problem is that we have a limited point of view, a limited understanding of the meaning of our lives, of tragedy and success, pain and joy. The challenge is not to resist a situation because it causes pain—or resign ourselves to a situation because “it is the will of God"—but to discern what is the will of God in every circumstance.

       So, how do we do this discernment thing? I suspect it is a practice that we grow into bit by bit. But one thing is apparent: our initial impressions of a situation do not give us the whole story. Perhaps truth is revealed to us as we teach our hearts to listen patiently in the midst of it all.