Lectionary Link
11 Pentecost, Cycle A Proper 17, August 28, 2011
Exodus 3:1-15 Psalm
105:1-6, 23-26, 45c
Romans 12:9-21
Matthew 16:21-28
In today’s appointed Gospel, we find some
rather harsh words from Jesus for the man who was to become the premier leader
in the Christian Movement after Jesus left this earth. Jesus said to Peter, “Get behind me
Satan.” Satan is the personification of
the lie. Lying is not just saying things
that are not true, it is also choosing to remain in comfortable opinions of
things that are only partially true.
This Gospel highlights an issue amongst the
early followers of Jesus and the Judaic community that excommunicated them from
the synagogue around the year 80 of the Common Era. This was an issue: How is Jesus of Nazareth the Messiah? And what is the significant definition of the
Messiah? When Jesus told his disciples
that he was going to suffer and die, it was hard for Peter to accept this. How could this be the Messiah? How could this be God’s anointed one who
would be like King David and come to re-establish independence and order for
the people of Israel? Peter was saying
to Jesus: “Jesus you are wrong about yourself.
You don’t know how to understand yourself. The Messiah can’t suffer and die and so you
cannot suffer and die.” It does seem
rather comical if not absurd that Peter is trying to correct the Messiah about His misunderstanding of the Messiah.
The early expositors of the Messiah had a
dilemma. Those who witnessed the
suffering and death of Jesus had to look for other Hebrew writings to find
other models of the Messiah. They found
such a model in the Prophet Isaiah who wrote about a Suffering Servant
Messiah. But what about a King David
triumphant kind of Messiah? The early
expositors wrote that the Suffering Messiah would leave but someday soon return
as the triumphant Messiah, and so the two notions of the Messiah were
reconciled in a first coming and a seconding coming. Many members of the early church and St. Paul believed
that they would see this second coming in their own time. And lots of Christians are all oriented
towards this second coming today, even to the point of being apocalyptic
fatalists and dismissing the need for taking care of our planet. After all if Jesus is coming tomorrow, why do
we have to conserve and preserve? We
still do have varied opinions about the Messiah today. Just recently, a preacher was predicting the rapture on May 21st, now delayed until October 21st. Another TV preacher--who is a self proclaimed spokesperson for the divine
meaning of natural disasters-- said the
Earthquake that put a crack in the Washington Monument was a sign from God of
the approaching coming of the Messiah.
Get behind me Satan! Let us not get trapped into a lie about very
narrow and limited views of the Messiah.
The record of the Scriptures presents a variety of messianic meanings. The notion of messiah comes from the Hebrew
word that is associated with the ritual anointing with oil. It meant that people understood the person or
the object to represent God’s selected mode of presence or action in this
world. It was used to refer to early
Levitical priests in Israel. The sons of
Aaron were God’s chosen and anointed priests.
The notion of anointing and designation referred also to the Temple and
the holy objects as well as the unleavened bread. (In the same sense the Eucharistic bread and
wine are also messianic objects in how we regard them to bear the presence of
Christ). Messiahs were not necessarily
always good; King Saul was the first “anointed” king of Israel but he and his
lineage lost the “messiahship” to the Davidic line. The investiture of Israel’s Kings involved
the pouring of a horn of oil over the head of the new King thus designating
God’s anointing and selection. The
Davidic line declined and lost the “messiahship.” In fact, the Kings of Israel and Judah became
so bad that the prophet Isaiah even called the conquering King Cyrus the Great
of Persia, a messiah. This conquering
king was designated as one who was doing God’s will and work in carrying the
people of Israel off into exile. So can
we admit that the notion of the messiah in the Bible is quite diverse in its
application?
Yes, indeed the hope of people in Israel was
for restoration and for someone and some way to make it actual in their
lives. Hope is always looking for a
narrative and heroes to bring justice in our world. Justice is always looking for laws and law
givers to make justice actual. Hope
springs eternal and so Hope will always inspire notions of the messiah, notions
of how God will be present to us in significant ways.
We still look for the messiah today in many,
many ways. The problem for Christian
messianism is that some still are just like Peter; they want to cling to a very
limited notion of the messiah. Popular
messianism today of fundamentalist Christian communities today has more to do
with assuming precise correspondence of catastrophic events with their own interpretations of the Bible. Most of these communities and their leaders
essentially hope for a messiah who will come in the way they want and they
mostly think that God will prove that they were right and to prove it their
followers will be whisked away in a rescuing rapture. I assert their right to have such narratives
of hope and such visualizations to bear up with the pain that they think that
they are in; but it is a very limited notion of the messiah and like Peter’s
notion of the messiah, it is a selfish notion of the messiah that centers on
their own exclusive beliefs and communities.
We do not have to give up hope for our
future; we do not have to give up dreams and visualizations of Peace and
Justice achieving actual success upon earth.
We can maintain hope and the narratives of hope without falling into
very limited notions of the Messiah.
I would invite us to find the messiah as
personal events for us today. Where has
God anointed our lives and our world with the divine presence? How and where does God get through to
us? How and where does God move us and
inspire us in the work to surpass ourselves for better and more excellent
outcomes for our lives and the betterment of our families and communities? The messiah and the messianic come to us in
many ways, and even in suffering and apparent failure or in the experience of
lack. It is not that the actual events
of suffering, failure or lack are messianic but it is our faith and hope in the
future that helps us to redeem such negative experiences in subsequent events
of our lives. Resurrection gives death a
new meaning; suffering, failure, and lack can be made to be messianic events
with subsequent redemptive events. Peter
could not see anything messianic about the suffering and death of Jesus. And we can forgive him for that; the notion
of a suffering messiah is very counter-logic.
The risen Christ invites us to think outside of the box of logic so that
we do not limit the notions of the messiah.
We like Peter, should always hear the rebuke
of Jesus: “Get behind me Satan!” when we
try to limit the work and the presence of the Messiah. Let us believe that the Messiah touches our
lives in many ways and let us be attentive to present ourselves so that we can
be the hands, the hearts and feet of the Messiah to bring hope and good news
to our world. Amen.
