That Time

That Time from Joseph Taber on Vimeo.


Romans 12:9-21
9Let love be genuine; hate what is evil, hold fast to what is good; 10love one another with mutual affection; but outdo one another in showing honor. 11Do not lag in Zeal, be ardent in spirit, serve the Lord. 12Rejoice in hope be patient in suffering, persevere in prayer. 13Contribute to the needs of the saints; extend hospitality to strangers.

14Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them. 15Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. 16Live in harmony with one another; do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly; do not claim to be wiser than you are. 17Do not repay anyone evil for evil, but take thought for what is noble in the sight of all. 18If it is possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceable with all. 19Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave room for the wrath of God; for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” 20No, “if your enemies are hungry, feed them; if they are thirsty, give them something to drink; for by doing this you will heap burning coals on their heads.” 21Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

This is the Word of the LORD
Thanks be to God

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 the chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised. 22And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him, saying, “God forbid it, Lord! This must never happen to you.! 23But 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.”

24Then Jesus told his disciples, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. 25For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it. 26For what does it profit them if they gain the whole world but forfeit their life? Or what will they give in return for their life?

27For the Son of Man is to come with his angels and the glory of his Father, and then he will repay everyone for what has been done. 28Truly I tell you, there are some standing here who will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.

This is the Word of the LORD
Thanks be to God.


It’s time to break camp in the district of Caesarea Philippi. After sharing a breakfast of broiled fish and some leftover bread, the disciples prepare for the next day’s journey. Last night, as things were winding down, Jesus had asked them “Who do you say that I am?”  Peter, that know-it-all windbag, jumped right in before anyone had a chance to think. He confessed that Jesus is the Messiah, the son of the living God. As if he had any idea what that meant. Whatever, Peter may have gotten the “A” for the day that time, but his speak-before-you think style will catch up with him someday.

Jesus knew that even though the disciples had figured out who he was, they still had no idea what would follow. They knew “Messiah,” God’s anointed one. They knew “Son of the Living God,” heir to the kingdom of God. They expected empire-toppling divine intervention, a new Moses to lead them out from under Rome. They expected a new David to rebuild the old kingdom. Jesus knew, however, that God is free to act outside our expectations. “Nothing in their background prepared Jesus’s disciples for the notion that Israel’s eschatological champion should suffer a shameful death.” Knowing the expectation-defying action God was taking, “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 the chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised.”

It’s not what they wanted to hear. Peter, his mouth already running before his brain could even gets its shoes on, takes Jesus aside and rebukes him, then catches the brunt of Jesus’s scolding. “You are setting your mind not on divine things, but on human things.”

Not that any of us are innocent of Peter’s error. We’ve all got expectations of God, and those expectations are often shaped more by the human things on our mind rather than the divine things that God is already doing all around us.

From that time when we recognize who Jesus is, we face an ongoing challenge: demand that Jesus conform to our expectations, or become followers of who Jesus really is, which means denying yourself taking up a cross.

Peter, at least initially, is overcome by the human things shaping his expectations. He even takes Jesus aside so as to not embarrass him in front of the rest of the disciples. Surely this Messiah, this Son of the Living God just needs a gentle reminder of what God must really be doing. I’m sure if Jesus had finished his coffee before he started teaching he’d have made more sense. Year from now, we’ll all be laughing about that time Jesus said he’d have to be “undergo great suffering at the hands of the elders and the chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised.” Oh Jesus, remember that time?

Yeah, that time that Jesus called Peter Satan, and then launched into telling all his disciples that God’s plan doesn’t involve winning so much that they get tired of it. Instead it looks a lot like catastrophic defeat. The way we follow Jesus is by denying ourselves and taking up our cross. Two thousand years of turning the cross into a wall hanging or jewelry may have diluted that image a little bit. For the disciples who first hear this message, Jesus had not yet conquered the grave. The cross was an oppressive symbol, a slow and painful execution reserved for those who resisted the empire. Perhaps the best analogue from American history would be a lynching tree, except instead of a mob, it was the discretion of the governor.

Human things see a crushing loss, and the death of their movement, in a crucified God. God is free to act outside our expectations. Remember that time you crucified God, and it didn’t take? The symbol of oppression was redeemed into a symbol of hope. Not even death can stop God’s redeeming love, and when the followers of Jesus can keep their minds divine things, we know that hope is never lost, and we can find ways to show faithful love even to those who would nail us to the cross.

But that human tendency is still there, and the cross can get awful heavy. It’s so much easier to just let Jesus carry it for us, and to accept God’s grace at a discount Without the cost of discipleship, grace can end up very cheap. Watching out for ourselves is more than a tendency, or even a habit. The self-centeredness that tries to reshape Jesus to our own expectations is an addiction. It leads us to a world, well, very much like what we see so often around us: People who lose everything in a natural disaster are blamed for not having the foreknowledge to evacuate. Tragedy become the fault of the victim, and the solution always seems to prove us right.

We’re not always right. Those human things on our mind color our expectations, but God is free to act outside our expectations. “Let us learn not to be too much attached to our own views, but submissively to embrace whatever the Lord approves.” We can watch for what God is doing in the world, and participate in the kingdom that is already breaking into the world

To the extent that we are followers of Jesus, to the extent that we can bear the cross, we can share proclaim the love of Christ in the midst of those tragedies. We can share the hope we have in Jesus with a world tilts towards despair. Only God can transform the world, but we can proclaim the hope we have in the resurrection, and change how we respond to the pain and suffering that surrounds us.

We don’t have to bear the cross alone, we know that Jesus goes before us, and we know that our brothers and sisters in Christ are following where our savior trod right alongside us. While the human tendency might be to drop the difficult parts of living in faith and adopt the kind of practice that turns us into a safe, comfortable, social club, Presbyterians uphold that “the Church is to be a community of faith, entrusting itself to God alone, even at the risk of losing its own life.” Our doubts and struggles don’t define us, they shape the faith God has givens so that we can show the world that divine things can reshape our expectations and teach us to live in hope, and to respond in love even when that puts us at risk.

We could continue to follow the human things, and have our expectations met some of the time. God is free to act outside our expectations.

“Bearing a cross means more than reaching down to help struggling people. It means following in the way of Jesus, and that involves standing with those who are weak, opening doors to those who are unacceptable, loving those who are unlovely.”

We know that God already has our end firmly in hand. We don’t need to be afraid, “For the Son of Man is to come with his angels and the glory of his Father, and then he will repay everyone for what has been done.” We know that just beyond the cross is a tomb that is already empty. God has shown us the divine things that ought to be on our minds. Therefore, we can take up our own cross, knowing that the shame the world sees is in fact the glory of God, rewriting creation in righteousness.