A Tale of Two Rebukes: A Reflection on Matthew 16.21-28

Last Sunday’s Gospel reading featured the wonderful interaction in which Jesus and his disciples talk about his identity. Peter, of course, identifies him as the long-awaited Messiah, the anointed leader who would restore Israel, and the passage ends with Jesus blessing Peter for his insight. But, as is so often the case, both with Peter and with many of us, enthusiasm gets the best of him and Peter’s great moment of triumph is followed directly by a fall. And that is the story of today’s Gospel reading.

The reading goes like this:

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.” (Matthew 16.21-23)

As we saw last week, Jesus both fulfilled and reinterpreted Jewish messianic expectation. So it’s not at all surprising that right after his taking on the title that he immediately begins to shift his disciples’ ideas about what that means. If they expect a military hero who would drive out the Romans, or a religious leader who would demand religious purity, they were going to be sorely disappointed. Rather, his messiahship was going to entail “great suffering” at the hands of the religious leadership and death at the hands of the Roman enemy. He was re-forming messianic hope in the shape of Isaiah’s Suffering Servant. But Peter isn’t having it, saying “God forbid it, Lord! This must never happen to you!” And then Jesus utters what are possibly his harshest words, calling him “Satan” and a “stumbling block.”

Harsh as they may be, these two expressions tell us a lot about what Jesus understood to be dangerous and damaging attitudes in the life of faith — particularly towards others. “Satan,” diabolos in Greek (from which we get our word ‘devil’) is not a proper noun in most of the New Testament, but a title that could apply to anyone who misleads, confuses, or lays false accusations against others. And “stumbling block,” skandalon in Greek (from which we get our word ‘scandal’), is about tripping people up, making it harder for them to get where they’re going and do what they need to do. Both words are apt here, for the people’s misunderstandings of what it would mean for Jesus to be the Messiah were a temptation to him — we see this in the scene with Jesus and the devil in the wilderness — and could easily lead him astray. And this in turn would be a stumbling block, making it harder for Jesus to do the real work set out before him.

That work is, of course, the work of the cross, as he immediately explains to his followers:

“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.” (16.24-28)

This is not just a message for Peter and his disciples. For these remain two of the most substantial ways we can negatively impact others in their own journeys. Any time we act to mislead, distract, or confuse people away from the path before them, we are devils to them. And any time we act to trip others up, to make their paths more difficult to take, we are being scandals or stumbling blocks. Often these come from the best intentions, but good intentions are after all what the road to hell is paved with.  Just as Peter should not have presumed to know Jesus’ path, so too should we not presume to know what path others are called to walk. (We can expect it will involve taking up their cross, but we cannot know what their cross to bear is.)

So, today’s Gospel is a great reminder to us of humility, not just in carrying our own cross, but in allowing others to carry theirs without getting in their way or leading them astray.

May we all take that reminder to heart. Amen.