DO YOU PASS THE TEST?

EXAM BLUES...

Those of you who have (as Rabbit had!) friends or relations who’ve taken exams this year will know what an anxious time it can be as the results come through... Hundreds of teenagers sitting anxiously by the front door for a letter which would change the course of their lives... and no doubt there was much celebration, but also some wailing and gnashing of teeth... I remember it very clearly, and how the course of my life changed as a result of a bit of paper which now, looking back, seems very unimportant, but then... well, that was a different matter.

SET QUESTION

In the Gospel today we see Jesus setting the disciples an exam question:

"Who do people say I am?"

And the disciples were keen to jump in with excellent exam-essay-answering style:

“some say J the B, others say Elijah, still others say one of the prophets”

.... thinking: that’s about covered it - bets hedged without actually having to commit myself.... But Jesus, keen to push them into a good essay answer asks the missing piece of the puzzle

“But what about you?”

Good essays contain all these elements I was always taught.

“Thomas Hardy is a depressing cynic and nothing ever turns out happily in his novels. Discuss.”

The answer would be: some people say this, other people say this, and on balance I think this...

Jesus the teacher was encouraging the disciples to think for themselves, Jesus the evangelist was pushing for the disciples to engage with his identity not as an academic exercise, but as a life-changing encounter. And as usual Peter - the man with the Golden Gob - the sort of man who usually opens his mouth to change feet, pops in with the model answer:

“You are the Christ!”

SIGNIFICANT GEOGRAPHY: CAESAREA PHILIPPI

In last week’s gospel we saw Jesus and the disciples withdrawing to Gentile country in Tyre, again here we see Jesus withdrawing with his disciples to Caesarea Philippi. The purpose of these retreats was to ensure that the disciples understood as much as possible before Jesus was taken from them. And Jesus chose a significant place to ask the question of his disciples. Caesarea Philippi was to religion what Andorra is to duty free shopping, or what Soho is to night clubs, or what David Beckham is to football...

It was not a big place but there were 14 temples to Baal there; it was supposed to be the birth place of Pan the god of nature; it was supposed to be the spring for the River Jordan; and of course it was the centre of the emperor cult - with a temple dedicated to the godhead of Caesar. Caesarea means ‘town of Caesar’, Philippi after Philip, Herod’s son who renovated the temple to Caesar.

So again geography is important for Mark: at the heart of the very place of the cult of Emperor worship - where good citizens were required to burn a pinch of incense and say “Caesar is Lord” - Jesus is declared as Lord - as the Christ.

Here, in a hypermarket of religion, stands a penniless carpenter from Galilee with a handful of largely uneducated companions, surrounded by the gods of Greek mythology, the ancient gods of Canaan (the Baals), and the shrine to the divine origins of the monarchy of the ruling power, and he asks his friends who they think he is - not just as an academic exercise in theology, but as a life changing encounter - one that might indeed be a matter of life or death...

It was a matter of life and death for Mark’s community, also being asked to perform this blasphemous ritual of Emperor worship.

You’ve heard me say this a hundred times before and I’ll go on saying it: the great claim of the Christian faith is not just that we can know about God, but that we can know God. It’s all very well being able to hold forth in learned terms about what the different faiths think about Jesus, or what famous philosophers or theologians down the ages have said, or the latest opinion of the commentators, but at the end of the day Jesus still asks us that same question: “Who do you say I am?”

PETER: AN UNLIKELY, BUT HEARTENING LEADER

Notice too, why Peter is made the rock on which the Church is founded...

• not because he knows all the answers,

• not because he has a great set of rules and regulations,

• not because he’s a brilliant leader,

• not because he always has the right answer to hand...

• he is hot headed, impulsive, speaks without thinking, loud mouthed, rash, argumentative and Jesus even calls him Satan a couple of verse later....

Peter is the rock because he can recognise the activity of God when he sees it. THAT is the qualification for faith... that is what God seeks of us.

WHOOPS....

And as if that isn’t comfort enough, Peter is shouted at a moment later because he doesn’t recognise the activity of God when he sees it...

“You’re going to be crucified Jesus?... You are joking aren’t you? You can’t be serious?... Killed??”

And Jesus berates him, calling him Satan because

“You are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things”

Peter allows his own ideas of how God should make things work to obscure God’s own ideas which Jesus is trying to explain...

Peter fails to see that Jesus must die, that there will be crucifixion and resurrection. Maybe he thought that the Christ, whom he hailed, should be enthroned in Jerusalem as king... Maybe he didn’t see the suffering servant, but the Messianic Davidic Military Hero... Peter finds it hard to grasp the paradox that is God’s way of doing things: that in weakness there is strength; that life comes out of death; that the leaders are servants; that loosing your life is the way to save it; that loving is far better than hating; that forgiving is more powerful than allowing a grudge to fester; that ultimately spiritual things are of much greater value than material things...

Just as Satan was trying to do in the wilderness temptations, Peter is tempting Jesus to forsake the way of God and do things the world’s way... to give people material things; to give people sensational wonders; and to compromise with the world, to reduce his standards, to meet the world half way, to dilute his message...

Jesus calls Peter “Satan” - which literally means “the Adversary”. People argue as to whether there really is a literal devil, or whether Satan is the personification of human evil, or a useful construction of human psychology or theology, and no doubt the debate will go on, but the point is that Peter’s ideas were not God’s ideas, therefore they came from the Adversary, Satan. Jesus said

“He who is not with me is against me, and he who does not gather with me, scatters”

(Lk 11.23)

Mother Theresa once said

“Every word we speak either illuminates the darkness or contributes towards it”

THE ADVERSARY

And we meet the Adversary, Satan:

• when we meet any force or idea or circumstance which attempts to deflect us from doing what God wants;

• when we come across a human desire which is trying to take the place of the divine imperative;

• when we observe efforts, policies, or attitudes which are trying to thwart the principles and values of the Kingdom of God, or delay it’s coming;

• when we see actions of oppression, exploitation, hatred, the devaluing of human life.

• when we can’t be bothered to say our prayers, or come to church, or love our neighbours, or when we won’t (as opposed to “can’t”) forgive somebody.

Let us put away any childish notions of a little red man with horns and a pointy tail trying to get you to eat a cream cake, and open our eyes to what’s happening around about us - not just on the national or international stage - although God knows there’s enough evidence of the Adversary running wild there - but let’s look too at our own lives, and if Jesus can call the first Pope, the rock on which the Church was built, “Satan”, then maybe - just maybe - our own lives are not quite as squeaky clean as we’d like to think...

GOD’S YARDSTICK

So what is the difference between God’s way of doing things and the world’s? So how can we know that we’re on the side of the angels? How can we be sure that we are taking up our cross, that we are walking the narrow way, that we are trying to live God’s way?

Well, there’s a hint in Romans 12. An American minister named Eugene Peterson has paraphrased the scriptures from the original Greek and Hebrew into modern parlance, and some of it is strikingly good because it takes a well known passage and makes you look at it in a different light. He’s called the NT The Message, and this is how his version of Romans 12 sounds - this is how we can be assured that we are doing things God’s way and not the world’s:

“Love from the centre of who you are; don’t fake it. Run for dear life from evil; hold on for dear life to good. Be good friends who love deeply; practice playing second-fiddle.

Don’t burn out; keep yourselves fuelled and aflame. Be alert servants of the Master, cheerfully expectant. Don’t quit in hard times; pray all the harder. Help needy Christians; be inventive in hospitality.

Bless your enemies; no cursing under your breath. Laugh with your happy friends when they’re happy; share tears when they’re down. Get along with each other; don’t be stuck-up. Make friends with nobodies; don’t be a great somebody.

Don’t hit back; discover beauty in everyone. If you’ve got it in you, get along with everybody. Don’t insist on getting even; that’s not for you to do. “I’ll do the judging,” says God. “I’ll take care of it.”

Our Scriptures tell us that "

"if you see your enemy hungry, go buy that person lunch, or if he’s thirsty, get him a drink. Your generosity will surprise him with goodness. Don’t let evil get the best of you; get the best of evil by doing good.”

Romans 12.9-21

EYES THAT SEE: EARS THAT HEAR

Our challenge is exactly the same as the first disciples: will be be able to recognise the activity of God in the world? Will we be blind to what God is doing and where God is working and fall into the trap of missing God’s workings, doing things in our own strength and way, of colluding with situations, policies or attitudes which come from the Adversary? Or will we have the courage recognise the activity of God around us and name it as Peter did? “You are the Christ!” What about you? - who do you say that I am?

Fr. Andrew Perry
Rector, St John the Evangelist, Pevensey Rd, St Leonards on Sea