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"Making Room for the Menace"

"Making Room for the Menace"

by Dr. Darren McClellan on July 08, 2020

Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. “Never, Lord!” he said. “This shall never happen to you!”                                 

--Matthew 16:22

 

If you do an internet search of “the gospel according to…” you may be surprised to discover the number of variations that will appear on your screen.  The usual suspects of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John will arise, but based upon the most popular associations of our culture, there is no guarantee that they will be the top four on the list. 

If you do the same search through your favorite online bookseller, you may also find The Gospel According to Star Wars, The Gospel According to Oprah, The Gospel According to Bruce Springsteen, and The Gospel According to Tony Soprano.  One of these I have actually read (don’t ask), but I will spare you the book review.  My point is that while the works themselves may vary in quality, it is the fact that we have such options that is most important to us.  Undoubtedly, one of the great perks of the American marketplace is that you can easily find a gospel to fit your individual taste and the personal cost is minimal (thanks to free shipping).   

Of course, this general development is nothing new.  Since the very beginning, we humans have displayed a marvelous knack for refashioning the good news so that it might speak more favorably to our particular narrative.   Genesis tells us that Eve looked at the one tree that was prohibited in the entire garden, and for some God forsaken reason it was “a delight to her eyes.”  So without any further consideration of the truth beyond a brief chat with local counsel, God’s most sophisticated creation (and her husband) took immediate action.  The legacy of this mythic image is a lasting one, and for good reason.  Even now, someone hissing in our ear and telling us exactly what we want to hear is usually all it takes to get us going in one direction or another.

Especially when we’re hungry or angry, frustrated, or bored—when we’re feeling anything in isolation and with enough potency—we will settle for any version of good news that we can get. This is true no matter how short-sighted or shallow, even when we know better, and even when we know that the outcome could potentially destroy us in the long term.  Whenever we cannot see a solution in sight, the pursuit of immediate relief for ourselves and for those most dear to us may drive us haphazardly from one extreme situation to the other.  No matter, we say.  At least I got to ride in the front seat. 

In Matthew’s version of the gospel, however, Jesus tells his disciples that he will go to Jerusalem, undergo great suffering, be rejected, and eventually killed.  This may not sound like much of a gospel to you or me, and far as I can tell, Jesus was not trying all that hard to really sell his followers on the idea.  If he was, Peter wasn’t buying it.  Remembered as he is for his impatience and impulsive nature, Peter clearly did not receive this directive from Jesus as a word of “good news.”  Delusional as he may have been, this explains his rather petulant response: God forbid it, Lord! 

At this point, I suspect the presence of a faint voice whispering to Peter, saying, who is Jesus to expect His followers to follow in ways that are not of their own choosing?  Oh, what a menacing idea this is!   In every way imaginable, it was both a threat and a danger to his current sensibility.  Peter wants to live life in relationship to the Christ, and yet laments the very notion that he will be unable to do so on his own terms.  He is obviously not interested in this proposal of a new normal; hence the rebuke.

Furthermore, the irony of the disciple giving an order to the One whom he names as ‘Lord” should not be lost on any of us.  Perhaps you can hear the gravity of the situation within the strain of Peter’s voice.  He wants liberty.  He wants freedom.  He wants prosperity.  He wants public approval.  He would also like credit for his version of piety, which he wears proudly, so long as it fits his already established frame.  This he knows.  The only desire he has not accounted for is how to assimilate the prospect of unconventional suffering into his otherwise conventional life. 

Once again, he is not alone is this regard.

In Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s account of this common dilemma, he too observed,

“I notice repeatedly here how few people there are who can harbor conflicting emotions at the same time.  When bombers come, they are all fears; when there is something nice to eat, they are all greed; when they are all disappointed, they are all despair; when they are successful, they can think of nothing else.  They miss the fullness of life and the wholeness of an independent existence: everything objective and subjective is dissolved for them into fragments.  By contrast, Christianity puts us into many different dimensions of life at the same time; we make room in ourselves, to some extent, for God and the whole world” (A Testament to Freedom).

In choosing our own gospel, we prove well our ability to make room for ourselves, but not necessarily within ourselves as prescribed here. 

So where does that leave God?  Or neighbor?  What about the rest of the world? 

Are we honestly only capable of entertaining one party at a time? 

Is this our version of independence?

God forbid.

 

O most mighty and merciful God, the God of all true sorrow and true joy, of all fear and hope, as you have given me a repentance, so give me a fear of which I am not afraid.  Give me affection so that I may rejoice with those who rejoice, mourn with those who mourn, and fear with those who fear.  Grant me the freedom that is yours alone to give, born from the promise of glad obedience.  AMEN.

 

Grace to You,

Darren

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