“I'm here for the flashlight” said the man to the clerk, proffering a coupon. I was at the hardware store standing in line at the checkout. The clerk took the coupon without comment, pulled out a small LED flashlight from some stash he had behind the counter, and scanned both the flashlight and the coupon. “That'll be 16 cents.” “What, I thought the flashlight was free.” said the man. The clerk let out a longsuffering sigh and said, obviously not for the first time, “It states on the coupon that the offer does not include taxes, so the flashlight is free plus tax.” Where exactly does it say that? Asked the man. The clerk pulled out a magnifying glass from another shelf under the counter, and held it up to the back of the coupon. “Right here” “that's writing?” replied the customer, “I thought it was a bar code.” “ Will there be anything else asked the clerk” “Yeah said the man, where do you keep the magnifying glasses?”
It’s always important to read the fine print. The squiggle at the bottom of the page is often the most important part. It's just so for Simon Peter, and the other disciples. Peter has just declared what they are all thinking, that Jesus is the Messiah. But there's some fine print about what that means. Jesus explains that being the Messiah means being handed over to the authorities, dying and being raised up. Jesus' confrontation of Simon Peter in today's gospel is about that fine print. Simon thinks, in fact is convinced, the messiah is the king of Israel that will get rid of the Romans, and usher in a new state of Israel that is favored by God as it was in the olden days. That's what the Messiah is. He thinks that everybody knows that. How, then can Jesus be talking about dying?
In Lewis Carroll's sequel to Alice in Wonderland, Through the Looking Glass, everything is backwards. In order to move toward something, you have to walk away from it. If you want to eat, you have to put the food down. If you move it to your mouth it will never get there. To Peter, Jesus seemed to be operating on just such a looking Glass principle; saying that in order to win, the Messiah has to lose: lose to the religious authorities, lose to the Romans, even lose to death. Only then can the Messiah win. Such emptying of self, such giving up of control and power seems seems nonsensical to Peter.
But it fact it is Peter, along with most of humanity, that operates in the Looking Glass world. We have inhabited the environs the Looking Glass for so long that we have come to think of this Topsy-turvy world as normal. We see that might wins, that taking care of ourselves, feathering our own nest, is the only end that matters. When we see Jesus turning everything on its head, saying that in order to gain your life we must lose it, we think that he’s turning it upside-down, but in reality, he's really returning everything right-side-up. Jesus reminds the disciples, and by extension us, that it is not he that must conform to the world, but he that must transform the world so that it conforms to him and to Gods coming kingdom.
When I was in Grade school my friends and I would play a game called opposite day. Someone would come to school and declare “Your all looking horrible today”, and the game would commence. If someone wanted to use the stapler, he would have to say, Please don’t pass me the stapler. Of course, sometimes we would forget that it was opposite day, and sometimes we would inaugurate a new person into the game, because it was the most fun part. Can I see the book the new person might ask, and someone would reply of course, then pass the book in the opposite direction. The new person, or the person who had forgotten the rules of the game, couldn’t think their way into playing this game. You had to live within the game, mistakes and all in, to in order to follow along.
The whole point of Jesus' mission was to free us from the humanity from the shackles of sin, so that we could move from the Looking Glass world that we are in to the freedom of the right side up Kingdom of God. An important step in that plan is to get his first followers acting as if there were already citizens of the Right way round kingdom. That means getting them out of the Looking Glass mentality that says you have to understand something, be secure in your knowledge. Its not about thinking your way to heaven, that’s not really possible. Its about living into the Kingdom of God. Jesus points this out to Peter; “ You have your mind on earthly thinks not on things heavenly.” Therefore, says Jesus to his follower, along with every one who rebels against the real reality that Jesus represents, “Get behind me.”
This is not a rejection of Simon. Jesus tells Peter to get behind him, because that is the only place from which Peter can follow Jesus. Simon does not have to believe in what Jesus is saying without reservation or doubt. It doesn’t matter that in rebuking Jesus, Peter has thrown in his lot with Satan and all the spiritual forces of wickedness the resist and rebel against God. If Simon the rock, and stumbling block gets behind Jesus, if he follows where Jesus leads, if he walks in the pathway of Jesus, he will be led to the cross. The cross is the ultimate symbol of Gods right side round logic that we can understand. We can’t think our way into the cross; we can only take up the cross.
Not too long after he was baptized my father and I were having a conversation about faith. You know, my father said, I almost didn’t go through with the baptism in the end. Really I said, why? Well said my dad, I had doubts. What changed your Mind I asked. Peter. It's so weird that Peter could get everything so wrong sometimes and still be an apostle that I think that there must be hope for me in such and upside down Kingdom. It was time to stop thinking and just jump in the pool, so to speak.”
Then Jesus told his disciples, "If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. Dietrich Bonheoffer observed that they only type of discipleship that there is when following Jesus is costly discipleship. To take up the cross is what Bonheoffer is talking about. It means getting behind Jesus, following Jesus – not trying to lead Jesus down the more convenient, conventional, comfortable route. Taking up the cross means complete obedience to following Jesus, abandoning what you thought you wanted for what God wants. It is all those things that Paul tells the Romans that they must do. It means loving those who hate you and doing good for those who speak ill of you. But there is also the fine print. Taking up the cross is also the only sure path to perfect freedom from sin as an adopted child of God. That's just the way it works in the right side up; right way round Kingdom of God.
