Thinking Anew:LIVING THE Christian life seems impossible at times. When terrible things are done to us the call to love our enemies or to do good to those who hate us seems not only impossible but even unreasonable. Some would say that at a basic human level it just doesn't make sense unless we agree with Samuel Johnson who said that "Christianity is the highest perfection of humanity." Then it becomes clear that we are called to be something more, something better, than we are by instinct.
The German theologian, Dorothee Soelle recognises the cost of discipleship is troubling and suggests we are afraid of religion because it is difficult to control. “We are afraid of the kind of experiences that challenge our sense of security. We are afraid to allow the petty individual we were and are to be shaken and disturbed. And that is precisely what religion does. We want to prevent religion from doing that.
“We are afraid of religion’s inherent radical protest against the death ridden life we live and cultivate. And we can know that we are afraid of religion because we are afraid of the absolute demands it lays upon us”. The simple truth is we do not like being removed from our comfort zones in any area of life, including religion.
We see this in the story of St Peter. This week and last, the lectionary divides a single episode from St Matthew’s Gospel where he has a key role.
In the first part Jesus asks his disciples, “Who do you say that I am?” When Peter responds, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God” Jesus affirms him: “You are Peter and upon this rock I will build my church.”
But when Jesus goes on to say that his own future involves suffering and death Peter protests. He cannot imagine a Messiah who could suffer and die. In the space of a few verses Jesus’s rebuke is as powerful as his praise: “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.” Peter illustrates Dr Soelle’s point; he could not cope with the idea that Christian discipleship might be very costly.
Matthew’s complicated portrait of Peter has to do with leadership issues in the early church, but for us as modern readers, with our minds too often fixed on “human things” we get the picture of a deeply human Peter. He’s both a rock and a stumbling block; sometimes he gets it right and sometimes he doesn’t; he is chided for his “little faith” but he also abandons the safety of the boat to come to Jesus on the water.
Interestingly the last reference to him by name in Matthew’s Gospel is when he weeps bitterly over his denial of Jesus. And yet his faith is the rock on which the church is built. That has to be reassuring for those of us who struggle over the many times we fall short of Christian ideals.
Sheila Cassidy who, while working as a doctor in Chile was arrested and tortured for treating an injured revolutionary, knows the cost of standing up for and suffering for her beliefs. But significantly she also knows the importance of recognising and accepting our human limitations: "Whereas years ago I thundered eloquently from platform and pulpit about the needs of the Third World I now sit and talk more gently of the yawning gulf between my ideals and the actual reality of how I live my life. I have learned to laugh at myself in public and share my weaknesses with others so that they may be encouraged rather than impressed. The great joke is that it is okay to be frail and wounded because that is the way the almighty transcendent God made us." – GL