For Sunday, August 31, 2014 – Matthew 16:21-28
Simon acknowledges Jesus as the Christ, and Jesus calls Simon “Peter,” the rock of a new community. They are vibrating on the same wave length, understanding and being understood, so Jesus begins to speak more explicitly about Reality. Peter would rather Jesus didn’t, and he begins to rebuke him. How quickly “Peter the rock” becomes “Peter the stumbling block.” Don’t we, too, prefer Jesus to be on our wavelength instead of having to be on his? We prefer our own small reality to infinite Reality; we want cultural revolution more than countercultural revelation.
We feel powerless against the so-called real world, yet fear it is escapist to dream of a different Real World. Besides, what will it cost us? Shall we “be the change” we wish to see in the world, or give up our lofty visions of a future Reality and accept this reality? Is it okay to want justice yet also want to stay safe? Can we be in solidarity with the poor and still have a nice life? What does Jesus mean, he who called us to love ourselves, when he says we are to deny ourselves and take up our cross and follow?
The Real World of Jesus is not escapism but immersion. It is the really Real. Our friend Gordon (Cosby) thought it was funny how at the end of a Dayspring retreat someone inevitably would say: This time away has been so powerful. I hope I can hold onto it back in the real world. But, he would say, this experience of having our hearts opened, giving and receiving love in the silence, just being ourselves without trying to impress or achieve, is the “real world.” The place that is filled with striving and is cloaked in pretense, although we might call it the “real world,” is actually an unreal world.
All that matters to Jesus is helping us enter the Real. He’d give anything for it to happen. Lose your life, he says, and you’ll find it. Jesus not only lives — and dies — from these deeps, he invites the rest of us to live and die there, too. Immersed in the really Real, we will have whatever we need.
