Sermon on Matthew 16:21-28
Pastor Jennifer Garcia
Peter had this amazing breakthrough moment when he declared that Jesus was “the Messiah, the Son of the living God” right before our reading today.
Jesus was asking what people were saying about him, and the disciples told him all the wrong answers people were saying: “Elijah,” “John the Baptist,” Jeremiah.”
Then Jesus asked his own disciples who they said he was, and Peter had his glorious moment. It must have felt like he’d given the correct final answer on a game show, and he just won a million dollars with confetti raining down from the ceiling.
Ah, but poor Peter works in extremes. If he’s not walking on water, he’s drowning. If he’s not declaring that he will die with Jesus, he’s denying him.
And just a short time after it seems like he really gets Jesus, he metaphorically falls on his face again.
Jesus had started preparing his disciples for his eventual death and resurrection, and Peter wasn’t having it.
“The Messiah, the Son of the living God” couldn’t die! He needed to be around to fix everything that was broken about the world. He needed to be strong and powerful and win all the fights Peter wanted to pick.
And Peter told Jesus as much.
And Jesus wasn’t having that.
I wonder if Jesus was disappointed that someone he thought knew him so well had so completely misunderstood what he was about.
Because the disciples were hoping for an earthly emperor, a warrior-king who would kick out the Romans and replace the Roman Empire with his own empire.
It’s what God’s people have always wanted. We see in the Hebrew Bible that God gave the people Moses and then judges to bring justice and peace, but the people looked around at surrounding nations with kings, and they said, “we want that!” And God warned them over and over again that it wouldn’t bring them what they really desired. But they insisted, and God relented and gave them kings.
And the kings exacerbated war and wealth inequality and division. The patternthroughout the books of 1 and 2 Kings is that a new king came to power and he did wicked things and ignored God and then he died and there was a new king.
And here, Jesus’ disciples fell into the same trap. They looked around, saw the Roman Empire and said, “we want that!”
(And really, it’s easy to do the same today: placing our hope in a particular political party or glorifying our own country at the expense of the well-being of people in other countries)
But this time, God gave us someone different.
Instead of a warrior, God gave us a Lamb.
Instead of an emperor, God gave us Godself.
Jesus’ power is different from all other rulers. It’s not based on fear and domination. It’s based on self-emptying.
In the letter to the Philippians, Paul quotes what we think was an early hymn of the Jesus followers:
“Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus,
6 who, though he existed in the form of God,
did not regard equality with God
as something to be grasped,
7 but emptied himself,
taking the form of a slave,
assuming human likeness.
And being found in appearance as a human,
8 he humbled himself
and became obedient to the point of death—
even death on a cross.”
Peter, and presumably the other disciples, wanted an emperor, not a slave. They wanted him to sit on a throne, not die on a cross.
Because as far as they could imagine, a cross would be the end.
But for Jesus, the cross was not the end.God triumphed over death.
First, though, the ultimate power of God was sacrificed in humiliation, pain, and death.
This battle was not won with strength; it was won with weakness.
That is the way things work in the upside-down Reign of God.
But Peter didn’t realize that. He was so upset to hear that Jesus was going to die because, even though Jesus had just told him that he would build his church on Peter “The Rock,” Peter himself didn’t know what he would be on his own. He didn’t believe Jesus’ vision for him or realize how much he was capable of with the help of the Spirit.
Peter had gotten stuck on his own vision of what power looked like. And that led him to a “good vibes only” attitude.
“Good vibes only” is a fairly widespread phrase that encourages people to surround themselves with positive people and not get caught up in negativity.
That sounds great, except that it can lead us todeny the ways life is hard. We can start minimizing people’s pain, which hurts the people around us.
“Good vibes only” has, in fact, become synonymous with another widespread phrase: “toxic positivity.” Psychology Today defines it as “the act of avoiding, suppressing, or rejecting negative emotions or experiences.”[1] Pretending we don’t feel the whole range of human emotions only hurts us and the people around us.
So, Peter being like, “Nah, Jesus. Good vibes only! Don’t talk about dying like that—that can’t happen to you!” not only didn’t help Jesus, itdenied the hard truth that Jesus knew.
Jesus knew life was hard, and he did feel the full range of human emotion. Following him doesn’t mean ignoring the pain of this world. Jesus was well-acquainted with it. Following Jesus means being all-in for the self-emptying power of God.
Following Jesus means self-sacrifice.
That idea has been misused to mean that people who are already without power should be meek, obedient, and put up with abuse. It’s been used to justify keeping oppressed people oppressed.
That is not what I’m saying when I say following Jesus means self-sacrifice.
What I am saying is that Jesus, who had the power of God and could have called down angels to save him, emptied himself of that power, which broke the power of death.
Jesus had power and chose to lay it aside.
Following Jesus means that those of us with power need to be willing to set it aside or use it for the sake of others, without benefit to ourselves.
And I would venture to say that most if not all the people in this room have a certain degree of power and privilege.
If you don’t wonder where your next meal is coming from, you have at least some economic privilege.
If you are a citizen of this country, that has privileges.
If you are straight or male or white or able-bodied, those are all identities that have an amount of privilege.
Having privilege doesn’t mean you didn’t work hard for what you have. It doesn’t mean that you have no problems or that life is easy for you.
It just means that in some areas of your life, you don’t generally have the barriers that others have.
It means that you have some power. Power that could be used over other people or in service of other people.
And in the famous words of Spider-Man’s Uncle Ben, “with great power comes great responsibility.” We have a responsibility to use whatever power we have in service to others.
Sometimes it’s easy, though, to keep your action on behalf of others on a surface or performative level. It’s much easier to put up a rainbow flag than it is to open your home to an LGBTQ youth who has been kicked out of their parents’ home or spend your time advocating against anti-trans legislation.
Another example is that a few years ago, there was a short-lived trend of changing one’s profile picture on social media to a black squarein support of the Black Lives Matter movement. That was certainly a lot easier than marching in a protest or calling out racism in one’s daily life.
Performative action is easy—it’s a watered-down version of activism. It gets you the brownie points without any sacrifice on your part.
But following our self-emptying Jesus requires sacrifice.
God becoming human in Jesus, taking on our pain, feeling all our feelings, and then dying our most humiliating and excruciating form of death was the ultimate act of solidarity.
Following Jesus means setting aside “good vibes only” and performative action and standing in solidarity with the most marginalized.
That is where we find Jesus.
That is where the upside-down Reign of God becomes real.
So, let’s lay aside “good vibes only” and embrace “real vibes only” as we acknowledge the power we have and use it in service to others.
[1]https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/toxic-positivity