Eastern Mennonite University

Being With

Dwelling in the Word, listening, being in
conversation with God, being known,
receiving guidance.

Season after Pentecost: week 17 in ordinary time

We are invited to linger as Jesus continues to speak privately with his disciples in the region of Caesarea Philippi – north of Lake Galilee, and populated by a mixture of Jews and Gentiles. This invitation is a signal that we --as Jesus followers --are also being addressed. Jesus has been helping Simon Peter and the others to discern how they know; God does reveal his design and ways to us. This way of knowing is not something we can manage on our own with our own rational abilities. It is only through God’s revealing that we come to know who Jesus truly is.

However, if the disciples are basking in the warmth of receiving spiritual insight into the movement and work of God revealing who Jesus is, quite suddenly their comfort level is shattered. Jesus begins to show them

“he must go to Jerusalem and undergo great suffering at the hands of the elders and chief priest and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised.”

The words sound dark, impossible, unreal. Our gospel companions share with us their reactions of shock, denial, and disbelief. Their understanding of the Messiah did not include suffering and death.

Peter walks Jesus away from the disciples a short distance, and gives him a sharp rebuke: “God forbid it, Lord! This must never happen to you!” He calls on God to act in accordance with his own conception of what the Messiah was about. Jesus turns his back on Peter and looks toward the rest of our disciple companions, his body language announcing the rebuke he is about to give Peter verbally:

“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.”

Satan has not given up. Earlier in Jesus’ life he had taken Jesus to a high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor, offering them all to Jesus if he would fall down and worship him. Now Satan is slipping through the cracks in Simon’s limited belief system, trying to entrap Jesus in the lure of adopting world-power tactics as Messiah, and avoiding the cross. Hence Jesus’ sharp response. The same Simon Peter who had been affirmed and blessed for embracing what had been revealed to him by God is now rebuked for embracing what has been instigated by the devil.

The spiritual realm is not all benign. Thus Jesus begins calling his disciples to discern what kind of spirit is at work within them as he continues in his response to Peter: you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.

“Divine things” would include suffering, rejection, the cross, and the amazing triumph of the resurrection. It is to God’s way of bringing us back home that Jesus gives his time and attention. This is where he sets his mind. In remembering this spiritual direction which Jesus offers Simon Peter, our gospel companions know that this guidance is also for them--and for us as we listen to Jesus’ words. Later, Peter could also call believers to this same noticing:

Prepare your minds for action; discipline yourselves; set all your hope on the grace that Jesus Christ will bring you when he is revealed. Like obedient children, do not be conformed to the desires that you formerly had in ignorance.
I Peter 1:13,14 NRSV

(Adapted from Miller, Jesus our Spiritual Director, Upper Room Books, 1995. Ch.10. Used by permission)

For reflection:

Pay attention this week to the direction of your mind, your thinking. Jesus invites us to allow our minds and thoughts to be shaped and directed by God’s life-giving design.

Prayer before Reading Scripture

Lord Jesus Christ,
You call us to come
To be with you.

By your Spirit help me
To see you,
To hear you,
To receive your Spirit,
To be led by your Spirit.

Amen

Scripture Guide

 

Click on "Guidance for Being With" for help in the spiritual disciplines of meditation and contemplation of Scripture and the Consciousness Examen .

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