'Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and undergo great suffering at the hands of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him, saying, “God forbid it, Lord! This must never happen to you.” But he turned and said to Peter, “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.”
Then Jesus told his disciples, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it. For what will it profit them if they gain the whole world but forfeit their life? Or what will they give in return for their life?
“For the Son of Man is to come with his angels in the glory of his Father, and then he will repay everyone for what has been done. Truly I tell you, there are some standing here who will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.”'
--Matthew 16: 21-28
Let’s talk about Satan. Or rather, let’s talk about Jesus’ use of that word, ‘Satan,’ in our Gospel this morning. Each time this reading shows up, this statement from Jesus feels like it comes up out of nowhere and often startles us.
To give some context, just prior to the start of today’s reading, Simon bar Jonah has just confessed that Jesus is the Messiah. Being the first of the 12 apostles to do so, Jesus throws some praise his way and gives him a new name, Peter—technically Petros in Greek, or Kephas in Aramaic. His new name means The Rock, which is a testament to his strong faith in recognizing Jesus’ true nature. But when Jesus starts to tell the Rock and the other apostles that the destiny of the Messiah is to suffer and die, Simon Peter steps in and says, ‘God forbid it!’ Jesus responds by giving Simon bar Jonah yet another name, saying, ‘Get behind me, Satan!’
Does Jesus really mean what we think he means when he says this? Yes and no, actually. No, Jesus is not saying that Simon Peter is the incarnation of the traditional depiction of "the devil." Or, as Ulysses Everett McGill put it:
What the word Satan means in its original Hebrew is ‘adversary’ or ‘accuser.’ So, yes, Jesus really did mean it when he gave Simon Peter this new moniker. In that moment he was being an adversary, standing in the way of Jesus’ true messianic purpose. Anything or anyone that seeks to deflect people from the way of God, any influence that seeks to make folks turn back from the hard path, or any power that seeks to make human desires take the place of the divine imperative can all be described as Satans. In this way, Simon Peter was being a Satan.
Like all of the apostles, Simon Peter had an idea of what the Messiah was suppose to be, and self-sacrificing wasn’t it. There existed a group within Judaism at that time called the Zealots—even one of the apostles, the other Simon, was called the Zealot. These were folks who functioned as something like political revolutionaries. They believed that the Messiah would be a conquering king that would swiftly depose Caesar and expel their Roman occupiers. Often the Zealots resorted to violent tactics to get their point across, one of which, according to many scholars was Barabas, the condemned man set free instead of Jesus.
This description about the Messiah’s future, one that would lead to a violent death at the hands of the collaboration system between corrupt religious officials and the empire, was just too much for Simon Peter to take. So, like any of us would do if someone we loved said that they were headed down a path that would lead to their death, he steps in the way. One possible translation is that he ‘caught hold’ of Jesus, as if to literally hold him back from continuing this journey to Jerusalem and to the cross. We can almost see the tears in his eyes as he tells Jesus, ‘This must not happen to you!’
And then comes Jesus’ response with the infamous Satan line. Over the years as I have read this sentence from Jesus I can’t help but consider the tone in his voice. I do not believe it was a harsh one, or an angry one, but rather the voice of someone wounded to the heart, with a poignant grief and kind of shuddering horror because in this moment, Simon Peter is doing exactly what another Satan had done in the wilderness at the very start of Jesus’ ministry.
Remember the days after his baptism, how Jesus fasted in the desert for 40 days and nights, and according to the text, he was tempted by Satan. Those three temptations were for power, prestige, and possessions. This demonic force, attempting to lure Jesus with a method of escape from this hard path of God, promised to make him ruler over all the kingdoms of the world, tried to assure him that because of who he was the angels would catch him if he jumped off building, and even tempted his hunger by encouraging Jesus to turn the stones into bread. Power, prestige, and possessions. And in this moment, looking into his friend’s eyes, Jesus sees the same look he had seen in the wilderness, and the same temptation to be the kind of Messiah Simon Peter and others wanted, not the one that God had in mind. Simon Peter, like that other Satan, was promising an escape that Jesus could not and would not accept.
Can we really blame Simon Peter for saying what he said? After all, it came from a place of love. He wanted to protect Jesus, but in that moment of trying to protect him, Simon Peter tried to control Jesus and take the decision out of his hands. He seized Jesus’ own personhood. He could not bear to witness Jesus go down this path, but he also did not understand how his own protective love was doing more harm in that moment than good.
There are times when love seeks to deflect us away from perils and dangers. Think of a child going off to college for the first time, whose parent wants nothing but to keep them safe and close and so they hinder that move in some—perhaps that has taken on a new meaning nowadays! Or consider a woman who tells her partner that she wants to finally quit her job and pursue a career as an artist, only to have her partner discourage her from doing so, not because the partner doesn’t support her dream, but because the partner is afraid that the woman will try, fail, and be devastated. These are examples of protective love getting in the way of people actually living their lives, or to use church language, actually living into their call. The real love is not the love that holds people back, but the love that sends them out to listen to God’s call, knowing that there may be painful moments along the way, but that this is the path that God has in store for their loved one.
Protective love doesn’t really protect the other person at all, but rather it protects the one that embodies it. Simon Peter wasn’t protecting Jesus. He was protecting himself from having to watch Jesus go down this difficult path. The parent or the partner in the examples I mentioned usually aren’t trying to protect the other person so much as they are trying to ease their own fears and concerns. What I suspect really wounded Jesus was the realization that Simon Peter was speaking with this kind of love in his heart, not the kind that wanted only for Jesus to be his truest, fullest self, to live into the mission that God had set before him. In the same way, we who have this tendency to tell others ‘You don’t want to do that!’ or ‘I know what’s best for you!’ must learn that even if it comes from a place of love, it does not necessarily mean that it is something nurturing and affirming.
Calling Simon Peter ‘Satan’ may seem harsh, but in its literal form that’s exactly who we are when we get in the way of people living into their fullest selves and being the people God has called them to be. We become the accuser or the adversary whenever we insert ourselves into the mix and think we know what’s best for someone else, even someone we love. This is part of the journey of kenosis, of self-emptying, which Jesus invites the apostles on, but which they can’t accept until he has walked the road to the cross and shown them what it really looks like. May we have the grace to examine our hearts and the motivations and intentions behind those moments of protective love that we express. May we seek not to catch hold of or rebuke those who choose a path that may lead to some measure of pain, but support and encourage them and seek to better understand the journey God has called them on. Let us walk alongside them and love them from a place of encouragement, rather than our own self-motivated protection.
