How would you describe God? According to a recent study by scholars based at Baylor University, about 28% of Americans see God as an authority figure. About 22% of Americans, mostly white, Evangelical women, see God as a benevolent figure who is thoroughly involved in their lives. He is very loving and not stern. People from lower socio-economic rungs in America see God as critical and the judge in the after-life. Many other people see God as a distant figure who created the universe but is not very involved in our world. We know God by going beyond being merely curious about him and becoming his disciples.

From Merely Curious to discipleship

The Gospel today is about true knowledge of God. The story Matthew tells begins a few paragraphs earlier than today’s gospel selection.  Jesus is teaching a large mixed crowd. There are a few disciples but most are just curious. Some curious person asked Jesus for a sign that he was from God. Jesus said that the only sign they would receive would be the “sign of Jonah.” Jesus refers to the Resurrection as the sign of Jonah for as the Christ descended into the grave, so Jonah was swallowed by a large fish.
 
Jesus then lead his disciples away from the merely curious to a place by themselves, where today’s story takes place. The questions is, however, the same. Last week we heard that he asked his disciples, his closest followers, “Who do people say that I am? ” Responding, the disciples offered a variety of opinions. They said, “John the Baptist, Elijah and Jeremiah.” When Jesus asked the question to Peter, he responded, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” Then Jesus told Peter that his Father had revealed this to him and said, that Peter was the rock on which he would build his Church and that the gates of “the netherworld” would not prevail against it.

 
Then Jesus told his disciples that, “he must go to Jerusalem and suffer greatly
from the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes,
and be killed and on the third day be raised.” Peter then said,  "God forbid, Lord! No such thing shall ever happen to you." He turned and said to Peter,
" Get behind me, Satan! You are an obstacle to me.
You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do."

 
How did poor human Peter go from a rock to ‘Satan’ and an ‘obstacle’, literally, a ‘stumbling block?’ Our pre-conceptions about God can be a stumbling block.

Through Discipleship to knowledge of God

The misunderstanding of scripture and human self-concern are stumbling blocks to faith. Jesus encounters this stumbling block early in his mission. In the very beginning of Matthew’s gospel, Jesus was tempted in the desert by Satan. The Devil urged Jesus to throw himself off the parapet of the Temple challenging God to save him. Satan wanted a sign. The Devil quoted Psalm 91: 11f.,

 
“For he will give his angels charge of you to guard you in all your ways. On their hands they will bear you up, lest you dash your foot against a stone.”

 
The Devil quoted holy scripture for his own purposes and Peter’s remark arose from his own human concern for a friend. Both were temptations and neither confused Jesus. Scripture can be misused and purely human concerns can confuse. Jesus told Satan, “You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.” Dt. 6:16. At issue both with Peter’s human concern and Satan’s call for a sign is the temptation to turn God into something that conforms to our plans. At especially hard times in our lives, we want some proof that everything will work out to our satisfaction. 

The Cross and Discipleship

We know the story of the passion. The weight of our sin and the cost of redemption to our God. When we talk about the redemption of the human race, we don’t mean that God had to pay the Devil off. We weren’t bought back in a transaction. The cost paid by God means the suffering, rejection and abandonment that Jesus took on to himself for our redemption. The crucifixion does not change God’s mind and convince him not to condemn us. The sacrifice of the cross is supposed to change us not God. We are supposed to respond to this innocent man, abandoned and tortured who expresses only forgiveness to his accusers and torturers. We respond reorienting our lives towards the Father who the Christ reveals to us. St. Paul said in today’s reading,

 
… be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and pleasing and perfect. Rom. 12:1-2

That is why Jesus prepares his disciples to understand his suffering and death, so that they will understand the meaning of his resurrection. To understand how Jesus is Messiah, the Son of God, we need look at the darkness with which he does battle.  Sin, abandonment and betrayal are an estrangement so profound that it can only be expressed in the story of his Passion. The Son of God was crucified by an advanced, wealthy and powerful civilization. There is something obscene about how the innocent and the weak are treated in our world. Something about our world is terribly wrong.

Who is God?

Who is God? A stern judge, or an authoritarian lawmaker, a close, personal friend or a creative but very distant deity are ways that we see God, apparently. Jesus talked about judgment, he was a friend to Peter, and he did make rules for his disciples to follow. His passion, death and resurrection reveal something far more than these inadequate perspectives. If you follow him, in spite of all the terrible things that may happen to you in this world, you will never lose a final refuge. You will come to know God in a deep and personal way. Discipleship is relationship with God as he is.