This Sunday’s Gospel is a continuation of the same conversation that Jesus was having with his disciples last week. Jesus has just addressed Simon and named him Peter, the Rock upon which he would build his Church. Now, as Jesus explains to them what it means for him to be, “…the Christ, the Son of the living God”, Peter takes the opportunity to “correct” Jesus. While Jesus is telling them that the Son of Man must go to Jerusalem to be killed, Peter objects to Jesus’ teaching.
Peter’s certain and bold testimony of faith was not fully informed. He did not understand the full meaning of what he professed about Jesus. Peter wanted to write the Gospel his own way not the Gospel of Jesus.
Immediately Jesus rebukes Peter: “Get behind me, Satan! You are an obstacle to me. You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do.”
Imagine the gut wrenching reaction that Jesus’s words to Peter must have evoked within him. Only a few moments earlier he had been given a new name and a new purpose – now Jesus has called him Satan! The foundation rock has become a stumbling block, even to Jesus!
Peter could not accept the teaching of Jesus that cross was necessary to the full proclamation of the Kingdom. While Peter wants the Messiah to be triumphant, Jesus is the suffering servant. While Peter falls into silence and never again responds to Jesus when he speaks to the disciples about his passion and death, there is a key to this moment later on in the Gospel. Peter’s inability see Jesus as the one who would suffer and die for the Kingdom presents itself again after Jesus is arrested. Perhaps we can say that he denies Jesus because he was still unable to reconcile himself to the mission of the Messiah as Jesus was living it.
Whether or not Peter was a stumbling block to the other disciples we do not know. We can certainly say that Peter was not, in the end, a stumbling block for Jesus. But we can say that Peter remained a stumbling block for himself. He remained unable to take the truth that he knew and to draw it to its necessary conclusion. He cannot imagine Jesus here being crucified, and he continued to deny its reality even as it unfolded before him.
Like Peter, we can often become our own worst enemies in living a life of faith. We let our own hubris, desires, insights, and understanding of the truth to get in the way of actually knowing and living the truth. Often a little knowledge – or even a great deal of knowledge – does not mean that we possess the truth we just know “facts.”
The stumbling blocks that we set up can come in many different forms. We hinder the growth of others and of ourselves in the life of faith. Most of the time, like Peter, we are well-intentioned and sincere in our belief that we are right or are being helpful. Because of the nature of human frailty and the reality of sin in our lives, it can be very easy for us to do some real damage to others in their life of faith.
So as we look to Peter to be the rock, and sincerely seek to be bold and courageous in the proclamation of faith as did Peter, let us not fall into the trap of instead serving to become the rock that trips others up, but rather that stands firm so that others can see an example of faith lived and expressed well in a world that prefers to find religious stumbling blocks instead of firm rock foundations.
Father Garry Koch is pastor of St. Benedict Parish, Holmdel.