James Tissot, Get Thee Behind Me, Satan!
On Sunday, February 25th, we heard Jesus give one of his harshest rebukes, "Get behind me, Satan!" We examined that story in light of Kate Bowler's memoir, Everything Happens for a Reason, And Other Lies I've Loved. Read on to learn more.
Lift Up Your Cross (2/25/18)
Sermon
Good morning. When I was in seminary, my dear friend Susan once told me that after I was ordained, I would practically live in
my car. I didn’t truly appreciate that until I began my service here at
Rehoboth. It’s not just driving to church from Carnegie; it’s the presbytery
meetings in Ligonier or Apollo or Latrobe; it’s the committee meetings in
Greensburg every month.
I’m not complaining. When I took this call, I knew there
would be a lot of driving, a lot of time spent in my car. That also means I
spend a lot of time listening to the radio. And I like that! I tend to listen
to radio programs that offer longer stories, or interviews that go into greater
depth than standard news programs. I’m always listening for stories that I can
pass on to you folks. I get a lot of introductions to sermons from the stories
I hear on the radio.
I heard one of those stories a couple weeks ago—one of
those stories that just wouldn’t let me go. It was so arresting I went out and
bought the book! But first, I want to say a couple words about the psalm we
just read.
The editors of the New Revised Standard Version of the
Bible added a sub-heading to Psalm 22, a “Plea for Deliverance from Suffering
and Hostility.” The first line is very, very familiar: “My God, my God, why
have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from helping me, from the words of my
groaning?”
This is one of those universal truths: We don’t know what
to do with suffering. Often, we don’t understand why we’re suffering; we just
want the pain to go away. Sometimes it feels like God isn’t there. There are no
good answers. Even when it’s someone else who’s suffering, we don’t know what
to do or say. And we often respond in exactly the wrong way when we get bad
news.
In this morning’s Gospel lesson, we hear the first Passion
prediction; it’s the first time in Mark’s Gospel that Jesus announces his
suffering and his eventual death and resurrection. The disciples don’t want to
hear this—especially Peter, who attempts to rebuke Jesus for saying this. Jesus
turns the tables and throws the rebuke right back in Peter’s face: “Get behind
me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human
things.”
This is probably the sharpest rebuke that Jesus gives to
any of the disciples, and it goes to Peter, the closest disciple. This is a
bucket of cold water in Peter’s face. It’s shocking. It would be like me
spouting swear words from the pulpit. That’s the force with which Jesus
delivers this rebuke.
To put it another way, I imagine that hearing Jesus’ rebuke
must be a lot like hearing a doctor tell you that you’ve got cancer, or Lou
Gehrig’s disease, or multiple system atrophy. It’s like hearing that there’s a
very definite expiration date on your life. The dream is over.
A couple weeks ago I heard an interview with a woman named
Kate Bowler. She’s a scholar of North American religious history and she
teaches at Duke Divinity School. That’s a really prestigious seminary, by the
way. You have to be a pretty impressive scholar to get a position on their
faculty, and Bowler got hired after she finished her Ph.D. She had to show an
awful lot of promise as a scholar to land such a prime position so early in her
career.
Bowler grew up in western Canada. She met her husband when
they were both fifteen and they were married shortly after she graduated from
college. She completed graduate degrees from Yale and Duke, then got hired at
Duke, and then, after some difficulty conceiving, she and her husband had a
son. She published her first book around that time, too.
In 2015, Bowler was diagnosed with colon cancer. Stage IV.
She was 35 years old. It would be an understatement to say that cancer was news
she didn’t want to hear. She was, and still is, a person of deep and abiding
faith, but cancer changed a lot of things, including her relationship with the
subjects of her research.
Kate Bowler studies charismatic Christian churches that teach
and preach what is sometimes called the prosperity gospel. That is, a “bold
central claim that God will give you your heart’s desires: money in the bank, a
healthy body, a thriving family, and boundless happiness.”[1] I think you know what I’m
talking about, but if you’re not sure, think of Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker.
Bowler examined the history of this movement. She
interviewed parishioners and pastors, some of whom have large followings on
television. She spent time worshipping in these churches to better understand
their beliefs and practices. According to Bowler:
The prosperity gospel
is… an explanation for the problem of evil. It is an answer to the questions
that take our lives apart: Why do some people get healed and some people don’t?
Why do some people leap and land on their feet while others tumble all the way
down? Why do some babies die in their cribs and some bitter souls live to see
their great grandchildren? The prosperity gospel looks at the world as it is
and promises a solution. It guarantees that faith will always make a way.[2]
In short, the prosperity
gospel promises certainty. Prosperity gospel preachers claim that any money you
give to the church will be multiplied by God and come back to you—in cash! They
claim that miraculous healings are possible—if only you pray enough. And if
you’re not healed from your illness, it’s because of something you did. Maybe
you weren’t praying hard enough, or something.
If you’ve ever heard me officiate a funeral, you know I
don’t believe that. The prosperity gospel doesn’t have good answers for cancer,
especially when a child dies. The prosperity gospel doesn’t have good answers
for fatal car crashes. It certainly doesn’t have answers for children who
suffer abuse at the hands of men like Jerry Sandusky or Larry Nasser. It has
simple answers, but not good answers. That’s my take on the prosperity gospel.
Kate Bowler’s work is not hostile to believers in the
prosperity gospel. Her goal is to explain the movement, not to take it down.
But she found that she, too, craved the certainty of the prosperity gospel; she
had created her own version of the prosperity gospel. The title of her memoir
is, Everything Happens for a Reason: And
Other Lies I’ve Loved.
I think the lie is that we can know what God’s plan is, and
that God is micromanaging that plan, or trying to. I believe that we’re
infected by that strain of the prosperity gospel, too. When we see declining
attendance in our churches, we reach for simple answers; it’s someone else’s
fault. When we don’t like the changes we see in society—whatever those changes
may be—it must be someone else’s fault. Other people need to change, but not
us.
The real answer comes from Jesus: “Get behind me, Satan!”
When we seek simple explanations in the behavior of other people, we are
setting our minds on human things; we are not looking toward God and we are not
examining our own behavior or our own need to change.
Lent is a season for looking within; it’s a time to examine
our own shortcomings as we attempt to live into God’s covenants with us. And
yes, praying more is always a good idea, but there’s no simple relationship
between prayer and wealth, or prayer and healing. That’s not how God’s
covenants work. God promises faithfulness, not financial gain; money is a human
thing.
Mark Twain once said, “It ain’t those parts of the Bible
that I can’t understand that bother me, it is the parts that I do understand.”[3] When Jesus says, “If any
want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross
and follow me,” Jesus is talking to us. Like Peter, we don’t want to hear that
Jesus is going to die, or that we’re going to have to take on the work of
building God’s kingdom. We don’t want the messy work of making peace with
people we don’t like; we want God to shower us with wealth and health.
Kate Bowler’s book is a Lenten book; it asks us to walk
through the difficult and uncomfortable parts of her life and struggle. I’m not
done reading the book. I can tell you she’s still alive, but it’s not a simple
story about overcoming adversity and triumphing in the end. It’s not a
prosperity gospel.
I think the prosperity gospel is a Palm Sunday gospel. It’s
also a gospel of miracles, of feasts and healings. Now Palm Sunday is truly
marvelous and wonderful, but we can’t live in Palm Sunday forever, just as
Peter, James, and John can’t stay on the mountaintop with Jesus forever. Palm
Sunday only tells part of the story; we can’t have Palm Sunday without the
Passion. We can’t have the resurrection without first having the betrayal, the
trial, the suffering, the crucifixion, and the death.
We can’t divorce the blessings of God’s covenants from
Christ’s call to follow him, even at the risk of death. And following Jesus is
not a simple formula for salvation; we do the work because we’re called to do
it. Period. We don’t just pray for healing, we go out and heal others; we feed
the hungry, clothe the naked, and give to the poor; we welcome the stranger and
the foreigner; we visit the sick and the prisoners. We continue to participate
in the work of feeding and healing others—not because we expect this in return
but because it’s what Jesus does and it’s what Jesus calls us to do.
This is not always the message we want to hear. It is the message that Jesus gives to Peter
and to us! We know that Peter will continue to get it wrong, even to the point
of lying and denying that he knows Jesus. We also know that Peter is the rock,
the foundation of the Church. In this season of Lent, let us look within and
let go of the lies we love, and follow Christ. Thanks be to God. Amen!
Benediction
Now, beloved, as you depart from this place, remember that
we are called to be the Church, the body of Christ in the world today. We are
called to go forth and be instruments of God’s love and peace and love and reconciliation.
This is how we live into God’s covenants. Do not return evil for evil to any
person, but know that we are all loved by God, and that we are called to
reflect that love to everyone we meet. Go forth and be the salt of the earth
and the light of the world. In the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord, let all
God’s children say, Amen!
[1]
Kate Bowler, Everything Happens for a Reason:
And Other Lies I’ve Loved. New York: Random House (2018), p. xi.
[2]
Bowler, xiii.
[3]
Mark Twain, quoted in C. Clifton Black, “Commentary on Mark 8:31-38,” retrieved
from: http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=3568
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