The Bible is full of great phrases and sayings.  One of my favorites comes from the 6^th chapter of Mark as it is used in the movie, It’s a Wonderful Life. The line is, “I’m shaking the dust of this crummy little town off my feet and I’m gonna see the world!”  Jimmy Stewart was great with that one.  Today we have another one of those famous expressions.  Jesus, frustrated with Peter turns and says, “Get behind me Satan!”  I have heard people say this before when being offered something like an extra piece of cake.  Big picture, this is an expression that applies to any situation in which we feel strongly tempted to do something that we know we shouldn’t do.  Twelve hours of back-to-back football games on Saturday, all televised in HD?  Get behind me Satan!  What else tempts us?  What else is out there?  Running through a few options, we have:

· Addiction to food, alcohol, internet and gambling.

· The temptation to gossip or speak harshly including the temptation to scream out “Liar” when someone else is talking.

· And with relation to today’s story from Mark, the temptation to doubt and turn away from the way in which Jesus asks us to go.

This is Peter’s problem today.  When Jesus teaches those close to him that he must suffer, be rejected and be killed, Peter just isn’t having it.  And I don’t blame him.  For you Elders who are here today, imagine attending a Session meeting in which George Sinclair says, “Government Street Presbyterian Church will suffer, be rejected by other churches and die.”  Just saying that out loud sounds like a smack in the face, right?  So it is that Peter pulls Jesus aside and rebukes him.  The same story in Matthew provides a little more insight.  There we are told that Peter rebukes Jesus saying, “God forbid it Lord, this will never happen to you!” 

I would really like to see how this played out.  I would like to know the emotion and tone in which Peter addressed Jesus.  Was Peter angry, distressed, afraid, astonished, offended, or a combination of all that?  It’s fun to wonder but impossible to know.  It is also impossible to know how we might respond in the same situation.  When our anxieties and emotions get the best of us, just about anything can happen.

Thinking about this I wondered what it would be like to live worry free.  What would life be like if we were able to follow what Jesus advises in his Sermon on the Mount when he says, “Don’t be anxious about tomorrow; today’s trouble is enough for today.”  Or if you prefer the words of Bobby McFerrin, can we ever live the life of “Don’t worry. Be happy?”  The closest I ever came to this was when I was a sophomore in college.  Life was pretty, pretty good.  I had a scholarship and a job, so money was not an issue.  My family and friends were all happy and healthy, as far as I knew.  Preferring the night life, I scheduled my classes to begin no earlier than 9:30 in the morning.  And then there was the fraternity to which I belonged.  One day we decided that we needed a sand volley ball court, so we went out to the front lawn, dug out about a foot of soil, and brought in enough sand to fill the void.  Then there was our charcoal grill.  In the summer months, there was rarely a day that went by that we weren’t throwing something on the coals.  Our guys from Obion County killed enough game and caught enough fish to keep the whole fraternity fed.  Those were good days while they lasted … days that had no concern for the question from Proverbs, “How long O simple ones will you love being simple?”  My answer?  As long as I can get away with it.

Fast forward to the recent Labor Day weekend.  Laura and I had been at the beach for about twelve hours before the call came in that my mother had suffered a brain hemorrhage.  At the time, we had no idea if mom suffered from a stroke, an aneurysm, or what.  All we knew is that she was unable to recognize family members and that she had no idea where she was. (Today’s trouble is enough for today, indeed.)  Spending a couple of days in Nashville, I was able to watch as my mother slowly improved.  Her memory returned and she was eventually able to get out of bed and walk around the floor of the hospital.  Needless to say, I joined my family in being very thankful for what we considered to be a minor miracle.  That being said, it did not take long before my brother, sister and I turned into various forms of Peter.  Like Peter, we did not like what was going on and we responded.  We began to rebuke both our mother and our father.  “You both need to take this as a wakeup call!  Mom, you have got to stop worrying about every little thing!  You have got to slow down, rest, and let your brain heal.”  My mother, by the way, is not someone who is able to sit still for very long.  Between house work, her family, and the church, she is always busy doing one thing or another.  Complicating things further, my parents are in the middle of a move.  They just sold their house and the renovation of their new home has just begun.  We figured it was a good time to rebuke my father as well.  “Dad, you’ve got to take better care of yourself!  We need you to be ready to tow the line in case mom is unable to do for herself.”  I got on to him myself, saying, “Tell me about these pills that you are taking!  Don’t you think that exercise could eliminate the need for some of these prescriptions?”   Like Peter, we were responding to our sense of distress, fear and astonishment.  Unlike Peter, we were not told, “Get behind me Satan!”  Not to our faces, anyway.

So what did Jesus mean by that, anyway?  Looking to Peter’s actions in other Gospel stories, we do find that he is a passionate person, maybe someone who is prone to speaking without thinking.  That being said, we should not understand Peter as being weak and worthless.  Peter was one of Jesus’ closest companions.  In the Greek language, his name itself is synonymous with the word rock, as in, “solid as a rock.”  And so it is, solid, when it comes to the fellowship of Jesus; Peter is about as good as it gets.  That’s why it should be surprising that Peter’s rebuke is returned with another when Jesus shoots back, “Get behind me, Satan!”  In doing this, Jesus is of course comparing Peter to the greatest of tempters.  But what about that “get behind me” part?  Why doesn’t Jesus just tell Peter to get lost?

This is where we must remember what it means to be a disciple.  The word itself refers to one who is a pupil or an apprentice.  Peter, as a student, is therefore in no position to tell the teacher what to do.  Today’s story also offers insight into what it means to be a disciple.  Jesus says, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.”  It seems to me that Jesus is reminding Peter of his place.  To be a disciple of Jesus is to follow behind.  Get behind me, Peter.  I think it is only when we recognize this act of following that we can take on the paradox that comes next.  This is when Jesus tells us that if we want to save our life, then we must lose it.  And only if we lose our lives for the sake of Jesus, will we save it.  Again, if we hear this and then try and jump out in front of Jesus with all kinds of questions and arguments, we will miss the point.  Only if we follow can we see where Jesus is leading us.  The question now becomes, do we want to go?  Are we willing to discover what it means to lose our lives for Jesus’ sake? 

To be honest, I continue to struggle with this and what it means.  How do we lose our lives and what does it mean to deny ourselves?  My guess is that we begin by turning our complete trust over to Jesus.  We continue to do this by affirming that God is in control, not us.  We venture to believe and we follow.  And this is where things get tricky.  From our place behind Jesus, we see that he is carrying a cross and that he will suffer, be rejected, and die.  Well now, what do we do with that?  Remembering that Peter even bailed out along the way, how far are we expected to go?  I mean… are we expected to suffer and die, just like Jesus?  Yes.  From scraped knees to prolonged forms of disease, we all suffer.  Those like my mother, who was readmitted to the hospital yesterday, are suffering a great deal this very day.  And die?  Of course.  From the moment we are conceived, we are destined to die.  My wife is on her way back from her grandfather’s funeral as we speak.  The only difference is whether we will suffer and die by ourselves or whether we will allow Jesus to be there with us.  For Peter, it doesn’t seem that he was ready to think that far ahead.  Peter, it seems, was most concerned with potential and success as they related to the immediate world around him.  We can’t blame him, can we?  This is the way the world works.  Success simply is not defined in spiritual terms of the now and not yet.  Success is rather all about what we can do today to improve our situation tomorrow.  It’s an impatient concept.  Thinking about this, I typed the word “success” into Amazon.com, wondering what might come up in terms of what people are reading.  Number one on the list: The Success Principles(TM): How to Get from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be by Jack Canfield and Janet Switzer.  I wonder where they think that we want to be?  And does suffering and death factor in to any of that?  Number two on the list: Success Is Not an Accident: Change Your Choices; Change Your Life by Tommy Newberry.  This one sounds like a talk that I recently heard at a service club meeting.  The speaker told those in attendance that if we think positive thoughts, set goals for ourselves and work very hard, then great things will happen and the money will flow.  It was a familiar message, just served up a little differently.  It’s all just like that old Smith Barney commercial that always ended, “They make money the old fashioned way: they earn it.”  Well, what if Jesus had assumed this kind of ideology and role?  Just imagine Jesus as a crusader who used his God-given power to reward those who sought worldly success.  The son of God surely could have done that… by force, if necessary.  All power and authority could have been doled out to those who worshipped and followed him.  Anyone who opposed the Messiah would have to suffer the consequences.  Eternal life would be issued based on effort and hard work.  What would that kind of world look like?  Sadly, this is a world that we all have a hand in creating and in working very hard to maintain.  We busy ourselves with education, work, leisure, hobbies and anything that will distract us from the inevitable end.  We frown and distort our faces when people mention death, thinking how morbid and depressing the whole thing is.  Suffer, be rejected and be killed?   “God forbid it Lord, this will never happen to you… furthermore, this will never happen to us!”

This is all silly, I know.  It’s silly because God does not behave like we behave, and thankfully so.  God provides the free gift of grace that we only need to accept.  Everything else, including confession, discipleship, and stewardship comes as a response.  If we wonder how this all will go, we must again assume our role as followers so that we can see where Jesus is taking us.  It is there that we might see what Peter missed.  When Jesus taught his disciples, he spoke openly of suffering, rejection, and death.  That in itself should be good news, as God loves us so much that God was willing to take on the full extent of human affliction and pain.  The thing that Peter missed, however, was the part about resurrection.   Because he seemed stuck in his own thoughts, he missed the part about rising again and what that meant.  Having the privilege of the full story, we must not miss out on the same.  We are called to follow Jesus in every way.  Just as Jesus was baptized, so are we.  Just as Jesus healed and loved, so may we.  Just as Jesus suffered and died, so will we.  Just as Jesus rose from the grave and joined God in heaven, in faith, so will we.  Wrapping our hearts and minds around that, we will move away from our own interests and toward God’s.  Trusting in the goodness and grace of God’s free gift, our eyes will be opened to what it means to lose our lives for Jesus’ sake.  The mystery and the paradox will be revealed. 

So for all who are life time members of this church, for Tim and Kasee who will join us today, and for anyone who is exploring the call to discipleship, Jesus asks that we get behind him.  Sometimes Jesus asks silently, or as with Peter, sometimes Jesus asks with a little more determination and, apparently, a little less tact.  Nevertheless, Jesus continues to ask because Jesus loves us all.  Looking to that hymn that we are about to sing, let us consider our response. Amen.