Loving Letting Go

Sermon on Matthew 16:21-28 preached at Community of Christ Lutheran Church on September 3, 2023

Peter loves Jesus. Peter’s got his flaws, sure, but he loves Jesus like a brother, like a father, like a mentor who shapes his entire world. Peter is ready to die for Jesus, he claims. No one can say that Peter’s love for Jesus is not as strong as any human love we are capable of. So what he’s been hearing from Jesus, about how he’s going to suffer and die at the hands of the powerful, this understandably disturbs Peter. He pulls Jesus aside and says, “God forbid it, Lord! This must never happen to you.”

Isn’t such a response loving? Yes. 

Yet Jesus turns and breathes fire at 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.” Wow. Has anyone ever rebuked you as “Satan” before? That’s pretty extreme.

It forces us to ask: when is protecting someone and wanting them to be safe and alive NOT the loving, godly thing to do?

Isn’t wanting someone to be safe like the bedrock of love? As a parent, I would like to believe that I would lay down my life, everything that I have, to protect my children. Wouldn’t you give a kidney to save a beloved sibling or friend from the ravages of disease? As a spouse, wouldn’t you hope for the same from your partner? That’s love to us. 

Elsewhere in the Gospels, when Jesus says “No greater love has one than this, to lay down his life for his friends,” we think “ah, yes, on my better days I could love like that”. Being willing to sacrifice to protect our loved ones is peak “human” love. But Jesus’ rebuke is that Peter’s protective love is too human, in a bad way. It’s not divine, not a godly thing, according to Jesus.

Protective love is human. Love that trusts the future to God is divine. I’m going to have to preach myself into believing this, so here goes. 

God’s future unfolds when people trust God enough to let go of the outcome. This is true for those who are following God, AND those who love them.

Moses listens to a burning bush.

Abraham leaves behind all the extended family to become a wanderer, dependent on God. 

Peter and Andrew leave their fishing nets in the boat, and follow Jesus. 

Saul, who becomes Paul, leaves behind his authority, to eat his own words and proclaim the good news of the One whose followers he had rounded up and persecuted. 

None of that would have happened if they didn’t trust the future to God. Fine. But we need to hear the other sides of the stories. What did their wives and mothers say? How many deaths did they have to die of worry for their beloved ones? I am on the side of the Canaanite mother who will get in Jesus’ face for her daughter to get the healing attention she deserves. But what happens if that daughter grows up and takes significant risks to follow Jesus? What should her mother’s love be like then, to be focused on divine things, not human things?

What is being asked, or demanded of Peter and all of Jesus’ disciples is not just to commit through potential suffering ourselves, but to allow our beloveds to follow where God leaves. How do we love, by letting go? How do we trust God with our beloved’s future, more than ourselves?  

There is a Bible story for this, though. When Jesus is on the cross, himself dying, he turns to his mother Mary and his beloved disciple John, and he makes an adoption plan for them. He tells them each that he is not going to be able to care for them anymore, so they are to be for each other, a mother and son. This is more heartbreaking than dying: being unable to love and protect your closest loved ones anymore. 

Can we make this sacrifice? To turn our beloved one’s future over to God? 

Think of all the parents and grandparents and families whose young adults began their year with ELCA Young Adults in Global Mission this past week, in Jerusalem and elsewhere. Or with the Border Servant Corps in Texas. Or Lutheran Volunteer Corps in urban placements all over the U.S. They didn’t follow the “typical” path of going on to school or getting a job, but instead chose to leave their comfort zones, in an experience that will surely change them. Think of your own relative who is about to step out in faith with a big life change, maybe right where they are geographically, but trying a totally new thing. Do we love them by forbidding the risk? Is that a human thing, or a divine thing?

Someone I read this week suggested that Jesus’ response to Peter might have been so harsh (I mean, he calls him Satan) because if Jesus was not absolutely adamant about his path, he might be convinced to give it up. The temptation to listen to Peter is SO alluring. Perhaps Jesus could feel himself wavering. If he started thinking and feeling like a caregiver for his close friends and disciples, looking Peter in the eyes, he might be swayed. The severe rebuke could have been to strengthen Jesus’ own resolve. Perhaps what we need is practice, putting our minds on divine things, instead of human things. Practice loving by letting go, for God’s sake. Jesus begins telling his disciples what he is going to do, in this Gospel story, but he doesn’t stop here. He keeps practicing it, even after his resurrection, so they can grasp it. We re-tell the stories, until we are ready to live them. We give to the church and outreach organizations without control over how those funds will be used. We release our beloveds into the arms of God. God help us.