22nd Sunday 2023
Jeremiah 20:7-9; Romans 12:1-2; Matthew 16:21-27
You have to feel sorry for Peter: the poor lad is only trying to do his job. He has just been given the Keys of the Kingdom, and named as the rock on which the Church is to be built. He must have been feeling thoroughly confident, and so he wouldn’t have hesitated when he glimpsed an opportunity to exercise his newly given authority in the best of all possible causes.
His Lord and Master is talking about suffering and death. Surely this is a moment for Peter to give support and reassurance; to remind Jesus that His trusty lieutenant is at hand to keep Him safe. Peter goes about his task impeccably: mindful of Our Lord’s instructions, he even takes Him aside to speak privately. Does he really deserve to be called the devil?
Actually, that is not what he is being called. Strictly speaking, I don’t think that Our Lord is speaking to Peter at all. He is addressing Satan himself, the Tempter, who is using Peter’s good intentions for his own ends and speaking through Peter.
How often does someone—how often do you—say something with the best of intentions, which turns out to be totally the wrong thing? You mean well, but your suggestion, advice, whatever, is at best unhelpful, at worst positively harmful. Indeed, it has been suggested that “s/he means well” is the most damning thing that can be said about anyone, since it implies that the person in question has missed the target entirely.
This is true especially when the person is a trusted friend, and when the suggestion fits your own desires, even though it is not the right thing. When Peter said, in effect, “You don’t have to go through with this” Jesus must have felt the force of his words. Perhaps He really didn’t have to? No, this was temptation, and He had to dismiss it as such, calling out Satan himself who was hiding behind Peter. Remember the temptations in the wilderness, when we were told that Satan “left Him, to return at the appointed time”? This is one of those appointed times, but now Satan is disguised as Peter, and must be identified and named.
There is, however, a warning for Peter. He must not assume that he is always being guided by God. It is a warning too for successive Popes: like everyone else, they will make mistakes. They must never confuse the gift of infallibility, bestowed on them only when they are expressing the God-given mind of the entire Church, with their own opinion, however strongly held.
If indeed there is a warning for Peter, there is a warning for us as well. To follow Christ will not always be a matter of beer and skittles. There will be times when the Cross weighs heavily upon us, when it chafes our shoulders; then we may be tempted by others, or by our own inclinations, to lay it down, to take the easy option. Those are the moments when Satan is tempting us, hiding behind a good friend, or within ourselves. Those are the moments when we must recognise him, and call him by name, though perhaps silently, so as not to panic our friend into thinking that we are calling him or her the devil.
We have something of a linguistic issue in what Jesus says to us. “Anyone who wants to save their life will lose it” we are told. Then we hear that crucial, life-defining question “What will a man gain if he wins the whole world and ruins his life?”. You and I may be more familiar with the more severe question “What doth it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses his soul?”. Which is the correct translation?
Well, in effect, both of them are. The Greek word in question is psuche—“psyche” in English--which originally means the essence of a person, his or her identity, what he or she is at the deepest level. As such, it can be translated as “identity” or as “mind” “life” or “soul”.
In the question “What doth it profit a man…?” the more powerful translation is “soul”. Yet it is the same word—psuche—which Jesus uses when He warns that anyone who wants to save their life will lose it. There, it wouldn’t seem right to use “soul” as the translation: surely we are right to want to save our soul? Do we use different translations for the same word in the space of a few lines? That isn’t entirely satisfactory either. Whatever translation(s) we use, we must bear in mind that our fundamental purpose is to follow Christ, and that this will involve the Cross, and the rejection of temptation.
