Proper 17

Want to get rich fast?Want to play a wicked guitar without practicing?Want to marry the most beautiful woman, or most handsome man, in the world?Want to write a series of best-selling novels?You might be able to do all of those things and more on your own, but you also might need to … make a deal with the devil. If you don’t know how to do that, check out the internet articles on the subject. Here are the quick steps for dealing with the devil:* Make an appointment with the devil.* Hire a lawyer.* Aim high.* Be specific.* Read the fine print.* Enjoy the ride while it lasts but be sure to keep yourself in good health.* Beat the devil at his own game and you’ll win big.Sounds attractive, right? In a quick fix culture, most people are looking for the easy way to an easy life, especially if the personal cost is relatively low. One way of getting whatever you desire comes with an attractive payment plan – nothing up front but everything paid in full at death. The price? Only your immortal and eternal soul, which, if you’re really looking for the quick fix solution to fame and fortune, you’re probably not using anyway! Interested? Apply at midnight at the most remote crossroads in your area. Ask for Satan.History is full of legends of people who made such a deal with the devil. Faust, the protagonist of the classic German legend made famous by Goethe, exchanged his soul for unlimited knowledge and worldly pleasures. The term “Faustian bargain” has ever since been a sophisticated way to question the meteoric rise of a person to fame and fortune who did not seem to pay his dues in diligence and hard work. Musicians are especially associated with the Faustian bargain. Niccolo Paganini, the late 18th-early 19th century violinist who many still believe was the greatest who ever lived, played the violin with such force and velocity that one Vienna concertgoer swore that he saw the devil helping Paganini play. The violinist’s fiercely difficult works led others to believe that he was the son of the devil himself. Two legendary, early-20th century, Mississippi-delta guitarists, Tommy Johnson and Robert Johnson (not related), are similarly associated with making a deal with the devil down at a crossroads, exchanging their souls for a wicked good ability to play the blues.It’s not just musicians and academics who have historically made deals, however. Clergy have historically been tempted to strike a bargain as well. Long before Faust, in the 6th century, a Christian named Eutychianus of Adana wrote of a cleric named Theophilus who, being disappointed in the advancement of his worldly career because of a meddling bishop, sold his soul to the devil so that he could become a bishop himself. Years later, fearful for his soul, he prayed to the Virgin Mary for forgiveness and got a reprieve.Most famous of all, however, is the even older story of the one to whom the devil offered multiple deals which were all turned down. If anyone had reason to take a deal, it was Jesus, who knew he was facing a horrifyingly painful death if he kept doing and saying the things he had been doing and saying around Judea. If a deal with the devil is about skipping the hard parts, Jesus understood that his life was nothing but hard parts. He wasn’t going to skip them.Matthew opens this section in chapter 16 with Jesus and the disciples coming into “the district of Caesarea Philippi,” which is significant for the dialogue that follows. Caesarea Philippi was the renamed city of Banias at the foot of Mount Hermon which, in the Hellenistic period, was also known as the location of the cave of the Greek god Pan, the half-man, half-goat god of fright (from which comes the word “panic”). The cave was known for its massive springs of water which fed the Sea of Galilee and the Jordan River, which also led pagan worshippers to believe that it was the entrance to Hades – the underworld, or the realm of the dead. The pagan worship of Pan that took place at Pan’s statue and shrine at the cave involved bizarre sexual rituals, thus most Jews wouldn’t go near the place.And yet, Jesus seems to be taking his disciples to this region for a reason. Even though they may have only been in the vicinity of this horrific den of iniquity, Jesus uses this place to question his disciples about the perceptions of him that were out there. “Who do people say that I am?” (16:13) and “who do you say that I am?” (v. 15) are questions designed to help the disciples define Jesus’ identity in the midst of a world full of competing gods and divine claimants. Simon, of course, gets it right. “You are the Messiah,” he answers, “the Son of the living God” (v. 16). In the shadow of a pagan shrine, Simon declares that Jesus is the direct agent of the one true and living God, the only one worthy of worship.Jesus, of course, blesses Simon’s declaration and renames him “Peter,” the rock upon which Jesus’ church will be built – a church that will always seem to be butting up against the gates of Hades and the specter of the evil that binds people to sin and death (vv. 18-19). Peter will hold the keys to the kingdom, not as the gatekeeper of heaven (as the popular “pearly gates” image conveys), but as the one who takes up the earthly authority of Jesus to “bind” and “loose” in Jesus’ name through the teaching and leadership of Peter and the rest of the disciples, then and now. In other words, Jesus was handing Peter a tremendous responsibility and burden to carry on Jesus’ own ministry in doing battle with the forces of evil, which are represented by the devil.Interestingly, when we think of the devil, we most often picture him in the form of a horned creature, half-man, half-animal with cloven hooves, a bifurcated tail and a pitchfork. Exchange the pitchfork for a flute and lose the tail and you’ve got a perfect image of the god Pan right there at the gates of Hades. While the Bible doesn’t try to physically describe the devil, there near the cave of Pan the devil certainly rears his ugly head – not from the rock of the cave, but from the Rock upon which Jesus’ own church was being built.Jesus lays out where he and the disciples will be moving from here: toward Jerusalem and toward Jesus’ death at the hands of the religious leaders (v. 21). Jesus will not only be bumping up against the gates of death and the realm of evil, he will be walking through them. Peter rightly named him as the Messiah, but Jesus’ understanding of messiah was not one of triumphant accolades, throngs of followers and political power. Instead, Jesus defined “Messiah” as one who would save his people through his own suffering and death.The easy way would have been to play on his popularity and avoid the pain, and the temptation to do so had been with Jesus all along. The devil had met him out there in the wilderness before all this began, and offered Jesus the chance to have it all, without any cost to himself (4:1-11). All Jesus would have to do is give up his mission and buy into the devil’s agenda. As Bono sang it in U2’s song “Vertigo,” the devil essentially offers the proposition this way: “All of this, all of this can be yours. Just give me what I want, and no one gets hurt.”Peter, fresh off his anointing as Jesus’ own Rock, can’t believe what he’s hearing. Suffering? Killed? These aren’t words you’re supposed to associate with a Messiah. You have an opportunity here, Jesus, and so do we. None of that works if you’re dead. There’s an easier way and we’ll help you find it. Like a man standing at the crossroads, Peter is ready to make a deal.Jesus, however, recognizes Old Scratch in Peter’s rebuke. “Get behind me, Satan!” he snaps at Peter. “You are a stumbling block to me; for you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things” (v. 23). Jesus has a definite road to take, and he won’t make a deal with the devil to take the easier way out. That road is the way of the cross. “If any want to become my followers,” he says to the assembled disciples, “let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me” – down that road (v. 24). That’s the only deal that a disciple can take. Focus on saving your own life and making it easier, and you’ll lose in the end. Focus on giving away your life by going down this path with Jesus, and you’ll find real life and not the kind that’s artificially and temporarily inflated by the attractiveness of a devilish deal (v. 25).“All of this can be yours,” says the devil. Jesus reminds us of the price. “What will it profit them if they gain the whole world but forfeit their life? Or what will they give in return for their life?” (v. 26). The “them” is us. Every day we’re presented with a choice about whose kingdom we’re going to follow. Following Jesus isn’t easy, but it’s the only path that leads to life. Where are people making deals with the devil in our culture? What offers do we need to say “no” to in order to gain a soul that is modeled after and follows after Jesus?Jesus didn’t panic when offered a devilish deal. Neither should we.