The Courage to Be Honest
Mark 8:31-38:
He then began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and after three days rise again. He spoke plainly about this, and Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him.
But when Jesus turned and looked at his disciples, he rebuked Peter. “Get behind me, Satan!” he said. “You do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns.”
Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me and for the gospel will save it. 36 What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul? If anyone is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of them when he comes in his Father’s glory with the holy angels.”
As a young person and a very earnest Christian, this last verse about God being ashamed terrified me. For that matter, this fear generated by this verse has continued to cast a long shadow on my life of faith and in my imagination. It is an imprisoning feeling to be ashamed of yourself. It is a terrorizing thought that God might be as ashamed of you as you are of yourself (or even more so).
But I wonder if this verse would have lost its teeth if I had read it in conversation with the wider context. What comes before and what comes after features Peter.
Recently Peter made a declaration about Jesus that was full of insight and faith: “You are the Messiah.” Jesus (Mk. 8:29). And then, nearly in the next breath, after Jesus describes that he must suffer, be rejected, and be killed, Peter takes Jesus aside and “rebukes” him (Mk. 8:32). Perhaps what Jesus said doesn’t square with Peter’s notion of the glory and fame that a Messiah should have. He is even, perhaps, a little ashamed of Jesus. Why talk of suffering, of rejection, of being killed just when they are beginning to accept this truth that Jesus might just be the Messiah they were all waiting for?
And then – the bombshell. Jesus rebukes Peter, even calling him Satan. He tells Peter: “you have no idea how God works” (Mk. 8:33, MSG).
And that’s when that haunting verse “If anyone is ashamed of me…the Son of Man will be ashamed of them…” (Mk. 8:38) is spoken.
If there’s anyone who knows shame in this scene, it is Peter. Peter has been brought low by his own lack of understanding, by Jesus’ sharp rebuke. I imagine his cheeks flaming red, and that he can feel the stares of the other disciples. For they all know, and he knows, and Jesus knows, that Peter has just dared to rebuke Jesus. Is it even possible that Jesus gazed at Peter when he said these words?
But the story doesn’t end with Peter wallowing in shame and rebuke. Instead, in the very next scene, Jesus beckons Peter, James, and John to follow him up a high mountain where they are alone. Peter has legitimate fear that Jesus is ashamed of him. Is he fit to follow any longer? What might Jesus say to Peter (and the others) when they are up there? What might the other disciples, left behind, think is being said to Peter? Is this the end for Peter? Has he messed up beyond measure? Is Jesus about to dismiss him?
And then the most incredible thing happens. Peter sees the glory of Jesus on full display in the moment known as the Transfiguration. Far from dismissing Peter, Jesus gives him this grace. Jesus confirms that he is still a disciple. Jesus even trusts his message to Peter and the others, although he warns them not to tell the story until after Jesus has been raised from the dead (Mk. 9:9). Which would subtly remind them of what Jesus had said before about his impending death and also his impending resurrection.
After years of reading his story, Peter’s failure doesn’t surprise me. It rarely surprises me when Peter pulls out a win, or when he trips and falls on his face – for he seems to do both nearly in equal measure. What surprises me the most is that Peter allows his deepest shame to be put on display. After all, would you want your biggest failures, the moment you are most ashamed of, your deepest sin, to be broadcast for the entire world to see, to discuss, to dissect, to preach sermons about and write devotionals about for centuries?
After years of reading this story what surprises me, over and over, is the grace shown by Jesus. Even though he has every reason to be ashamed of Peter (here, and later in the story too – we all know what is coming just before Jesus is crucified), Jesus never gives up on Peter. And Jesus keeps restoring Peter. He keeps beckoning Peter up a mountain, keeps giving him another chance to get it right, he keeps showing Peter who his Messiah is.
Kate Bowler writes: “Lent is my favorite part of the church calendar because it is a time when the whole church is on the losing team. A time when we get a minute to tell the truth: Life is so beautiful and life is so hard. For everyone."[1] And it reminds me of Peter. I presume Peter, as a pillar of the earliest church, would have had some input in what was said about him, about the stories told, about the way he is portrayed. And yet the stories about Peter are unflinching in their honesty. And still, even when the truth is all told, Jesus is not, it appears, ashamed of Peter.
All of this sheds new light on a verse that casts a long shadow. If we are worried that God will be ashamed of us, we may be tempted to hide, to obscure the truth. But during Lent (not so much at Christmas, that scene in “Love Actually” notwithstanding) we tell the truth. Yes, for a time we are on the losing team – and that is difficult to reckon with our lofty ideas of success and victory. Peter knows that dissonance so well.
And, yes, each of us is by turns insightful and obtuse, kind and cruel, sacrificial and prideful, healers and harmers. This is true of individuals as well as groups. There are times, upon learning of the failures of individuals and our failures as a body, as a Church, when I wonder if Jesus might not just be ashamed of me, of us. In the song “215,” written by Brian Doerksen and Cheryl Bear in the wake of the discovery of 215 unmarked graves at the site of a former residential school in Kamloops, they sing poignantly and stingingly and honestly: “We’re Christian and Canadian, yet now ashamed of both.”[2] They are right. And this captures the pain of the moment when the truth is told perfectly. We are sinful. We are foolish. We are misguided. We are harmful. And we are ashamed. Perhaps we should be ashamed.
And yet, in Lent, we tell the truth. And when we do, it turns out that Jesus does not hide his glory, from us. Perhaps we might even imagine that the Son of Man is not ashamed of us. No more need to hide. Watching Peter before and during (and even after) the Mount of Transfiguration gives me the courage to be honest.
1. From “Bless the Lent We Actually Have,” written by Kate Bowler, Jessica Richie, Brenda Thompson, Harriet Putman, Gwen Heginbotham, and Hope Anderson, p. 3.
2. You can watch this powerful music video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1JI857KO3OE
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