Denied
Luke 22:31-34, 54-62
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It was an awkward moment. My friend Jeff and I were walking to the 7-11 not far from our suburban neighborhood of cul-de-sacs and modest homes. This was a Saturday adventure for us, ranging beyond the well-defined bounds of the subdivision in which we lived. For us, going to the 7-11 was a kind of quest for Slurpees and snacks. It meant crossing the as-yet undeveloped parcel of land that led down to the street running under the highway, venturing through the underpass, and coming out on the other side to feast on all that the convenience store had to offer. We were free-range kids before that was ever a thing. The awkward moment came as I was telling Jeff about going to see the movie The Last Unicorn with my grandmother. She lived across town, and I would occasionally take the bus to see her, spend the night, and go to the mall with her the next day for lunch at Furr’s cafeteria, followed by a movie, and a book purchase. That’s when Jeff put the question to me. “Why don’t you talk about things like going to see The Last Unicorn at school? Why do you act like you’d never go see a movie like that?” It’s been almost forty years since he put that question to me, and I still don’t have a good answer. Or maybe, I just don’t have an answer that I care to admit. Because like Peter, I was scared.
Now to be sure, being scared of what your 6th grade classmates are going to say about you going to see a G-rated animated fantasy movie with your grandma is a far cry from being scared that people are going to associate you with someone who’s just been arrested and turn you into the authorities, but the impulse isn’t that different. Because for all of Peter’s big talk, for his enthusiastic declaration that Jesus is the Messiah, the son of God, for his eagerness to build booths for Jesus, Moses and Elijah at the top of the mount of transfiguration, for his emphatic assertion that he is ready to go to prison and even death if it comes to that- for all that, when push comes to shove and the whole thing is made real before his eyes, Peter gets scared.
Who knows where that fear begins? Maybe for Peter it started in the garden, when the crowd arrived with Judas to arrest Jesus. Before anyone knew it, someone swung a sword, and someone else lost an ear. So maybe it was at the first hint of the bloodshed to come, or even watching his own hand do it, that made Peter realize that following Jesus was more than an exercise in what-ifs. Following Jesus was, and still is, dangerous business. In parts of the world outside North America and Europe, it can even be a path that threatens real physical danger. But even here, where identifying as ‘Christian’ barely raises an eyebrow, following Jesus can pose a threat to everything else we value. It isn’t so much the overhyped, and largely nonexistent culture war that we hear so much about that poses the threat. No, the threat we face, the threat we feel, comes from Jesus’ own words, “those who would save their lives will lose them. And those who lose their lives for my sake and the sake of the kingdom, will find them.” No matter how we slice it, at some point, to follow Jesus, to trust in the way he is going, means losing: losing control, losing stature, losing credibility, losing every construct we might use to elevate or justify ourselves to others. Peter is ready to go to prison, or even die for Jesus until he comes face to face with everything he stands to lose. It’s all fun and games until someone loses an ear, or worse, their life.
In some ways, Peter is a cautionary tale, just maybe not in the one that’s traditionally been taught. It would be easy to turn this vignette into a wagging finger about weak Christians who cower and deny their faith when questioned by others. “Those who deny me,” says Jesus, “them will I deny.” So, you better stand up and be counted. Far more compelling is the caution leveled at those who would so confidently vocalize their unfailing devotion to Jesus. It’s easy to decorate our houses, or slap a sticker on our cars, or claim how sincere we are in our faith. It’s another thing to be up against it. It’s something else altogether to have that faith tested by the crucible of a world that is not as it should be, as indeed Jesus had assured them they would be tested; sifted like wheat by the loyal opposition. No, the cautionary tale of Peter might be for those of us who, like Peter, are so shamed by the suggestion that we might turn away that we overcompensate with well-meant, but ultimately empty words declaring we would never.
The truth is that the reason I didn’t talk to my 6th grade classmates about going to the see The Last Unicorn was because I wanted them to like me. I wanted to fit in, and to be thought of as someone too cool to like the things I really liked. I was pretty sure that if I told them about the things that I really liked, if I showed them who I really was, they wouldn’t think I was cool and they definitely wouldn’t like me. That night in the courtyard of the high priest’s house, Peter probably wasn’t worried about being seen as cool. He was likely more concerned with getting out of Jerusalem alive and going back home to Galilee. But then, sometimes being seen as cool, being accepted and fitting in can feel just as much a matter of life and death. More than being a cautionary tale, this account of Peter denying Jesus is the mirror in which we see our own fear of being singled out, our own fear of being cast out. Peter’s story is our story, not just in those moments when we decide it’s safer and more convenient to disassociate ourselves from Jesus and who he is to us, but in every moment when we decide that it’s safer and more convenient to disassociate ourselves from ourselves; when we decide that who we are, who we love, and what we value are unacceptable.
Ultimately what Jesus represents, who he is, is the truest form of our own humanity. While others called him the Son of God, the most frequent title we hear Jesus claim for himself is Son of Man, which might more accurately and inclusively be rendered the Human One. This is what our guest preacher from Scotland explored last week in talking about the full humanity of Christ. It’s what we celebrate during the season of Christmas; that in Jesus, God was born to us as one of us. In Jesus, God chose all of humanity for God’s self. And in doing so, Jesus allows us to see ourselves as God would see us, as Christ- God’s anointed, God’s beloved. So when the servant girl thinks she recognizes him as one of his disciples, and he tells her, “I do not know him.” What he is really confessing is that he does not know who he is. Does he believe and will he accept that he is who God says he is in Christ, or not. And when someone else thinks he recognizes Peter as “one of them,” and Peter says, “I am not,” what he is saying is that he doesn’t even recognize himself. And when the third person says that Peter had to have been with him, for he is a Galilean, and Peter says, “I do not know what you are talking about,” in some sense he may actually be telling the truth. Because when things are no longer speculative, or a matter of conjecture; when it gets real, it’s hard to know who we will be. Will we be the best version of ourselves, the person that God says that we are in Jesus, or will we hide who we truly are in the hope that not being seen will save us from the rejection and the loss that we fear the most? That question alone is enough to make anyone of us weep bitterly at the prospect.
But if there is good news here- and I think there is- it is this. When the cock crows, and we fully recognize the depth of our denial, the Lord turns and looks at us. As much as we would see Jesus, sometimes, particularly when we are in deep denial not only about who he is but about who we are as well, in those times maybe what we need more is to know that Jesus sees us. Jesus is looking at us. Not with the look of judgment, or disappointment. No, to know that Jesus is looking at us is to have him see us, see the person we try to hide for fear of rejection, see the person we aren’t even sure that we like, let alone anyone else. I imagine Jesus looking at Peter, looking at us, as he did when the rich young ruler came to him wanting to know how to get in on the life Jesus was talking about, the eternal life that can’t be overcome by the tests and the sifting of what comes at us. Looking at him, we are told, Jesus loved him. Jesus loved him, even though he wasn’t ready to hear what Jesus had to say. Jesus loved him, just as he still loved Peter that night when the cock crowed. That is the good news in the midst of all our denials. No matter how many times we deny him and what he would show us and tell us about ourselves, he never stops looking at us, and never stops loving us, right up to the end.