human concerns

Being part of something means changing your goals and adjusting your expectations. That’s true of marriage and ministry, jobs and joint ventures. A decision to join community of any kind always results in some compromise of self in order to be included in something bigger.

That’s a simple human concept, but it only hints at the truth of our faith journey. Peter found that out the hard way in Mark 8, specifically this passage in verses 31-33: 

“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.’”

Peter, it seems, got caught up in his own ideas of what the Messiah was supposed to be doing. His culture thought that the Messiah would run the Romans out of Jerusalem and return the Jews to political power. Peter was affected by what he’d been taught his whole life, and couldn’t accept what Jesus himself said about his future.

But the Jewish version was really an expression of human concerns, a desire for earthly power and influence. Jesus called it out for what it was.

And he called Peter “Satan.” Obviously Peter wasn’t really Satan, but part of Jesus’ brutal honesty here is pointing out that Satan wants us focused on human concerns rather than Jesus’ kingdom. That’s his way of making sure we work on the wrong things.

There’s a clear expectation here: instead of human concerns, I’m supposed to have in mind the concerns of God. My work and personal lives have to reflect that; my interactions with people should too. 

This is a challenge in a world that uses self-interest as the ultimate measurement of good and bad. Once again, what Jesus calls us to is completely counter-cultural.