Matt 16v22 Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. ‘Never, Lord!’ he said. ‘This shall never happen to you!’
King Cnut was well known for standing at the edge of the sea and telling the tide to go back. He was running with his own agenda and not God's. But the story is not true. He took his noblemen to the sea and did what the story says to demonstrate that, however powerful they thought he was, he was never as powerful as God.
He got the agenda right!
The reading from the OT exposes serious tensions between Jeremiah's agenda and God's. Jeremiah is thinking of giving up the job. He has been speaking to the people and they have ignored him, and treated him badly. They hated his negative words and instead wanted a prophet who thought like them. Jeremiah is complaining bitterly how doing God's will seems to have landed him on the muck heap. He is seeking some kind of recompense against his enemies. Come and show some power, God.
It is the eternal tension between the God of power who is love and human power which often is the opposite of love. Love is costly, demanding, self-sacrificing, just as Paul describes in the Romans reading.
Last week the gospel was about Peter declaring that Jesus was Power - the Messiah, the Son of God. Peter had seen the power. He knows Jesus can feed 10,000 humans with a handful of bread rolls, can raise the dead, heal the sick, restore sight to the blind – it is surely nothing to wave the wand and take over, in Jerusalem, overthrow the Romans, redistribute the wealth of the tax collectors, restore Israel to be the premier power in the Middle East. The Jewish nation had been waiting for this agenda for hundreds of years, and its time had come. At least that was what Peter assumed. Jesus was going to do Peter's agenda.
Jesus had a following, was an excellent speaker, known by all the people, with a second to none reputation for healing, ministry, spiritual insight, political wisdom, surely the next step would be prime-minister. Peter cannot believe that Jesus has another agenda which throughs it all away.
Peter is boosted by getting the 'Messiah' answer right, so he boldly (rebukes) Jesus. Jesus had got it wrong. Dying is not necessary. This is the moment to act, not to die.
Jesus says 'Get thee behind me Satan'. For Satan in the desert three years before, was equally determined that there were alternatives, using power, he could offer Jesus. “Just wave a wand and they will all worship you – you know you have the power” Alternatively, live easily for yourself, magic comfort, turn the stones to bread. Use your power.”
Peter echos what we all want to say from time to time. God this is what your agenda should be, and do it now. Don't be vulnerable like us, use your power now!
At the end of all our prayers, all our petitions and intercessions we have to say, not my will, Lord, but yours. Use me to love as you love, teach me to love as you love, make me vulnerable. Take my life and let it be. For in Jesus' death and resurrection, through the vulnerability, through the pain, we are loved into a perfection we cannot achieve ourselves and the kingdom, the power and the glory are God's, now and for ever, Amen