Think How? How am I to think as God thinks? I am not God! Our theme statement today is a call that comes from Jesus in today’s Gospel, addressed to Peter, who is told: “Get behind me, Satan!” This is Peter who received high praise last week from Jesus… “Blessed are you, Simon!” Jesus today is explaining what the “Messiah of God” must experience and endure, “suffer greatly from the elders, the chief priests and the scribes, and be killed and on the third day be raised.” Peter’s reaction is natural, and that is the problem “You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do!”
How else is Peter supposed to think? He is human, after all. But that is the point: He is more than Human, He has been given God’s Grace, God’s Life! Peter is being called to learn to think and see as God thinks and sees, and he is given the power of grace to do so. It is about not steering from the path God gives us to travel, even if it demands struggle, rejection or suffering for the sake of justice, peace and love.
We, like Peter, have begun with our Baptism, to live not just humanly, but with God’ own Life! And so we are called to learn to think as God thinks!