As I was reading the texts for this week, I was thinking about how much heartache is caused by the difference between our expectations and reality.
Sometimes it can be a simple thing. There's a whole thread on Reddit called “ExpectationVsReality”, where people share photos - often tagged as “Failed Expectation”, though there are also some surprising successes. I especially like the ones where someone will post the inspiration photo for a cake they ordered, and then the next picture is how the cake they got actually looks, and…it’s not great, usually.
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But our experiences with expectations and reality are often bigger than just a disappointing cake design. It could be expectations about the way we’ll progress at work or school or in sports, or expectations about what our relationships or family life will be like. We may have expectations around what our bodies are capable of, or what life will be like in a new season - of living alone, or parenthood, or retirement.
The mis-match between our expectations and reality happens for a variety of reasons. It may be that we had an unrealistic view of the situation, or an unrealistic view of our abilities or others’ abilities. In the circumstances of the cake, you can’t bring the bakery a picture that was AI-generated, or a picture of a cake that cost $200, and expect to pay $40 and get the same thing. It just doesn't work that way.
So, sometimes it’s a result of idealism, or a kind of false hope about what is possible. And, as is the cause of lots of heartache in life, we can also look to human sin and brokenness as a reason that our expectations of a world that is just, or fair, or where things work out a certain way, does not match the reality that’s in front of us.
Yes, the collision of expectations and reality can be painful, but on the other side of things - as we come to terms with what the actual reality is - we might find a new source of inspiration, or hope, or opportunity.
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In our reading from Acts, we pick up with Paul as he continues his missionary journey to the city of Corinth.
Today’s story is so interesting in part because we have dual views of this setting. We have the version here that Luke wrote in Acts about Paul establishing a church there in Corinth, but then our canon of Scripture also includes two letters from Paul to the Corinthians. So we have this view of the very beginning of this church, and then a continued relationship, after Paul leaves but continues corresponding with them. If you flip through the letters of First and Second Corinthians, you’ll find that Paul addresses disputes and difficulties among the Corinthians, and provides teaching, encouragement, and nurture as the church there continues to grow into life together.
Up to this point in his ministry, Paul’s had a pretty steady pattern to his work. He arrives in the city, he finds the synagogue, and he speaks to his fellow Jewish people there, in order to convince them of the way of Jesus, which Paul sees as a kind of continuation of Jewish scriptures and teaching and belief rather than a totally new religion. After all, Paul himself was Jewish - a Pharisee who had this life-changing encounter with Jesus on the road to Damascus.
Now, as he journeys to these different places, Paul has varying levels of success. In some cities, there are lots of converts. And it’s possible there are some exaggerations, but we read about thousands of people coming to be baptized and believing in Jesus.
In other places, like Athens, which we heard about last week, there weren’t that many Jewish people, so Paul had to adjust his strategy, his reference points. Instead of using the Hebrew Scriptures, he pulls evidence and examples from Greek philosophy, poetry, and culture.
But here in Corinth, there’s something totally different. There is a synagogue, which Paul goes to in order to preach and argue, but the Jewish people there really want nothing to do with his testimony. We hear that they “opposed and reviled him”. Which is fair - they have their own religion and way of belief.
But that had been Paul’s expectation, right? His expectation had been that this was his audience - that, as a former Pharisee, these were his people, who would surely follow the same progression he did to go from his former beliefs to his current strong faith in Jesus as the Messiah. But the reality is…not this. So what does Paul do? He follows the advice that Jesus gave to his disciples in the gospels, to shake the dust from his clothing, shake the dust from his sandals, and move on to a new audience that wanted to listen.
So this is what Paul does, and, luckily, he doesn’t need to go far. Living next door to the synagogue was Titius Justus, who was a worshiper of God. "Worshiper of God" is a kind of coded language to say that Titius Justus was a gentile - not Jewish - but he was drawn to Jewish teachings and even participated in worship at the synagogue, but had not formally converted1.
But with Titius Justus and a few others, the church began to grow, as more Corinthians came to listen to Paul's preaching and brought themselves and their households to be baptized.
Yes, despite his earlier dashed expectations, Paul was able to embrace this new reality. He received encouragement from God in the form of a vision, where God reminded Paul that God was with him, that he would be safe, and that though the community he had expected to receive him did not, there was a community there in Corinth ready to embrace him and his teachings about God. With that assurance, Paul was able to teach and preach among them, staying in Corinth for 18 months to get to know them, and build relationships, and help establish and root this new community.
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In our Gospel, too, Peter has expectations. He has expectations of Jesus and what it means for Jesus to be the Messiah. This week’s text continues directly from last week’s. If you remember, it has this really shining moment where they're there in Caesarea Philippi, and Jesus asks the disciples, “Who do people say that I am?” and “Who do you say that I am?” and there is Peter with a bold and faithful proclamation: “You are the Messiah, the Son of the Living God.”
And Jesus is like, yes! Finally! They get it! They understand what’s happening here. You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church.
But then Jesus starts describing what it really looks like for him to be the Messiah. And Peter does this kind of double-take, because his expectations about what the Messiah would do would be something like coming in with strength and power to undermine and fight back against these Roman occupiers and be victorious and everything would be awesome.
But here’s Jesus, talking about suffering, and humiliation, and death. And Peter is so blindsided. He’s crashing out, he can’t understand, it doesn't make sense to him. And so he pulls Jesus aside and says, alright. I don’t really know why you’re saying all this, but let’s be clear - this must never happen to you. Suffering? Death? That is not what I was talking about when I said you were the Messiah.
Jesus responds to that lovely clarification of Peter’s expectations with a strong reality-check. Get behind me, Satan. You - the rock? You are a stumbling block, a hindrance to me. You are in the way, a tempter, trying to keep me from the reality that God has set before me. You, Peter, are setting your mind not on divine things, but on human things.
See, Peter’s expectations about the Messiah were all upside-down. He was using the world’s way of thinking to try to understand what God was doing and it just doesn’t work, because God does things a new way. Jesus goes on to describe to his disciples what following his way, what following the way of the cross really looks like.
It turns out it’s not about power, or success, or glory, at least not in the way the world usually defines these things. Instead, followers of Jesus are invited to deny themselves, to take up their cross, and to follow - not to try to set the course, but to follow Jesus. To lose their life, instead of trying to save it. Because the cross that Jesus talks about? This tool of shame and suffering and failure? This cross will be used by God to reveal who God is and where God can be found.
In Jesus - in Jesus’s death and resurrection - God is turning the way of the world upside-down. Lifting up the weak and lowly, saving God’s people - not through might or earthly force, but through the love, and suffering, and death of Jesus.
Now, Peter will not be the last person to balk at the strangeness of this proclamation; will not be the last person to be upset by the difficulty of this work of discipleship. We see it in Paul’s letters to the Corinthians, where he describes to them that though the cross seems like foolishness to those who are perishing, to us who are being saved, to believers, it is the power of God.
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We, too, have expectations about how the world ought to work, or what the life of a Christian should be like. We often imagine how nice it would be if prayer was like a vending machine, where you put in your request and got exactly what you asked for. How nice it would be if, as Christians we could say, alright, I have my cloak of protection around me, nothing in the world can hurt me and I will not experience suffering or death.
This is, however, not the reality of the world, and not the reality that Jesus promises.
What Jesus does promise, though, is that in the cross - this tool of worldly shame and suffering and failure - we will find a God who is with us. With us, in our shame, and suffering, and pain, and failure. With us when things do not go right; with us when our reality is so far from our expectations that we are left with our heads spinning.
That cross that seems like foolishness is really a promise of life and salvation, of presence and hope from the God who never leaves us. This is the good news: that when we are broken and hurting because of the disparity between our expectations and the reality of the world; when we ourselves act as a stumbling block, a hindrance to the way God has set forth in the world, Jesus is there. Jesus is with us in our pain and suffering, with us in our disillusionment and disappointment, leading us in a better way - a way of true and eternal life and love and hope.
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