Whose Side Are We On?

A young man finished college with a degree in psychology. Shortly after his graduation, the new psychologist was asked to deliver a speech to a group of senior citizens. For forty-five minutes he lectured the old folks on the subject of “How To Live The Twilight Years Gracefully.” When the speech was over, an eighty-year-old woman waited until everyone was gone but the twenty-three-year-old speaker. She told him that he had delivered the speech with great power and conviction. “Your vocabulary and your pronunciation are both wonderful. I admire you very much,” she said, “but I must tell you one thing that you’ll come to understand as you get older: You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

In today’s Gospel Lesson, Jesus tells Peter that the time is near when “He must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised” (Mt. 16:21). Hearing this, Peter tells Jesus…