Today's passage is Matthew 26: 69-75.
When Peter is identified as a follower of Jesus by two different women and a group of people, Peter vehemently denies any knowledge of Jesus. After his third denial, a cock crows and Peter remembers with bitter tears that Jesus had told him this would happen.
Previous to this moment there didn't seem to be any doubt that Peter loved Jesus. He swore loyalty to him, called him Lord, received Jesus' praise. He didn't understand most of what Jesus said, but he had left his fishing net immediately when Jesus called. He had stayed with Jesus for three years, enduring hardship and insults. But all that falls away when, because of being a disciple, his life may be at risk. By choosing himself over Jesus, he disowned love.
I have done the same. Two examples come to mind.
The first was telling a friend I didn't want to be friends anymore.
He and I were teachers in the same school.
We played tennis together, drank beer and talked about literature together.
We shared many of the same enthusiasms about life.
But then he ran into trouble at work--I don't know why--and had his workload reduced.
He was unpopular with most of the other teachers. He had married a woman fifteen years older than he was, and they were having problems.
We were friends for three or four years and then suddenly I didn't want to be around him and his problems and his pessimistic view of life. I abandoned him.
The other example of disowning love was with my first wife.
When she got sick near the end of her life, I cared for her.
But when I learned that a lifetime of alcoholism was the cause of her angry, irrational behavior and her collapse and hospitalization, I abandoned her.
I did nothing more than give her the most basic care of feeding and cleaning her until she died.
For both my friend and my wife I gave no emotional or spiritual support, comfort or encouragement. I disowned my love for them. I chose myself over them.
Jesus never did that.
In a way, I was disowning myself.
By disowning them I was making myself smaller, shrinking my heart, deepening my selfishness. In seeking my own misguided view of happiness, I only made myself unhappier and less trustworthy.
In my own eyes I became less than I had imagined myself to be.
Because of my treachery, I worry that my changes since that time are only surface deep and that I'm more than capable of betraying and disowning those I love.
Lord, keep me mindful of how I'm loving others. Let me not be lulled into a false view of myself as a man of substance. I am a betrayer and I need your Spirit to keep me honest towards you and the others you've brought into my life.
