Mimesis in Matthew 16:21-23 Posted on September 2, 2026 by gaudetetheology This passage was part of the Gospel reading we heard this past Sunday, the 22nd Sunday of Ordinary Time. From that time on, Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer greatly from the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed and on the third day be raised. Then Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him, “God forbid, Lord! No such thing shall ever happen to you.” He turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are an obstacle to me. You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do.” The use of the word “obstacle” (or “stumbling block”, in Luke; the Greek is skandalon) is a “pay attention” flag to mimetic scholars. Both the use of the term, and the extreme language of Jesus’ response, suggests to me that Jesus was scandalized by Peter. I’d never thought about Jesus being scandalized before. But of course it makes sense: being fully human, of course he would be subject to the operations of human mimesis.. As I heard suggested in a homily a while back, his time and Satanic temptations in the desert — food, adulation, surviving certain death, all for the bargain price of following Satan instead of the Father — clearly had a lasting impression on him, perhaps even at the level of trauma. Surely, he’d already spent a significant amount of time, energy, and emotion coming to this point of acceptance, before he “began to show his disciples.” Is it any wonder that when Peter said what he did, Jesus responded the way he did? But reading the passage again after Mass, it seems to me that Peter was scandalized by Jesus first! Going to Jerusalem instead of staying safely away from the religious leaders? Suffer at their hands, and be killed?? That’s crazy talk! Note that Peter doesn’t seem to have even registered “and on the third day be raised”. That’s another indication of scandal: when you’re so scandalized by part of a statement that it has captured the entirety of your attention — focusing it into a narrow spotlight, if you will — leaving nothing at left over for nuance, context, or anything else. Or? Maybe he did hear it, and it added weight to “yup, definitely crazy talk.” The idea that Jesus could be scandalized suggests that there might be other occasions in the Gospel where this is the case: his response to the Canaanite woman, for example; or the woman at the well. Perhaps we should be paying as much attention to how those people responded to Jesus, as we do to Jesus himself. This entry was posted in Mimetic Theology and tagged mimetic, mt 16, OT22, peter, scandal. Bookmark the permalink. 1 Response to Mimesis in Matthew 16:21-23