September 3^rd 2017. Twenty-second Sunday of Ordinary Time

GOSPEL: Matthew 16:21-27

­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­Translated from a homily by Don Fabio Rosini, broadcast on Vatican Radio

Don Fabio’s reflection follows the Gospel reading ...

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GOSPEL: Matthew 16:21-27

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 Jesus 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."
Then Jesus said to his disciples,
"Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself,
take up his cross, and follow me. 
For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it,
but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.
What profit would there be for one to gain the whole world
and forfeit his life? 
Or what can one give in exchange for his life? 
For the Son of Man will come with his angels in his Father's glory,
and then he will repay all according to his conduct."

The Gospel of the Lord: Praise to you Lord Jesus Christ

Kieran’s summary . . . In the Gospel Jesus tells the disciples that he must suffer and die. Peter rebukes him and says that nothing of this sort must ever happen. In response, Jesus says that Peter is not thinking according to the mind of the Father but rather according to the mind of men. Do you know that, in every single action we make, we have the choice of acting according to the mind of God or according to human logic. Human logic is based on self-preservation, self-promotion, self-aggrandisement. God gives each one of us a mission. He pours love into our hearts and calls on us to live for the truth. But if the criterion for our actions is always ourselves, then we will lose our mission. If we think and act according to the mind of man rather than the mind of God, then we will not make a positive mark on life. Jesus puts the choice starkly before us: live according to God or according to man. How can we live according to the mind of the Lord? "Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.” In every moment of our lives we have this choice: choose according to the Lord (beautiful, eternal acts that change the world for the better), or choose according to the mind of man (transitory, self-preserving, self-directed acts).

The first reading tells of the struggle of Jeremiah: he does not want to carry out his mission because it only brings rejections and derision. But he cannot stop himself from speaking the truth in the Lord’s name

The first reading speaks of the inner struggle of the prophet Jeremiah. The prophet is complaining of the way the Lord has treated him, but it is a strange complaint. He speaks of the violence that has been done against him by the Lord, and this violence is a form of being duped or seduced – a claim that is rare, if not unique, in all of Scripture. Jeremiah states that he was duped by the Lord into carrying out his mission. And this mission has only brought him derision and rejection. It is the classic experience of the prophet: to proclaim the truth to those who do not wish to listen to the truth. Jeremiah no longer wishes to carry on a task that leads to him being made the object of ridicule by the people. So he resolves to himself that he will no longer mention the Lord’s name. But when he tries to do this, the desire to speak in the Lord’s name becomes a fire burning in his heart. The struggle that appears to be an exterior struggle between the prophet and the people is really an internal struggle between the beauty of God and the desire for ease and tranquillity. This is the typical spiritual battle of the prophet: on the one hand the desire for a quiet life, and on the other hand the love poured into the prophet’s heart for that which is luminous and authentic.

The same conflict appears in the Gospel: the conflict between doing what God wants and doing what preserves ourselves. This time it is Peter who expresses the strategy of self-preservation whilst Christ makes clear that the way of the cross is the only way to follow the Father’s will.

This same battle is explicit in the Gospel for Sunday. The passage we read comes after the confession of Peter and it involves a notable clash between the apostle and Jesus. The Lord has just explained that his own mission resembles the classic mission of the prophet and it involves following the will of his Father onto death. In fact, it is not just a prophetic mission but the mission of the second person of the Trinity, who takes upon himself the condition of humanity and resolves the problem of the forgiveness of sin. Jesus makes this first announcement of his impending passion, but Peter takes him apart to rebuke him – claiming, incidentally, an exclusive relationship with the Lord. Just a few verses earlier Peter had professed Jesus to be the Messiah, and now he tells the Messiah that he is taking the wrong approach to things! Peter thinks he has to defend Jesus from himself. How often we take it upon ourselves to declare what is God’s will! Peter, in fact, says that God will not permit these terrible things to happen to Jesus. This is really a theological statement by Peter, a statement of how (in his view) God does things. And so Peter lays out a strategy for Jesus that fits better with what God wants.

When I have a decision to make, do I think as God thinks or as people do?

This conflict brings to the fore the same dualism that we saw in the prophet Jeremiah. Jesus responds, “You do not think according to God but according to men”. This phrase is a key for understanding the entire Gospel: to think as God thinks, or to think as men do. On the one hand we have the notion of thinking in a way that is in tune with the mind of the Father. On the other hand we have the tendency to think as men do, which is to focus on self-preservation and the promotion of the self. The Father is generous, whereas people are mean-minded. The Father gives his Son, and the Son follows the example of the Father in being ready to give himself for humanity. Humanity, by contrast, bases its plan of action on self-protective strategies. This dualism is the dualism between the one who stands before God and the one who stands solely before men. What is the criterion of my action, God or man? At the end of my life, who do I have to present myself to? God or man? What matters more, what God thinks of me or what people think of me? Jeremiah could have made the choice of being at peace with men but a hypocrite at heart. The Lord Jesus expresses the reality of the choice in a very clear manner: "Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.”

In every action of our lives we have this choice: act according to the mind of the Lord (beautiful, eternal acts), or act according the mind of man (transitory, superficial, self-directed)

We are always in the midst of these two choices; either we give our lives or we hold onto them; either we preserve ourselves or we offer ourselves as a gift. In every single action we are at this crossroads! True, sometimes we are not aware that we are acting out of self-preservation. Equally, we are often not aware of the beautiful choices that lie open to us. But the choices that we make subconsciously are the fruit of earlier actions that we made consciously, of habits formed, habits of self-preservation or habits of self-giving. The issue here is the orientation that we have given to our lives. He who gives his life for the love of Christ will find it again. Jeremiah was a prophet who lost his life for love of the Lord, but in so doing he found eternity, and he still is “the light of the nations”. He became in truth that which he was called to become, and he changed history. Those who seek to preserve themselves generally lose their mission! He who busies himself principally in safeguarding his own life, ends up losing the love which has been poured into his heart, and loses eternity. We accept something that is passing in exchange for the beauty and eternity of God. Each one of us is involved in this battle, in small ways or greater ways, in a manner that is hidden or a manner that is evident. Either we make our decisions on the basis of the glory of the Father, on the basis of that which is eternal, or we direct our actions to that which has no future. It is worth living for the great things, for the things that truly endure.