Homily: 22nd Sunday of Ordinary Time

Readings: Jer 20:7-9; Ps 63; Rom 12:1-2; Mt 16:21-27

One of the more interesting aspects of Holy Scripture is that the Bible is filled with encounters between God and man. I suppose that’s to be expected since the Bible is really the story of God’s involvement – perhaps immersion would be a better word – in the history of humanity. He is, after all, the very Author of humanity, the Author of all being, so it’s only fitting that our history would be a part of His history as well….His Story if you will.

It starts with the story of creation in the very first chapters of Genesis
…and continues with the selection of Abraham as the father of God’s chosen people
…with Moses as their liberator and law-giver
…with David and Solomon from whose kingship, whose human family, Our Lord will descend
…and with the prophets who over the course of hundreds of years strive to prepare God’s people for the coming of their Redeemer.

Moses and the Burning Bush

In all of these events, and through these people and countless more, God interacts with those He has created. And it is through these interactions that He not only gradually reveals His plan for humanity, a plan conceived in unimaginable love, but also reveals Himself. It’s a revelation that culminates with the Incarnation of the Son of God, with the arrival among us of the very creative Word of God in the person of Jesus Christ.

As the Letter to the Hebrews proclaims in its opening words: “In times past, God spoke in partial and various ways to our ancestors through the prophets; in these last days, he spoke to us through a son, whom he made heir of all things and through whom he created the universe…”

In the same way, John opens his Gospel saying: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God…And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.”

The Incarnation, then, the person of Jesus Christ, is the ultimate manifestation of God’s interaction with us.

But Jesus didn’t simply appear. He didn’t just show up and say, “Okay, people, I’m God, get down on your knees and worship me.”  Now, that might have suited the pagans fine. They feared their gods, the gods they had created in their own minds, gods that reflected the capriciousness of the natural word, gods that demanded appeasement.

But this wasn’t the kind of interaction the one true God had planned, for which He had prepared the world. He wanted and still wants a different sort of interaction with us. He provides the opportunity for very personal encounters with each one of us, with every one of the billions of men and women He has brought into being over the centuries.

Did you know, in the Bible, God tells us not to fear well over 100 times? Yes, the one true God, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the God of Peter and Paul, the God of you and me, offers us a personal encounter with Him based not on fear, but on something else. It’s an encounter based on love – a love that will lead the Creator of all being to humble Himself in a way incomprehensible to the human spirit.

It is, you see, a divine humility, or as St. Paul instructed the Philippians: “…he emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, coming in human likeness… he humbled himself, becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross.”

It’s this unique and wondrous interaction with humanity – His living among us as one of us – that manifests His love for us. But it’s what He did in that life – His teaching, His healing, His forgiving, His loving, His suffering, His redemptive death, and His Resurrection, that sign and gift of hope to humanity – it’s all this that shows us the remarkable depth and breadth of that love.

And to tell the story of that interaction, we have been given the Gospels…and what a gift they are. They present us with one encounter after another, encounters between the Son of God and the men and women who cross His path: encounters with those who loved Him and those who despised Him, with those who accepted Him and those who rejected Him, with those who sought Him out and those who fled from Him.

In today’s Gospel passage from Matthew we observe one such encounter, one of a string of encounters between Jesus and Peter, encounters that form Peter into the saint he ultimately becomes. Peter has just proclaimed Jesus’ true identity: “You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God.”

You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do

Yes, although Peter recognizes Jesus as the Redeemer, he has yet to grasp how that redemption will be fulfilled. And in this passage, when Peter hears Jesus announce, for the first time, His passion, death and resurrection, he cannot accept the divine plan.

“God forbid!” Peter exclaims, rebuking his Lord whom he has just proclaimed as Son of God. He rejects God’s plan – “This shall not happen to you” – because he doesn’t understand it. It’s as if Peter is saying, “I’m not going to let this happen!”  What arrogance!

Peter had just been told: "...you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven. Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”

Imagine being told that by the Son of God! Perhaps it all went to his head; perhaps he didn’t hear the future tense of this prophecy by Jesus. “You aren’t in charge yet, pal.”

Yes, Peter will lead Christ’s Church, but not yet, not until he is ready, not until he has been formed by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. And he’s certainly not ready now. His disbelief leads to arrogance, causing Peter to place his will above that of the Redeemer, his plan before the plan of the Father. Peter hears only the suffering and death in Christ’s words, something totally contrary to the plan of redemption he has in mind. And the resurrection? At this point it means nothing to him.

How often do you and I reject what God wants for us? Instead of listening prayerfully to discern God’s will, we demand that God fulfill our will. We’re all a bit like this still unformed Peter, aren’t we? Sure that we can run our little corner of God’s universe better than He.

And yet this encounter between Jesus and Peter only proves how much greater is God’s eternal wisdom than any human wisdom we can muster. God takes this man, Peter, this fisherman full of bluster and pride – a most unqualified leader – and forms him into one who will take on the world’s most challenging task, the leadership of Jesus’ nascent Church.

Yes, Jesus is always teaching, and so much of His teaching is aimed at Peter whose responsibilities will be great indeed. In this encounter he teaches Peter that love brings suffering – that God’s love for humanity is so great that Jesus must go to Jerusalem, allow sinners to lay their violent hands on Him, and put Him to death. It is only then that these same sinners may come to recognize and accept the gift of life, eternal life.

If you want to be a disciple, Jesus tells Peter and us, you must follow me to the Cross. You must set aside your willfulness and obey a will far greater than your own.

And then Jesus offers the great paradox: “…whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.”

To “save” one’s life is to live only for oneself, to believe that one’s physical survival and comfort are the only ends worth pursuing. This, Jesus tells His disciples, leads only to death, an eternal death…and so saving ultimately means losing.

But when we lose our lives, when we abandon our lives into God’s hands, allowing His love, His transforming grace, to carry us into His divine life, then, and only then, will we find the eternal life God has planned for us.

Jesus & Simon of Cyrene carry the Cross

Quite a paradox, isn’t it? It's a paradox fulfilled first by Jesus Himself on the Cross. It is there He loses His life only to find it through His glorious Resurrection and through the birth of His Church.

In the same way, Peter, too, will throw away his life like a seed, a seed that will flower into the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church.

Lose yourselves in Jesus Christ, brothers and sisters. Accept the crosses that come your way.

Only then will you experience true liberation, true freedom – freedom from all the constraints and pains and darkness of this life.

Only then will you experience life, the eternal life that God has planned for you.