Twenty Second Sunday of Year A

Jer 20:7-9; Rom 12:1-2; Matthew 16:21-27

Last Sunday we read of Simon Peter in Caesarea Philippi

recognising and confessing Jesus to be the Messiah, the Son of the Living God. That demonstration of faith earned him the name Peter, "Rock." And Jesus gave the keys of the Church to Peter, but went on to explain that He has to go up in order to suffer in Jerusalem, be killed and on the third day be raised. The disciples did not understand this type of talk. 

At this point in time, Jesus was already at the height of His popularity. Multitudes of people were coming to Him to listen to Him. But the people, also with His disciples, misunderstood His mission. Jesus tells them bluntly that He was destined to go to Jerusalem to suffer grievously and to be put to death (v. 21) and he continued saying: "If you want to be my follower, you must carry your own cross," (v. 24). It seemed he doused cold water on their triumphalistic hopes and expectations. In other words, He talked about His passion and suffering on the cross.

 Popular Jewish belief at the time of Jesus expected a Messiah who would bring instant glory to Israel in terms of military success, wealth and prosperity. The disciples shared this popular belief. So when Peter heard Jesus announce that he must first endure the cross, he figured that Jesus must have made a mistake. So, he takes the Master apart, as if to cheer him up in a moment of despair. It is as if he wants to make him understand that, in a

moment of confusion, it is understandable that an unfortunate phrase may also escape. Peter was asking Jesus to abandon the narrow and hard way of the Messiah ("no cross, no crown") for the broad and easy way of the World ("all crown and no cross).

By doing this, Peter is not committing a simple mistake. In this, Peter in fact was making two mistakes.  First of all, he had absolutely no clue as to why Jesus came into our world.  The very idea of Jesus being raised from the dead on the third day after His crucifixion completely passed over Peter's head and was abhorrent to him. Peter's second mistake was probably more serious and it is also a very common mistake made even to this day.  Peter's second mistake was to tell God what God's Will should be - making God into our image and our liking, rather than the other way around.

He is moving in the direction opposite to that of the Lord. He is acting just like Satan who tried to convince Jesus to focus on the domain, on the conquest of power. Satan had led Him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory, saying, "All this I will give you, if you kneel down and worship me" but Jesus decidedly reacted: "Be off, Satan" (Mt 4:8-10). Now the same temptation, advanced by Peter, cannot but be responded with the same hardness. No wonder we find here that, although Jesus had called Peter "Rock" a few moments back, Jesus now looks Peter in the face and says to him, "Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; for you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things" (verse 23).  After having rebuked Peter, Jesus turns to all (vv. 24-27) and unequivocally puts forward his demands. There is no attempt to mitigate them, to make them more acceptable. 

Three imperatives characterize the radicality of a choice that does not admit delays nor second thoughts: "Deny yourself, take up your cross, follow me." What does this command really mean?

It means that sometimes doing the will of God is hard, and involves suffering. It means that sometimes following the example and teaching of Jesus is a real challenge. It means that doing the right thing and loving our neighbor can be downright dangerous. It means that loving sometimes demands sacrifice.

And so many of us here are already carrying crosses. We do not have to go looking for them. They find us. And I think if we could see each other's crosses we would be humbled and in awe. You have denied yourself a thousand times over and have done the will of God by raising a family and all of the personal sacrifice that goes with that. You have gone without so that your kids could have advantages that you did not have. You have endured the hardships of supporting that family member or friend in his or her struggle with an addiction. You have put up with the cycle of victory and defeats, ups and downs because of the command of Jesus to love.

Or you're dealing with that addiction yourself and digging in and trying to walk the straight line. You are a teenager and you are determined to live a life of virtue and chastity when it seems to you that no one else is. And you think you may pay a price for that. You will sacrifice popularity and hanging with the crowd that calls themselves cool. You have devoted what seems to be your life to caring for that physically or mentally challenged child or infirm, elderly parent because it is simply the right thing to do and you do it out of love. You have lost a child or your spouse and not a day goes by that you do not think of that person you have lost, but you find the strength to stand up and carry on and continue being a giving person when you feel that everything in life has been taken from you. You have worked for the same company for a long time and now you are jobless. You have carried around a hurt so deep and so stinging for years and even decades and you have never spoken about it to another soul and there have been times that you have wanted to act out in anger and revenge and rage, but you have resisted and turned the other cheek and responded with love.

Deny yourself means you stop thinking about yourself. It is the reversal of the principles in this world governing relations between people. It is the rejection of those that all believe to be positive stimuli because they push to action: the pursuit of one's own interest, the will to achieve gratification, acknowledgements and benefits. Even in the most pure acts of love there is often some veiled forms of selfishness and ambition. 

The disciple of Christ is called, first of all, to give up any personal gain, even the spiritual one. He does not do good to accumulate merits in heaven, to take a step up in spiritual progress. He acts thinking only about his brother and sister. He does not minimally take into consideration the positive impacts that the good works have on his person. He loves freely, in pure loss, as does the Father. The second imperative, take up your cross, does not refer to the need to patiently endure the small or big tribulations of life, even less, the exaltation of pain as a means to please God. The Christian does not seek suffering, but love. 

The cross is the sign of love and of total gift. To carry it after Christ means to follow the way he has trodden: to offer one's life for his same ideals, confront, if necessary, also persecutions and death to remain faithful to the gospel. "Carry the cross" who sacrifices himself to do good, to make someone happy. The third imperative, follow me, does not mean "take me as a model," but share my choice, take part in my project, bet your life on love together with me. 

The concluding verses (vv. 25-27) present three reasons with which Jesus tries to convince his disciple to accept the three difficult conditions he has just put forward. The first: the one who gives his own life, actually, does not lose, but gains it (v. 25). Who holds tight in their own hands the grain of wheat, who consumes it for himself, who hides it dissipates it. Only one who has the courage to lose it, throwing it into the ground "preserves" it, "recovers" it. It also happens with life: to earn it "one must lose it". It is necessary to expend it for the brothers and sisters. The second reason (v. 26): the life of this world passes quickly. It is transient, fragile, precarious; it is not worth clinging desperately to it as if it were eternal. Here the numerous sapiential reflections on the transience of life ring out : "You allow me to live but a short span; before you, all my years are nothing. Human existence is a mere whiff of breath. Humans are mere shadows that go about rentlessly. Being but a breath they toil and rake in wealth, not knowing who will take it next" (Ps 39:6-7) The third reason (v. 27): the ultimate reward. The scene of judgment occurs often in the Gospel of Matthew. It is not as a future threat, but as an indication of the wise choices to be done in the present. What can one avail to present to God at the end of life? Certainly not the money accumulated, the pleasures enjoyed, awards and career. At the end, the Lord will not look at the titles of honor that we will be able to put in front of our name, but the works of love that will follow the name. 

This call to self-denial explains the parched land and the lifeless earth, the water-less planet of the psalmist. This explains the duping and the frustration of Jeremiah. It explains the call to "spiritual worship," of Paul.  Ultimately, it explains the fact that our relationship with God must go beyond the material level; from earthly kingdom to the heavenly kingdom.  It is with prayers, deeper trusting, constant longing and thirsting for God, that our pains, illness, tribulations, frustrations, rifts and misunderstandings, can be handled. As we brave our daily crosses,  personal trials, agonies or of seeming lifelessness and dryness, our lives must not exclude our concern for others. The more intimate we are with God, the closer we are called to be charitable to God's extended families and our neighbors. And in our personal prayers to our God with whom we trust, we must seek to make our sense of this divine trust a reality, particularly to our neighbors, and troubling world, in general.