This week there is a stark distinction in the way Jesus speaks to Peter; last week He called him blessed and named him “Rock” – today He calls Him “Satan” and tells him to get back. The reason for this is simple: Peter allowed his own pride to stand in the way of God, who calls us to humility. He did not understand the Cross and did not want to accept it. So often we face the same Crisis: when our ego clashes with the divine will. We allow our own beliefs, our own wants, our own feelings, to put a barrier between us and Christ. This week’s readings present a radical call to reject the way of the World and follow instead the way of the Cross.
The Lord gives and the Lord takes away.
Last week, Peter received the promise of the Keys to the Kingdom of heaven. Using the imagery of the Old Testament Kingdom of David, Jesus grants him (effectively) the position of Prince Regent in his new Kingdom. But Peter doesn’t yet understand with what kind of a Kingdom it is he has been entrusted; it is a Kingdom not of this world, as Jesus will one day say to Pontius Pilate. Its King wears a crown of thorns, his royal robes are the purple and scarlet of bruises and blood, his honour guard is an angry mob, his throne is a Cross, and his victory is death.
Peter experiences a crisis, he has followed Jesus thus far, he has seen the miracles, he has proclaimed him as the Christ, the Son of the living God, but once the Lord starts talking about the Cross, he baulks;
‘Heaven preserve you, Lord;’ he said ‘this must not happen to you.’
Last week, Peter spoke up and Jesus said to Him blessed are you Simon bar Jonah, this week he says something different: Get behind me Satan! These two events follow on from each other immediately; first Peter is called blessed then he is called Satan. What is going on?
Look at where the words are coming from. Last week, when Peter proclaimed Jesus to be the Christ, Jesus said to him;
‘Blessed are you Simon Bar Jonah, because it was not flesh and blood that revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven.’
This week, what does Jesus say?
‘Get behind me, Satan! You are an obstacle in my path, because the way you think is not God’s way but man’s.’
Where do the words come from? His confession of faith is his own, but it is inspired and revealed to him by God the Father. His refusal to accept the Cross is wicked, an obstacle in Jesus’ path, because it is not from God but from man.
Human arrogance, the human desire for power and control, puts an obstacle in God’s path. Today’s readings speak to spiritual crises. Peter cannot accept the Cross. Jeremiah the prophet cries out to the Lord in anger at what the Prophet’s calling has meant for him;
You have seduced me Lord, and I allowed myself to be seduced… The word of the Lord has meant for me insult, derision, all day long.
Just like Jeremiah, every Christian faces the same spiritual crisis; when the I, the ego, comes into conflict with God’s will. When what I think, or (more often today) how I feel, comes into conflict with the truth.
This is certainly what happens with Peter. He has an image of the Messiah in his head of a great conquering king, a desire to be part of the Kingdom, to help him to conquer; he doesn’t want to hear it when that King tells him the only enemy He has come to conquer is sin and death, and that he means to conquer both by dying a sinner’s death. Peter’s ego, his pre-conceived ideas, run headlong into God’s will and one of them has to give.
This is true for us as well. Our own crisis will come, when what we want and what we believe comes into conflict with what God has revealed to be true, or with what his Church teaches to be right or wrong. Our modern world is so badly out of step with God. Christ asks us to be humble, just as He was humble even to death on the Cross, and the world tells us to be proud. Christ asks us for self-sacrifice, and the world tells us always to look out for number one. Christ tells us to suffer our Crosses joyfully for the sake of His kingdom, the world makes suffering a taboo and pleasure the ultimate goal; in the extreme cases the world even tells us that it is better to die than to suffer. St Paul’s exhortation to the Christians in Rome should be ringing loudly in our ears;
‘Do not model yourselves on the behaviour of the world around you, but let your behaviour change, modelled by your new mind.’
We are citizens of the City of God, not of this world. When the values of the world, even those values to which we have held on, collide with God’s law and the example of Christ or the magisterial teachings of His Church, we must answer with Christ,
‘Get behind me Satan! You are an obstacle in my path, because the way you think is not God’s way but man’s.’
God has given us the example of the Cross to follow, and the gift of the Holy Spirit to draw us closer and closer to Him. But the thinking of the world, if we let it, can crowd out the Spirit and smother it like cold water on a campfire.
What are we to do in response? How are we to keep the fire burning? The answer is actually quite simple. First, pray for the grace of perseverance and the gift of humility. Ask the model of those virtues, the Blessed Virgin Mary, to pray for you. Say the Rosary, or the Litany of Humility; ask and these things will be given to you. Second, practice self-denial. Grace builds on nature, like seeds planted in the soil, and self-denial is like tilling and fertilising the soil.
How many of us here keep the Friday fast? How many of us fasted properly during Advent and Lent? How many of us set aside money for the poor or the care of someone other than ourselves? How many of us give up our time to build up our local community? Pick up your Cross and follow me, says the Lord. Our choice is this; will we listen to Him, or will we persist in our own self-centred desires?
Sunday 2nd September 2023
XXII Sunday in Ordinary Time (A)
Jeremiah 20:7-9
Romans 12:1-2
Matthew 16:21-27
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