22nd Sunday of Ordinary Time

Gospel Reading: Matthew 16: 21 - 27

21 Jesus began to make it clear to his disciples that he was destined to go to Jerusalem and suffer grievously at the hands of the elders and chief priests and scribes, to be put to death and to be raised up on the third day.

22 Then, taking him aside, Peter started to remonstrate with him. "Heaven preserve you Lord," he said "this must not happen to you."

23 But he turned and said to Peter, "Get behind me, Satan! You are an obstacle in my path, because the way you think is not God's way but man's."

24 Then Jesus said to his disciples, "If anyone wants to be a follower of mine, let him renounce himself and take up his cross and follow me.

25 For anyone who wants to save his life will lose it; but anyone who loses his life for my sake will find it.

26 What, then, will a man gain if he wins the whole world and ruins his life? Or what has a man to offer in exchange for his life?

27 For the Son of Man is going to come in the glory of his Father with his angels, and, when he does, he will reward each one according to his behaviour."

Guidelines for Meditation

In meditating on this passage, we need to make some choices - guided, as always in lectio divina, by feelings, not reason.

For example, we can focus on the disciples, and Peter in particular, so that the passage speaks to us about our relatiionship with Jesus or with someone who has been Jesus to us.

We then celebrate the times when we have been brought to see how our way of thinking was "human" and not according to God's plan.

I am proposing another approach however:

to focus on Jesus, seeing him as our exemplar, the one in whose destiny we his followers are called to share.

This is the approach of Hebrews 12:2 - we "keep our eyes fixed on Jesus" as the one who "leads us in our faith and brings it to perfection."

The passage is in two sections:

verses 21 to 23, a narrative;

verses 24 to 27, a collection of sayings.

I am proposing that we experience both sections as a unit, with the teachings flowing spontaneously from the narrative. This is always the teaching method of the bible - truth flowing from experience.

We capture the power of the passage by situating it historically, remembering that the incident it relates came at a very significant moment in the life of Jesus. It is one all human beings pass through - a moment of truth.

Up till then Jesus had been ministering in Galilee in the North of Palestine, far from Jerusalem in the South. He had met with great success at first: "he went round the whole of Galilee ... his fame spread throughout Syria ... large crowds followed him" (Matthew 4:23 -25; cf. 7:18 ; 9:15 ).

Opposition to him had grown, however, mainly from scribes (e.g. 9:11 ) and Pharisees (e.g. 12:1, 24).

At this point in his life then, Jesus decided that the time had come for him to confront these opposing forces at the seat of their power, Jerusalem , home of the cribes and Pharisees (15:1).

It was a decision which would have tragic consequences, but the passage shows that he accepted them fully (21-23), basing himself on his understanding of every person's life journey.

The passage then invites us to celebrate similar "moments of truth" we have lived through, when we chose a course of action which we knew would cause hurt to people we loved and admired and would bring us rejection and pain.

We celebrate the great men and women who have inspired us by the way they entered courageously into their moments of truth - our saints, "personal" or "canonized".

We can also read it as the story of the Church (or of a group within it, like a religious order) taking a decision to be more radical in its following of Jesus.

The passage is also a call to conversion in that it makes us more aware that we - as individuals and as communities - do not respond like Jesus. We pray that the spirit of Jesus will continue to live in our Church, our families and the world.

Our meditation will enable us to recognise the different characters in the narrative.

Who are "the elders, chief priests and scribes" - the "experts" we must confront?

Who is the "Peter", a dear respected friend, and yet we must find the courage to say to him, "Get behind me"?

Through meditation on verses 21-23, the sayings in 24 to 27 will no longer be abstract theories, but lessons about life which we have experienced concretely.

We will be aware of the things we would have "lost" if we had tried to "save" them, of wonderful things we "found" because we took the risk of losing them. We will feel convinced that there is nothing we would "exchange" for the blessings which came to us as a result of our choices.

Prayer 

Lord, we thank you for the times when you allowed us to experience
the peace that Jesus bequeathed to us, times when, like him, we had to make a difficult decision we knew would not be pleasing to family and friends:
get married to someone from a different race or social class;
give up a well-paid job and take one that offered little security but gave us satisfaction, teacher, artist, community leader;
enter the religious life;
join a radical movement;
bring up a child in a way others considered unconventional;
make a new beginning in a foreign country,

We made it clear to them that you had destined us to go to this Jerusalem,
and that we knew we would have to suffer grievously at the hands of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and to be rejected, perhaps disowned and treated as dead,
but we were confident that in time we would be raised up.

Close friends, members of our family and of our church community took us aside and started to remonstrate with us, invoking your name, saying, "Heaven preserve you, this must not happen to you."

But you gave us the grace to turn and say to them,
"Get behind me Satan, you are an obstacle in my path;
the way you think is logical in your eyes, but it is not what I know to be God's will for me."

We understood then that to be followers of Jesus we must walk in his footsteps by renouncing ourselves and taking up our cross.
We are truly grateful now that we stuck by our decision.
What would we have gained if we had won the whole world and lost the deep joy we have experienced?
Is there anything that life could have offered us which we would exchange for the satisfaction we have had?
How true it is that the most precious things in life are those which we end up losing if we try to save them:
friendships,
peace of mind,
a clear conscience,
a sense of achievement.

We discover them as life-giving only if we take the risk of losing them.
We thank you for teaching us that in life it is not important to please human beings,
no matter how experienced or how holy they are.
We are accountable only to our conscience, knowing that the Son of Man is coming in the glory of the Father with his angels and will reward us according to our behaviour.

Lord, forgive us that in our Church communities, parishes and religious orders we encourage submissiveness and conformity, and even invoke your name in doing so.
Remind us that you want true followers of Jesus to emerge among us, men and women who are free, who once they know that they are destined to go to Jerusalem,
will not be afraid of suffering grievously at the hands of elders and chief priests and scribes, and even to be put to death, knowing they will rise again on the third day;
who are not afraid to take risks, knowing that this is the only way to find their lives,
who will exchange nothing, even all the possessions in the world, for finding their true selves;
who will fear only the Son of Man coning in the glory of his Father, surrounded by his angels, to reward all according to their behaviour.

Lord, we thank you that your Church in many parts of the world
has chosen to indentify more closely with Jesus
by adopting the cause of oppressed groups
ethnic minorites, women, homosexuals, religious groups considered marginal.

Its leaders have often suffered grievously at the hands of elders, chief priests and scribes, some within the Church itself, others from the world of academia, business or the professions.
How true it is, Lord, that if the Church is preoccupied with saving itself,
it ends up losing its true identity; it will live only if it remembers that the Son of Man is coming in the glory of his Father and he will judge his Church not on large numbers, big buildings, or prestige in society, but according to its behaviour.