Twenty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time
I had a funeral this week that taught me some very important lessons. We buried Dino Adducio. Dino was a very faithful Catholic who for most part of his life was a regular mass goer. As Dino and his wife Carmella got older, they moved to N Carolina. But once there, Dino stopped going to church. From the notes that his family gave me, Dino got mad with God. Dino’s wife Carmella was sick most of her life and he had prayed to God for healing. Dino felt let down by God when she was not healed and stopped going to Church. I interpreted Dino’s anger and disappointment with God as an act of faith. It is like in a marriage – being mad with one another means that there still is a relationship; that people still care. In any case, it is how Dino died that is truly moving. On this particular day, Dino asked his wife to lay next to him in bed. She refused because she had things to get done in the house. He repeatedly asked her and after much insistence, she agreed. She slipped into bed with him and lay next to him. And that is how he died. Dino was mad with God, and God responded through this most beautiful parting gift for Dino and Carmella.
Like Dino, most of us experience a discrepancy between how we intend life to happen and how many things in life turn out. We have a similar situation in today’s gospel reading. Peter had just confessed that Jesus is “the Christ, the Son of the living God.” Do you remember that immediately after that confession, Jesus strictly ordered his disciples not to tell anyone that he was the Christ? Today’s gospel tells us the reason for that command - because, there was huge discrepancy between the kind of messiah that Israel was expecting and the kind of messiah that Jesus would reveal himself to be. The “messiah” in the Israelite expectation was a traditional warrior-hero, riding into battle with a victory sign. But Jesus reveals an image so contrary to the popular expectation that if it was revealed that Jesus was the ‘messiah,’ the Roman-weary population of Palestine would have immediately declared Jesus the political king. But Jesus needed more time to reveal that he was a suffering messiah rather than a triumphalistic messiah. When Jesus revealed the necessity for him to suffer, Peter was shaken to his core. Not in his wildest imagination did he expect a rejected, suffering, cross-bearing, persecuted and crucified messiah! Of course, Peter would not know until much later. No wonder, then, that Peter rebukes Jesus. From this time on until his eventual suffering, death and resurrection, Jesus would take the time to bridge the discrepancy between the expectation of the disciples and the true nature of his messiahship.
a) Life: Expectation versus Reality. Today’s first reading begins with Jeremiah saying to God, “You have duped me O Lord.” Jeremiah felt cheated by God. His prophetic ministry turned out to be very different than what he anticipated it to be. Instead of acceptance, he experienced opposition and violence. Who among us ever intentionally embraces insecurity, suffering, pain and uncertainty? Who among us expects our loved ones to suffer? And yet, we learn soon that there is a discrepancy between what we would like and what life may offer us. Yes, children suffer, the innocent do get killed, bad things to happen to good people, people do hurt each other, we do fall ill and sometimes fatally, accidents do end tragically, and if nothing else sometimes natural disasters permanently alter our lives. Peter experienced a similar discrepancy. “God forbid, Lord! No such things shall ever happen to you.” When Jesus says to Peter, “You are thinking not as God does but as human being do,” he is really inviting his disciples to a way of life. Jesus was teaching them that there are two ways to face our disappointments and discrepancies – with God and faith or without God and faith. Jesus’ own example is a lesson. He voluntarily embraces the cross for human redemption and carries that cross with God’s help. Even when he felt abandoned by God, he did not lose his faith in his Father.
b) The Deeper Meaning of the Cross. Peter’s rebuke of Jesus is based on his lack of knowledge of God’s plan for the world. Peter had no idea how suffering and death could be connected to the glory of Messiahship. Jesus, on the other hand, knew how God was intending to transform human history. But Jesus also knew that in order to accomplish God’s plan he would have to embrace the cross… literally. Who would have thought that a cross meant for criminals could pack so much meaning and purpose? Who would have thought that embracing the cross and dying on it will transform how humanity approached God. Who would have thought that the cross could hide behind it so much love? Who would have thought that suffering freely embraced could bring such unfathomable goodness? When Jesus rebuked Peter and asked Satan to get behind him, Jesus was inviting Peter to look deeper. Today, Jesus is doing the same thing with us as he says to us, “Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross and follow me,” he is inviting us to look deeper. We may not see it, but little Dino’s suffering, as senseless as it seems, has a purpose. Like Peter could not see it then we do not see it now. Every cross, the one that Jesus carried and the ones that we carry are not devoid of meaning. If life offers us crosses, God graces each cross with meaning.
c) The Necessity of Suffering. The truly surprising element in Jesus’ words is the necessity of suffering in order to follow Jesus. Why does Jesus say, “Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself take up the cross and follow me.” There are two reasons for this. First, by the time this gospel was written, followers of Jesus were already subjected to severe persecution. Many of them had to endure intense suffering in order to remain faithful to Christ and his teaching. But when persecution ended, the cross took on different meaning. For the early monks and for many others, the cross meant the willingness to discard those things that could come between the self and the radical demand of Christianity. This is true for us too. I think of the necessity of the cross as a path to authentic discipleship. When our suffering is for a greater good, when we suffer with others to help carry their cross, when we embrace a cross in standing up for what is right, and even when we suffer with faith not knowing the purpose of our pain, we become like Christ. Nothing connects us to Christ more intimately than carrying our cross like he did. And if we are carrying a cross we must know that Christ is very close to us. In the same way that the cross of Jesus brought salvation to the world, our crosses can become a way of holiness.
- Fr. Satish Joseph