22nd Sunday 
Ordinary Time – Year A
Matthew 16:21-27

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. Then, taking him aside, Peter started to remonstrate with him. ‘Heaven preserve you, Lord;’ he said ‘this must not happen to you.’ 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.’
  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. For anyone who wants to save his life will lose it; but anyone who loses his life for my sake will find it. 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?
  ‘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.’

GOSPEL REFLECTION 

The Jews of Jesus’ time lived in expectation of a better world, the “century to come,” full of peace and justice. Basing themselves on Ezekiel 49, the rabbis announced for the last days,” a miraculous transformation of the earth. They assured that in the days of the Messiah, Palestine will be transformed into a garden and the gardens will become forests. The soil’s fertility will be multiplied by thousands. There will be abundance for all, and all goods abound, as in the heavenly period of the beginning.

The apostles also cultivated these hopes. They were convinced that the coming of the Kingdom of God was imminent. They have realized that their master was the Christ, the long-awaited “Son of David.” They had followed him to see their dreams of glory realized. The only question which, according to them, was still pending was to determine who would be entitled to the first places (Mk 9:34). 

It is in the context of these expectations that the first of the three announcements of the Passion, found in the Gospel, is placed. In the middle of his public life, Jesus is aware of having to decisively correct the convictions of his disciples. He does not want them to follow him lolling in vain illusions. To avoid any ambiguity, he openly declares that he is not walking towards triumph, but he is going to Jerusalem to suffer a lot, to be killed, and be raised again on the third day (v. 21). 

The human logic cannot but feel upset in front of such a proposal. The disciples cannot understand because they learned from the scribes that the Messiah cannot die. It was taught to them that, at his coming, the righteous who lie in their graves will rise to take part in the joy of his Kingdom, and Peter, in the name of all reacts (vv. 32-33). He is not afraid of sacrifices. One day he’ll be able to give proof of risking also his life if necessary (Jn 18:10), but he is not willing to commit himself to an absurd project. He does not accept to stand on a road that leads straight to failure. He would like that Jesus also should know it and change his mind.

The scene that follows is very significant and realistic. Peter takes the Master apart, as to cheer him up in a moment of despair. It is as if he makes him understand that, in a moment of confusion, it is understandable that an unfortunate phrase may also escape. 

The reaction of Jesus to the attempt to dissuade him from his path is hard, almost irritating: “Get behind me, Satan,” says our text, but the translation is not exact. Jesus does not intend to dismiss Peter, but to put him on the right path. “Get behind me”—he says— “follow my steps, do not try to precede me, as one who claims to lead the way. This is drawn by the Father and you Peter make a proposal that comes from worldly wisdom, from human foolishness that is senseless in God’s eyes.”

Peter is not committing a simple mistake. 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. He 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 had decidedly reacted: “Be off, Satan” (Mt 4:8-10). Now the same temptation—advanced by Peter—cannot but be responded with the same hardness. 

The scene described in today’s Gospel forms a diptych with that of last Sunday. Simon had been named by Jesus as the living stone of the Church because he had received the revelation of the Father, had accepted His plan of salvation and had professed his faith in the Son of the living God. Now he becomes a stumbling block because he lets himself be guided by human reasoning, which aims for glory, successes, honors which are obstacles in the path of the Master and his disciples.

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. If the Master has chosen to give life and if “the disciple is not above the master” (Mt 10:24), the path will have to be the same.

Three imperatives characterize the radicality of a choice that does not admit delays nor second thoughts:“Deny yourself, take up your cross, follow me.” 

Deny yourself means you stop thinking about yourself. It is the reversal of the principles in this worldgoverning 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, acknowledgments, and benefits. Even in the purest 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 to suffer, but to 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 and hides it, will only dissipate it. The 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, and 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 relentlessly. 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, nor awards and career earned. 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. 

When the spotlights that dazzled the scene of this world will be turned off, and when the deceptive glitters of idols that enchanted and seduced many persons are extinguished, then only the light of God will shine and the true value of each person will appear.

READ:  You must discern the will of God:  what is good, what pleases, what is perfect.

REFLECT:  God’s will—what is good, perfect, pleasing. This is our life’s aim. We need to discern it always to hit the mark.

PRAY:  We are aware of how we often miss the mark:  our sins.  Let us aim to do what’s more positive so we would really be praising God.

ACT:  Ponder on the difference between being really discerning and merely discriminating.

Fernando Armellini
Italian missionary and biblical scholar
https://sundaycommentaries.wordpress.com

Called to share in the cross, Christ’s missionary option
Romeo Ballan mccj

Peter’s confession is wonderful: “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God” (Mt 16:16 – last Sunday’s Gospel). But that’s not all about the identity of Jesus. It is important to affirm the divinity of Jesus Christ, but perhaps it is even more difficult to affirm his humanity, with the consequent possibility of suffering and death (Gospel). For this reason, Jesus, after receiving from his disciples the first explicit profession of faith in him as the Messiah, begins a new phase in his preaching: “Jesus began to make it clear to his disciples… (v. 21). It is just like the beginning of his public life, following the preparatory phase (baptism in the Jordan and temptation in the desert). Matthew writes: “From then onwards Jesus began his proclamation with the message: ‘repent’… (Mt 4:17). In baptism and in the desert, Jesus had chosen precise options regarding the way to carry out the mission received from the Father for the salvation of humanity: the choice to be and live as a son and a brother, the option to forgo the easy and illusory means of power, glory and well-being… Faithful to his options, which were chosen according to the mind of God, Jesus proceeded with determination towards his ‘hour’, ready for the extreme consequences. He talks about them with his disciples and friends, and rejects compromises or reconsiderations suggested by those who thought only as human beings do, according to flesh and blood (v. 17-23). Jesus clearly points out the contrast, the incompatibility between thinking in God’s way and thinking in a human fashion (v. 23).

On these premises, the revelation and the identity of Jesus with new insights continues in today’s Gospel. He is not only the Messiah-Christ, the Son of God (v. 16), but also the Servant, who must “suffer grievously… be put to death and be raised up” (v. 21). Jesus holds that his disciples, too, in the newly-proclaimed family, that is, the Church (see last Sunday’s Gospel), will have to share his options, travel on the same road, if they want to carry out his same mission. Hence he speaks openly to his disciples about the need to renounce themselves, take up the cross and follow him, to lose their own lives in his cause (v. 24-25), to become like the Samaritan and Simon the Cyrene for those most feeble, as Pope Benedict XVI has taught the young people in the recent World Youth Day in Madrid, inviting them to rebel against conformity, indifference and individualism that enslaves, and to opt instead for Christ and for the proclamation of the Gospel, a gift of life and freedom.

Before being a moral and ascetic exhortation to accept tribulations, sickness and death patiently, these demanding words are a call for the disciple to be identified with the plans of Jesus, and to share his options and his path: “The Gospel reading, in human eyes, is an exhortation to resignation; but Jesus was never resigned! Indeed, he says ‘it is necessary for me to be condemned’. Why necessary? Because the option I chose on the day on which I said ‘get behind me, Satan!’, on which I renounced power, the blandishments of physical well-being and the miracle (the three temptations rejected by Jesus in the desert), is an option that brings me inevitably to condemnation!” (Ernesto Balducci).

So it is not a Cross that is a burden, to be borne with resignation; it is the necessary conclusion to an option that Jesus took freely in the desert. He is certain of his choice, rejects the protests of Peter, the new Satan (vv. 22-23), and puts the disciple in his place: Peter is not called to point out, but to follow in the footsteps of the Master. Otherwise ‘the rock for the building’ (v. 18) becomes a stumbling block (v. 23), an obstacle. To think in God’s way is the basic condition for carrying out, with faithfulness and effectiveness, the mission that Jesus entrusts to his Church.

The missionary is like the prophet who is often a nuisance and an irritation (1st Reading). But if in his life he identifies with the Master, he bears an “inner fire” (v. 9) that is overpowering, and drives him to overcome discouragement and adversities and to offer himself, body and soul (2nd Reading) “by offering your living bodies as a holy sacrifice” (v. 1), so as to become able, through inner renewal, “to discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and mature” (v. 2). The challenges of Mission demand that the evangeliser, in what he/she does, lets the inspiration come from the one Master and Saviour: Christ. The history of the Missions is full of apostles with a deep passion for Christ and for humanity: Francis of Assisi, Teresa of Avila, Daniel Comboni, Teresa of Calcutta, Francis Xavier… who opted for Christ rather than to gain the whole world (cf. Mt.16:26). So, too, the numerous martyrs of all times. This kind of fidelity is a sure condition of apostolic effectiveness. And of true joy in missionary service.

THE CROSS IS SOMETHING ELSE

It’s hard to not feel confusion and discomfort on hearing once again Jesus’ words: «If anyone wants to be a follower of mine, let him renounce himself and take up his cross and follow me». We understand Peter’s reaction very well, when he hears Jesus talk about rejection and suffering, and «taking Jesus aside, he began to rebuke him». The theologian martyr Dietrich Bonhoffer says that Peter’s reaction «proves that, from the beginning, the Church has been scandalized by the suffering Christ. She doesn’t want her Lord to impose the law of suffering on her».

This scandal can become unbearable today for those of us who live in what Leszek Kolakowsky calls «the culture of painkillers», that society obsessed with eliminating suffering and discomfort by means of every kind of drug, narcotic and escape.

If we want to clarify what the Christian attitude should be, we need to understand well in what the cross consists for a Christian, since it can happen that we put it where Jesus never did.

We easily call «cross» everything that makes us suffer, even that suffering that appears in our life generated by our own sin or our mistaken way of living. But we shouldn’t confuse the cross with just any misfortune, setback or discomfort that comes about in life.

The cross is something else. Jesus calls his disciples to follow him faithfully and put themselves at the service of a more human world: God’s reign. This is what’s first. The cross is nothing else than the suffering that comes to us as a consequence of that following, the sad destiny that we must share with Christ if we truly follow his footsteps. That’s why we mustn’t confuse «carry the cross» with masochistic postures, false mortification or what P. Evdokimov calls individualistic and «cheap asceticism».

On the other hand, we need to correctly understand the «renounce oneself» that Jesus asks for in order to carry the cross and follow him. «Renounce oneself» doesn’t mean mortifying oneself just any way, punishing oneself, and even worse, annihilating or destroying oneself. «Renounce oneself» means not hanging onto oneself and forgetting one’s own «ego» in order to build our existence on Jesus. To free ourselves of ourselves in order to radically adhere to him. To say it in another way, «carry the cross» means to follow Jesus, ready to assume the insecurity, the conflict, the rejection or the persecution that the Crucified himself must suffer.

But we believers don’t live out the cross as people defeated, but as bearers of a final hope. Whoever loses their life for Jesus Christ will find it. The God who raised Jesus will raise us also to a full life.

José Antonio Pagola
https://www.gruposdejesus.com