Homily for Sunday, 3 September 2017

22nd Sunday in Ordinary Time

Readings of the day: Jeremiah 20:7-9; Psalm 63:2, 3-4, 5-6, 8-9; Romans 12:1-2; Matthew 16:21-27

In hearing the Gospel we have just heard from Matthew, how many of us wonder why Peter cannot seem to catch a break?

Our Gospel reading today follows immediately after Peter makes a profession of faith so astounding that he could not have made it up on his own; it must have been from God: “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” It might be helpful for us to think that, whenever Peter speaks or acts in our Scriptures, he speaks or acts in our place. In his great profession of faith, Peter speaks for the other Apostles. Peter speaks for us when he identifies Jesus as “the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” We remember that Jesus had asked his disciples; had asked all of us, “Who do you say that I am”? And, by God’s grace, Peter gives the right answer on behalf of all the Apostles; of all Jesus’ disciples; of all of us.

When we are able to answer with Peter that Jesus is “the Messiah, the Son of the living God,” we are, as Peter was, at our most vulnerable. How so? We are most vulnerable at this point to all our experiences of life that try our faith; that tempt us; that distract us from our faith that Jesus Christ is “the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” At this very point of making our greatest profession of faith, we are most vulnerable to our guilt for the times we have not lived up to the truth of the faith we profess. We are most vulnerable to all the false images by which the world around us might identify Jesus, not “the Messiah, the Son of the living God,” but as a static, dead god, somehow contained by our expressions and categories of human language; as a god who rules by might and violence; as a god who blesses wealth, no matter how it is acquired, and curses those unfortunate enough to find themselves in need; as a god who is distant and invincible to human experiences we fear, most of all death.

These images are not true images of our God; they are false images, idols. Our God will never hold us guilty for when we have not lived up to our words by which we profess our faith, when we have sinned. God does not rule by might, anger, or violence, as so many human rulers of nations have and still do. God blesses us all; God has created us all in the image of his supreme, living goodness. Our God curses neither the rich nor the poor, although God especially upholds the dignity of those in need and invites us to do the same: Open the doors of our churches, our nations, our homes, our hearts preferentially to the poor, the migrant, the refugee; the unborn; the young people; the sick; the aged; those seeking sincerely and struggling in the way of faith; those as vulnerable somehow as each of us are. Our God is not invincible to any of our human experience, least of all death, but became human in the person of Jesus, to share in our every experience of being human except sin; to share even in our suffering and our death in order to make eternal life possible for us.

It seems almost too good to be true that God should not be a dead god of guilt but a living God of mercy; not a dead god of anger or violence or of hoarding wealth and the world’s resources at the expense of those in need but a living God who upholds the dignity of all creation; not a dead god of invincibility and distance from creation but a living God who has become human in every way we are human, including our suffering and death, so that we might be saved. When, as Peter did, we profess our faith in a living God; in Jesus Christ as “the Messiah, the Son of the living God,” we leave ourselves vulnerable to Satan, who will tempt us to give into our fear that all we say we believe is too good to be true. Satan tempts us when we are most vulnerable, yet paradoxically when we have just made the greatest profession of faith possible, not to think “as God does.” This is Peter’s experience and perhaps it is, more often than we would like to admit, our experience. Peter stands in our place. This is also why Jesus rebukes Peter as harshly as he does: “Get behind me, Satan”!

But all our vulnerability; all our temptation to deny the almost incredible faith we profess; all our sin, when we fall into Satan’s traps and substitute dead gods in place of our living God, does not change who we are at our most profound: Sons and daughters ourselves “of the living God.” Sure, when we fall into sin; when we fall for dead gods in place of “the living God,” we are weakened. Our will to do good is corrupted and weakened, but never lost. Peter knew this truth and, again, Peter stands for all of us. When he takes Jesus aside and rebukes him, “God forbid it Lord,” that you might suffer and die in our place; that you might share in this fullest way possible in our humanity, Peter is still the “rock” on which Jesus has chosen to build his Church. Peter’s God-given name, his most profound nature, is not lost, even when the rock becomes “a stumbling block”; a scandal to himself and to the other disciples.

Still, Peter’s great profession of faith is still intact: “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” We are sons and daughters of the same living God, in whom “we live and move and have our being,” as we will pray in a few moments here at Mass. The “stumbling block,” in the midst of his denial of a Messiah who must suffer and die as we do in order that we might live as God lives, is still the “rock.” The “stumbling block” who would deny Jesus not once but three times, proclaiming a dead god of fear as Jesus traveled the Way of the Cross, would still be the “rock” called to proclaim the living God of salvation by the cross and resurrection to our world.

Peter, at once the rock and the “stumbling block,” stands for us. And so how do we, like Peter, become more rock and less “stumbling block” to one another and to God’s grace working through us? How do we proclaim a “living God” and not any one of a variety of dead gods to our world? The easy answer to these questions; the answer given in our Gospel, is to accept any suffering we might experience. “If anyone wants to become my disciple, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.” And yet, for many, this answer is almost too easy. We know in our world and may even have experienced personally forms of suffering that are unbearable or unjust. Suffering is not of God; is not willed by God. This side of eternal life, though, Jesus, through his cross, has taken upon himself our suffering as a means of conquering it.

We participate in Jesus’ solidarity with and victory over our suffering and death especially when we find somebody, even one person, who is suffering; who is oppressed; who is marginalized; who is in need and when we work to alleviate this person’s suffering. Sometimes to alleviate another’s suffering takes heroic effort, but more often to alleviate another’s suffering— to enter into solidarity with Christ on the cross and with another who bears the cross with Christ— takes a simple smile, a listening ear, or some other simple gesture of love.

This is learning, after Peter and every disciple of Jesus who has ever lived, to be less “stumbling block” and more rock of faith. This is taking up our cross and following after Jesus, “Son of the living God,” in becoming more authentically ourselves sons and daughters “of the living God.”