In last Sunday’s Gospel, we heard the great profession by Peter that Jesus is the Christ and the “Son of God.” He spoke for himself and for the other disciples. What Peter didn’t realize is that his profession of faith was also a commitment. What we hear in today’s Gospel has to do with Jesus’ fidelity to His being the Christ and the Son of God, as well as the first calling of the disciples to their living out their fidelity to their name, their call. Jesus apparently begins indicating slowly the radical dimensions of His being Messiah. They get the picture that He must go to Jerusalem (the name literally means House of Peace) and face the music of His dignity and destiny. He is to suffer because of His mission, be killed because of His message, and be raised because of His obedience. Peter, whom we saw affirm Jesus as Messiah, now tries to prevent the mission’s final act of love and fidelity. Peter, the Rock, now becomes Peter the “block.” Jesus says that He is going with or without His followers. Jesus tells Peter that he is still thinking totally according to his own human ways, and there is something more than humanity here. “Get behind me, Satan! You are an obstacle to me. You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do.” The Gospel for today ends with Jesus making more clear to the disciples what it means to think differently from the “human” way.
When Jesus reproached Peter in the Gospel today, “You are an obstacle to me. You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do”, he first told him” Get behind me.” We can only successfully think according to the mind of God if we get behind Jesus. In the final analysis, the reproach of Jesus to Peter is at the same time an invitation to follow him. “To get behind a person” is to follow the person. There might be things in our life right now where we follow “the way human beings do” – like not being able to forgive someone who has hurt us, the need to acquire things, to get even, etc. We can only change those “human ways” by getting behind Jesus and following his lead. There is no other way. This means, too, that I have to eliminate my myopic view of Jesus. There is a tendency sometimes to subscribe to an image of Christ that will only work to our liking like what Peter did – yes, we like that picture of Jesus who feeds the hungry, who cures the leper, but not the picture of him who is carrying the cross, who will suffer and die—because, in return, the same calling and path are being asked of me as well because I am behind him following his lead - that is not easy, comfortable and convenient. The path of Christian discipleship has the cross as its center – not that we are masochists – but because it is only through dying from our own selfishness and self-centeredness that we will experience the promise of eternal life. It is really ironic — the more we give up our own desires for God, the more we feel alive and the more life becomes meaningful. But why does God demand so much of us? Imagine, he demands that we carry our cross or even give up our lives for him. Sometimes, when it feels like the cross is too heavy to carry, I feel like joining Jeremiah in the first reading today, “you duped me Lord, and I let myself be duped.” So why does God demand so much? One 13
th century spiritual giant put it this way very clearly, “It is not due to God’s justice or his severity that he demands so much of us but, rather, it comes from his great bounty, for he wants our soul to be capacious/spacious so as to hold the great blessings he is ready to bestow” – and, that great blessing is eternal life. As an authentic follower of Christ, what usually prevails— your will or God’s will? Are you behind Jesus or are we behind someone else? - Fr. Cary