August 28, 2005: TWENTY-SECOND Sunday of the Year

Readings
Jeremiah 20:7-9
Romans 12:1-2
Matthew 16:21-27

I never recommend that clinically depressed students study Jeremiah 20. Lord knows what would happen. It’s without doubt the most dispiriting chapter in the entire Bible.

Jeremiah neither hides nor sugarcoats anything. He’s had it with Yahweh. As he puts it, “The work of Yahweh has brought me derision and reproach all the day.” Remember how the prophet tried to escape Yahweh’s original call in chapter 1? “I know not how to speak,” he said. “I am too young.” But God answered, “Say not, ‘I am too young.’ To whomever I send you, you shall go; whatever I command you, you shall speak. Have no fear before them, because I am with you to deliver you.”

Years later, in the first verse of today’s pericope, Jeremiah looks at his call and Yahweh’s assurances in a completely different way. “You duped me, Yahweh,” he cries, “and I let myself be duped.” Translators are quite generous in rendering the Hebrew word “pata” as duped or tricked. In other biblical passages it means to sexually seduce or rape someone! Because, in the next line Jeremiah states, “You were too strong for me, and you triumphed.” He seems to be stressing the rape aspect of Yahweh’s relationship with him.

Yahweh ends up being Jeremiah’s worst nightmare; the person our parents warned us kids never to get into a car with. Jeremiah not only tells us he got into Yahweh’s car, but his life has been ruined because of it.

A psychologist, counseling the prophet, would give him just one piece of advice: “Stop prophesying!” Jeremiah’s answer would be just as direct: “I already tried that, and it didn’t work.” Or, as he says in our passage, “I say to myself, I will not mention him, I will speak in his name no more. But then it becomes like fire burning in my heart, imprisoned in my bones; I grow weary holding it in, I cannot endure it.”

Chapter 20 ends with Jeremiah’s haunting question, “Why did I come forth from the womb, to see sorrow and pain, to end my days in shame?”

Try listening to our other two readings against this depressing background. “Do no conform yourselves to this age,” Paul warns the Christian community in Rome, “but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, so that you may judge what is God’s will, what is good, pleasing and perfect.” God’s word, which so stressed Jeremiah, is the force which the Apostle believes will transform us into new people. At this point the prophet would step in and remind Paul of the implications of such a transformation. We not only won’t conform to this age, we won’t even fit into this age.

Peter discovers this painful reality in today’s gospel pericope. In no way did his openness to God’s word in his life go as far as Jesus’ commitment and openness to it. When the latter mentions suffering and death, “Peter took him aside and began to remonstrate with him. ‘May you be spared, Master! God forbid that any such thing ever happen to you!’”

Do I hear Jeremiah snickering in the background as Jesus responds, “Get behind me, Satan! You are an obstacle to me. You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do.”

No doubt Jesus’ own experience prompts him to say, “Those who wish to save their lives will lose them, but those who lose their lives for my sake will find them.”

We Christians have one advantage over Jeremiah: we believe in an afterlife. Yet, going through the pain and angst which living by God’s word entails, our eventual entry into heaven isn’t always in front of our eyes. We know that many who know nothing about God’s word will also get into heaven. Perhaps the only reason we people of faith subject ourselves to such pain is simply because God asks us to do so. That’s why Jeremiah did it.

August 21, 2005: TWENTY-FIRST SUNDAY OF THE YEAR

Readings
Isaiah 22:15, 19-23
Romans 11:33-36
Matthew 16:13-20

We Catholics are often so concerned with the power to bind and loose which Jesus bestows on Peter in today's well-known gospel pericope, that we overlook how Matthew constructed the passage. He revolves his narrative around both Peter and Jesus recognizing something significant in one another.

Jesus begins the process by asking his disciples, "Who do people say the Son of Man is?"

They reply, "Some say John the Baptist, others Elijah, still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets."

Since none of these people or images correspond to who Jesus actually is, he asks the question again, this time soliciting the opinion of those who know him best: "But who do they say I am?"

Perceiving something in Jesus that other people don't notice, Simon Peter responds, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God." Outsiders hadn't been able to recognize such dimensions in Jesus' personality.

Because of the way Matthew normally uses Jesus' disciples - as "straight men" whose questions or statements are either completely wrong or so far off base that Jesus must correct them - Jesus quickly states that his heavenly Father has "revealed" this insight to Peter, else the gospel's original readers will presume his evaluation of Jesus is inaccurate.

Immediately after Peter delivers his assessment, Jesus reciprocates by giving his appraisal of Peter. Playing on his nickname, "Rock," Jesus responds, "You are Rock and upon this rock I will build my church . . ." Just as Peter has faith enough in Jesus to notice what others overlook, so Jesus points out something which others overlook in Peter: a rock-solid faith. He has enough faith that Jesus gives him prerogatives and a position which most people thought a blue collar fisherman could never fulfill.

That's why it's important to go back to our Isaiah reading. Though our liturgical passage doesn't get into the question of why Yahweh is thrusting Shebna from office and pulling him down from his station, the reason is significant. Shebna doesn't believe Yahweh alone is powerful enough to help Israel defeat their Assyrian enemies. He wants his country to make a treaty with Egypt in order to achieve victory and peace. Isaiah, and all prophets, regard such treaties as nothing but an institutionalized lack of faith in Yahweh.

Because Shebna lacks faith in Yahweh's power to keep Yahweh's people free, his power is taken away and given to a person of faith, Eliakim.

Our sacred authors consistently teach that power, based on faith, only comes to those who recognize that God is completely beyond our control. Remember how Peter sees that quality in Jesus in today's gospel.

Paul couldn't express God's otherness better than in our Romans selection. "Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God!" he writes, "How inscrutable are his judgments and how unsearchable his ways!"

Through the centuries, and especially during the biblical period, many thought that the purpose of religion is to provide us with the tools to control God. We're frequently taught to employ the proper protocol, the correct formulas, the appropriate rituals; all geared to force God to answer our prayers. Our sacred writers constantly fight against such religion - referred to as "fertility cults" in the Hebrew Scriptures. Those, whom we today regard as being divinely inspired, give us glimpses of a God who is always beyond anyone's control or manipulation.

They also tell us that once we acknowledge such a God working in our lives, we'll begin to notice dimensions of our own otherness which we hadn't experienced before; a power in ourselves which can only come from God.