August 30th: TWENTY-SECOND SUNDAY OF THE YEAR Jeremiah 20:7-9
Romans 12:1-2
Matthew 16:21-27
When, as a child, I began walking to school alone, my mother frequently warned me never to get into a car with a stranger. Only much later did I understand she wasn’t worried about the stranger’s reckless driving record; she feared something much worse. Today Jeremiah confesses, “Years ago I didn’t listen to my mother. I got into a car with Yahweh, and I’m still suffering the consequences.” The prophet is very concrete: “I am an object of laughter; everyone mocks me . . . the word of Yahweh has brought me derision and reproach all the day.” Even worse, Jeremiah can’t tell Yahweh, “Take this job and . . . .” It’s as though he’s joined the mafia; there’s no way he can get out of it. “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.” He’s trapped! He’s going to have to be a prophet – with all the pain that entails - till the day he dies. Jesus of Nazareth’s earliest followers could identify with Jeremiah on all sorts of levels. Though, unlike this 7th century BCE prophet, they can fall back on a belief in an afterlife which eventually levels the faith playing-field, it doesn’t take long for them to discover their relationship with this itinerant preacher brings lots of suffering. That’s why immediately after Matthew has Peter declare Jesus is the “Messiah, the Son of the Living God,” this divine Christ informs his followers “. . . that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer greatly . . . be killed and on the third day be raised.” Peter hadn’t planned on that kind of salvation. It’s bad enough this Galilean carpenter will have to undergo such pain, but it’s even worse that he expects his followers to endure the same suffering. They, like Jesus, will have to carry their “tau:” be totally open to whatever God wants them to do. Only those who are willing to lose their lives will eventually gain the life Jesus experiences and promises. It’s as though God’s fighting against God. Even before Matthew wrote his gospel, Paul of Tarsus discovered that same dying/rising reality. It comes with the territory. In our second reading, he reminds the Christian community in Rome that unless they “offer” their bodies as a living sacrifice, they’ll never achieve the life the risen Jesus has achieved. When Peanuts’ Charlie Brown once mentioned to Lucy that, “Life’s a matter of ups and downs,” Lucy immediately countered with, “I don’t want any downs! I just want to go up, up, up!” I presume each of us can identify with Lucy. Yet at the same time we’re trying to imitate someone who constantly tried to “discern what is the will of God.” Jesus not only got into the car with Yahweh, he holds the door open for us to jump in with him. |
