Matthew 16: 21-27
Dear Friends, From time to time, when I am frustrated working with people, especially in the Church, I say Jesus made only one mistake. He chose to let people to do His work. Of course, this is basically no different than what Peter told Jesus in today’s Gospel.In the beginning of the Gospel of John we have a world shattering proclamation, “The Word became flesh.” (Jn 1:14) This is God’s plan. This is how Jesus accepted the call to save the world. Becoming flesh was not an isolated event. It is in accepting the totality of His humanity that God chose to save the world. This meant He accepted all of us as we are as part of His reality. For Jesus this meant an encounter with evil that would lead to his Passion and Death.
So, when Jesus named Peter as the rock upon which He would build His Church, He accepted Peter, and all of us, His followers, as we are: broken and in need of being fixed. This is why it is so difficult for us to understand the Church. It is a home for sinners in need of healing, a home for the broken and lost in need of wholeness and new direction.
In today’s story, Jesus tells Peter, and all of us, His chosen way of salvation. He was going to restore the world by entering into the pain and suffering of our broken humanity to heal it from within. The suffering and death of Jesus are the ultimate consequences of “the Word became flesh.” (Jn 1:14)
Peter could not handle Jesus’ words about the cross and rejection, denial and death. Most likely, he had great difficulty in the potential loss of personal power and prestige along with the unthinkable invitation to take up his cross. Peter was shocked by Jesus’ new direction, a way Peter surely had not anticipated nor desired. Jesus was replacing the popular expectation of military might and privileged prosperity and power. Now Peter was confronted with the cross and loss of his comfort and convenience. So, he did what we all are constantly tempted to do. Like Peter, we make Jesus over in our image rather than accepting God at his Word which is Jesus in the flesh. Only in Jesus do we have a real expression of God’s plan of salvation.
Today’s announcement of the Jerusalem journey to rejection, suffering and death is the first of three such proclamations in the next few chapters of Matthew’s Gospel. In each episode the disciples totally miss the point.
We continue the difficult task of accepting Jesus on His terms and not our terms. The Church is always in the struggle of searching for the integrity of the gospel message. We are never far from the temptation to tell Jesus how to do it our way just as Peter did. We continue to live with false expectations of having this perfect community and a problem-free personal life to carry on the ministry of the Gospel. We find it hard to accept that Jesus has fully embraced us in our brokenness and confusion. He has chosen to use the vessels of clay that we are to proclaim and celebrate the gospel message.
We cannot stand the sex scandal, the clericalism, the anti-women expressions of the Vatican officials, the distorted wealth and you name it. The Church can be truly agonizing with so much clarity in it documents and such mediocrity in its reality. Yet, these very same failings are always mixed with the incredible faithfulness of so many families working against all odds, good priests trying their best, women religious continuing to be quiet and hidden heroes of the Gospel, the silent and loving suffering of so many hidden lives. The weeds and wheat will be with us to the end.
Jesus wants us to be open to the mystery of the Incarnation. We need to accept each other in our brokenness just as Jesus did when He became flesh. Paul expresses the wonder of this event in his great hymn in the letter to the Philippians:
Though He was in the form of God,Jesus did not deem equality with Godsomething to be grasped at.Rather, He emptied HimselfAnd took the form of a slave being born in the likeness of menHe was known to be of human estate,And it was thus that He humbled Himself,Obediently accepting even death,Death on a cross! (PHI 2:6-8)
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