Twenty-Second Sunday in Ordinary Time

“Get behind me, Satan! You are an obstacle to me. You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do.” Mt. 16: 23

Several years ago, I had the distinct pleasure of visiting the ancient and glorious city of Rome. There, for the first time in my life, I got to see with my own eyes the great Basilica of St. Peter’s.

A spectacular creation! Perhaps the greatest masterpiece of renaissance architecture ever created.

I can still remember standing at a certain point in this magnificent church looking up – way up! – and reading those dramatically triumphant words written in Latin around the top of the famous cupola: “Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church… I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven.”

You may recognize them also as being the words from Matthew’s gospel which we read last Sunday. Then again you may recognize them as being possibly the most oft quoted words from scripture by the church.

Why have they been so important historically to the church? They were the words used to demonstrate that we were the true church. They were the words that spoke of Peter having the power to bind and loose, not just on earth, but in heaven as well!

These words, then, were ones that represented unique power, control, authority, and supremacy. Sadly, taken alone, they were words that also could easily lead to an abuse of power and to a sense of domination and triumphalism.

Yet, these were the only words that were so proudly and grandly presented in the famed cupola of Rome’s majestic church.

Today’s gospel, however, features the rest of the words that Jesus spoke to Peter on the same occasion on which he was re-named Peter, the Rock – words not found on that famous cupola.

They are words that followed the ones granting him a position of authority. They are also words that significantly altered the sense of pride and glory that the cupola of St. Peter’s intimates.

I would submit also that they are words that are every bit as important as the ones surrounding the cupola – maybe even more so. Because these are the ones that warn Peter – and all of us – of the tantalizing seduction of power and domination and control.  In fact, they are words that are reminiscent of the very ones Satan himself spoke to Jesus in the powerful temptation scene when he takes Jesus up onto the highest mountain and promises him all the glory and power that the world could possibly offer.

Here again are those words: “Get behind me, Satan! You are an obstacle to me. You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do.”

It’s a shame they weren’t included on that same cupola of St. Peter’s. Reflection on them may have helped spare the church many historic failures.

In contrast to last Sunday, then, today’s gospel is about the cross, not about worldly power. It’s about denial, not self-indulgence. It’s about losing, not gaining. It’s about subtraction, not addition. It’s about less, not more. It’s about transformation, not glorification.

Paul’s words in the second reading today perhaps sum it up as well as anything: “Do not conform yourself to this age but be transformed by the renewal of your mind.”

Jesus’ conviction is clear: we cannot be transformed if we’re awash in all the grandiose matters encouraged by the spirit of this world – the spirit that Jesus refers to as Satan.

Notice that Jesus himself constantly refuses any titles of glory or grandiosity. Notice too that he never presents himself as a king or an emperor or anyone with titles or any suggestions of majesty.

Beyond that, he never once tells his disciples, or us: “Worship me. Adore me. Glorify me. Praise me.” He views all of this worldly acclaim as a lure, a trap, a seduction.

There is one thing he does ask though, and this he asks repeatedly: “Follow me.”

And that’s precisely what he does in today’s gospel. He again summons us to follow him – follow him in refusing to lord it over others; follow him in refusing to make wealth and power the ultimate meaning of life; follow him in his beatitudes in which he blesses the poor and the hungry and the powerless; follow him in his table fellowship with outcasts and sinners; follow him in carrying the cross of suffering that comes from moving out of ourselves into the hearts of others.

Why does he ask us to follow him in that kind of path instead of the path of fame and power and glory? Because he knows that taking that road will only end up in our being duped and tricked – tricked into believing that you and I will find the deepest part of ourselves and the happiest part of ourselves and the freest part of ourselves by focusing on our own self-interests.

The cross, and only the cross, Jesus insists, will free us. That’s the promise Jesus gives to each one of us.

The cross will free us of our limitless vanity and our addiction to our own advancement. It will free us from our being held hostage to the delicious enticements of power and dominance so that we can find our true selves in reaching out to those in need. It will free us to focus on being important in one special way – becoming people who are large of heart, large enough to be present at that “field hospital healing the wounds of others” that Pope Francis emphasizes so consistently.

“Follow me,” Jesus says. Follow the way of the cross, the way of giving up our narcissistic demands for constant attention and affirmation, and follow the process of carrying his cross – the cross that will help us die to our own egos so that we can fall with full trust into the arms of God.

For so long we believed our spiritual task was a simple one: do all the right religious things and then we get to go to heaven. Now we’re all beginning to understand that the issue of spirituality, of discipleship is far more costly. It’s like carrying a cross.

Because what Jesus is asking us to do in following him is to be involved in creating a new kind of world – a world in which God reigns supreme; a world in which God will reign in our hearts  and create within us a whole new way of thinking and seeing and valuing.

Now. Not just in an afterlife.

Listen to today’s gospel, then, as though you were Peter himself. Listen carefully because Jesus is speaking to all of us, not just Peter, when he says:

“Get behind me, Satan! You are an obstacle to me. You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do.”

Then let us pray that each of us will imprint those very words on the cupola surrounding our own hearts.

Ted Wolgamot, Psy.D.

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9/1/2017