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 wondrous St. Peter’s Basilica.
A spectacular creation! Perhaps the greatest masterpiece of renaissance architecture ever created.
I can still remember standing in that magnificent basilica looking up – way up! – and reading those dramatically triumphant words inscribed 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 surely recognize these oft-quoted words from Scripture.
Why have they been so important historically to the church?
Simply because through the centuries they have been the very ones used as evidence that we were the “true” church. They are words describing Peter as 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 are words that also could easily lead to an abuse of power and to a sense of domination and triumphalism.
Yet, these words are the only ones so proudly and grandly presented in the famed cupola of Rome’s majestic basilica.
Today’s gospel features the rest of the words Jesus spoke to Peter on the same occasion on which Simon was re-named Peter, the Rock – words, unfortunately, not found on that famous cupola.
They are the words that followed the ones granting Peter a position of authority. They are also words that could significantly alter the sense of pride and glory that the cupola of St. Peter’s emanates.
Because they are words of warning…
… words of warning us of that part of our human nature that can easily be tempted to embrace the tantalizing seduction of power, domination and control.
In fact, they are words reminiscent of the very ones Satan spoke to Jesus in that powerful temptation moment 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 Jesus’ words in response:
“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 these same words weren’t included on St. Peter’s famous cupola. Prayerful reflection on them may have helped spare the church many historic failures, embarrassments, and tragedies.
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 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 who represents wealth and power and majesty.
Notice, finally, that Jesus never once tells his disciples, or us:
“Worship me. Adore me. Glorify me. Praise me.”
He views all of this kind of worldly acclaim as a lure, a trap, a seduction.
There is one thing he does ask though, and this he asks repeatedly:
“Follow me.”
That’s precisely what Jesus does in today’s gospel.
He summons us to follow him – follow him in refusing to lord it over others; follow him in rejecting wealth and power as the ultimate goal 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 Jesus ask us to follow him in that kind of path instead of the path of fame and power and glory?
Because Jesus 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.
“Follow me,” Jesus says.
Follow the way of the 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 religious rules 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 rule over our hearts and create within us a whole new way of thinking and seeing and valuing.
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.
