This Sunday, What Jesus Reveals Rewrites World History

In one exchange in Capernaum, split into two Sunday Mass Gospel readings, Jesus reveals two truths so startling and revolutionary that they not only restart the story of salvation; they restart history.

Here are six takeaways for the Twenty-Second Sunday of Ordinary Time Year A, drawn from Sunday Readings columns at this site and the Extraordinary Story podcast.

First: The Gospels from last Sunday and this Sunday together re-create the world order.

Last Sunday, Jesus was revealed as “the Messiah, the Son of the Living God,” and then immediately founded his Church on the Rock of Peter, giving him the “keys to the kingdom.” Thus, we witnessed the Divine Son of God found a new rule in the world. At that time, the emperor, Tiberius, was the successor to Caesar Augustus, called Divi Filius, son of God, renowned for bringing the Pax Romana, a peace on earth, to the world. But today, it is 1500 years since there has been an emperor in Rome but Peter’s successors, Vicars (representatives) of Christ remain in office.

This Sunday, we get what happened next. As soon as Jesus is revealed to be divine, and as soon as he founded his Church, he “began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer greatly … and be killed and on the third day raised.” A Son of God who comes to suffer and die, and founds a Church to do as he does, is a major paradigm shift. Jesus is literally redefining dominance from might to mercy, from inflicting pain to accepting pain, from the Roman dictum “Fortune favors the bold” to Christ’s Beatitude “Blessed are the meek.”

God promised David that his kingdom would last forever. The Jewish people assumed that meant more military conquest, like David’s. But the Davidic Messiah turned out to be Isaiah’s suffering servant. The Pax Romana that had been established by violence and war would be replaced by the Pax Christi, established by sacrifice and surrender.

Second: But this monumental change hinges on a leader who will be docile rather than dictatorial.

Jesus’s plans to upend the world order depended on the cooperation of human beings — starting with Peter. But when Jesus announces that he is going to submit to his own destruction, his first vicar, Peter, tries to talk him out of it.

To understand where Peter is coming from, think of a modern context: Imagine a board meeting where the owner and chairman of the board points you out to everyone, asks you to stand up and says, “This is my new chief executive officer. He has my full confidence. What he says goes!”

Now, imagine that the very next thing out of his mouth is, “I also want to announce that I am investing all the company’s money in Florida swampland and I personally plan to turn myself in to the authorities and do prison time for a false accusation.”

You would probably think, “He isn’t crazy, so this must be some kind of test. He wants me to step forward and show my willingness to stand up for what’s best!”

So maybe Peter felt like he was doing the right thing, the expected thing, and that he was passing Jesus’s test when he “took Jesus aside and began to rebuke him.”

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

This is an important lesson for Peter, and for all time: We learn the limit of human power, namely, that we are entirely subservient to God, and that the right way to reason through problems is to approach them “as God does,” not “as human beings do.”

Third: Even if Peter’s reaction is understandable, Jesus is right to be harsh.

In Officer Candidate School, Marine drill sergeants have to harshly rebuke the new officers they are training for every slip-up, because lives depend on the candidates learning to implement orders with absolute fidelity.

Jesus here is doing what harsh military training does: Teaching Peter that Peter’s role is not about Peter. He is in charge of the Church, the means to our eternal salvation, and his word is valuable only insofar as it agrees with Jesus, his divine commander.

But Jesus has another reason to be harsh, for Peter’s sake and for ours: Peter’s opposition to the cross is the same temptation that Jesus heard from the devil in the desert, when Satan offered him “all the kingdoms of the world in their magnificence” if he would disobey the Father. In that case, like this one, Jesus said, “Get away, Satan!” It is also the temptation that will be hurled at Jesus when he is “obedient to death — even death on a cross” and his opponents say “Let him come down from the cross now, and we will believe in him!”

Jesus hates this temptation, and he wants us to hate it too, because this is also the very temptation every Christian will receive again and again — the temptation to take the easy road, and to reject God’s will when it hurts. Jesus wants us to know that this is a temptation from hell that we should under no circumstance accept.

In fact, Jesus makes his opposition into an absolute command, saying: “Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross and follow me.”

Fourth: It is not possible to both lead a comfortable life and stay close to Jesus.

It is only through self-sacrifice for Christ that we are free to love God. If we are holding our selfish goals in a higher place than God’s, we love ourselves, not him. As Jesus puts it: “Whoever loses his life for my sake will save it.” The conclusion St. Paul takes from that command, in the Second Reading, is that a Christian should “Offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God.”

That kind of total self-giving is necessary because only the person who gives up the world is free to love. You can’t really love unless you are free, and you aren’t really free unless you can do the right thing even when you would rather not.

The only person who is free to play Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata on the piano is the person who gave up countless afternoons and recital days for the privilege. In the same way, the only person free to live a beautiful Christian life is the one who has chosen again and again to give of himself when it was hard and it hurt.

We are free to embark on this kind of life, or not, but Jesus makes clear the consequences: If we refuse, we will find fleeting pleasure, followed by suffering worse than what we tried to avoid. At the end of time, “The Son of Man will come with his angels in his Father’s glory, and then he will repay all according to his conduct,” Jesus says.

Fifth: To take up your cross means not only disturbing your own comfort, but others’ too.

Jeremiah expresses this eternal dilemma in the First Reading. Imagine him describing a 21st century conversation you are having with a non-Catholic about gender theory, divorce, same-sex marriage, or the proper treatment of the unborn or immigrants when he says, “Whenever I speak, I must cry out — violence and outrage is my message; the word of the Lord has brought me derision and reproach all the day.”

We would love to be able to go along with the compromises everyone else had made on these issues, but we know God too well and love him too much. We know that the only place to find happiness in these circumstances is in the will of God. We know that what St. Paul says in the Second Reading is true: “Do not conform yourselves to this age, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind.”

Sixth: Ironically, only those who are willing to suffer will find the answer God gives to suffering.

When Jesus says, “The Son of Man must suffer greatly” he indicates that he will sacrifice his personal comfort. So must we.

When he says, “He must be rejected by the elders, the chief priests and the scribes,” he means he will sacrifice his reputation. So will we.

But, when adds, “and on the third day be raised,” he means that the suffering we experience is only temporary.

The Resurrection is the key to all of the other facts about Jesus. His way of humility has power not because self-destruction is good, but because it makes room for God’s victory. Suffering is not good in itself; it is good because it leads to God, and God is the One Who Gives Himself Away.

Everything we see, touch, taste, and hear is a free gift of God, given to us simply because he loves us. He sends his rain to the good and bad alike, with no charge. Now, as he enters humanity, he does the same with himself. He gives himself to us on the cross. We can do what we want with him — even reject and kill him. But he’ll go right on giving whatever we are willing to receive.

The ultimate expression of the God Who Gives Himself Away is the Eucharist. When we receive him there, we are agreeing to enter into the logic of his self-giving. That is why Jesus says “Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him on the last day.”

When we receive Communion, we are saying, “Yes, Lord. I will take up my cross each day and follow. Take my life; I know that by losing it I will find it in you. Give me your grace to walk in your new world order, your kingdom of self-sacrifice, now and forever.”

Raffael, wikimedia

By Tom Hoopes