{"id":2247,"date":"2017-09-03T11:52:30","date_gmt":"2017-09-03T15:52:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/?p=2247"},"modified":"2017-09-03T11:52:30","modified_gmt":"2017-09-03T15:52:30","slug":"22nd-sunday-in-ordinary-time-year-a-homily-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/22nd-sunday-in-ordinary-time-year-a-homily-2\/","title":{"rendered":"22nd Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A – Homily"},"content":{"rendered":"

22nd<\/sup> Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A<\/a>\"\"<\/a>
\nJeremiah 20:7-9
\nPsalm 63:2, 3-4, 5-6, 8-9
\nRomans 12:1-2
\nMatthew 16:21-27<\/p>\n

Last week Peter responded to Jesus\u2019 question, \u201cBut who do you say that I am?<\/em>\u201d with \u201cYou are the Christ, the Son of the Living God<\/em>.\u201d\u00a0 For this Jesus identifies Peter as \u201cblessed\u201d<\/em>, pronounces him as the \u201crock\u201d<\/em> upon which he will build his church, and gives him \u201cthe keys to the Kingdom of Heaven<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n

Peter was looking pretty good.<\/p>\n

That was last week.\u00a0 This week, our gospel picks up right where we left off last week.\u00a0 Jesus now tells them for the first time about his coming passion.\u00a0 He tells them that \u201che must go to Jerusalem and suffer greatly from the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed and on the third day be raised.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n

Now Jesus saying he \u201cmust go to Jerusalem<\/em>\u201d would made sense to Peter but suffer?\u00a0 Be killed?\u00a0 It couldn\u2019t be.\u00a0 Jesus is the Christ.\u00a0 He is supposed to be the one to set them free from their enemies.\u00a0 How could he be killed by the elders and the scribes?\u00a0 The Romans were the ones seen as the enemies.<\/p>\n

So, most of what Jesus says makes no sense to Peter.\u00a0 Peter, who had just called Jesus the Christ rebukes<\/strong> him.\u00a0 Jesus then says to Peter, \u201cGet behind me, Satan!\u00a0 You are an obstacle to me.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n

Ouch!\u00a0 Peter goes from being \u201cblessed\u201d and the \u201crock\u201d to being called \u201cSatan\u201d and an \u201cobstacle\u201d in a few sentences.<\/p>\n

Why?<\/p>\n

Jesus gives the answer. \u00a0Peter is \u201cthinking not as God does, but as human beings do<\/em>.\u201d\u00a0 Peter was waiting for the Messiah, the Christ.\u00a0 His soul was thirsting to know our Lord but he had his expectations of what the Messiah would be like.\u00a0 When Jesus tells us of his coming passion, it doesn\u2019t find what Peter was expecting.<\/p>\n

People often think that if they believe in Jesus and come to church everything should be fine.\u00a0 Perhaps Jeremiah thought this way when he agreed to be a prophet.\u00a0 Jeremiah now feels \u201cduped\u201d because he has become \u201can object of laughter.<\/em>\u201d He said, \u201cThe word of the Lord has brought me derision and reproach all the day<\/em>\u201d so much so that he wants to give up being a prophet but he can\u2019t.<\/p>\n

We might often think of church as a place we go to flee from our problems.\u00a0 Coming to church can be a powerful help in the problems we face but being Christian can be a challenge.<\/p>\n

Knowing this, Jesus goes on to say \u201cWhoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDeny himself<\/em>\u201d and \u201ctake up his cross<\/em>\u201d are hardly words that we might put on a billboard to invite people to come to church but they are essential to understanding what it means to be Christian.<\/p>\n

Peter was very open to Jesus as the Christ as he saw the role of the Christ but he wasn’t ready for Jesus to be the Christ that God willed.\u00a0 He would need time and grace for that.<\/p>\n

When we face suffering in our lives, we might rush to ask Jesus to fix that suffering.\u00a0 Are we open to him \u201cfixing\u201d the suffering in the way he wants or just the way we want?\u00a0 Going a step beyond that do we want Jesus to change just one part of our life that we don\u2019t like or are we willing to let him change our whole<\/em><\/strong> life?<\/p>\n

I can\u2019t stress the \u201cwhole\u201d in life enough.\u00a0 Are we willing to let Jesus change the way we look at things?<\/p>\n

I have spoken before of how, in his pastoral letter for our Year of the Eucharist, Bishop Matano wrote about the importance of regular attendance at Sunday Mass.\u00a0 What are you looking for when you come to Mass?<\/p>\n

Are you looking just to \u201cfeel good\u201d?\u00a0 Now wanting to \u201cfeel good\u201d is not a bad thing as long as it isn\u2019t just a superficial feeling but rooted in how our soul thirsts for God.<\/p>\n

The purpose of Mass is not to simply make us \u201cfeel good.\u201d\u00a0 The first purpose of Mass is to praise God.\u00a0 This means we need to live with an attitude of gratitude in seeing the blessings that God has given us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mass should also help us as Christians but not just to feel good for the time we are here.\u00a0 We are not at a music concert where we look for music that makes us happy or want to dance or wave our hands around.\u00a0 We need a Mass with a reverence that draws us into a deeper<\/em><\/strong> relationship with Jesus.<\/p>\n

Likewise we don\u2019t select readings from the Bible for Mass that are simply meant to feel good about what we do in our own lives.\u00a0 The readings, and hopefully what I preach if I listen to the Spirit, are designed to help us become better Christians.\u00a0 If we do that, we will not feel just \u201cgood\u201d but \u201cjoyful\u201d for longer than just the time we are at Mass.<\/p>\n

In thinking about what we are looking for out of Mass and life in general, I want to end with some of the words Paul wrote the Romans, \u201cDo not conform yourselves to this age but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may discern what is the will of God.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

22nd Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A Jeremiah 20:7-9 Psalm 63:2, 3-4, 5-6, 8-9 Romans 12:1-2 Matthew 16:21-27 Last week Peter responded to Jesus\u2019 question, \u201cBut who do you say that I am?\u201d with \u201cYou are the Christ, the Son of the Living God.\u201d\u00a0 For this Jesus identifies Peter as \u201cblessed\u201d, pronounces him as the …<\/p>\n

Continue reading ‘22nd Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A – Homily’ »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[82,302],"tags":[334,335],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pMTPk-Af","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2247"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2247"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2247\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2249,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2247\/revisions\/2249"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2247"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2247"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2247"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}