Sunday Meditation: Take Up Your Cross

For the Twenty-Second Sunday in Ordinary Time in Year A, we get the famous follow-up to the handing of the keys to Peter, the rebuke where Jesus tells Peter “to get behind me Satan.”  There are two parts to this passage.  The first is the rebuking part: Peter rebuking Jesus and Jesus counter rebuke of Peter.  The second is the discourse Jesus provides on discipleship.  Exegesis of this passage relies on the subtlety of several words.  First, “Satan,” then “get behind me” as we will see in one of the embedded homilies, and also “deny yourself” in another homily.

Whether Jesus identifies Peter as Satan or whether He is using the word Satan in its etymological sense could be up for debate.  From Wikipedia:

The Hebrew term śāṭān (Hebrew: שָׂטָן) is a generic noun meaning "accuser" or "adversary", and is derived from a verb meaning primarily "to obstruct, oppose".

Either way, Jesus is identifying the obstructive nature of Peter’s rebuke.  Gina Hens-Piazza in America Media’s Scripture Reflections identifies three more subtleties.  She points out:

 

First, Jesus says “Whoever wishes to come after me.” Following Jesus is a choice. Though he extends the invitation, we must be the ones to choose, to say yes.

 

Second, Jesus’ invitation also summons us to take up our cross. He says, “Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross…” (Mt 16:24). We are being asked to take up our cross, not Jesus’ cross. He invites us to embrace, with a Christ-like trust in God, all the crosses that all our lives entail.

 

Finally, Jesus says, “Whoever wishes to come after me, must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me” (Mt. 16:24). By “follow me,” Jesus does not mean for us to do exactly what he did or live our lives exactly as he lived his…following Jesus involves an entirely individual and unique way of conformity both to what he taught and to the ways he taught it. It means capturing with our own circumstances and creativity the very essence of who Jesus was and how he lived.

I think Gina’s second observation—“to take up our crosses””—is the one that resonates the most to me.

 

 

 

 

Today’s Gospel:

 

 

Jesus began to show his disciples

that he 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.

Then Peter took Jesus aside and began to rebuke him,

"God forbid, Lord! No such thing shall ever happen to you."

He turned and said to Peter,

"Get behind me, Satan! You are an obstacle to me.

You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do."

 

Then Jesus said to his disciples,

"Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself,

take up his cross, and follow me.

For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it,

but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.

What profit would there be for one to gain the whole world

and forfeit his life?

Or what can one give in exchange for his life?

For the Son of Man will come with his angels in his Father's glory, and then he will repay all according to his conduct."

~Mt: 16:21-27

 

 

 

Fr. Cajetan Cuddy O.P. explains the subtlety of what it means to “deny yourself.”

 

Fr. Cajetan:

In the 16th chapter of St. Matthew's gospel, our Lord speaks the truth to us, but he says things in such a way that it almost sounds like he is taking away with his left what he gives us with his right. Because today he says, "Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross and follow me." And then he says, "For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it." What does this mean?  It's a perplexing thing to think of the fact that we preserve our life through the very loss of our life. As if we gain something through giving that something up. We retain something by giving it away. We earn something by losing it.

 

If we understand that our Lord is speaking not of our life in and of ourselves, in and of itself, but rather our life as one with his life. In other words, all of those united to Jesus are not no longer themselves alone. They don't find their identity in, through, and because of themselves. They find their identity in Christ's identity. This is the essence of the Christian life. This is the essence of the gospel. Namely, that we are not our own, that we are not alone, that we are not distant from the Lord, and in fact, that everything that the Lord has and is is ours. He has told us all things. He has given us his entire self. His life is ours. And this is where the paradox, the mystery, the ambiguity, the rhetoric dissipates and the gospel clarity becomes clear. If we lose our life, which is to say our attempt to find ourselves in and through ourselves, but really to find ourselves in his our Lord's divine life, then we don't lose anything when we lose our life and we gain everything.

In simpler words, we lose our life when we unite our lives to Jesus, but then we gain in exchange of Jesus’s life.

 

For the pastoral homily I once again turn to Archbishop Edward J. Weisenburger of Detroit who here focuses on the words, “follow me.” 

 

Archbishop Weisenburger:

What is unfolding in this gospel passage is Peter is being asked to change his understanding of what kind of Messiah Jesus is. Indeed, recall that as Peter hears Jesus explain that he will be more of a sacrificial lamb led to the slaughter than a triumphant military leader.  Peter can't quite wrap his brain around that. It's not what he expected. Certainly probably not what he wanted. And so Peter actually rebukes Jesus.  No doubt motivated by love for Jesus, Peter says, "Absolutely not, Lord. You're wrong. May that never happen." But brothers and sisters, whenever we rebuke God, we're not in a good place. And the same Jesus who just moments before had promised Peter the keys of the kingdom, must now correct Peter. Note the words of the gospel in Greek do not translate perfectly into English. When we read Jesus saying to Peter, "Get thee behind me, Satan." That get behind in the original Greek might be translated fall back in line. You see, a  disciple was a follower, one who walked behind the master. Jesus, we do not believe, is expelling Peter from the 12 or wanting him to go away forever. Moreover, that word Satan, Shatan, could refer to a stumbling block. And in that moment, had Jesus listened to Peter and changed the will of the father for himself, then Peter indeed would have been a great stumbling block. Instead, Jesus  is now rebuking Peter's incorrect understanding, his incorrect belief in the kind of Messiah Jesus would become on the cross.

 

I find this gospel quite powerful in my own life because while I have known some great joys, blessings, and even what felt like a few triumphs in life, I also have known setbacks, hardships, and sufferings. And I suspect that's equally true for each of you hearing these words.  But being a follower of Jesus means falling in  line and following being a disciple, a follower, not only to his cross, but to our own. And to be honest, I suspect this is a gospel passage that challenges us today, probably no less than it challenged Peter. Please forgive my mild sarcasm, but there are plenty of popular religious leaders today, as there have been in every age, who claim to be Christian, but promise if you do  everything just right, you'll only know happiness and blessings. They typically also want your credit card number. But that's not Christianity.  And as long as that misunderstanding of the kind of Messiah Jesus is remains in our brains, we will never really grasp the heart of the gospel. If we can accept no role for suffering or hardship in life, then perhaps today we are the stumbling stones between the feet of our Messiah. 

 

Okay, one final point from this gospel concerns the timing of this revelation.  Jesus explains the kind of Messiah he will be only as he and his disciples are now approaching Jerusalem with the cross drawing near on the horizon. Surely if some of those disciples had known what awaited them from the very start of the journey, they would never have joined Jesus as disciples. It might have been too daunting.  But when you think about it, perhaps it was a real grace, a blessing from God. After all, when you think about it, whether it's marriage, parenthood, priesthood, religious life, or any chosen career, we often times don't realize what we're getting into at the beginning, but we're given strength along the way to endure, and even more than endure to triumph over whatever challenges lay ahead. Could it be that God reveals his will for each of us at the right time when we most need it? For today, let us remain firmly in line, walking behind Jesus as a disciple, a follower. 

So “get behind me” is not just a put down, but an actual calling to be a follower.  How many times has Jesus rebuked me?  Every time I refused to get behind Him.

 

 

 

Sunday Meditation: " You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do."

 

 

Today’s hymn is the lovely and most appropriate, “Take Up Your Cross.”

 

 

Take up your cross, the Saviour said,

if you would my disciple be;

Deny yourself, the world forsake,

and humbly follow after me.

 

Take up your cross; be not ashamed!

Let not disgrace your spirit fill;

For God himself endured to die

upon a cross on Calvary's hill.

 

Take up your cross, which gives you strength,

which makes your trembling spirit brave:

'Twill guide you to a better home

and lead to vict'ry o'er the grave.

 

Take up your cross, and follow Christ,

nor think till death to lay it down;

For only they who bear the cross

may hope to wear the glorious crown.

 

Lately it feels like I’ve been carrying that cross.  May I be following Jesus.