22nd Sunday in Ordinary Time - A
Readings:
Jeremiah 20:7-9; Romans 12:1-2; Matthew 16:21-27
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus,
today’s Gospel clearly out lines the important qualities that is demanded of Jesus’
disciples: “If anyone wants to be a follower of mine, let him renounce himself
and take up his cross and follow me.”
Last Sunday we meditated, how Jesus
appreciated Peter for recognizing him as the Messiah and thus placed Peter as
the head of the Church; calling him as rock and on this rock I will build my
church. But today we see entirely a different picture of Jesus’ attitude towards
Peter, calling him as Satan. Why did Jesus strongly admonish Peter? Though
Peter had grasped the fact that Jesus was the Messiah, but had not grasped it
fully as to what it really meant.
When Jesus foretold his disciples about his
suffering, death and resurrection, Peter started to remonstrate with Jesus
and said, ‘this must not happen to you.” It is to say that Peter was telling
Jesus what direction he should take in his life. It all happened because
Peter did not understand the divine plan for His Son Jesus.
The disciples were still thinking of Jesus in
terms of a conquering Messiah, a warrior king, who would sweep the Romans from
Palestine and lead Israel to power. In
other words the disciples were seeking the path of glory but to Jesus it was
the path of cross.
The attitude
of Peter towards Jesus raises this
fundamental question in me: what do I mean when I say that I am the disciple of
Jesus? The very purpose of God sending his only Son into the world was to love
us and redeem us by sacrificing his only begotten son on the cross. In other
words God sacrificed his Son, so that we may have life, life in abundance.
If I see
Jesus, just as a miracle worker, then I have missed the whole point of being
the disciple of Jesus. This is what happened to the disciples, when Jesus
foretold his disciples the kind of death he was to undergo. Prior to today’s
passage, when we go through the previous chapters in Matthew’s gospel, we will
see how the disciples witnessed to the miralces of Jesus: feeding five thousand people, waliking on the water
and so forth. As a result of these Peter could not accept Jesus, the Son of the
living God would expercise his royal messiahship from the throne of a Cross. He
thus attempts to stop Jesus’ journey towards Jerusalem.[1] “But Jesus turned and said to Peter, ‘Get
behind me, Satan! You are an obstacle in my path, because the way you think is
not God’s way but man’s.’
Yes, dear
brothers and sisters, if I truly want to be the follower of Jesus then crosses
are inevitable. Bonhoeffer, a
German Theologian, in his book “The Cost of Discipleship” clearly defines who
is a disciple? He says, “Just as Christ
is Christ only in virtue of his suffering and rejection, so the disciple is a
disciple only in so far as he shares his Lord’s suffering and rejection and
crucifixion. Discipleship means adherence to the person of Jesus, and therefore
submission to the law of Christ which is the law of the cross.”[2]
It is evident from his understanding of discipleship that suffering is included
in one’s effort to follow Jesus.
In this context it is good to meditate on
the approach of Mother Teresa to those who wanted to join her order. This is how she used to address the candidates,
when they expressed their desire to follow her spirituality, she said, “Our
work is hard. We are serving the poor and the homeless 24 hours a day.” In
other words, she was clearly indicating the words of Jesus to them: “If anyone
wants to be a follower of mine, let him renounce himself and take up his cross
and follow me.”
No comments:
Post a Comment