Sunday 3rd of September 2023 - Twenty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time

Jeremiah 20:7-9/ Psalm 62(63)/ Romans 12:1-2/ Matthew 16:21-27

Society today is quick to put people on pedestals and just as quick to knock them off again. People are often judged by the one good or one bad thing they have done. Someone who has achieved much in all sorts of areas my suddenly be demonised for one thing people perceive to be wrong. It seems we are living in a polarised world in which you are either, right or wrong, good or bad, a saint or a sinner.

The truth is that we are all prone to be a bit of both. Human beings can do the most extraordinary things at both ends of the good and bad spectrum. We cannot define a person by one thing they may have done, be it good or bad. Our Christian faith tells us that there is only one judge and that is Jesus. This is fortunate for most of us because it is only Jesus who knows us through and through, even better than we know ourselves. We can never know someone, even ourselves, as thoroughly as Jesus knows us. This qualifies Jesus to be the only judge of humanity and disqualifies us from judging each other and ourselves.

The first reading tends to show that it has always been the case that people have been demonised by the society around them. Jeramiah was given the duty of prophesising to his people, but he became a daily laughingstock and the butt of hateful comments. In the letter to the Roman Church from Paul, he gives encouragement not to model ourselves on the behaviour of the world around us but to look for the will of God. This means not joining the angry mob shouting derision and abuse at others because they are not following the crowd or not behaving in a way society thinks they should.

In St Peter we have an example of a person who could at one moment be acclaimed a great saint but at the next a self-obsessed sinner. In last week's gospel we heard Peter make his great profession of faith acclaiming who Jesus is. As a result extraordinary authority was placed on him by Jesus. Following directly on this week Peter is likened to Satan by Jesus because of his refusal to accept that Jesus must suffer and die. Peter is rebuked by Jesus for his worldly thinking rather than that of God. I am left wondering if Peter’s attitude had grown out of pride after he had so recently been honoured by Jesus. Peter, and the other Apostles, display very human traits and we should be glad of that. None of us are perfect, we are all prone to worldly thinking because we are fallen in nature. Jesus came to address this fall and give us a route back to the perfection we were originally created for. We can all, with God’s grace, achieve greatness like that of St Peter but we are all still fallen humans capable of very human thoughts, feelings and actions. None of us should be seen by the worst we can do; we should not judge each other or ourselves by the standards of the world. God can inspire us to greatness despite our human weaknesses and Peter is a prime example of this giving hope for us all.

Our Christian faith calls us to renounce the world and those parts of us that cling to the passing things it offers. We need to take up the cross of Jesus if we are to follow him through this life into the next. The values we follow should be very different to the values of the world around us. If that leads us to be insulted and derided as Jeremiah was, then so be it. In fact, it would be a good sign that we were on the right path. Jesus calls us to make God’s will our will in countless daily ways. Sometimes in small things and sometimes in bigger life changing ways. Our challenges will not be as big as those of Jeremiah or Jesus, the important thing is that every day in many ways we seek to make God’s will our own, living our lives God’s way not our way.

God Bless, Brendan.