Twenty-Second Sunday in Ordinary Time (A), Conversations with Consequences Podcast, September 2, 2023

Fr. Roger J. Landry
Conversations with Consequences Podcast
Homily for the Twenty-Second Sunday of Ordinary Time, A, Vigil
September 2, 2023

To listen to an audio recording of this short Sunday homily, please click below: 

The following text guided the homily: 

• This is Fr. Roger Landry and it’s a privilege for me to be with you as we enter into the consequential conversation the Risen Lord Jesus wants to have with each of us this Sunday, in which we see a dramatic turnaround from what we considered a week ago. In last Sunday’s Gospel, Jesus called Simon Peter “the Rock on whom I will build by Church” and promised that “the gates of Hell will not prevail against it.” This Sunday, Jesus calls Peter, “Satan,” and tells him, essentially, that the gates of Hell are prevailing against him. Why does this happen? Because Peter was rejecting Jesus’ prophetic words that Jesus would suffer, be killed and be raised: “God forbid it, Lord!,” Peter shouted. “This must never happen to you!” We might think that this was just the concern of a friend trying to prevent Jesus from suffering harm, but Jesus, the Lord, saw something much deeper. The reason why he called him “Satan,” was because Peter at that moment was, without realizing it, playing the part of Satan the tempter, effectively trying to steer him away from doing his Father’s will. The reason why Jesus said, “Get behind me!,” is because Peter was trying to leadJesus rather than to follow him, and no creature can ever do that to the Creator, and no disciple can ever do that to the Master. Jesus very directly summed up what was the cause of Peter’s fall: “You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do.”
• As challenging as that was, Jesus then upped the ante. It was tough enough to accept “the way God thinks” when that meant that the “Christ, the Son of the Living God” (as Peter confessed him last week) was going to undergo great suffering and be crucified. But Jesus said that if we wanted to be his disciples, we would need to undergo the same. This is God’s standard for us, too. “If anyone wishes to become my disciple,” Jesus tells us at the end of this Sunday’s Gospel, “he must deny himself, take up his cross and follow me.” Each of us is, and want to be ever better, a follower of Jesus. We want our friends and family members to be disciples of Jesus. But we cannot be his disciples unless we do what Jesus indicates — deny ourselves rather than affirm ourselves, pick up our Cross daily, and follow Jesus rather than doing our own thing. To be Jesus’ disciple means thinking as Jesus thinks, willing as he wills, choosing as he chooses, serving as he serves, and loving as he loves. That’s the high and heroic challenge he puts before us.
• 2000 years after Jesus’ crucifixion, we are not shocked as St. Peter was when Jesus gave the first of three prophecies of what would happen to him on Good Friday, because we know that it turns out dramatically well on the third day. But most of us are still shocked when Jesus says to us that in order to be his disciple we must deny ourselves, die to ourselves through the Cross and follow him along the path to death in order to live. And we’re even more shocked when Jesus asks those we care about to follow him along the path of suffering. We still are tempted to say, “God forbid, Lord, that any such thing as pain and suffering, of the Cross, happen to me or my loved ones!” Because we struggle to think as God thinks, we’re tempted to water down what Jesus says are preconditions to being his follower. We think all Jesus is asking us to do is to “offer up” daily contradictions and hardships, but his first listeners would never have missed what he was saying when he mentioned that the only way they could follow him is through denying themselves to the extent that they would pick up their Cross. It would be as if he said to us today, “Strap yourself into the electric chair!,” because in the ancient world, the cross was used exclusively for the gruesome capital punishment of crucifying someone. For Jesus to say that they needed to pick up the Cross and follow him meant that they needed to die to themselves on the Cross just like Jesus did on his. As St. Paul, who after his conversion picked up his cross every day and followed the Lord, once wrote: “I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me” (Gal 2:19-20), Jesus wants us to be able to say the same thing. It’s only when we have denied ourselves and affirmed God, it’s only when we have in fact died to ourselves so that Christ may live, it’s only when we’ve “lost” our life for the sake of Christ and his Gospel, that we will “save” our life and be able to follow Christ to the joyful risen existence he suffered and died to give us. This is certainly not man’s wisdom! But it is God’s wisdom! Worldly men and women view the Cross exclusively as an evil to be eliminated in the pursuit to maximize pleasure and minimize pain, but a Christian looks at suffering not simply as pain but as suffering that can redeem us and others. The world looks at the Cross as a way of abnegation, of giving up good things, of losing out on good experiences, but a Christian sees it not so much as a path of renunciation and agony, but a way to unleash love, to make us humble and form us to be Good Samaritans when we see others suffering. The way of the Cross is fundamentally a yes, not a no. Just as by Christ’s stripes we were healed (Is 53:5), so by our own stripes, our own crosses, we can make up what is lacking in Christ’s sufferings within us for the sake of his body the Church (Col 1:24).
• Jesus — great teacher that he is — sums up the contrast between God’s wisdom and man’s when he says, “For what would it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his life?” So many in our day strive after money, power, pleasure and prestige. Jesus is telling us that even if we were able to have all of these in abundance and more, it wouldn’t be worth it if in the process we squandered our soul. This is the great “Faustian bargain” — to use the image from the 19th century German poet Goethe — the quintessential temptation of the devil. Just as Satan tried to tempt Jesus in the desert when he took him to a very high mountain, showed him all the kingdoms of the world and said, “All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me,” so Satan tries to do the same with us. Jesus’ response then is what he wants ours to be now, “Away with you, Satan, for it is written, ‘Worship the Lord your God and serve Him alone’” (Mt 4:8-10). That’s the reason why Jesus called Peter “Satan,” because Peter was tempting Jesus to put his physical health and temporal well-being ahead of his soul and eternal well-being, to live for the present rather than forever — just as Satan tried to do to Jesus in the desert. Jesus makes plain that it profits a person nothing to gain everything the world can offer if he forfeits his eternal life in exchange.
• As we prepare on Monday to celebrate Labor Day, it’s important for us to look at work within the plan of redemption. Often work is arduous, indeed it can be a cross, but it’s meant to be redemptive. God had given the human person before the Fall a three-fold vocation to work, to be fruitful and multiply, to fill the earth and subdue it, and to have dominion over the fish, the birds, and every living thing. After the Fall, these three aspects of man’s work all would involve some pain — procreation now would bring with it the “pangs of childbirth” for the woman, the work of subduing and having dominion would now become “toilsome” and bring “sweat” to one’s brow (Gen 3:16-19) — but work not only would remain fundamentally good, but in fact become redemptive, because through enduring those pangs, toil and sweat, one would be carrying the cross out of love for those who would benefit from those pangs, toil and sweat. That’s why Jesus is constantly mentioning the human work of shepherds, farmers, doctors, sowers, householders, servants, stewards, merchants, laborers, soldiers, cooks, tax collectors, scholars, harvesters and fishermen. That’s why he himself, for most of his life on earth, shared in the callous-inducing hard work of a tekton, or a builder, together with St. Joseph. Jesus entered into the world of human work, not as a “cover” until his “real work” would begin, but precisely to redeem noble human work in his process of redeeming the human person. Jesus was teaching us that one’s desk, sewing machine, kitchen, chalkboard, operating room, workbench or boat is meant to become an altar that sanctifies not only what is given to God in work, but the giver as well. It is there that the vast majority of men and women are called to deny themselves, pick up their cross and follow Jesus. That is the way we’re called to think as God does, rather than human beings, about the work that will take up a third or more of our adult life.
• Every time we go to Mass, God strengthens us in our vocation as his cruciform disciples. As we enter into his passion, death and resurrection, as we receive his Body and Blood that he offered on the Cross for us, we are filled with him so that, together with him on the inside, we can deny ourselves of both bad things and some good things, seize our Cross each day, and follow him all the way to the Father’s eternal right. That is our principal work, which is expressed in all the work we do for God and others. This Sunday is an occasion for us to ask him who has chosen us and given us the vocation to follow him not just in human professions but in the work of the Gospel to think as God does, to put his divine wisdom into practice, and to give our life in sharing, in our home, work place, schools and beyond, this path to true life, worth sacrificing everything else to obtain. God bless you!

The Gospel passage on which this homily was based was: 

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