"DO NOT CONFORM YOURSELVES TO THIS AGE.."

Homily for Sept. 3rd, 2017: 22^nd Sunday in Ordinary time, Year A. 
         Jer. 20:7-9; Rom.12:1-2; Matt.16:21-27.

AIM:  To help the hearers see and live with the eyes of faith.

 

          “Do not conform yourselves to this age,” Paul tells us in our second reading.  What does he mean? You can see what he means in the morning newspaper, and on the evening television. He is telling us not to live by the standards of the world around us. 

          Today’s world is very different from Paul’s. Yet people have not really changed all that much. Now, as then, the smart person looks after Number One; tries to get ahead by the deft use of thumbs and elbows; and reacts to rebuffs and injuries with the chip-on-the-shoulder slogan: “Don’t get mad, get even.” With his words, “Do not conform yourselves to this age,” Paul is telling us that if we are serious about wanting to be friends and followers of Jesus Christ, we must follow different standards.

          There is not one of us here today who has not felt the downward pull of the world’s egotism and self-centeredness. Jesus felt that downward pull himself. At the beginning of his public ministry he was tempted to purchase popular success by various short-cuts and sensational tricks. “Turn stones into bread,” the Tempter told him. “Throw yourself down from the Temple – God will look after you.” (cf. Mt. 4:1-11; Lk 4:1-13). In today’s gospel Jesus is tempted again. He is starting on the final stage of his journey. It will take him up to Jerusalem, to death. Once again, as at the beginning, he feels the downward pull of this world’s standards, trying to turn him aside from the right way.   

          Jesus is hurt that the temptation comes this time from the friend who has just confessed that Jesus is God’s anointed servant and Son, the long-awaited Messiah. In response to this declaration of faith, the Lord has just given his friend Simon the new name “Peter the Rock,” as we heard in last week’s gospel. With this name Jesus bestowed on Peter the position of leadership in the Church that was yet to be. And now here is Peter, of all people, trying to turn Jesus aside from his Father’s will and call by responding to Jesus’ prediction of his passion and death: “God forbid, Lord! No such thing shall ever happen to you.”

          Peter was speaking (to use Paul’s terminology from our second reading) from a mind still conformed to this age. We see how keenly Jesus felt the downward pull of temptation in Peter’s words by the harshness of Jesus’ response: “Get behind me, Satan! You are an obstacle to me. You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do.” 

          Thinking as God does means, Paul says in the second reading, being “transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and pleasing and perfect.” That transformation begins here in the liturgy, which is the gathering of God’s people for public prayer. Here we do what Paul tells us to do in the second reading. We “offer our bodies” (Paul’s word for our selves: all that we are and have, sin excluded) “as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God, [our] spiritual worship.”

          The renewal of our minds starts at the table of the word, as we listen to the call, not of the world’s standards, but of God’s. The world drags us down. God pulls us up. In our first reading we heard the upward pull of Jeremiah’s words. He protests that God has “duped” him into being a spokesman for the Lord. The role of prophet has cost Jeremiah scorn and repudiation by his own people. Yet deep in his heart, Jeremiah knows that he can do no other. He must speak for God.

          We feel the upward pull of Jesus’ words in the gospel: “Whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.” If ever a man had the right to speak those words, it is Jesus Christ. They tell us what, deep in our hearts, we already know. The only way to preserve all that we hold most dear, even life itself, it to yield everything to Jesus Christ. 

          Uplifted by God’s holy word, we offer at the table of his sacrament the living sacrifice of our spiritual worship. In so doing we receive back far more than we offer: the very body and blood of our divine Master, who died that we might live. He, Jesus, is the one who transforms us by the renewal of our minds. He is the one who sends us forth from these twin tables of his word and sacrament into the rough and tumble of life, enlightened and empowered by his Holy Spirit so that we can do what Paul tells us to do in the second reading: to “discern what is the will of God, what is good and pleasing and perfect”; and what Jesus tells us to do in the gospel: to lose our lives in service of Him who always gives back to us so much more than we can ever give to Him.       

          Do we really believe that? Aren’t we often afraid of losing our lives for Jesus Christ? Our now retired Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI, addressed this fear at the end of his homily at the Mass for the inauguration of his pastoral ministry on April 24^th, 2005. The Pope addressed his words especially to young people. Here is what he said:

          “Are we not perhaps all afraid in some way? If we let Christ enter fully into our lives, if we open ourselves totally to him, are we not afraid that he might take something away from us? Are we not perhaps afraid to give up something significant, something unique, something that makes life so beautiful? Do we not then risk ending up diminished and deprived of our freedom? No! If we let Christ into our lives, we lose nothing, nothing, absolutely nothing of what makes life free, beautiful and great. No! Only in this friendship are the doors of life opened wide. Only in this friendship is the great potential of human existence truly revealed. Only in this friendship do we experience beauty and liberation. And so, today, with great strength and great conviction, on the basis of long personal experience of life, I say to you, dear young people: Do not be afraid of Christ! He takes nothing away, and he gives you everything. When we give ourselves to him, we receive a hundredfold in return. Yes, open, open wide the doors to Christ – and you will find true life.”