22nd Sunday in Ordinary Time – Year A
Jeremiah 20:7-9 Romans 12:1-2 Matthew 16:21-27
Suffering is a real part of all life. But, when one is made to suffer unjustly and abusively, then resentment, anger, and even rage can erupt in the victim. Such was Jeremiah’s situation.
Jeremiah the prophet lived in the Kingdom of Judah in and around Jerusalem before and during their fall (598 BC), and even over the next dozen years or so including the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple of Solomon (587/6 BC). Babylonian Emperor Nebuchadnezzar II (born 630 BC; died ca. 561 BC) brought more than four centuries of Jewish monarchical independence to an end. Jeremiah had been encouraging the King of Jerusalem and his princes to follow a course of political action which required religious fidelity to the God of Israel and which eschewed complex political deceit and dirty tricks towards the Babylonian threat. For these exhortations Jeremiah was beaten and put into stocks by Pashhur, a temple priest who was the head of the Jerusalem Temple Police. The prophet was provoked into a tremendous rage in today’s short text. A couple of verses after this text, however, he regained his composure and reaffirmed his trust in God. Eventually, he thinks of the suffering he endured at the hands of Pashhur to have been a test from God.
The primary mission of the ancient Jewish prophet was to serve as a well-formed conscience for the Chosen People. He considered whether and how everyone – from king to prince and temple priest down to ordinary person and slave – lived out their lives according to God’s covenant. The prophet was most concerned with issues of truthfulness, justice (especially for poor and marginal people), and holiness for both individuals and for the entire nation. When God’s prophet challenged king or prince or priest or citizen, the prophet always risked some sort of adverse reaction. Kings, princes, and priests had power to wield and they often attacked the prophet personally. Jeremiah voiced a frustration and resentment towards God (“You duped me...!”) in today’s lesson which his suffering produced. He had expected God’s people, including and especially God’s leaders, to hear the word of the Lord and to accept it. Finding himself victimized by God’s nation was an embittering event. A cynic might observe that “no good deed goes unpunished,” but prophets’ good deeds were often poorly received by those in need of correction and exhortation. That was true in ancient times and it is often true today.
In the Gospel narrative today, Jesus made a direct connection between discipleship and the cross, i.e., Gospel fellowship and suffering. The cross was indeed a genuine and real instrument of abusive torture, suffering, and death in Jesus’ life. It was an imperial Roman by which to terrorized the population used on adult men, adult women, and even on children. It had no happy component. But, for subsequent Christians – fortunately no longer subject to Imperial Roman punishments – the cross became a symbol of Jesus’ Salvific Death and Resurrection along with being a metaphor for fully and freely engaging in real human life, whether messy and painful or happy and fulfilling. The practice of using the cross as jewelry shows that it has a variety of meanings and different sorts of significance (even non-Christians wear the cross sometimes!), probably well beyond the imaginations of the earliest Christians who actually endured death by crucifixion. The discipleship bestowed by the Gospel message demands that each believer embrace life as fully as possible, and in doing so, that each embrace the cross. This is a necessary connection. No Cross; no discipleship. From such faith-filled embrace of life with the Gospel derive for Christians all the virtues of compassion, mercy, fidelity, truthfulness, forgiveness, conversion, charity, and the like. Believers know intuitively that life is indeed worth living, and that it is good to suffer for a noble and worthy purpose. No disciple of Jesus Christ would have a life free from suffering and pain. Many seem to have more than their fair share. But, it is in the very act of engaging life fully and completely (“I have come that they may have life and have it more abundantly” announced Jesus in John 10:10) that the Gospel makes most profound good sense. All disciples of the Gospel must be at least somewhat prophetic in the tradition of Jeremiah. Yet, when the suffering dimension of faith life arises, then it might well appear to be someone else’s fault. Jeremiah blamed God (“You duped me ... and I let myself be duped!”). And, sometimes, self-pity wells up from within the one who endures the suffering. Self-pity can bread resentment which can produce anger and move in an irrational direction. This is so very human a response to tragic suffering and a powerless, even hopeless, situation. But, Jeremiah did wrestle with reality. He was faithful to God’s people even in their tragic defeat and even after abusive treatment at their hands. By tradition, he retired to Egypt thereafter.
St. Paul’s exhortation in today’s short second reading is a direct consequence of the combined second readings of the previous two Sundays. (Read all three consecutive second readings aloud and see how great the message is!). Because God’s call is irrevocable, and because God has already shown mercy to believers who are both Gentiles and Jews, every believer is thus loved and shown mercy by God. And this divine love and mercy will not be removed or withdrawn by God. Thus, each believer must give one’s whole self (“your bodies” is a metaphor for one’s entire being) to God in gratitude. The appeal is made and intensified by “be not conformed ... but transformed by renewing ...!” Hence, the power of God working through believers is a desire and willingness to change which is ever-present, evolutionary, reforming, and growth-oriented. Believers must not go backwards, but forwards. Transformative reform is always a future-oriented event which occurs in the present. It is never a return to the imaginary comfort of a past era. To move in reverse even today is contrary to the very gratitude we owe God for the wisdom, mercy, and blessing God has already shown us. Only fearful and narrow minds and hearts retreat in the face of God’s Good News. Discipleship and the Cross of Christ necessarily go together. Thus, do disciples embrace the Gospel fully and fearlessly and then engage life boldly and freely.
Each must wrestle with truthfulness, freedom, justice, and love. The Cross of Christ is the metaphor for such engagement now and always.