God's cannons

Today’s readings are like very heavy cannons, aiming at the destruction of the stronghold of our human way of thinking. Saint Paul is more than clear about that, saying: “Do not conform yourselves to this age – it means to the mentality of the surrounding world - but renew your mind to discern the will of God.” There is something in our human mentality that goes against the will of God, it hinders us in discerning God’s will, and we have to make an afford to renew our mind to be able to understand God’s way of thinking, we have somehow to destroy our thinking to accept God’s thinking. Jesus in today’s Gospel is even sharper. He says to Peter: “Get behind me, Satan! For you are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do.”

What is so bad in Peter’s thinking that he deserved such a harsh rebuke? Peter didn’t want Jesus to suffer, be condemned and killed! Is it so bad? He expressed his real affection and real preoccupation for his Master’s life. Isn’t it a sign of his true love for Jesus? So why such a severe rebuke?

Hm, God sees further than we see. He sees the consequences of our choices. If Jesus had followed Peter’s suggestion, he would have got to fight against Jewish guards and Roman soldiers (you remember that Peter in fact tried to defend Jesus with his sword), he would have become a simple leader of a new rebellion, and probably unsuccessful one; he wouldn’t have become the Saviour of the world. He would have followed the merely human way of resolving conflicts – power and strength!

That’s exactly what Jesus wants to avoid. The history itself testifies that it is not the right way to solve human conflicts, it always brings destruction and there is no difference between the winners and the losers: both hate, both kill, both destroy, the only difference is that the ones are stronger than others, a proof of that requires sometimes thousands of human lives. That appears stupid even to our human eyes. Yet when we come to a conflict, we always use the same logic – the logic of power, the stronger is right! But this logic is not God’s logic. It’s not the logic that we Christians have to follow.

Jesus says to us today very clearly what he wants from us: “Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me.” It’s the logic of the cross that Peter could not understand.

Jesus let others to treat him roughly in other to show them the only effective way to peace – the loving forgiveness, enduring patience, victorious surrender. And we know that his life did not end with the cross, but with resurrection. His tactic leads to a new life.

You may say, that this is so difficult to follow in our cruel world. That’s true. And that is why God invites you to talk to him about your problems, your feelings, your wounds and your desires and hopes. Just like the prophet Jeremiah: he felt bad because of his mission, misunderstood, mocked by his own people, he wanted to give up, but he expressed all these before God and was able to accomplish his mission. That’s the power of prayer. And that’s the only power that Jesus wants us to use in our lives. The sincere prayer gives us power to renew our way of thinking and then to act accordingly. That’s the way to the real life. The life in which the beauty of your heart is the most important.

Fr. Janusz