There is an interesting
story about something that took place many years ago over in
Well, the young boy made it
to freedom and he sent a search party back for the adults. But by the time they found them all six were
dead in the jungle, in the deepest center of the jungle.
It’s a true story and I
think it shows something very important about all of us. It talks about how we can be so
presumptuous. How we can get this
attitude of superiority, that I’m better than this person,
that I know more than this person, this person has nothing to offer me
whatsoever. It’s a sign of pride and
usually when that erupts in our life, that type of selfishness and pride we end
up in trouble.
I think that’s what our
readings are about today, especially that gospel reading. You know we have Peter. Last week we heard how Peter had this great
profession of faith in Jesus as the Living Son of God. Jesus called him the “Rock” and He is going
to build His church on. And now all of a
sudden, the very next passage is Jesus talking about His upcoming death. Peter jumps in front of Him and says, “God
forbid anything like that ever happen to You.” Now who of us would not respond the same way. After all Jesus
was Peter’s friend and Peter did not want to think about having to lose his
friend in such a cruel and horrific way.
But Jesus responds to him with that huge rebuke, “Get behind Me, Satan”
because you are not thinking like God thinks but like man thinks.
What’s that saying to
us? Well I think it is a very important
meaning. There is a difference between
the way that we has human beings think if things and the way that God thinks of
things. So often my life, all of our
lives are taken up with one idea. How do I make myself happier? How do I fulfil all
of my wants and my needs that I have?
How do I make life just a little bit easier and more enjoyable for me
and my family?
That’s not the way God
thinks. If God thought that way He would
have never sent His Son to die on the cross obviously because that was not an
enjoyable event for Jesus. Rather God’s
way of thinking is totally different.
God’s way of thinking is always, what can I do for that person to make
his or her life better? What can I do to
show My love and care for this person over here? God never thinks about Himself first but
always about us. God is willing to
sacrifice His very life as we see He did with Jesus in His death on the cross. All because of love.
What Jesus is calling us to
do, and what Paul is calling us to do in the second reading when he said,
“Throw off the old way of thinking and put on the mind of Christ” is just
that. To become people
of love. People
who put the needs of others ahead of our own needs. People who see ourselves as
servants to the world around us.
That’s a recurring theme in
Jesus’ message over and over and over again.
The one who will be first among you must be the last. The one who is My
follower must deny himself, take up his cross and follow Me as we hear
today.
What’s this take up your
cross bit? Well it’s simple. Has anybody in this church ever loved
somebody, I mean really, really, deeply, emotionally loved somebody and did not
have your heart broken because of it? I
don’t think so. Heartache and pain and
suffering go right along with love, because when we open ourselves in love, and
that means putting somebody else first, we are vulnerable and many times that
will be painful. That’s what Jesus was
about. Jesus came to suffer and die, not
because He wanted to suffer and die, but because that is the way that He could
serve us and bring us eternal life and His love and our rejection of Him in sin
made the pain of the cross a reality.
I think we all need to ask
ourselves something. If I am a husband,
do I put my wife’s needs ahead of my own?
Do I give in to her and allow her to have her way? If I’m a wife, do I do the same for my
husband? If I’m a parent, do I put the
goodness of my children ahead of my own welfare? Am I willing to sacrifice anything and everything
in order to nurture them and to raise them and to feed them and clothe
them? At work, do I put my selfish wants
and desires first or am I a faithful employee who does what my employer tells
me and does the best job that I can whether I feel like it on any particular
day or not? Am I willing to get up from
that nice comfortable chair in front of my beautiful favorite TV show when my
next door neighbor calls with an emergency? Or do I selfishly say, “Ah, my show
is on. I don’t want to go outside. It’s too cold out there. I’m so nice and warm now?” Where is our mind? Do we have the mind of Christ, or do we still
think like human beings?
Today we come to this altar
and we celebrate the events of Jesus’ self-emptying himself that we might
live. We celebrate His death on the
cross and we will come and approach this altar and we will feed from the fruit
of that sacrifice. We will eat the body
and drink the blood of our Savior and through that Eucharist we have the chance
to be renewed, be remade, to be reformed into the image of Jesus so that as
Paul says, “We can put on His mind” and begin to think and act in our lives as
He would. The only thing required is our
willingness and our desire to cooperate with those graces we receive.
Because
once again Jesus totally respects our freedom. If we choose
to come here today and simply do something we do every week, without any
thought, without any emotion, without putting ourselves into this experience
then that transformation will not occur.
It is only when we meet him in faith, in a desire to grow in His mind,
and in a desire to grow in our own love that that will happen.
Let’s approach this table
today with humility, asking Jesus to fill us, that we
may put on His mind and live lives of love.