In today’s Gospel Story (Matthew 16:21-27) Jesus is having a discussion with his disciples about what it means to follow him. He lets them know it will not be easy. The majority report sees this as another story of Jesus teaching his followers. As usual, the minority report can be as personal as I want it to be. There are several passages in today’s scriptures that can offer insight to our ongoing journey of conversion. From the second reading: “be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may discern what is the will of God”. Alleluia: “Know what is the hope that belongs to our call”. Gospel: “You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do”, “deny themself, take up their cross, and follow me”, “whoever loses their life for my sake will find it”.
Deny ourself, take up our cross, and follow Jesus. Hope is not the idea that things will eventually turn out as we want them to. It is a trust that whatever is going on in our life, even the worst things, Abba is with us. We have a long tradition of not trying to understand so we can believe, but believing so we can understand. It is not a matter of having answers, but of being able to live at peace with uncertainty, aware that we are never in any sense alone.
Pain is a part of life. We need to be alert to the pain of others, perhaps allow ourselves to listen as they share it in many different ways, and not judge because they are not as we think they should be. What is very difficult, but which we may be called to do, is just to listen when someone is talking to us about the pain and hurt in their life. Taking up my cross is a way of living, of thinking. Not looking for suffering, but coming to know Christ in our, suffering with us, as are Abba and the Spirit. Everyone we meet is carrying a cross we know nothing about. Our cross might be listening to them, just being there with them, and helping them carry their cross. Eventually we may come to understand it is a privilege, perhaps for us a painful one, just to listen to others as they trust us enough to share their pain with us. It is a privilege to bear the pain this listening causes in us. Abba is doing something. All this reminds us that everyone in our life has both the right and the need to be in our life, because in Abba’s providence we need each other. Abba’s providence is the bedrock of our everyday living. One of life’s mysteries is Abba’s presence in the terrible parts of life, wars, nature disasters such as in Nepal and China this week, and other areas of suffering.
Deny myself, take up my cross, and follow Jesus. Often my cross is other people, because, “I am thinking not as God does, but as human beings do”, putting my comfort and convenience before all else. I ask the grace of letting go of my self-centeredness and being open to others as they are. Perhaps I need to let go and forgive them for not being as I want them to be. This is my problem, and I ask the grace to move in this direction. It’s becoming increasingly, even at times painfully and annoyingl, clear clear that everybody in my life is a means of grace for me, as I am for them. Abba is real.
“Be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and pleasing and perfect.” As we allow ourselves to be open to grace in our every day living, we may notice our mind, our way of thinking and seeing things, is changing. Sometimes this is obvious, often it is not. We don’t necessarily choose for this to happen, as much as recognize it happening. We notice we’re seeing things differently. But it will not happen without our consent to what Abba is doing in us. We like to think that thinking as God does means that he has already decided how things will turn out, and variations on this theme. I seem to have more of an interest in power and control than Abba does, or Jesus did. Jesus lived his full presence among us in whomever and whatever came into his life, not a matter of control and power. It is more like living in a partnership with Abba who is with us in everything, something along the lines of, “Cmon, we got this”. This is why discernment is so important – what course of action will deepen Abba’s life in me.
Discernment is not decision making. Father Arrupe: “Grant me, O Lord, to see everything now with new eyes, to discern and test the spirits that help me read the signs of the times, to relish the things that are yours, and to communicate them to others”. Along the lines of, “Abba, what are you saying to me in this situation?”. “Is there something you are asking me to do?” “Read the signs of the times”, accept our reality as it is, with all its challenges, believing that we are in it because this is where Abba puts us. Nothing has to change in our here and now, except our willingness to be open to Abba in what is. What is, really is our only reality.
This is not an easy journey. We wander and wonder, and so we grow. We may come to places where what we feel we are called to do makes no practical sense at all, but in prayer it seems to be clear in some way. The big thing it seems is that we are coming to know Abba, Jesus, Spirit, as an intimate and dynamic part of our everyday living, but we may not have the words to describe it. I have the privilege of knowing several people these days who are experiencing real suffering for a number of reasons. Watching them grow in their suffering is amazing because it is so real. I hear the change in how they talk about their sufferings, but I don’t know if they understand the grace that is happening in them and reaching through them to others, including me.
“The hope that belongs to our call.” We are not ever in any sense alone. The Trinity -Father, Son. Spirit – is in us as we are in the Trinity. We are created in relationship, and this is the basis of our life. Everything as it is with us on our journey is exactly the way it needs to be for us to be who we are. Just sayin . . .