A Reading from the Holy Gospel According to Matthew
Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised. And Peter took him and began to rebuke him, saying, “God forbid, Lord! This shall never happen to you.” But he turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a hindrance to me; for you are not on the side of God, but of men.”
Then Jesus told his disciples, “If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. For what will it profit a man, if he gains the whole world and forfeits his life? Or what shall a man give in return for his life? For the Son of man is to come with his angels in the glory of his Father, and then he will repay every man for what he has done.
(Matthew 16:21-27)
Fr. Columba’s Sunday Homily for Exodus Men
St. Peter has been renamed, as we heard last Sunday. He’s been made the rock upon which the Church is built. His faith is celebrated: “You have received this not from man or flesh, but from the Father.” He’s on top of the world. And then, straight away, he steps into his new role and authority. Obviously, he’s the one—if Jesus makes a little mistake here or there—who’s now commissioned to correct our Lord. And he goes quickly from hero to zero. He goes from being renamed the Rock to being quickly renamed Satan. Jesus immediately calls him Satan to his face. And why? Well, he expresses an opinion. He goes against the will of God, really.
It’s a little opinion, but it goes against the salvation of the entire world. Now, Peter didn’t realize that. He’s just thinking of his friend. If I were Peter, this would be my main motivation: “We’re great friends, and you’re super important. So now that I’m friends with you, that makes me kind of important. So you can’t die. I won’t allow it.” He gets rebuked immediately. Thank God.
God is so good to us, rebuking us when we need it. But he wasn’t just a little bit wrong—he was extremely wrong. This opinion that felt so right, that seemed so logical, was so off. It was so off, it was demonic. And Jesus himself is the one who says it. I wonder how many times in my life I’ve been that wrong about something holy—sharing my opinion about some theological topic, and I am so wrong. And yet it all seems so good, holy, charitable, and loving. This is the mystery of the self, of the ego. Jesus names it. Unless you deny yourself and get rid of the ego, you’re in serious trouble.
Jesus said we have to die. There’s a part of us that has to die. But that part of us is entirely committed to not dying. It’s like the smartest part of us, and it is using all of its resources to stay alive and well. It’s not just quietly biding its time. It wants to be in charge. And that part is not just a little bit wrong—it is demonic. The enemy taps into that movement in our soul—our fallen human nature, the ego of Adam, whatever we want to call it—he taps into that and encourages it. And it pushes us very easily. He doesn’t have to do much work at all—and right to hell.
Blaise Pascal said, “If I asked my servant to get me a glass of water and he went and fetched the finest wine in all of France, I would fire him because he must learn to know that the sweetest thing to a man is his own will.” That’s a thing. I’ve definitely seen that to be true. And the Gospel, in the face of our wills, can just seem to be either too hard or too easy.
It’s like the story of Naaman. Naaman the leper comes to Elisha the prophet, and the prophet says to him, “Go and jump in the River Jordan seven times, and you’ll be grand.” And Naaman is appalled. He goes away. He thought the prophet would do something different, something hard. He’s going to walk off and not do the thing, but his servants stop him and say, “But if he’d asked you to do something hard, you would have done it. So if he does something easy, would you just do it? What harm?” Humble yourself and do it. So he does. He jumps into the river seven times and is healed. What would have stopped him? Pride: “Don’t ask me to do something easy.”
Sometimes the Gospel seems too easy. We want a tougher God. We want an armed-to-the-teeth God who is going to smite all our enemies and challenge us. Why? So that I can boast? So that I can say, “My Jesus is tougher than your Muhammad”? The comparison game—because I don’t want reality and truth. So often it’s about the size of our ego.
For St. Peter, it’s too hard. Jesus says, “I’m going to have to die.” “No, absolutely not. It’s too hard. I can’t.” There’s also the example of the message on the Eucharist in John 6. “This word is too hard,” and many disciples walk away. There’s no satisfying our egos or opinions. You know what we could say instead? “Just trust.”
It can seem to us that when our brains are working well, and we have some facts gathered, we are the smartest men in the world. And it’s very hard to go, “Do you know what? Maybe God knows a thing or two more than I do. He knows a thing or two about a thing or two.” Could I just humble myself and trust? I don’t want to because I’ve done all this work to build up my ego and my knowledge. Could I just trust? My big plan for work, for the strategy, for the takeover bid, for the new job, for the relationship with my wife, whatever. I’ve got this big plan. Or maybe I could just trust and say, “God, I just don’t know. I surrender. I know you’re good. You’re always good. And I’ve got this big opinion about everything. But God, I have a sneaking suspicion you might have a better plan.” And he always does have a better plan.
I love God’s will when it lines up with my will. Otherwise, I’m a big complaining baby. “It’s too hard. It’s too easy. It’s not smart-sounding enough. I’m not happy with it.” My need for humility.
I remember, at one of the houses where I was stationed, we did a bit of work on the streets, and we came across some guys, alcoholic street drinkers. It was my first encounter with getting to know guys with that struggle. Their whole lives were devastated. And what struck me one day, walking away from this conversation with one of them, was this: His problem is not that he’s too weak. That’s what I always thought: “They’re too weak. They just need to shake it off and sort themselves out.” His problem is not that he’s too weak—he’s too strong. That was my opinion of this one particular man. He’s too strong. He cannot surrender. And the more I’ve come to know, working with people with addictions and reading the literature, the more I’ve come to realize it’s not a weakness issue. It’s a strength issue. It’s an ego issue. We need humility.
There’s a fellow called Jordan Hall; he relatively recently converted to Christianity, and he’s a terrifyingly brilliant man. He was one of the big guys behind MP3.com, early MP3 technology, and then MP4, the technology behind YouTube and all that. He made piles of cash, sold it, and then basically spent all of his time trying to figure out the world’s problems. He got involved with some very, very high-level philosophers and thinkers—the whole Game B movement. And through all his thinking, he figured out, “You know what? We cannot solve this.” And now they ask him, “So what do you say is the answer to it all now? What can we do?” He says, “Well, my basic answer is every day we need to ask God what he wants us to do, and we need to do it.” He’s one of the most intelligent people I’ve ever heard speak—delightful, if you can understand him. And he said, “It’s so simple. Every day I pray and ask God, ‘What do you want me to do today?’ And then I just do it. ‘Become a Christian?’ Okay. ‘Marry my wife, who’s not yet my wife?’ Okay.” And he’s like a child. It’s amazing to have a brain like St. Augustine—a brain the size of a planet—and yet it’s not enough. It’s never enough. We will never have enough intelligence to solve it. We need God. We need a Savior.
So, brothers, that’s it: “Thy will, not mine, be done.” He has a beautiful plan for you today. As you take time today for holy leisure, worship, some time with your family, caring for the needy, whatever it is, do the Lord’s will for today—nice and easy. And let us do that to his glory.
