Jeremiah 20:7–9
Romans 12:1–2
Matthew 16:21–27
“You duped me, O Lord, and I let myself be duped.” Thus Jeremiah begins his lament to God. The pathos in Jeremiah’s lament is clear and strong. What is translated here as ‘duped’ might better be rendered as ‘enticed’ or ‘seduced.’ God called him to be a prophet to tear down and to plant. But what has happened is that most of his words are about tearing down and destroying. The word of God forces him to speak of violence and outrage. His vocation was basically to tell the people and the religious leaders that their behavior has led to the end of the temple and with it the whole structure of their society.
But Jeremiah is no outsider. He is part of the community, part of its heritage. His pain is that he must speak about the death of what he loves and has committed himself to. Because he spoke about the destruction of the temple, temple officials jailed him. He is eventually released and gives voice to his pain as we hear. We can feel how he wants to belong and be accepted, but instead he is laughed at, mocked, and derided all the time. That is all he hears from those around him. Living with that, he turns to God who sent him this hard word in the first place. God does not appear to be too accommodating or relieving of Jeremiah’s pain. The pain is the pain of being faithful to the very word that the Lord wants Jeremiah to speak. Being faithful to that word of the Lord in the face of authority figures leads to rejection and ridicule. What you say, prophet, cannot be happening to us! You are supposed to speak of good things from God, not destruction and the end of our lives! Who wants to hear that the way we are living will lead to our demise, our end? No wonder Jeremiah was thrown into jail or into an empty cistern. Shut up. No wonder Jesus was led away to be crucified. He too was critical of the way the Torah was being lived and its heart hollowed out.
Jeremiah knows his options. He says, well, I will stop talking. In other words, I will withdraw into myself. I will nurture myself on my own terms and not be told what to do by anyone, even the Lord God. I will choose what to say and when. I will simply leave God out of anything I say, then I’ll be Ok and all those laughing at me will stop…But that option won’t work. God’s word becomes like fire. It has taken over his heart. It is true; he has been seduced by God but that seduction is a part of his vocation. I have to speak the truth. A heart on fire with God’s word. That is Jeremiah. That too is Jesus. Jeremiah is true to his vocation to the end, a bearing of the word. Think of all those Christians who spoke the hard word of truth and suffered for it, were killed for it—in our day.
The Jesus story. Last Sunday when we gathered, we heard the wonderful response of Peter confessing Jesus as Messiah and Son of the Living God. The same living God whose word was fire in Jeremiah’s heart. But before that, Jesus asked his disciples who people were saying Jesus was. The answer he heard was John the Baptist, Elijah, Jeremiah or one of the prophets. Jeremiah was specifically mentioned as a possibility for identifying Jesus. These prophetic figures as identity figures are not denied by Jesus or by Peter. They remain true. It is only Matthew who includes Jeremiah in the list, by the way—and rightfully so as we hear this week. Jesus begins to speak a hard word about what Messiah really means or what the Son of God looks like. He speaks of going up to Jerusalem: not for a feast but for suffering at the hands of authorities, for being killed and then for being raised. Jesus will face the same derision and mockery as Jeremiah. He will be taunted for his words. He will asked to save himself from death. But Jesus too has a fidelity burning in his heart, his faithfulness to the word of the Father, the Living God. He will stay the course to the end.
Peter, unfortunately, is thinking of self-preservation, probably as much for himself as for Jesus. When Jesus responds, he calls Peter a Satan, a tempter for not having God’s story upper most in his heart. Then Jesus lays it out in words so simple: lose your life and you will save it; save it now and you will lose it. It is all about getting oneself out of the way and letting yourself be seduced by God. When you are seduced by God then you will know that your life is always about others. Deny that ego-centered self and get with carrying what suffering there is in your life and then follow me. Losing oneself for Jesus can mean dropping the “I” at the beginning of sentences and speaking of “you,” of the “other.” Jesus went up to Jerusalem “for us”; he lost his “I” giving it up for our sake, and then found himself through this unconditional act of loving to the end; he found himself loved or raised to new life.
Jeremiah preached the end of the temple and the breakup of community because the community had gone off the path; Jesus talks about suffering and being killed. He speaks of death. Only then of being raised up. What is it that you and I have to lose, have to let go of, have to surrender, in order to live so as to be raised up. Our cross is perhaps that struggle of having to come to terms with what I have to let go of. Each of us has a different cross, a different struggle with our false self. It is the same for our church community or society. What needs to die so that the truth of God and his love will come forth? What about life together needs to be seen differently? Paul speaks of this process as a transformation, as a renewal of mind. He also makes it clear it will not necessarily be “this age” that will be the model for us.
Ultimately, the road marked out by Jesus, our Messiah, will be the way forward. For that to happen, it will mean shedding a lot of what I have built up, so that my heart and our world can be saved. It is even possible that the days of pandemic are already giving us a clue at where our minds need to be renewed and what word our hearts really need to hear.
Jesus is not forcing anything on us. He says “if you wish.” This is not a command But, if you desire to be part of me, this is what it means—denying an “I” of my making to be saved for an “I” determined by being for others. What do we wish for? Who do we wish to follow? …Let us remember: the models of “this age” do not go far enough!
Prior, Fr. Joel Macul, OSB