August 30, 2026, Saint William & Saint Peter Churches in Naples, FL
Jeremiah 20: 7-9 + Psalm 63 + Romans 12: 1-2 + Matthew 16: 21-27
The first part of this Gospel has us listening to what I think was a really a shouting match between Peter and Jesus. This is a pivotal moment for both of them. For Jesus, it’s time to move on and be the Messiah he now knows he must be to follow the Father’s will. For Peter, it is just opposite. Clinging to a mistaken expectation of what the Messiah will be like, he sounds like the voice of Satan who tempted Jesus in the wilderness. Jesus recognizes this for what it is, and he shuts Peter down as we hear the first prediction of the Passion. There will be two more.
The conflict between Peter and Jesus is really about the Will of God, and in the argument between the two of them, the meaning of “life” gets clarified. When Jesus says he “must” go to Jerusalem, he makes it his decision. It is not a fate that just happens because of his enemies. It is something that Jesus accepts to do. He has made God’s will his own. He sees that going to Jerusalem, suffering, and dying is good to do because of the resurrection. He tries to help his disciples perceive that going to Jerusalem, suffering and dying, despite its appearances is something they will want to pursue together with Jesus joining him in the path to the cross. Knowing that words are not enough, Jesus, as Matthew puts it, began to show it to his disciples.
As Jesus continues to persuade these reluctant disciples who are resisting God’s will, Jesus speaks of saving one’s life and losing it. Being unwilling to deny oneself and take up one’s cross reveals a misunderstanding of “life.” This passage is not about a cross in spite of how many people focus on that word over and over again. It is not an invitation to be miserable and smile. It is an invitation to think about the meaning of life. Jesus is not speaking of a life that involves accumulating goods and stuff for sustaining one’s life. That is thinking of life in the human realm, or from a human point of view. This is not the life Jesus leads us to. He speaks of a bigger, fuller, unending life.
Understanding that the Christ must suffer and die is the same as understanding that one’s life is not limited to what w e know on this earth. It must include life after death. This is why Christ can accept without anxiety the way of the cross. He trusts the Father who will raise him up to share in the Father’s glory. For those disciples which includes all of us, having a view of life that is not limited to the human realm involves not being anxious about life because of our trust in God and our choice to follow Jesus in the way he accepts the Will of God.
Losing oneself really means finding one’s true self, discovering, believing, and embracing who we really are, loved children of a merciful, life-giving God. To deny oneself is not a call to some kind of asceticism that might be harmful to one’s mental, physical, or spiritual health. It is really a call to affirm one’s gifts and graces, to rejoice at and rest peacefully in a relationship with Jesus that makes his will our will.
Choosing to be doers of God’s Word and not just “hearers” frees us to deny ourselves in the service of compassion and life in the Body of Christ. The way of the cross is unpredictable and sometimes frightening. Peter and his friends came to know this in ways that they had not planned for and could not have predicted. In naming for the first time what it meant to live into and participate in the body of Christ, Peter and the others show us what it means to live into the mystery of the Incarnation and discipleship.