In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
“Do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may prove what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.”
Today’s readings reveal to us what it is to be a disciple of Jesus, a member of his Body. In this section of his letter to the Romans, St. Paul exhorts them (and us) to the “renewal of our minds” and to the personal transformation that is only possible in Jesus Christ, and through his power. This renewal and transformation he notes, on the one hand, forecloses the possibility of conformity to “this world” – because it means we no longer seek or find our identity in secular categories like “democrat” or “republican” or “gay” or “straight” or even “black” or “white”. Rather, now, we are to find our identity – who we ARE as persons – in Jesus Christ, and through him, in one another. And in so doing, Paul says, we will “prove what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect”. And because none is good, or acceptable, or perfect “but God alone” (Mrk. 10.18), therefore “proving what is his will” – namely our own conformity to his Son, and our reconciliation with him – is, in the end, the same thing as our transformation and the renewal of our minds, and the same thing as that which “is good and acceptable and perfect”.
But this process of transformation and renewal seldom happens as we expect it to do. And in today’s Gospel reading we see why: in short, as Paul says elsewhere, because “God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise, God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong” (1 Cor. 1.27), and because “He is not impressed by the might of a horse; he has no pleasure in the strength of a man / But the Lord has pleasure in those who fear him, in those who await his gracious favor” (Ps. 147.11f). This means that the avenues of fulfillment and vindication which we are prone to seek in an earthly way of operating, lead only to disappointment and failure. But by contrast, the way of the cross, which seemed like failure to all who saw it (Mary and the Apostles) or who saw it coming (Judas), was really the instrument of forgiveness, reconciliation, peace and communion.
In today’s Gospel reading Jesus begins to reveal the way of the cross to his disciples. He begins to teach them about the divine, ironic road to life and peace. He begins “to show them “that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things… and be killed” (Mat. 16.21). And Peter shows how difficult it is to shake off the secular economy of power and pleasure. Peter, who not five minutes before had confessed Jesus to be the Christ, the Son of the living God, now has the audacity to “rebuke” the Son of the living God – which only goes to show how difficult it is to accept the Gospel. Peter says: “God forbid, Lord! This shall never happen to you.” But of course it did happen to Jesus: it had to happen to Jesus. There was no other way in the world to “prove what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.” Because when perfect love enters a world grown old in his divisions and self-seeking and concupiscence and violence, perfect love becomes a Victim. There is no other way. The Son of Man MUST go to Jerusalem; he MUST suffer many things; he MUST be killed.
But no less MUST he, “on the third day rise”. Because the way of the cross is the way of LIFE. So we see why the peace given by the Lord “passes understanding” – and why the joy he gives transcends circumstances: because it’s a new kind of joy, a new kind of peace: it runs right through every circumstance, it abides in the heart of the believer and runs alike through tribulation and exultation, through trial and through triumph. And its material condition, its LOCATION, is the Body of Jesus Christ. It’s the kind of peace and the kind of joy that obtains equally in the Lord as we sweats blood in the Garden of Gethsemane, in his anguished cry “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me…” (Luke22.42 & Matt.26.39), as well as after the Resurrection in his almost playful greeting to the women: “Be joyful! And they came up and took hold of his feet and worshiped him” (Matt. 28.9).
The Lord himself describes the way of the cross, this sacred inversion of secular expectation, in the Lord’s long discourse at the end of John’s Gospel: “Truly, truly, I say to you, you will weep and lament, but the world will rejoice; you will be sorrowful, but your sorrow will turn into joy. When a woman is in travail she has sorrow, because her hour has come; but when she is delivered of the child, she no longer remembers the anguish, for joy that a child is born into the world.” And St. Paul picks up this image of the joy of pregnancy turning to the travail of delivery, and becoming again the joy of new birth. Paul says: “the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and obtain the glorious liberty of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning in travail together until now; and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved” (Rom. 8.21-24).
What we must DO, therefore, is to give ourselves unreservedly to Jesus Christ – to say “yes” to him, whatever this may mean for us, even if it should mean suffering and death – trusting all the time that “the Spirit helps us in our weakness” (Rom. 8.26). This is what it means to “present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God” (Rom. 12.1). This also means the conformity of ourselves, our understanding, our moral life, and our potential, to the Catholic Church, which is the Body of Christ. This is how we give ourselves to one another: its how we are reconciled to God and with one another. So St. Paul says in today’s reading from Romans: “we, though many, are one Body in Christ, and individually members one of another.”
In the Communion of the Church, then, we will find the Cross, and we will find the joy of the Lord and the peace that passes understanding – through our marinating in the Word of God, and our inhabitation of the narrative of salvation in the sacramental life of the Church. Jeremiah speaks of this when he says: “Thy words were found, and I ate them, and thy words became to me a joy and the delight of my heart; for I am called by thy name” (Jer. 15.16). It begins with prayer, and with a willingness to obey Jesus Christ, whatever the cost.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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