What do you think and where is it leading you?
A News story from days ago: Police treat (or appear to treat) a man of color inhumanely. Another recent news story: A crowds of people break into a Target store and loot it.
A Gospel News story: “Jesus began to show his disciples that he must . . . suffer greatly from the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed.” The news story continues: “Peter took Jesus aside and began to rebuke him, ‘God forbid, Lord! No such thing shall ever happen to you.’” The story goes on: Jesus turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are an obstacle to me. You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do. . . . For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. What profit would there be for one to gain the whole world and forfeit his life?”
We can see from the first words of Jesus that He recognized that the elders, chief priests and scribes considered His message to be “dangerous.” We can see that Jesus realized where this was leading Him – to His suffering and death.
Peter thinks that Jesus’ evaluation of the situation is incorrect. Fortunately for him, he says this and Jesus has a chance to tell him, and us, what is wrong with Peter’s thinking: “You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do.”
WE ARE A COMMUNITY – GOD’S COMMUNITY: WHAT YOU THINK IS IMPORTANT TO ALL OF US
Wherever you are in your life today, however you feel about what is happening in your life and in the world around you, be it personal or family matters, the presidential election, social distancing, Black Lives Matter, the economy, immigration, etc., it is leading you, and all of us in our society somewhere.
Ponder Jesus’ reaction to Peter. Are you thinking “not as God does, but as human beings do”? And, like Peter, choose to stay on or get on the same path as Jesus. Lose your life for Jesus’ sake, for it is only there and then that you will find your life and happiness. As you will eventually discover, if you have not already discovered, nothing else is worth your time and effort. Nothing else is more important to your and our future!
Sister Loretta
