First reading: Jeremiah 20:7-9
Psalm: Ps 63:2,3-6,8-9
Epistle: Romans 12:1-2
Gospel: Matthew 16:21-27

—Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself,
take up his cross, and follow me.
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?
Or what can one give in exchange for his life?—

The words of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ from the Holy Gospel according to St. Matthew.

Jeremiah really understood this. He understood the consequences for being on the Lord’s team:

All the day I am an object of laughter;
everyone mocks me.

the word of the LORD has brought me
derision and reproach all the day.

St. Paul says as much in his letter to the Church at Rome:

offer your bodies as a living sacrifice,

Do not conform yourselves to this age

We often think that doing the right thing, in the eyes of God and His Church, is choosing the harder road. We talk about sacrifice, giving up our desires, changing – even though our bodies and minds don’t want to change.

Think about Jeremiah. He didn’t want to be God’s prophet. But because he could not refuse God’s call, because God was so irresistible, Jeremiah proclaims his suffering. St. Paul seems to ask for suffering as well. He advises us to offer up our bodies as living sacrifice.

Think of the age Paul was living in. A few centuries before the Jewish people had to run out the Canaanites, a people who offered the bodies of their living children on the altars of their gods. Human sacrifice was not unknown – and that to no purpose.

Within the Church ultimate sacrifice had already touched Christian communities. James and Stephen met martyrdom. They offered themselves up in imitation of Christ, for the sake of the Gospel and the promised reward of eternal life.

Thinking about all this, and what Jesus asks of us, isn’t it right to step back and ask ourselves – why Christianity? All the following of Jesus, blood of the cross, martyrdom, self denial, sacrifice. Does it make any sense? Isn’t there an easier, less painful way to find God, to be spiritual? Does God really demand our blood in payment for our coming home?

Brothers and sisters,

St. Paul goes on to say:

but be transformed by the renewal of your mind

When we think of sacrifice, of change, we immediately see obstacles and pain, even blood. We see a fight to overcome. We see a struggle. Paul tells us to change our perspective.

Look at it in the way Jesus asks: What price for life?

The problem is that we see having as the key, not having as painful. We don’t even set the parameters of what having and not having mean because the world, rather than the Gospel, seems to call the tune. We have our life, our friends, our job, car, clothes, cruises, vacations, a veritable wealth of toys and gadgets. We have — but without having. For all the alleged satisfaction those things bring we have without having what we really want. We work hard for the having, from the basics of food, clothing, and shelter to the luxuries unknown before our generation. But what price for life? What price do we pay for the not having the one thing we really want, for missing the most important and essential goal?

Paul asks us to think of sacrifice differently, to see it as opportunity, an opportunity to reorient our understanding of wanting. To set our understanding in light of the Gospel.

Paul knew that all people want to find their home and to walk in that direction. That direction is heaven. It is our walk back to God. It is the walk we must take if we are to be true to the call that God built into each of us. It is the true call, the clear, convincing, and overpowering call to be part of the eternal, to be in union with God.

Understanding that we think anew. Now we see sacrifice as a sloughing off of all that holds us back and away from God. Sacrifice is suddenly transformed into a gift and joy because it clears the brush that lies blocking our path back to God.

My friends,

Once we clear the cobwebs, the disorientation of the world and its siren song, the brush and obstacles in our way, we will find life. Once we focus on true and eternal life we will see the road back; the road Jesus Christ has already marked out for us in His Gospel. We will not want anything more than to travel that road – walking on its way in clear convincing steps. We will persevere on that road as did Mary, the Apostles, the Fathers, the martyrs and confessors, and the faithful of the past. In the Holy Church we walk that road in the company of our brothers and sisters. We are never alone on the road home, but in the company of the Church in heaven and the Church on earth.

Jesus told us, as recorded in John 10:10

I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.

Jesus brought us life, reconnecting us to the proper understanding of life. It is not adherence to rules for the sake of the Law, or to the sacrificial shedding of blood for the sake of sacrifice, but an understanding of life and all that true life means, its value, its opportunity.

Understanding that, listen to Jesus’ question:

What profit would there be for one to gain the whole world
and forfeit his life?

And, let the believers answer in one accord:

None!

So we go forward, joyful in sacrifice, in our cross, in our struggle. We go forward walking the road in accord with Christ, in the company of the Church — back to the Father. We live a new life, where the cost is counted as nothing compared to the reward that awaits us. In this new life we echo the words of St. Paul (Acts 20:24):

But I do not account my life of any value nor as precious to myself, if only I may accomplish my course and the ministry which I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the gospel of the grace of God.

Amen.