Jeremiah 20:7-9; Romans 12:1-2; Matthew 16:21-27
Torn between blaming God for his misery and his inner urge to do God’s will, Jeremiah is lamenting and complaining. Like many other prophets, he wouldn’t have felt comfortable proclaiming God’s message in public. For this he has been punished and mocked.
How much easier would it have been for him if immediate results were felt by those he warned? A sign of punishment to give Isaiah credibility?
God’s ways are different. Isaiah has the task to create consciousness among the people and motivate them to change their actions. God might be merciful after all.
Isaiah, as a typical human with feelings of embarrassment gets upset when people don’t believe that he is a true prophet and that he is only pretending. He would rather stay quiet than proclaiming warnings that are not followed by actions. However, Isaiah cannot just run away. As he describes it, he has a fire burning in his heart. This burning fire gives Isaiah confidence that God is at his side.
Isaiah has offered his voice and his body to God when proclaiming God’s message against his own will. He has suffered emotionally and physically. In Paul’s letter to the Romans, Paul urges his audience not to hesitate to give themselves to God. By doing so, they will discover God’s mercy and God’s will which is more desirable than what the worldly life could ever offer.
Fully believing in God and trusting in God’s mercy sounds easier than it is. Isaiah suffered, Paul called his audience not to be afraid of any suffering in God’s name, and Jesus, the Son of God, doesn’t evade the suffering either.
When Jesus tells his disciples that he would suffer and even be put to death, Peter’s immediate reaction is to try to prevent this from happening.
Jesus had been rebuking his disciples several times, calling them ‘men of little faith’ as they were struggling to understand Jesus’ messages. He urged them to be aware of false teachings. When Peter rightly called Jesus ‘the Son of the living God’ and the Messiah, Jesus didn’t attribute this correct answer to Peter but rather to God talking through Peter. Consequently, Jesus chose Peter to become the foundation of his Church.
However, even though God had spoken through Peter, this doesn’t make Peter infallible. Immediately after this positive account with Peter, Jesus rebukes him again when Peter tries to convince Jesus to avoid the suffering he is predicting. This time, Jesus calls Peter to step away. It is shocking to hear that Jesus doesn’t just say that Peter had been used by Satan who spoke through Peter, but in fact, he calls Peter himself ‘Satan’ and physically moves away from him as if Satan had taken over Peter’s whole body and person.
Isaiah’s complaints about his suffering for God were truly human – why does he have to suffer if he is only doing what God wants him to do? Paul writes about being ready to sacrifice one’s own life for God, and, in this sense, Jesus asks his disciples to follow him despite the risk of losing their lives. ‘For anyone who wants to save his life will lose it; but anyone who loses his life for my sake will find it.’ When Jesus asks the disciples to each take up their cross, he doesn’t ask them to help him carrying his cross but points out that each one of the disciples has their own challenges in life.
God won’t ask us of more we can do. Each one of us is different, and God would give us different tasks to do. The ultimate ask for any human being would be to sacrifice one’s life.
Trying to avoid suffering in life might sound like a way to save one’s life, but it also prevents growth. As Pope Leo XIV wrote in his encyclical Magnifica Humanitas, “Limitations are experienced as inner suffering, human wisdom teaches us not to deny or suppress it, but to integrate it.”
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