Some Protestant sects offer the so-called "prosperity gospel". This is a false message that proclaims that if you follow that sect and donate financially (!), God will bless you even in earthly terms. Simply put, their form of Christianity will make you rich. This deceptive message comes from a very selective reading of the Bible, ignoring New Testament teachings that warn of the dangers of material wealth and focusing instead on a series of carefully chosen Old Testament texts that seem to show worldly prosperity as a reward for righteousness and following God.
Today's Gospel is the opposite of a "Prosperity Gospel" and it is precisely Peter, the first Pope, who had to learn that lesson in a very crude way. Peter had just been praised by Jesus for having been correct in his divine and messianic status. The apostle had correctly declared that Jesus was "the Christ" (and Matthew's parallel account adds: "the Son of the living God"). But, perhaps flushed by his success, Peter soon after impetuously sets out to try to prevent Jesus from going to his Passion.
Our Lord, seeing the disciples around him (note this detail), has to act firmly to make sure that such a mistaken vision does not gain ground. "Jesus turned and said to Peter, 'Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me, because you think as men do, not as God does.'" The desire to avoid suffering - a comfortable and prosperous religion - is a contradiction of Christianity, which is precisely a religion of the Cross. Since suffering is a consequence of sin, Christ - and the Christian - must enter into suffering in order to overcome sin.
Peter, who got it so right as the first Pope, gets it completely wrong as an individual man. His thinking is human, not divine. Our Lord then insists: "If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.". Christianity is not about earthly gains; it is about earthly losses. If someone were to try to get us to put earthly comfort and gain first, and thus dilute the demands of Christianity, whether it be someone else or simply our own softness, we might also have to respond to them with the energy of Christ: "Get behind me, Satan!".
Homily on the readings of Sunday 24th Sunday in Ordinary Time (B)
Priest Luis Herrera Campo offers his nanomiliaA short one-minute reflection for these Sunday readings.
