Seeing things God's way

 

SERMON BY FATHER JONATHAN E MOORE - LINK HERE

22nd Sunday of the Year 2026         

Seeing things God’s way 

 

“Try to see it my way,

Do I have to keep on talking till I can't go on?

While you see it your way,

Run the risk of knowing that our love may not last long.”

The opening lyrics of the Beatles’s hit: “We can work it out” came into my mind as I meditated on this Sunday’s Gospel. I would, however, rather change the first line to: “Try and see it GOD’S way” because that is what the reading teaches us.

Poor old Peter! He had a talent, both for getting things very right, but also getting them completely wrong shortly afterwards. He could walk on water as long as he had eyes only for Jesus, but as soon as he gave way to his human fears and uncertainty he went under. Last week, he got things spectacularly right in identifying Jesus as the Son of God and Messiah. Jesus praised him greatly for being open to what the Father had revealed to him,  naming Peter the Rock on which He would build His Church.

Today, however, we have quite a different story. Jesus begins to speak of His coming Passion and Death. Peter is horrified, and tries to dissuade Our Lord, who now speaks words, not of praise, but of severe reproof: “Get behind me, Satan, the way you think is man’s, not God’s!”

God spoke similar words to a young man by the name of Augustine in North Africa four centuries later. Augustine’s mother, St. Monica, did her very best to bring him up in the Catholic faith, but as a young man he broke his Mum’s heart by his immoral behaviour and also by leaving the Catholic Church and joining a weird religious sect. Monica never gave up on him, and kept praying that her son might return to Catholic belief and behaviour. Her prayers were answered, she lived to see Augustine return to the Church in adult life, and he ended his days as a greatly-respected Bishop. In his “Confessions”, St. Augustine is painfully honest about the kind of life he lived when he had left the Church and tells the story of the struggle he had later on trying to find his way back to true faith and good living. One of the key moments he describes came when God guided him to understand the meaning of prayer. Then as now, many people mistakenly believed that prayer meant “controlling God”, and that anyone who “got the magic right” should be able to bring God round to their way of thinking. Augustine describes the moment when he heard the voice of God within his own self say:

“You will not change me into yourself, but you will be changed into me” (Augustine, Confessions, Book 10)

He understood then that, far from bringing God round to our way of thinking, prayer is the way we learn to see and accept things the way God intends them to be. This deep and fundamental understanding of prayer has been given many names down the centuries: Self-abandonment and Unitive Prayer being just two of them. They all amount to the same thing: learning, often the hard way, to unite ourselves with Our Saviour’s prayer in Gethsemane: “Father, not my will but thine be done”.

Our readings today all guide us towards that true way of praying. Jeremiah finds that sticking to God’s path brings him nothing but “insult, toil and derision” from those around him, but he is willing to put up with all of these hardships, knowing that he is there to serve God, not public opinion. We heard St. Paul telling the early Christians in Rome:

“Think of God’s mercy, my brothers, and worship him, I beg you, in a way that is worthy of thinking beings, by offering your living bodies as a holy sacrifice, truly pleasing to God. Do not model yourselves on the behaviour of the world around you, but let your behaviour change, modelled by your new mind. This is the only way to discover the will of God and know what is good, what it is that God wants, what is the perfect thing to do.” (Romans 12:1-2)

Of course, when Jesus told Peter off, He was not telling Peter he was the absolute devil though. The word “Shatan” in the language used by Jesus and those around him really meant “obstacle” or “stumbling-block”. It came to be applied to the Evil One because we are so often tripped up by temptation, and find our sins a real barrier to spiritual growth.

But while not saying Peter was literally the Devil, the reprimand was bad enough. Peter was jolted back to reality: if he thought he could lead Jesus along, he would certainly fall over, and become a barrier that those behind him would fall over too. “Get behind me!”, Jesus told him - “Know your place, man!”. Jesus must always lead, and everyone else - Peter included – has to learn to follow.

The readings today are so very important because every one of us here is in the process of learning exactly the same lesson. It is a hard lesson, and one that takes a lot of learning. People who believe themselves to be perfectly resigned to God’s will one day very often find themselves in open rebellion the day after. Life brings many changes, not a few of which are unpleasant and unwanted. Our natural human inclination is to try and avoid these things, and  think that a loving God would spare us. I've known sadly too many people who “broke off diplomatic relations” with God when they didn't get their own way.

Fortunately, the Father loves us far too much to abandon us, even though sometimes we may abandon Him. He never ceases to call out to us, just like the wayward Augustine, and to remind us “You will not change me into yourself, but you will be changed into me”.

And that, really and truly is the choice we face. Could anyone seriously want to reduce God to the level of human behaviour, with all its attendant anger, violence, spitefulness and selfishness? Surely it would be infinitely preferable to be lifted up into the blessedness of God!

Seeing things God’s way takes a lot of learning, but it’s worth the effort because coming to see things God’s way ends with ourselves seeing God Himself in the glory of heaven. 

 

The Beatles