Perhaps today should be called “Prophecy Sunday”. We start with Jeremiah (Jeremiah 20:7-9). Prophecy was not a job Jeremiah wanted. “You tricked me, Lord” he tells God. “I have received nothing but derision and reproach.” The job of a prophet was not to serve as fortune teller, as perhaps we might think. It was to be God’s spokesperson, to tell people that they are not doing what God wants, that they are not running the world the way God intends it to be run.
The prophet’s job does not stop with words. A prophet shows by his/her life how God wants people to live and govern. Words are important, but a prophet must also “walk the walk”. A prophet is to witness God’s vision for humanity to those in charge – at obvious risk to the prophet’s own physical health. Nobody likes to hear that his priorities are wrong, especially those who are in a position of power.
Jesus anticipates His fate like Jeremiah anticipated his fate. Jesus anticipates that he will suffer greatly at the hand of the rulers. Peter, however, refuses to accept this future. Peter would rather have Jesus’ message received with joy and gratefulness. What a dreamer! Jesus corrects him and tells him that His role, and ours, as the successors to Jesus’ legacy, will bring mainly shame and suffering. We will have to “take up our cross” and carry it through the city, humiliated and ridiculed. That is what is behind Paul’s exhortation in the second reading (Romans 12:1-2) that we must not “conform ourselves to this current age.”
If Jesus had the role of a prophet, foretelling his personal fate, so does the Church, not just during its early days, but also today. Our vocation is the same as that of the early Christians – to serve as prophets, both to those in power (state and church) but also to our Christian brothers and sisters who, too often, have “conformed” themselves to this age. God clearly wants us to hear the prophets among us and to take what they say seriously – however uncomfortable it may make us feel. We also should look in the mirror and clearly see how “conformed” we have become.
As a society, we may be a little more humane than the rulers in Jesus’ time. After all, we don’t line the roads with crucified rebels as the Romans did. But power is still abused today. Worth is still defined by wealth. People are still driven into poverty and homelessness, despite working full-time. All too often the clothes we wear and the foods we eat are produced by little more than slave labor. What are we to do? We cannot change things! We do not want to make waves! Do we just look the other way?
No, we are called to take seriously the missionary charge at the end of Mass: “Go in peace, glorifying the Lord by your lives.” That is the mission of a prophet. “By our lives” means more than virtue and piety, observing the rules and receiving the sacraments, though those are good traits to have. But remember: the Pharisees and scribes did that much. Remember that when Jesus didn’t know what to do next, He spent the night in prayer, asking His father to show Him what He should do. That’s a good place for us to start, too.
One thing we should recognize: not “conforming to this age” will put us out on the margins, where we will surely encounter “derision and reproach”. However, as Pope Francis has assured us, that is precisely where the Church needs to be. And the Church, as always, is us.
May God Bless You and Grant You His Peace!