Fr. Jacobi's Homily Message

During the days of Abraham, child sacrifice is common. The nations surrounding Abraham believe in gods, like Baal, who demand the life of the firstborn son. The belief---any God who is truly a god wants this of me, that I offer something that counts. Any God who is worth his salt, who is worth his weight in gold, would demand that men and women offer him something worthwhile. What could be worth more than the life of the firstborn?

It is no accident that Abraham thinks like the other folks surrounding him. Abraham thinks he hears God’s voice demanding he sacrifice his only son, his beloved. Never mind that Isaac is a miracle child, given to Abraham and Sarah when they should have never been able to conceive a child. Never mind that Isaac is the child of promise, the one through whom all the promises of God to Abraham will be fulfilled. Abraham trudges up the mountain of sacrifice, thinking Yahweh, his God, is like all the other gods and must be appeased with the blood of his first-born son, his beloved.

But on the mountain, Abraham has a piercing insight that stops his knife in mid-air---his God is not like the other gods. A message from an unseen messenger of God grabs his hand and his heart--his God does not demand the life of His only Son. The sunlight gleaming off his upraised blade blinds him with this insight--my God is not what I thought, nothing like I imagined. On the mountain, Abraham begins to see what others cannot see. Yahweh, the God who called him out of Haran to make of him a great nation, is for him and for all people, not against him.

The God of Abraham is a God who creates life , who sustainslife, who protects life. All life is sacred in the eyes of the God of Abraham.

Peter has a conversion experience similar to Abraham. On another mountaintop, Peter’s understanding of who God is and how God acts is transformed. Peter has this bright, shining insight---the cross is the only way to glory, and following Jesus is the only way to life.

Immediately before Jesus takes Peter, James and John up the mountain of transfiguration, Jesus tells them and the other disciples what being the Messiah means. He will suffer greatly, be rejected by the religious leaders, and be killed, and rise after three days. Upon hearing this, Peter takes Jesus aside and rebukes Jesus. For Peter, the long promised Messiah is the one who will ride in on his war-horse, sword flashing in hand, and liberate the Jewish people from captivity to the mighty Romans. Jesus’ response to Peter contains some of the strongest words in the Gospel—“Get behind me, Satan, you are not thinking as God does, but as human beings do.”

On the mountain, as Jesus is transformed before his eyes, and the voice booms from the cloud, “This is my beloved Son, listen to him,” Peter realizes his understanding of God has to change. He has to start by listening to Jesus. This simple carpenter from Nazareth who talks about suffering and being killed stands before him shining with God’s glory. The heavenly voice instructs Peter and the rest to listen to what Jesus has to say, most particularly about the mystery of the cross.

Right before going up the mountain, Jesus had given instructions to Peter and the others, words that Peter did not want to listen to---Peter and all of Jesus’ followers are called to share in Jesus’ mission. “Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me.” These are difficult words for Peter to swallow, much less follow.

Proud Peter, who is so convinced he knows the mind of God, on the mountain of transfiguration has one of his many conversion experiences. He turns away from his limited understanding of who God is and how God acts and turns toward Jesus and a deeper, wider, broader, more profound understanding of the ways of God.

The mystery of the cross is the doorway into the mind and heart of God. The mystery of the cross is the key to understanding how God acts. This is what God demands: denial of self, taking up our cross, and following Jesus. But what does taking up our cross mean?

We often think of the cross in terms of tragic or terrible things which usher suffering into our lives. So we talk about our cross in terms of carrying the cross of serious sickness, or losing a job, or the weight of the cross of sorrow over the death of a loved one. But the nature of life on this earth is that suffering finds us. This kind of un-chosen suffering is not what Jesus is talking about when he says to deny self and take up the cross. Jesus freely takes up the cross---it is not just something that happens to him. Jesus chooses to suffer on behalf of others out of love. He knows that the religious leaders and civil leaders are planning to kill him because he is turning their world upside down, pointing out how they are exploiting the poor, oppressing the lowly. He knows as he becomes a voice for those who have no voice that the ones in power will want to silence him. Jesus could run away to Egypt, flee far away into safety, but instead he freely chooses to embrace the cross, out of love for others. Jesus’ death is the result of a life given away completely in love, not because his Heavenly Father demands his life.

This is what God demands of us--that we lay down our lives in love for others. This is what God demands, not that we kill our deepest dreams but rather make those dreams part of the bigger dream of Jesus for the Kingdom of God by offering ourselves in love of others.

Parents daily take up the cross for their children, giving themselves away in love for their sons and daughters. Spouses daily take up the cross in love of each other, denying their own selfishness in order to live for the other. Friends daily take up the cross in love of each other.

The mystery of the cross is the key to understanding how God thinks and acts and how we are to think and act. The cross is the doorway into abundant life, as we lose our small lives in love and rise to a new life in God that is much bigger and grander than we could have ever imagined.

Our vision of what God demands is just as time-conditioned as Abraham and Peter. Both Peter and Abraham become people of great faith only when they realize their vision of God is too narrow, too small. We are no different today. We place boundaries on how God can and should act---and thus are blind to how God is acting here and now.

God’s love for us, for all of humankind, is broader than our human minds can comprehend. God’s love is expansive. Thus God’s love can include His Son dying on the cross and the soldier who helps execute Jesus and who declares as he watches Jesus die, “Truly, this is the Son of God.” God is for us, for all of us---young and old, men and women, documented and undocumented. God’s love poured forth by Jesus on the cross floods the whole earth with glory.

Therefore, God weeps over our divisions and conflicts and is shaking us awake from our slumber, shouting: “I am for you! Can you be FOR one another?”