Good leaders are good followers of Jesus. I believe this is the message Jesus is trying to get the Apostle Peter to understand in today’s Gospel reading: we’re only being good leaders when we’re being good followers of Jesus.
In the Gospel reading, Peter was trying to mislead Jesus down a path of comfort and pleasure at all cost, a path that was very different than the path of suffering, death and resurrection that God wanted. About 2,000 years ago, Jesus said the following words to serve as a wake-up call to this misleading Peter: “Get behind me Satan.”
In God’s divine timing, these same words Jesus spoke to Peter are echoing through the millennia to be heard in every Catholic church today by those successors of the Apostles who now need a wake-up call. These words are timely as we Catholics hear in the news about the clergy sex abuse scandal where a handful of the bishops and hundreds of priests have tried to mislead thousands of the children and sisters in our Catholic family down a different path than the path God wants.
We Catholics, who call the leaders of our church “father,” are experiencing a terrible family crisis today. This is a crisis of fatherhood. This a crisis of leadership. These shepherds who have shown with their actions that they are interested in feeding themselves at the expense of the sheep are not the ones Jesus wants shepherding his church and his sheep.
As a father of young children, when I hear some of these clergy sex abuse stories of children and sisters who have done nothing wrong, I feel a deep outrage and sadness. As we feel the painful sting of the clergy sex abuse crisis acutely in our church today, it’s important for us to realize that this is only a part of a chronic problem in our society. This is part of much larger sex abuse epidemic in our society.
Did you know that one in five adults report that they were sexually abused as a child? One in five. Sadly, the people forcing these children to do something with their bodies that they don’t want to do and the people who help cover this up are people who were supposed to be leaders in the lives of these children. This great evil is often done by parents, step-parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, babysitters, teachers, coaches, and yes, shamefully even clergy.
Unfortunately, it is often tough for many of us to identify the people who are doing these evil acts. These people don’t want to be detected because they want to be able to continue their evil ways. The people doing these evil these acts are not dressing up in devil Halloween costumes so we can easily identify them. Instead, these individuals are often trying to appear as people we would never expect to be doing such evil. That’s why one name we call this father of lies is the deceiver. To identify who this deceiver might be in our lives all we need to do is watch for how this person will hypocritically say one thing to look good in public and then turn around in private to mislead us in the opposite direction.
In today’s Gospel, Peter hypocritically first publicly professed his faith that Jesus is the Christ, the Messiah the Jews have been wanting to come lead them. But then, Peter turns around in private and instead of following Jesus, Peter tries to mislead Jesus in a different direction. In our second reading, St. James reminds us that professions of faith are meant to be practiced and to be lived with our actions. Those in the clergy who do these evil acts are hypocrites who at Mass publicly say “this is my body which will be given up for you” and then turn around after Mass in private and say to an innocent child “this is your body which will be taken by me.” Brothers and sisters, don’t be misled by these deceivers. These people who instead of taking their leadership role in our lives seriously, are perfectly fine with letting a few minutes of their perverted pleasure result in a lifetime of suffering for an innocent child.
We know we Catholics aren’t immune to this evil. Many of us gathered here today as a church family have been directly impacted by sexual abuse. For those gathered here who have endured this suffering, know that Jesus is with you in your suffering. Jesus knows first-hand great suffering from having taken onto himself all the sins of the world.
Others of us gathered here today may have been indirectly impacted by sex abuse. We may know of a person who either sexually abused someone or who was sexually abused and kept the sex abuse quiet; choosing to protect a reputation over protecting the innocent. This keeping sex abuse quiet happens much more in our society than most people realize. Most people are shocked to find out that 85% of adults who were abused as children say they never reported the abuse to authorities. The quickest way to double the size of a problem is for us to turn our back on it. Keeping sex abuse quiet just allows those who have abused children to continue abusing others without being held accountable for the suffering they have caused.
Brothers and sisters, whether it’s sexual abuse, peer pressure to be promiscuous and to be a part of the hook up culture, anxiety, depression or something else, we all have suffering in our lives. Our first reading from Isiah talks about faith being tied to this suffering. Each of our lives have trials that are uniquely ours. It is an inevitable part of the human condition. All the suffering experienced now and for all eternity comes from being misled down Peter’s path of comfort and pleasure at all costs. Jesus wants us to realize that when we let the enemy mislead us, every step taken down Peter’s path of comfort and pleasure at all costs is a step further into a prison cell that will eventually be closed for all eternity.
Whatever the evil of sin and suffering that has been brought into our lives, we must deal with this evil head on just as Jesus did when he rebuked Peter. Instead of passively letting the enemy lead us into being pulled away from the life we were meant to live, let our lips speak Jesus’ words to the evil one in our lives “Get behind me Satan.”
When we reject being misled down the nightmare path of the evil one and we instead follow Jesus’ lead, we are awakened to see that the shackles of sin and suffering which have been part of our history don’t have to be the end of our story. When we follow Jesus’ lead, the shackles of sin and suffering can be released. By following Jesus’ lead, we can be freed from the sin and suffering we’ve experienced and leave it buried in the grave behind us both today in this world and for all eternity.
We are meant to live forth from our sufferings. This morning out of the blue at the breakfast table, my five-year-old son Becket said, “Dad, do you know what my favorite part of the Gospel is?” I said, “No, tell me what your favorite part of the Gospel is Becket.” He said, “My favorite part of the Gospel is when Jesus rises from the dead. Easter is the best because Jesus rises from the dead and you get candy.”
Jesus is leading us to experience an Easter Sunday-type of resurrection in our lives beginning today and forever; a resurrection of our humanity that points the way to Jesus for others to see him and follow him. May each of us lead our lives as members of the body of Christ by following Jesus as the head of our church, so we can help lead his church to its fulfillment. Then, as good leaders who are good followers of Jesus, we can rise with Jesus today, so we may be able to say, “this is the first day of our resurrected lives.”