One of the truly amazing and humbling things about being a priest is the types of different intimate and sacred moments that people will invite a priest to be a part of because through the Sacraments the priest makes Christ present at some of life’s most important times. Perhaps the most significant time that a priest can be asked to be a part of a person’s life is at their bedside when they are sick or dying. Often, with an individual’s closest loved ones, a priest is among the last people that a sick individual will deal with as part of their earthly pilgrimage. In these moments a priest helps to make Christ present here on earth to one who is about to be present with God face to face for all eternity.

Several years ago, I had the privilege of being at the bedside of a person who I think had one of the happiest deaths I had ever seen. This lady had lived into her late nineties and was still in her own home. All of her twelve children were grown and healthy. Many of her grandchildren were also grown and healthy. She had lived to see her children’s children grow and thrive. When she did get sick, her family of twelve children arranged to look after their mother at home, so that she was able to die in her own home surrounded by her loved ones. When the moment of her death came, all of her children and grandchildren were present. While she was still conscious, we all celebrated the Sacrament of the Sick and Mass with her. She was totally at peace with her situation and had a chance to tell everyone that she loved them all and that she was ready to go to God. She died totally at peace and ready to meet God face to face. Her death was what I would describe as a happy death.

I could not imagine anyone having a more peaceful death. Yet, despite this, only a few days after she had died, I heard that her grandson, who had been a regular church attendee prior to her death, was furious at God for letting his grandmother die. He said, that “if God could allow someone as amazing as his grandmother die, he did not want to have anything to do with God.” He reported that he had asked God several times to let his grandmother live and since God did not listen to his prayers, he no longer had time for God and would have nothing to do with him anymore. As I spoke to him afterward about his grandmother’s death, I pointed out to him that his grandmother had had an amazing and blessed life and that she had gone home to God perfectly at peace and ready to be with Him for all eternity. This did not impress him. He pointed out that he had asked God to save his grandmother and God had not done what he had told Him to do. If I were to simplify the reason for his anger, I would summarize it by saying that this young man was angry because God had not done for him what he had told Him to do. In short, God was disobedient to what this young man had told Him to do. God was not a very good employee.

This story puts into focus a very simple question: “Why did Jesus come to be with us?”

In this Sundays Gospel, Jesus attempts to explain to his disciples why he came to be with them. Jesus tells them that: “The Son of Man is to be betrayed into the hands of men, and they will kill Him, and three days after being killed, He will rise again.” In telling this to His disciples, Jesus is trying to prepare them for the purpose of His mission. He has come to share in our destiny, to pass through death, so that He might destroy death and we might share in His resurrection. Jesus came to share in every aspect of our life, its joys and it sufferings, so that we might know that we have a God who is truly “with us.” This is what the title Emanuel—God with us—is all about. Jesus took on our human flesh, shared in our life, walked among us, and shared in our suffering so that we might know that He is always with us. The only reason that Jesus suffered so intensely is so that we might know that no matter what we might suffer in this life, He has already suffered it and will walk along with us. Jesus wants us to know He has undergone everything we can suffer and will always be at our side. We have a God who can understand everything we will endure. He has come among us so that He might be with us through everything and through His resurrection will lead us to eternal life. Jesus came among us to be with us, to reconcile us to His loving Father and bring us to our true homeland in Heaven forever.

Most of us, however, do not get this. We think that Jesus has come to be our employee and that His job is to do what we tell Him. This is what we see the disciples doing immediately after Jesus tells them that He will die for them, so that they might have eternal life. In last week’s Gospel we saw how upset Peter got when Jesus told him that He was going to die. Jesus had asked the disciples who they thought He was. Peter confesses that Jesus is the Son of God. However, Peter is interested in what it might be like to have the Son of God as a friend. He and the disciples think that this will bring them great power and advantage. In this Sunday’s Gospel they are arguing about who will be the greatest among them. They are not thinking about how they can go to Heaven, their true homeland. They are thinking about the type of palace they will live in here on earth if Jesus is really the Son of God. They want to know what are the perks of knowing and hanging out with the Son of God.

This can often be what most Christians expect of Jesus. They (and we) want to know what Jesus can do for us now. The scriptures proclaim that Jesus came to reconcile us to the Father, to walk with us through this life and be our intimate friend and companion, and to ultimately share His Divine life with us in Heaven for all eternity. Despite the fact that this is the most wonderful thing that could ever happen to us, most of us have no real interest in this offer. Once we have heard it, we immediately become like the disciples, trying to think of what immediate advantages our relationship with Jesus can have for us. Our prayer can be like the disciples who hear of Jesus’ impending suffering, death and resurrection and we go on to tell Him how to run the universe. It is not an exaggeration to say that sometimes we can all treat God like an employee. He wants to walk with us as our companion through this earthly pilgrimage, yet we in prayer assign Him a few tasks to complete, because we have the mistaken belief that we are in charge and He has come in the hopes of winning the employee of the week award from us. When He is disobedient to what we have to tell Him to do, we feel duty bound to show Him our displeasure by letting Him know he did not win the employee of the week award from us. To show our disapproval we stop praying and going to Mass; for that after all will teach Him a lesson.

Much of the way in which we treat God has its origins in original sin and the events of the Garden of Eden. In the Garden of Eden, the human person lived in communion with God. We walked with Him and were not afraid. However, once Adam and Eve turned away from God to do their own thing, they no longer lived in communion with God. For this reason, scripture says that death was introduced into the world. For me this death represents the fear that we all have when it comes to passing from this life to the Father. Most theologians believe that Adam and Eve would have passed over to God from this life to eternity. However, they say that they would have done so without fear or anxiety about the future. They would have done so in communion with God, passing peacefully from His presence in this world, over to His presence in Heaven for all eternity. Since the human beings decided to follow their own path, they have turned their back on God’s presence and sought a relationship with Him only for the sake of seeking their own advantage. Jesus came into the world to re-establish us in this relationship of communion with God, so that we might not be afraid and might free ourselves to live in His communion with us. This is why Jesus came and gave us His Church and the Sacraments, so that we might live in communion with Him and know His peace in this life and in the life to come.

In this Sunday’s Gospel, Jesus tells us that in order that we might live in communion with Him, we need to accept him as a child would accept Him. A young child is happy to be held and comforted by anyone. They do not judge. An infant does not come with a list of demands, like adults often do. Jesus offers us His loving and consoling presence in this life. We can accept it, or present Him with a list of demands. In the Gospel today, Jesus tells His disciples He will die for them and win eternal life for them. Their response is to argue about who will be the greatest among them. Their reaction is not that of an accepting child. They have a choice: they can accept His offer of eternal happiness or present Him with their list of demands. Jesus also makes the same offer to each of us. He invites us to allow Him to be a part of our lives. In doing so He is like a child. He calls all of us. He does not pick and choose and present a list of demands and criteria. In return, He has died for us and desires to share His Holy Spirit with us. We can be like children and accept His offer and enjoy immediate peace in this life and share eternal life with Him for all eternity. The alternative is—if His offer of eternal life for us and our loved ones seems inadequate—that we can treat Him like an employee and tell Him how His offer of salvation has let us down and we can give Him His walking papers.

In the Gospel this Sunday, Jesus tells us that He has come to share in all of our sufferings so that we might have a God who is with us through everything that we can possibly suffer on our way home to Him and His Father. He explains that the reason He has come into the world is to save us, and our loved ones, from death and share His Divine life with us. The God who made us, announces that He has come to be at our side and accompany us through everything. He has come to share eternal life with us. He encourages us to accept this offer with open arms like joyful children. He tells us clearly why He has come for us. The question that this Gospel presents to us is: are we open to this invitation? What is it that we expect of God? Do we think He is an employee and do we have a list of job requirements for Him? Can we accept His offer like grateful children or do we think He should be punished or fired for being a bad employee. As Jesus explains to us why He has come, and we look at what we expect of Him, we are confronted with a simple question, a question that is at the heart of our relationship with God. The simple question is: Can we accept that God is God and we are not? A baby knows it is dependent upon an adult and needs the adult for its protection and survival. Can we accept that we are dependent upon God for our salvation? God has come to save us in His Son. Are we able to accept this salvation?

Fr. Michael McGourty—Pastor, St. Peter’s Parish