Homily – TWENTY SECOND SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME – THIS WAS NOT IN THE PLAN 08-30-26

Jeremiah 20:7–9; Psalm 63:2–9; Romans 12:1–2; Matthew 16:21–27

You ever have one of those days when absolutely nothing goes according to plan? You wake up thinking you know exactly how the day is going to go. By nine o’clock, the plan is already in trouble. By noon, the plan is dead. And by three, you are just trying not to make things worse. Some of you may be thinking, “Father, I had one of those days. It lasted about seven years.”

There is a moment in today’s Gospel that I think almost every human being understands. Jesus tells His disciples what lies ahead: He will go to Jerusalem, suffer, be rejected, and be killed. Peter immediately pulls Jesus aside and says, essentially, “Absolutely not. That is not how this is supposed to go.” Peter had a plan. Jesus was the Messiah. The Messiah was supposed to win. He was supposed to fix things. Peter had left everything to follow Him, and now Jesus was describing a future Peter had never imagined.

I suspect most of us have said some version of Peter’s words: This was not in the plan. Maybe you have said it sitting on the edge of a bunk late at night. This was not where I thought I would be at this age. I was not supposed to lose these years. My children were not supposed to grow up while I was here. My mother was not supposed to get sick while I could not be there. My marriage was not supposed to fall apart. I was not supposed to become known by the worst decision I ever made. Whatever brought you here, there are probably moments when you look at your life and think, How did my story become this?

Jeremiah understands that feeling. He followed God and discovered that following God did not make his life easier. It made it harder. He becomes so frustrated that he basically tells God, “I’m finished. I’m not speaking about You anymore.” But then Jeremiah says something beautiful: God’s word becomes like a fire burning inside him. He tries to hold it in, but he cannot. Something inside him is still alive. That matters, because sometimes we think the proof that God is with us is that our circumstances improve. Jeremiah teaches us something deeper: sometimes the proof that God is with us is simply that, after everything we have been through, there is still a fire inside us that refuses to die.

Then Paul says, “Do not conform yourselves to this age, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind.” Notice where transformation begins. Not with your address. Not with your circumstances. Not when somebody opens a gate. It begins in the mind and the heart. Because a man can walk out of prison and still be imprisoned by anger, resentment, addiction, shame, or the need to prove something. And a man can live behind a locked door while something inside him is already becoming free.

That is why Jesus tells Peter, “Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me.” Jesus is not saying suffering is good. He is saying suffering does not have to be meaningless. The Cross itself looked like the moment when everything had gone wrong. Jesus betrayed. Peter running away. The disciples scattered. Hope apparently buried behind a stone. If you had stood there on Good Friday, you might have said, “This was not in the plan.” And yet God took the worst day imaginable and made it the beginning of resurrection.

Maybe your life did not go according to plan. Some things happened to you. Some things you chose. Some things you regret. Christianity does not ask us to pretend otherwise. Grace tells the truth. But grace also says something else: a broken plan is not the same thing as a broken future. You may not be able to rewrite yesterday, but God is not finished with tomorrow.

So when you find yourself thinking, “This is not the life I was supposed to have,” remember Peter. Remember Jeremiah. Remember the Cross. And then say, “Lord, this may not be the life I planned, but it is the life I have. Show me what You can do with it.”

Because sometimes God does not give us back the story we imagined.

Sometimes He writes resurrection into the story we actually have.

PRAYER

Let us pray.
Lord Jesus, You know the plans that fell apart, the years we cannot recover, the mistakes we cannot undo, and the people we miss. Give us courage to stop living only in what might have been.

Renew our minds, heal what has become bitter in us, and keep alive the fire of hope. Take the life we actually have, Lord, and teach us to follow You from here. And when we cannot see what comes next, help us remember that a broken plan is not a broken future, because our future is still in Your hands.

Amen.