September 13, 2015

24^th Sunday in Ordinary Time B

Isaiah 50: 5-9, James 2: 14-18; Mark 8: 27-35

Jesus asks the question today: “Who do people say that I am?” That’s a very nondescript question. All I have to do is respond with what I’m hearing from those around me. I do not have to make any judgment. There is no call for me to say that the responses are right or wrong, clear or confusing, simple or complex, close to being accurate or very far from the truth. All I have to do is to respond. Jesus doesn’t leave it there…He turns to ME and asks, But who do you say that I am?”

Alice Camille in Exploring the Sunday Readings, shares some beautiful, direct, forceful thoughts: “Here’s my confession, Jesus. If You really want to know who You are to me, I have to admit You’ve played a lot of different and sometimes conflicting roles in my life. For the first twenty years, You were that man in agony on the cross: terrible to look at, heart-breaking but also mystifying. Why would You do that? I couldn’t imagine You loving me that much. Because who am I?

For decades more I wrestled with Your identity. Friend, Lord, Savior, Brother? I settled on Teacher, and sought to learn from Your school. You teach with words and stories. You teach with healings and wonders. But most of all, You teach with Your extraordinary compassion and forgiveness. It was through practicing Your hard lessons on forgiveness that I glimpsed how love suffers for love’s sake. If love isn’t willing to suffer, it isn’t love.”

Now Jesus didn’t leave the question and go on to other things. Someone had to answer and Peter volunteered a response which showed where his faith was at: “You are the Christ.” What did Peter mean by this? Another accurate translation is “You are the Messiah” ‘Messiah’ is the Greek translation of the Hebrew word ‘Christ’; it literally means ‘anointed one’. Now in Judaism many of the prophets, priests and kings were ‘anointed’. The popular thought at the time of Jesus was that the looked-for Messiah would have political and national aims. It was very widely held that the Messiah would liberate Israel from the Romans. So we could say that Peter gave the ‘correct answer’. But he definitely does not understand what this means. Jesus had further teaching to do and He does it right away. Those around Jesus felt as most did that the Messiah would be a KING, but this would open up an accusation of sedition. The trial of Jesus revolved around the title ‘king’. So Jesus silences the disciples.

Then Jesus gives His first passion prediction in Mark’s gospel. Jesus is showing the disciples how inadequate their understanding of who Jesus is. Up to now, Jesus has preached and healed throughout Galilee and even made trips into Gentile territory. Those who experienced healing or exorcisms were ‘commanded’ by Jesus not to tell anyone who He was. Why did Jesus quiet them? Again we can see that different Jewish groups anticipated different types of messiahs: a Davidic king…a warrior…an apocalyptic figure as in Daniel 7: 13-14. NO ONE expected what Jesus said next. He explains exactly what kind of messiah He is. Like the Suffering Servant in Isaiah, Jesus is the Son of Man who will suffer and be rejected. He will be killed. He will be raised after three days. Peter says, ‘Oh no you won’t.’ Jesus’ response is good for me to reflect on. I need to see that there is too much of ME in my belief…there is too much of the pharisaic way of ‘I’m right…so you are wrong’ in my thinking. Jesus said, “Get behind me, Satan. You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do.”

The first reading from Isaiah presents sufferings of a “Servant of the Lord” who has willingly allowed Himself to be beaten and spit upon. Isaiah introduces The Suffering Servant four times: Isaiah 42: 1-4…Isaiah 49: 1-7…Isaiah 50: 4-11 and Isaiah 52: 13 – 53: 12. In each one the hardships of the Suffering Servant is increased until in the last one, the Suffering Servant is killed. There are a number of scholarly interpretations of who the Suffering Servant refers to. Some scholars say it may have been the author of Second Isaiah; others a representation for the Israelites in exile. Christians see Jesus and His sufferings in these verses. I have found that each of these have provided many hours of getting closer to God’s love and the supreme total act of Jesus’ love. “This is my commandment: love one another as I love you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you.” (John 15: 12-14)

James in the second reading brings this right back to me, “What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him?” So if I see a hungry person and tell them to ‘eat well’ and don’t feed them…I’m not committed at all. Paul puts it so beautifully in Galatians 5:6, “…faith working through love” is my constant goal. So it comes down to HOW am I living my faith? Am I taking up MY CROSSES?

Dr. Bonnie Bowman Thurston, a Marcan scripture scholar puts ‘the cross’…’my crosses’ into a deeper perspective. She writes in Preaching Mark, “Verse 34b (“Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me.”) Is one of the most misused verses in the New Testament. It does not mean stoically accepting the difficulties that come unbidden in life, as in ‘arthritis is my cross to bear’ or ‘my mother-in-law is my cross to bear.’ To ‘take up the cross’ is voluntary. It is a choice, not something that comes because of circumstances beyond one’s control or that is forced upon one; and it is always as verse 35 makes clear, for Jesus’ sake and out of fealty to him…It is good to remember that people who carried crosses in Jesus’ day (and in that of Mark’s first audience) were people on their way to gruesome execution—their own. To ‘take up the cross’ is to choose death.” So what do I have to do to die to myself…what do I have to give up that keeps me from loving God…how do I love as Jesus commands…?

So I reflect on:

• I love to hear that I am forgiven, but I do not like to hear that I must change my ways, forgive others and as Jesus says in John 5: 14 “do not sin anymore.”
• Is the Christianity that I live one that offers comfort, consolation and peace and mind and feel no call to love others in a meaningful way?
• Jesus calls me to embrace the life that HE chose, one in which He sought only to do the Father’s will, to love others, and to give Himself for the Kingdom of God. It was the way of the cross. How am I doing?
• Jesus calls me to share His life, to renounce my own ways, to embrace the cross and to follow Him. Do I?

Sacred Space 2015 says,

“…On a surface level, Peter gets Jesus’ identity right. But he is reprimanded for his earthbound vision: he seeks to bend Jesus’ words and ways to his own all-too-human thinking. He learns that compromise has no place in Jesus’ life.

Lord, your question to the disciples echoes down the centuries and I hear it addressed now to me. Strengthen the bonds between us. Keep me close behind You, as I pick up the crosses and burdens that come from being Your disciple.”