Who do you say that I am?

 

Twenty Fourth Sunday in OT  B  2024

 

In today’s Gospel, Jesus asked his disciples two questions.  The first was an information, polling question:  Who do people say that I am?  The second was a more personal spiritual question:  “Who do you say that I am?”  Peter responded:  “You are the Christ.”  Peter was right, but not right enough.  Peter has the right answer, but not the right meaning.  Peter had hoped that the long-awaited Messiah was to be regal, powerful, and a strong leader.   Peter did not understand the words of Jesus that the Son of Man must suffer greatly and be rejected and be killed and rise after three days.

Unaware, as yet, of the true nature of Jesus’ identity, Peter tried to set aside the unthinkable notion of a suffering Christ.  Jesus was explaining to his disciples his upcoming suffering, passion, death and resurrection.   For Jesus this is what the meaning of Messiah is, and this is the straight truth.

There is a crossroads in the journey of faith for many of us in our discipleship of the Lord Jesus.  We encounter that crossroads when we personally have to deal with suffering and struggle.  Sometimes that suffering is of our own doing -- dealing with the weaknesses and the demons within each of us – or sometimes the suffering comes from having to deal with realities we cannot control or manage -- as in illnesses or death of someone close to us.

In the face of dealing with life’s struggles, what happens to the piety and the prayerfulness of days gone by?  In speaking to the first disciples, Jesus is saying you indeed will experience rejection, the cross, and ultimately death.  This is the meaning of discipleship.  What is our understanding of our discipleship of the Lord Jesus?

The Scriptures today are inviting to reflect on the meaning of our discipleship of the Lord Jesus.  The Scriptures, in a sense, want us to restart our baptismal commitment, how we are to live as the disciples of Jesus?

Jesus asks us the same question he asked the first disciples:  Who do you say that I am?   Like Peter, it’s easy to give the right answer.  When we shortly profess the creed, we are giving the right answer for our discipleship of Jesus.  But as for Peter and so for us, it’s not enough to give the right answer in the words we speak.  How we live our lives validate the words we say in professing the creed.

The Scriptures today are teaching us about the meaning of discipleship.  In what situations of life are you willing to embrace suffering as a means of embracing the cross in your journey of discipleship?   In the big picture, denying yourself and taking the cross is far more than giving up candy during Lent.  It is a complete reordering of our principles and priorities in order to “restart “baptismal commitment.  Turning away from self-centeredness, we embrace other-centeredness and God-centeredness.

--There is no one we will not forgive.

--We are committed to share what we have in the service of others.

--We are simply going to be kind to each person we share life with today.

--Prayer, our relationship with the Lord, is going to be a daily part of our DNA.

--The struggles, the setbacks we experience are going to be our teachers.  They are going to lead us to trust that God is with us in the crosses of life.  As we are challenged to empty ourselves of our own plans for success, we are going to trust that God has a plan for us and will lead us to discover more fully the spiritual dimension of life, of God’s unconditional and unending that comes to us in the midst of the challenges.

 

May God give you peace,

 

We can get spiritually lost even when we are obeying the law if our hearts are not filled with the merciful love of Jesus.

 

Twenty Second in OT  B  2024

 

In the first Scripture reading, Moses said to the people: “Now Israel hear the statues and decrees which I am teaching you to observe; observe them carefully for you to be a wise and intelligent people.”

 

The laws of God’s people serve like an invisible fence -- the fence you put in your yard to keep your dog from wandering into the street or menacing the jogger out for a bit of exercise or wherever your dog would like to wander to.  This fence serves an excellent purpose so that the dog can play in the yard without getting hurt.  So too, the Ten Commandments are our invisible fence that helps us to live in right relationship with one another and with our God.  They make all the sense in the world. 

 

But strict observance of the law doesn’t determine whether God is going to love us or not.   No matter what, God cannot stop loving us.  But the commandments are meant to hold us accountable as to how we respond to God’s great love for us.

 

In the Gospel, we see the anger of Jesus in confronting the hypocrisy of the Pharisees.  Jesus says: “This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.”  Few situations moved Jesus to anger like the hypocrisy of people who distorted the Law’s intent.

 

Please note that Jesus is not venting against the Pharisees because of their fidelity to religious observance and the ritual tradition.  This is a good thing.  Jesus labels them hypocrites because the words they spoke from their lips did not come from hearts filled with compassion.  They worshipped ritually in solemn ways, but this did not translate into deeds filled with love.  

 

Jesus is so clear in His teachings.  He tells that He did not come to destroy the Law and the Prophets, but to fulfill them.  Jesus has no problem with the person who ritually washes his hands and still serves the poor and the needy.  The problem is with us who make sure to wash our hands but never pay attention to the poor and the needy.

 

 

 

 

Pope Francis’ favorite image for the Church is to see the Church as a “field hospital.”  In the field hospital of the Church of St.Joseph’s, we humbly recognize that all of us are sinners.  Using this image can help us to avoid self-righteous attitudes.   The sacraments are not rewards for us who are perfect; rather the sacraments are spiritual medicine for us who are weak. 

 

In today’s Scripture, Jesus gave us a new tradition that begins and ends with love.  He asks us to let love transform our hearts and our souls so that we can transform the world.

 

In the Gospel, Jesus responded to the self-righteous  purity police by citing the prophet Isaiah:  This people honors with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.”  In the second scripture reading, James proclaims:  “Religion that is pure and undefiled before God is this:  to care for the orphans and widows and to keep oneself unstained by the world.”

 

Isaiah accuses the people of being more concerned with ritual defilement than with ethical defilement. 

And so, yes, we can spiritually get lost even when we are obeying the law and seemingly being very religious if our hearts are not filled with the merciful love of Jesus.

 Our discipleship of Jesus is not primarily about legalism; it is about loving God and neighbor.  May we deeply believe that God truly wants to share his life with us.  Sometimes the Gospel is too good to be true and so we don’t believe.  Can we believe God is so loving, that his love is wonderful and so all-encompassing, that he who is mindful of all of our failings and the darkest secrets still finds us lovable, still wants to shre his own life with us.

 

At all times and in all situations, we need to speak our convictions but we all must witness to the love of Jesus in our dialogue with one another.

 

 

 

In all truth, all of us probably need to acknowledge a bit of hypocrisy when our egos get in the way of reaching out to people in need and reaching out to people whom we find unlovable for whatever reason.  There is sin in the world and sin in our own hearts.  We always need to recognize our own sinfulness and come before our healing, forgiving God.

The North Star of our spiritual lives is rooted in our faith conviction that there is nothing hypocritical about God’s love for us.  It is unconditional and unending.  I invite you to hold on to the truth:  There is nothing we can do to stop God from loving us.  God is love.

Our prayer and liturgy must lead to witnessing to the love of Jesus in our lives.  In the dismissal rite of the Mass, I will say: “Go in peace glorifying the Lord by our lives.”  This is not a simple throw-away statement to head to the parking lot.  This is our call to live the meaning of the Eucharist 24 hours a day.  In Eucharist we receive the love of Jesus; in Eucharist we are missioned to live and witness to the love of Jesus in the actions of our lives.

 

May God grant you peace.