Twenty-Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Jan 30 2025

Not Your Father’s Messiah

“Who am I for you?” is a question we might ask another when a relationship becomes more serious. We want those we love to know and value who we are, just as we want to know and value them. A relationship deepens and grows from such exchanges.

At this mid-point in Mark’s Gospel, Jesus asks those who have been with him since the beginning of his ministry what they think of him. They have heard him preaching and teaching; they have seen him casting out demons and curing those with various ailments of body and spirit. They have even seen him raise a young girl who had died. So they have been with him long enough to have formed an impression.

Peter’s answer is not given the warm welcome in Mark’s Gospel that it gets in Matthew’s, where Jesus responds by affirming that his heavenly Father has revealed this to Peter. Here Jesus gives a warning “not to tell anyone about him,” and then begins to teach him his own self-understanding.

The notion of a messiah was so caught up with military might and kingly authority that Jesus counters it with a different understanding, rooted in the Servant Songs of Isaiah. (We heard one today as our first reading.) Jesus sees himself as destined to be a suffering messiah, something incomprehensible to his followers, as we shall see. But if they want to be his followers, they must take up the cross in their own life and lose their life for Jesus’ sake.

Consider/Discuss

What does Jesus mean when he tells Peter he is “thinking not as God does but as human beings do”?
How does losing my life for Jesus’ sake lead to saving it?
Did God want Jesus to suffer? Does God want us to suffer?

Responding to the Word

Jesus, you call us to know you as one who gave himself for us, so we might be saved and have fullness of life. Help us to recognize where the cross is to be found and teach us how to embrace it, so that we can continue your work of redeeming the world.

Jan 30 2025

Scripture Study for

The opening verse of the passage from Isaiah sets the stage for what follows: “My ears are open!” Hearing is an ability that is most intimate. The ear catches the sound and carries it into the very core of the person. Because of its importance, openness to sound carries the symbolic meaning of openness before God. At the outset, the speaker acknowledges that his ears are open to hear, but it is God who opened them. In other words, though he stands ready to accept God’s will in his life, the readiness itself comes from God. The speaker takes credit for nothing; he is totally dependent on God.

The Letter of James addresses a misunderstanding that has arisen in the church regarding the nature of true faith. Some were satisfied with correct belief expressed in orthodox doctrine. James insists that genuine faith must be practical, expressed in action. Furthermore, it must manifest itself in more than acts of authentic worship. While the issue here is certainly ethical, it pertains to our salvation as well: What kind of faith will save? James’ opponents, whether real or imaginary, wanted to separate faith and good works. James insists that such a separation is impossible.

Jesus asks the disciples what people are saying about him. The question is not self-serving. It seeks to discover how Jesus’ words and actions are under stood, and it prepares the disciples for their own assessment of him. The people believe that Jesus is a prophetic figure who has come back from the dead. Peter speaks in the name of the others when he proclaims that Jesus is the Christ, the Messiah, the anointed one of God. Hearing this, Jesus states that he will be a messiah in the tradition of the Son of Man, the enigmatic figure who will come on the clouds at the end of this age. Jesus then bluntly announces that he will be rejected, will suffer and die, but will rise again.

Jan 28 2025

The Road Ahead

Every time that the rain is beating down hard, I am reminded of a family camping trip. We had pitched our tent in the clouds of Mt. Mitchell in North Carolina, the highest point in the eastern U.S. After four days of soggy living, a thunderstorm was predicted. We all agreed, “Enough! Let’s go get a hotel!” As we drove down the mountain, the rain poured. Fog thickened. The sky blackened. The windshield wipers swished as fast as they could go. It didn’t matter. We couldn’t see in the dark. We couldn’t pull over, for there were only guard rails and cliffs. It was scary. We could not see where we were going.

In today’s Gospel, Peter is high on a mountaintop when he declares, “You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God.” Then Jesus tells them that he is going to Jerusalem to suffer and be killed. It was like a deep fog descended: Peter could not see the road ahead. In fear and uncertainty, he shouted out, “Noooo!!!! That will never happen to you!” Peter loved Jesus. He cried out “no!” to that prediction of grief and disruption. His windshield wipers didn’t work—he had no idea where the road was. The uncertainty of it blinded him with fear.

You and I, we can also be happily driving down the mountaintops of life when suddenly, out of the blue, a fog descends: a shutdown of the world in a pandemic; an internal “Whoa!” to a diagnosis of cancer; a sudden self-doubt that makes us unable to function . . . and the windshield wipers won’t work. And we have no idea where the road is or what lies ahead.

What are we to do about the uncertainty? Jesus calls us to a deeper response. He whispers, “Move over. Let go. Let me drive.”

Consider/Discuss

Peter found out that his very human answer, his outburst of fear and uncertainty, was not Jesus’ answer. What did Jesus do with Peter’s protectiveness? Jesus did not leave him to his own understanding. He said, “You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do.” How does Jesus want to transform our human understanding as well?
Our tendency is to clutch the steering wheel when the fog gets thick; we cling tighter when we cannot see the road; we tense up when the windshield wipers won’t work. How does Jesus stretch us to let go when he says: “For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it”?

Living and Praying with the Word

Jesus, you are the Christ, the Son of the living God! As we exult in you, we feel sunshine filling our souls. Then the fog descends, and anxiety and fear threaten to overwhelm us. You have asked us to share your cross. That can feel a little scary. We don’t want more pain. And sometimes the windshield wipers won’t work, and we cannot see where we are going. Yes, we will get up and carry our cross and help you change the world in just a moment, but for now, Jesus, just be here and hold us.

Jan 28 2025

Scripture Study for

One of the Servant Songs, this passage from Isaiah points toward a particularly hostile, yet paradoxically fruitful, result of speaking for God. The Servant begins by affirming his fidelity to God in the face of great hostility. The source of his strength in the face of adversity is not the Servant himself, but the God who sent him. The Servant is in the right when he claims to speak for God, because it is God who has “opened his heart that he may hear.” Despite the social and perhaps religious “shame” that is attendant upon his preaching, the Servant is confident not only that he is in the right, but also that those who currently oppose him will come to recognize this.

James continues to speak about being doers of the word of truth, the true form of worship. Faith cannot be limited to hearing and believing this word. Such “faith” is no faith at all and is not saving because it does not conform the individual to God’s will or way of viewing the world. “Works” here means living according to God’s values, which includes “care for orphans and widows in their affliction” (1:27) and fulfilling “the royal law according to scripture: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself’ ” (2:8). It is a delusion to think that one could have faith without living in accordance with it, which is to say, by “demonstrating” it.

At Caesarea Phillipi Jesus questions his disciples to provoke a response. Jesus indirectly affirms Peter’s response that he is the Messiah by referring to himself as “the Son of Man,” a messianic term. While Peter recognizes who Jesus is, he is unable to fathom or accept the possibility that Jesus’ death and identity are consistent. Peter’s “rebuke” was probably in the form of a denial that such a thing would be necessary, or even possible (if Jesus is the Christ). Jesus rebukes Peter in turn for failing to recognize that God does not work according to human expectations. Nor should those who follow Jesus expect to avoid his fate.

Jan 15 2025

Forever Forgiving?

Erich Segal died at the beginning of 2010. I remember reading his best seller Love Story and being moved by its then famous line “Love means never having to say you’re sorry.” Over the years I have really come to disagree with this. I believe love means having to say you’re sorry and asking for forgiveness many times in life.

Today’s Gospel reminds us that love also means being willing to forgive many times in a life. We fail each other. We sin against each other. Sometimes we do this deliberately, sometimes thoughtlessly, but nonetheless it is painful for the one sinned against.

Is forgiveness ever easy—especially with a repeat offender? “Seven times?” Peter asks. “Seventy-seven times,” Jesus replies. Today’s readings give us the major reason to forgive others: God has forgiven us. There’s more. Not to forgive is to let anger and wrath poison our hearts. Being unforgiving can imprison a person, resulting in bitterness, revenge, and a slow death of the spirit. Not to forgive can be more costly for the one offended.

Paul tells us we belong to the Lord, are called to serve him, to do his will, which is the will of the Father. And God’s will is that we forgive one another. When the risen Lord first appeared to the disciples in the upper room, he wished them peace, and then gave them the power of the Spirit to forgive. This work is not limited to our going to the sacrament of reconciliation.

Consider/Discuss

Have you known the grace of being forgiven?
Have you known the freedom of forgiving another person?

Responding to the Word

We pray that we might have the gift of forgiveness, both of receiving and giving it to others in turn. We ask the Holy Spirit to empower us to be able to forgive what the world judges to be “unforgiveable.” While for us it can seem impossible, with God all things are possible.