ORDINARY 24

Isaiah 50:4-9

James 2:14-18

Mk 8:27-35

One of the attractions of a good novel or murder mystery is the unexpected twists and turns in the story. The moment we think we have the plot worked out a new twist occurs and we have to think again. It is often only at the very end that we discover the truth.

Today’s gospel reading contains some unexpected twists. At the beginning of his gospel, St Mark announces who Jesus is. He writes, “The gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.” The readers of this good news can read the story from the beginning knowing who Jesus is, but the story describes the struggle that the characters have in discovering that truth for themselves.

Mark tells us that the first to grasp the answer are the evil spirits. Then it is those who are on the edge of Jewish religious and social life, namely the lame, blind, mentally disturbed and moral sinners. The last to discover the truth of Jesus’ identity are the disciples, those who have been closest to him. Perhaps it is for them a question of not being able to see the trees for the wood. Up to the events recorded in today’s gospel, Mark describes 15 miracles that Jesus performed, After these events he only records 3, so what we have heard today marks a significant shift of focus in Jesus’ ministry.

Jesus asks his disciples what people were saying about his identity. They told him what people thought, but then he fires directly at them by asking, “But who do you say that I am?” Peter blurted out the right answer which the readers of the gospel have always known, “You are the Christ.” In saying this, Peter is acknowledging that Jesus is the Messiah, the one whom the Jews believed would be their deliverer.

We readers of the gospel may think, “At last, they have got it,” but then Jesus doesn’t tell them to share the good news, rather the opposite. He tells them to say nothing to anyone. They were to keep the secret.

This seems to be odd, but it may be that Jesus didn’t want them to give the wrong impression about the hoped for Messiah. The Jews, including Jesus’ disciples expected the Messiah to be a political military leader like the great King David, but that is not how Jesus understood it to be. True, he would be a deliverer, but not as a military leader. He knew that the deliverance of God’s people and their reconciliation to God would come through the sacrifice of his life. This sacrifice would be that which united heaven and earth. The marriage between the two would be consecrated.

The reading from Isaiah offers a clue to our understanding of this. It tells of God’s servant who sees himself as being completely dependent on God’s guidance. He is totally obedient to this guidance irrespective of any cost to himself. Even so, the Servant is confident that God will show him to be right in the end.

This servant figure in Isaiah is a true disciple. He doesn’t simply philosophise on the issue of whether good ought to overcome evil, or whether unselfish service is preferable to self-centred indulgence. Action is what is required in discipleship. Being a disciple is not akin to membership of a debating club. It is like joining an active fighting unit whose members live God-centred rather than self-centred lives. Members of this unit don’t just talk about it, they actually work to overcome evil and bring order out of the chaos that evil creates no matter what the cost may be to themselves.

Christians consider Jesus to be the true servant and disciple of God, but it was the implication that suffering would be the way of deliverance for God’s people that Peter found hard to accept. There was no hint in Judaism that the Messiah would be a suffering servant, but Jesus was adamant that for him and all true disciples, the way was the Way of the Cross. Taking up the cross of Jesus is more than putting up with a few irritations in life, or swallowing hard and dealing with very difficult people with a smile. The Way of the Cross is the way of self-giving, and that is always costly in time, effort and perhaps money.

This is the point that St James makes in our second reading. True faith he says must be visible in action. Disciples must put their money where their mouth is – or words to that effect.

The Way of the Cross is the willingness of disciples to give up what suits them if it is in conflict with what God asks. Discipleship involves subjugating our will to the will of God. This life must not be adopted because by doing so we will be guaranteed a first class seat on the flight to heaven. It must be lived as if there is no reward, but if there is, that reward must be accepted as one of God’s gracious gifts.

Christian discipleship means that we cannot always do what we want when we want to do it. Hard choices have to be made. In last week’s Australian newspaper, the journalist Christopher Pearson wrote about the lifestyle choices he made when he embraced Christianity ten years ago. These hard decisions may explain why Christianity is rejected by some in the western world. Any religion that doesn’t provide health, wealth and happiness is not worth a candle. Strangely though, the form of Christianity that allows us to do whatever we want is declining faster than the more disciplined expressions of the Faith. Western man has become his own god, and demands that if anyone is deluded enough to believe in a God who offers himself as a sacrifice in order to save us from nothing, that belief must be a complete private matter. It must not impinge on society in any way, shape or form. Week after week we hear of western governments passing legislation that negates Christian beliefs and morals and demanding that Christians act in ways that are contrary to their consciences. Freedom to discuss the Faith is limited and results in prosecution or the termination of employment by so called offenders. Militant atheism is the noisiest cult in our modern times and mocks the sacred in life. Yet it only attacks what it sees as the weakest target, namely Christianity, for among the world’s religions, it is self-professed Christians who tend to give in when the faith is challenged, or because we are prepared to push the observance and practise of our faith down the list of life’s priorities. It is easy for Christians to dismiss other world religions, but despite cultural pressures, their devout believers are far less lazy about the practice of their faith and are not as afraid as Christians to defend it when it is challenged. We are indeed living in a culture where our Christian God is considered by many to be of no consequence and that really is the fault of no one but we Christians ourselves.

Jesus made it clear that is his disciples do not stand up for the truth that God has revealed no matter what the cost, we are rejecting him, for only those prepared to follow the Way of the Cross will find eternal life.

Tomorrow is the feast of the most Holy Cross. There will be a mass at 9-15 am, so if you can, gather around that cross and recommit yourself to the life it symbolises.