Homily
for the
24th
Sunday of Ordinary Time
Sept.
12, 2021
Mark
8: 27-35
Is
50: 5-9
Ps
116: 1-6, 8-9
Christian
Brothers, St. Joseph’s Home, New Rochelle, N.Y.
Our
Lady of the Assumption, Bronx, N.Y.
“He began
to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer greatly and be rejected…” (Mark
8: 31).
This is
the central passage of Mark’s Gospel.
All that Jesus has said and done till now has been building up to this
identification of Jesus as the Christ, the Greek translation of Messiah. Everything that will follow, follows from
this scene.
Incidentally, for the 1st time we hear Peter taking the leading part among his companions—an inspired part, when he recognizes Jesus’ identity; and a decidedly uninspired part when he aims to throw aside the implications of that identity.
For, even
as Jesus accepts Peter’s confession, “You are the Christ” (8:29), he proceeds
to detail what that means: “The Son of
Man must suffer greatly and be rejected.”
The Son of Man is a messianic figure from the book of Daniel (7:13-14)
and some other Jewish writings. Thus Jesus
is equating himself with what Peter said:
“You are the Messiah.”
But Jesus
clarifies what that means. The Messiah,
the Son of Man, is also the Servant of the Lord prophesied by Isaiah. Our 1st reading was one of Isaiah’s 4
prophecies about the Servant, indicating some of what he will suffer.
The Son
of Man will rely upon the Lord God, whose servant he is: “The Lord God is my help; therefore I am not
disgraced” (Is 50:7). “I love the Lord
because he has heard my voice in supplication” (Ps 116:1). He accepts his role, even tho “the cords of
death encompassed me; the snares of the netherworld seized upon me” (116:3).
Not so
Peter, who rejects his teacher’s being rejected. Jesus calls him “Satan,” an adversary, a
tempter. Peter’s thinking is satanic.
Then
Jesus not only affirms what he’d just said about his personal rejection, death,
and rising, but he also includes everyone who would be his disciple. Peter and everyone else also must embrace the
cross—the most horrible, most terrifying, most humiliating form of capital
punishment—alongside Jesus. Only
alongside Jesus and thru his Gospel is there salvation.
That’s
not a message we’re eager to hear; not a message we willingly embrace. Like Peter, we’re willing to be servants of
the Lord, but on our own terms; not with rejection, not with suffering.
The world
rejects authentic Christian discipleship.
The “world” isn’t only the Taliban or Isis or Boko Haram, hunting out
Christians and penalizing or condemning them.
It’s also our neighbors, politicians, academics, and entertainers who
turn aside the truth of the Gospel when it speaks of the dignity of every human
being, if that truth isn’t expedient, if it’s inconvenient—for instance, in
what concerns race, refugees, the unborn, or criminals; who reject the Gospel
concerning marriage and sexual integrity; whose gospel is more about “grabbing
all the gusto you can”[1]
than feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, welcoming the stranger, providing
for the bodily and spiritual needs of the marginalized (cf. James 2:14-18).
The awful
events that we remember today/yesterday display to us the opposite of worldly selfishness. We hear over and over again of the selfless
heroism of the 343 firefighters and numerous police officers, EMTs, and others
who sacrificed their lives in the Twin Towers, and the passengers on United
93. Consciously or not, they embraced
the cross of Jesus, losing their lives that others might live. Many have mentioned Fr. Mychal Judge, the
FDNY’s chaplain who stayed in a dangerous but vital spot, and perished. So many of the ordinary workers in the towers
and the Pentagon also were heroes, not because of 9/11 but because of their
lives. My friend Michael Boccardi was
one. He was only 30, still single,
worked in the North Tower; he lived for the benefit of young people: the Scouts of Troop 40 in Mt. Vernon whose
hard-working, generous Scoutmaster he was, and children in need of protective
services in Rockland County.
Jesus
speaks not only of rejection and execution.
His Gospel includes “rising after three days” (Mark 8:31). It includes “He has freed my soul from
death…. I shall walk before the Lord in
the land of the living” (Ps 116:8-9).
That hope, that certainty, upheld Jesus Messiah, as it did Isaiah’s
Servant of the Lord. It upholds us, too,
as we follow Jesus. We pray (today) that
the life of Jesus uphold the victims of 9/11, that day, and those who have died
since from the effects of their work at Ground Zero. Heeding the words of Jesus in Thursday’s
gospel (Luke 6:27-28), we pray even for those who have wrought and still wreak
such evil among us.
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