Twenty-Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time Year B 2024
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· 3 viewsJesus elucidates a confession from his disciples that he is the Messiah, but the verbal commitment needs to be combined with active following. Peter disputed this since his idea of Messiah was different from the Isaiah ch 50 picture Jesus uses. Jesus rebukes Peter and calls him to follow, painting the picture of shameful death in the way of Jesus before resurrection and life. We are called to precisely that following in the corporal works of mercy to which James appeals and in the teaching of Jesus, if our faith, our commitment, is not to be empty. The question always before us is whether we will really follow the Messiah.
Notes
Transcript
Title
Title
He Demonstrated His Commitment by His Works
He Demonstrated His Commitment by His Works
Outline
Outline
I grew up in a world in which the corporal works of mercy were optional
I grew up in a world in which the corporal works of mercy were optional
They were honored in missionaries if they gave them the opportunity to present the gospel. They were quietly lived by some, such as my grandmother, but they were not taught or proclaimed. Indeed there was often a suspicion about them, for they might be “works righteousness.” And following Jesus as Lord was certainly a second optional step of commitment. Catholics have their own version of this: if one is faithful to the sacraments that is surely enough.
But James says that faith or commitment without works is dead, empty, useless.
How different is the way of Jesus
How different is the way of Jesus
Alone with his disciples in a gentile area he asks, “Who do people say that I am?” He receives the expected list of prophets redivivus. Then he elicits their faith commitment: “You are the Messiah,” not the old returning in power but the expected new King with new power. Jesus does not ask further - the question has been answered.
Then with allusion to Isaiah ch 50 he tells them about his way: not glorious enthronement or victory in battle, but suffering, rejection, shaming (in Isaiah), and only then resurrection.
That was too much for Peter who rather than following read the Hebrew Scriptures differently: glory and power. He receives a stern rebuke, for he is not following, but tempting, acting as Satan for he had not yet submitted his thought to God but thought only on the human plane.
Now he turns to the crowd to elucidate his way: “Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and that of the gospel will save it.” As in Isaiah the Messiah’s way is downward and so the one committed must go in the same way. Jesus uses the most offensive image he could, that of the cross. He points out that the way to death following him is the way to life. I doubt that that teaching increased the crowds around him.
But that is the way of Jesus for us
But that is the way of Jesus for us
James talks about the corporal works of mercy and all of them cost us and are a bit of dying as follow and find Jesus in doing them.
Others of us will go to the cross in other ways: serving through bodily affliction, feeling rejected by our fellows but responding with love, giving up our hope of this or that career or being “teacher of the year.” The list goes on.
If you follow Jesus, long before you die physically you will “die daily” (to cite Paul) in many ways and the Satans within you will be discovered and silenced for they tempt you away from this. That has certainly been my experience.
But this is the way of God’s vindication, this is the way of resurrection, and this is the way of life. Are we committed enough to follow it?
