24th Sunday in Ordinary Time - B (Sept 14, 2003)
Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross
There is a movie entitled "The Catholics," in which Martin Sheen plays the role of an emissary sent from Rome to a monastery on a secluded island in Ireland to urge the conservative monks to follow the reforms of Vatican II.
When the emissary from Rome arrived, the boatman sent to pick him up refused to let him get into the boat, because he was not wearing a sotana (a clerical habit) of a monk. In spite of the emissary showing his ID and credential, the boatman fought to keep him from getting into the boat saying he was sent to fetch a priest!
This incident is a reflection of the situation of Jesus Christ when he took on flesh and lived among us. The people of his time have their own idea of what the Messiah should be, namely, that of a conquering political hero that would lead the Jews to overthrow the Romans and put Israel as the super-power on top of the world.
Jesus came as a poor carpenter from an obscure town of Nazareth, and becoming a wandering preacher. He refused to fulfill the role of a triumphal Messianic king. So, the people rejected him even though he was fulfilling the prophecies concerning the Messiah.
Today's readings contains for us the soul searching questions of 1) What think you of Jesus Christ? 2) What think you of your brothers and sisters? 3) What think you of suffering, of pain? First, what think you of Jesus Christ? It is a question posed by Jesus to his disciples toward the end of his public ministry as they were moving toward Caesarea Philippi, on their way to Jerusalem.
After three years of public ministry, when he knew the end was near, it was important for him to know if his closest disciples understood. So he asked the question "Who do people say that I am?" The answers were not very satisfactory. The highest tribute that people could give him was that he was one of the great prophets. All these are information and hearsay.
But now comes the direct question: "And you, who do you say that I am?" Peter answers for all the Apostles, "You are the Messiah." In effect Peter was saying, "You are the Christ, the anointed king of Israel of the House of David - expected to come and deliver Israel from its enemies and to establish a world empire marked with justice and peace." The answer was a giant step forward, but that understanding still had to be clarified.
And now Jesus asks his disciples - and to you and to me, "Who do you say I am?" The question has been central, has been crucial, to all Christians since the time of Jesus. It's the same question that each one of us will have to answer Jesus - "Who is Jesus to you?" Is he a historical figure of over 2000 years ago? Is he a teacher, a rabbi? Is he just a great person like Gandhi, Buddha, Jose Rizal, Ninoy Aquino? Is he a friend, a brother? Is he God? Is he your No. 1 in life? Or, do you think of Jesus at all? On our answer depends in large measure the way we order our lives, the way we live. The response Christ awaits is not a mere intellectual act. It involves Creed, Cult, and Code - what we believe, how we worship, the way we live. These three aspects of Catholicism have to be acts of love.
a) The creed that we repeat every Sunday is important to guide us in what we believe. But, it is not enough for my Christianity to come alive. I reach Christ only if my whole person reaches out to him. Faith saves only if it is an act of love. Only if my "I believe springs from "I love."
b) Cult - the way we worship - is not mainly a Sunday obligation under pain of serious sin. The Eucharist is the incomparable supreme act of Catholic worship, should be my love-filled response to the love that moved Christ to utter at the Last Supper, "This is my body, which is given for you." The response is far from adequate if I ask, "Do I have to?"
c) Code - the way we live - is not legalism, sheer conformity to a set of rules of do's and don't's invented arbitrarily by Church officials. Law and morality are human efforts to define, specify, concretize what the two great commandments demand: Love God, love your brothers and sisters. Like all human laws, Church laws can become outmoded, needing revision.
Who, then, do I say Christ is? He is the center of the world. Apart from him liturgy is just play-acting. Communion is merely a ritual. My whole life should echo the response of Peter to Jesus at the Lakeshore breakfast. Peter responded with all his heart, "Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you."
That brings us to the next question - "What do you think of your sisters and brothers?" This powerful passage from James show that it is inseparable from genuine love for Christ. "Whatever good is it if [you] say [you] have faith but have not works? Can [your] faith save [you]? If a brother or sister has nothing to wear and no food for the day, and you say to them, 'Good-bye and good luck, keep warm and well-fed,' but do not meet their bodily needs, what good is that? So it is with the faith that does nothing in practice, it is thoroughly lifeless." (James 2:14-17)
Challenging words. These challenges are further spelled out by God through the mouth of the prophets. The prophet Micah proclaimed: "What does the Lord require of you? Do justice and love steadfastly..." (Micah 6:8); and on the lips of Isaiah, "Bring no more vain offerings.... Seek justice, correct oppression, defend the fatherless, plead for the widow." (Isaiah 1:16-17) And Jesus at the synagogue in Nazareth: "The Spirit of the Lord... has anointed me to preach good news to the poor..., to set free the oppressed." (Luke 4:18) Have these words have any impact on our lives? Or, is our reaction that of "What do I care?"
Social justice is not a secular offshoot of Christianity. It does not mean just: Give to each one what is his due, what each one has a right to demand, because he or she is a human being. As with Israel, so with us: Justice is a whole web of relationships that stem from our covenant with God. We are to "set free the oppressed" not because we have experienced God's love, "This is my body given for you," We have to live the second great commandment of the law and the Gospel, "You shall love your neighbor as you love yourself." Not only that; we are commanded by Jesus to love one another as he has loved us - even unto crucifixion. So that the words with which Jesus will welcome us at the end of our life will be "I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink. I was a stranger and you welcomed me.... Truly, I say to you as you did it to one of the least of these my sisters and brothers, you did it to me."
Do the Word and Eucharist we share transform us to be men and women for others? Does Liturgy move our life, from Church to world, from Christ to the crucified?
From Christ to the crucified. This brings us to the third point: What think you of suffering? Immediately after Peter confessed him as Messiah, Jesus "began to teach [the disciples] that [he] must suffer much, be rejected... be killed." And when Peter protested, Jesus turned on him, rebuked him in unusually strong language: "Out of my sight, you Satan. You are judging not by God's standards but by human." Peter was turning Jesus away from his God-given mission to suffer for humankind, tempting him to discard the divine plan of salvation. Suffering, pain, and death are part of the human condition. There is no escape. But it can take a lifetime to see suffering with the eyes of Christ. In itself, suffering is neither good nor bad. The all-important question is why?
Why do good people suffer? God does not give any satisfactory answer. But this much we know. A God who loved me enough to take up a human body to share my life, to die shamefully and willingly for me on a cross - this God does not take pleasure in earthquakes, and war, in floods and volcanic eruption, in cancer and massacres. We cannot unravel the mystery; why our near and dear ones, why good people die. Why all the suffering people in our hospitals. What you and I can do is to keep our suffering from becoming sheer waste.
How? - by transforming suffering into sacrifice. There is a difference. Sacrifice is suffering with a purpose. Our world has long since learned a painful lesson: Perfect oneness with someone or something beloved - man, woman, or child, music or medicine, knowledge or art - can be achieved only in terms of self-giving, only in terms of love.
In the Christian mystery the self-giving love was summed up by Jesus in today's Gospel: "If you want to come after me, deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow in my steps." A big if: If you want to come after him, if you want to be his disciple, if you love him enough to suffer for him as willingly as he was crucified for you.
