24th Sunday in Ordinary Time
September 16, 2012
4 PM & 10 AM Liturgies
J.A. Loftus, S.J.
Today’s gospel is a study in jubilation and disillusionment in a single
moment’s time. They are both emotions we have all felt. How they can be felt
together in a single moment may be a lesson still to be learned.
The playwright George Bernard Shaw once wrote: “There are two
tragedies in life. One is to lose your heart’s desire. The other is to gain it.”
Those lines could have been written about Peter and the other disciples on the
road to Caesarea Philippi. Let’s do a little psychohistory together.
They are all good Jews, including Jesus. They had all prayed
frequently for the coming of their Messiah. Israel had longed with cries and
wails and tears for the day of their deliverance. Daily they sang the Psalms of
expectation together with the songs of exasperation. They all–including
Jesus–learned them as children. And they longed for the day of his coming.
I’m sure they all must have had their moments of doubt. Would it ever
really happen? Would the Messiah really bring all the promises to
fulfillment? There must have been moments of skepticism–at least moments.
Remember some of these people were simple tradesmen and fishermen and
housewives. They were not very educated in our sense of that word. But they
did know their scriptures.
But as Friedrich Nietzsche said centuries later: “Only a person of deep
faith can afford the luxury of skepticism.” They were persons of deep faith
and they did believe the day would come. So Peter puts an end to all the
skeptical possibilities when he blurts out: “You are the Messiah, the anointed
of God.” Imagine the jubilation and the stunning joy in pronouncing those
words. He is here standing before us. The one whom we longed for in so
many Psalms (Ps 2, 110, 22 in particular) is in our midst. We have gained our
heart’s desire. It is Jesus of Nazareth.
And then in the next instant Peter’s heart is broken. Jesus begins to
teach them that the Son of Man must suffer greatly. “No,” says Peter. And
be rejected by the elders. Again, “no, screams Peter. Even by the chief
priests and scribes. Now Peter is outraged and his heart is severely cracked.
The final blow arrives as Jesus says he will be killed. Peter’s heart is so
heavy and leaking. Had he been wearing fancy garments, he would have rent
them at this point.
Instead, he begins to rebuke Jesus. And Jesus rebukes him right back!
He calls him Satan to his face–and the others all hear it. The embarrassment,
the pain, the rejection are palpable and deeply felt. Peter’s heart is now
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completely cracked. [I am indebted here to Rev. Dr. David Lose of Luther
Seminary in St. Paul MN Day 1, 2009.]
All that he, Peter, and so many others had prayed for all those years,
no, had prayed for all those centuries as a people, as Israel, seemed pointless.
Jesus was not at all what they expected or hoped for, or prayed for. And
Jesus wasn’t even finished yet. Jesus gathers the whole crowd of disciples
and says: “If you (really) wish to come after me, this must be your lot as well.
Deny yourself, take up your own cross, and follow–if you dare.” “For
whatever you try to save will be lost, and what you lose will save you.”
Remember Shaw: “There are two great tragedies in life. One is to lose
your heart’s desire. The other is to gain it,” and have it turn out to be
nothing at all like what you really wanted.
A sometime friend and rough contemporary of Shaw’s was Oscar
Wilde. He penned something similar from the depths of his own
disillusionment. He said: “When the gods wish to punish us, they answer our
prayers.”
What they are both really saying is that we only rarely even know what
we are praying for or what it will turn out looking like if we should get it.
Jesus turns out not to be the Messiah everyone thought they wanted. He
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turned out to be the real one. The one that only God could fathom.
Jesus is the Savior of Isaiah’s reading today, the Suffering Servant who
will become the last scapegoat humanity will ever need. Faith in the real
Savior, in the real Messiah as St. James tells us so bluntly today, requires
deeds; it requires a life actually given over, handed over, to what: to
forgiveness, and compassion, and peace. For, in his own words, “faith of
itself, if it does not have works, is dead.” And the works faith demands are
not easy!
The learning lesson here: it is often tragic not to receive what we think
we really need from God. It is often just as tragic to receive the gift and
realize it is something quite other than what we had expected.
This gospel story is often called simply “Peter’s Confession.” It is the
turning point, the fulcrum, on which all of Mark’s gospel turns. It is the midpoint. And from now on they are all headed to Jerusalem and his death.
(Something similar happens in the other synoptic gospel accounts.) I hope we
all have a better idea of just why it is a turning point in more than just one
gospel account. It may be a turning point in each of our lives. “Who do you
say that I am?” Be very careful how you answer. And be very careful what
you pray for. Peter became heart-broken. But would find out only later that
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this was not the end of the story. Peace!
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