Twenty-Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time

You may have heard the story about a nun who worked for a home health care agency in West Virginia. While making her rounds, she ran out of gasoline. As luck would have it, there was an Exxon station just down the road. But the attendant told her he had just lent the only can he had to a customer.

The nun was in a hurry, so she looked for a container. In her health care supplies, she spotted a bedpan, filled it with gasoline, and walked back again to her car.

As the nun poured gas from the bedpan into the tank, two Baptists were watching the entire episode from the roadside, and one said, “If that car starts, I’m becoming a Catholic.” The moral of the story: it’s amazing the many ways we can influence people.

The word of God takes us back in our imaginations to the 6th century before Jesus, to the second section of the Book of Isaiah. In this song, the author speaks about a mysterious servant of God.

This servant of God, despite all kinds of physical and verbal abuse, perseveres in carrying out the mission God entrusted to him. The early Christian community saw in this servant Jesus, the suffering Messiah.

The author may be inviting us to persevere in our life of discipleship with Jesus despite all the “noise and dissonance” that may be surrounding us.

The letter of James challenges us to practice what we believe. Our faith in Jesus should compel us to reach out compassionately and generously to other people, to give our time, talent and yes, even some of our treasure to those in need.

In Mark’s Gospel, Jesus asks, “Who do you say I am?” He begins to confide in the disciples about his ultimate purpose: he must suffer the agony of the cross so that he can experience the ecstasy of the resurrection. When Peter balks, Jesus says, “Get behind me, Satan.” Nothing will prevent Jesus from fulfilling God's purpose for him: re-connecting us to God.

Now, Jesus may be asking us the same question: who do you say I am? In other words, what does Jesus mean to me? What do I mean to Jesus?

The four recognized Gospel writers give us four different portraits or faces of Jesus because they wrote to different audiences and emphasized different ways in which to follow Jesus.

Jesus is a rabbi or teacher in Matthew; so too we should be teachers, especially by example and the practice of virtue.

In Mark, Jesus is a suffering Messiah; so too we may have to cope with illness or make sacrifices.

In Luke, Jesus is a healer or peacemaker; so too should we be in our relationships with one another.

And in John, Jesus calls us "friend"; so too should we seek the friendship of Jesus especially in prayer.

Yes, four different images of Jesus.  What image of Jesus inspires us to become a faithful disciple?

Perhaps the larger question is: how did the early Christian community see Jesus? They initially saw him as the fulfillment of the hopes of ancient Israel. And so they named him the Messiah, the Christos, the anointed one.

But the more they reflected on who he was, the more they saw Jesus not only as the fulfillment of their hopes but the foundation as well. The eternal Word! The Gospel according to John captures this magnificently in the prologue: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

Yes, Jesus was the foundation and fulfillment of their hopes as well as our own.

So who then is this God-human Jesus with whom we seek friendship? He was a real historical person, flesh and blood like ourselves. He experienced, as we sometimes do, fatigue, hunger, satisfaction, joy, friendship, anger, disappointment and loneliness.

He was a rabbi, a teacher, a prophet who preached that the kingdom of God was breaking into our lives. He worked signs and wonders, proclaiming that good ultimately would triumph over evil; he possessed authority to forgive wrongdoings; he promised eternal life.

He had a unique relationship with the God of Ancient Israel; in fact, he was one with God, true God and true man. He was crucified, died and then raised up in glory. And he is alive in our midst today, especially in the sacramental life of this  community of disciples.

Jesus taught not only that the kingdom of God was breaking into our lives but also that we can share in this kingdom of God by living a life of discipleship.

How? By living prayerfully in the presence of God; by recognizing that our lives do have an ultimate purpose; by seeing in Jesus, the Word made flesh, the face of God; by reaching out compassionately and generously to the people who touch our lives each day; by experiencing the presence of the living Christ in our sacramental life; and by being ready to let go of our earthly life, in the mystery of death, so that we can be one with God in glory forever.

Last, Jesus taught that God is our Father, a compassionate God, always near us each day to guide us on our pathway to our heavenly home.

Jesus then challenges us to “take up our crosses.” I close with an old Chinese story about a mother whose only son died suddenly. In her grief, she pleaded with a monk renowned for his holy life: “With what prayers, what magical incantations, can you bring my son back to life?” The monk told her: “Find me a mustard seed from a home that has never known sorrow. We will use the mustard seed to drive the grief out of your life.”

So the woman set off in search of such a magical mustard seed. But wherever she stopped, in homes or mansions, she found one tale after another of misfortune. And she became so involved in helping other people overcome their grief that she forgot her own grief. She gradually realized that her quest for the magical mustard seed had driven the heartbreak and grief out of  her own life.

As disciples of Jesus we too will experience the gamut of emotions that Jesus did: pain and grief and disappointment, love and friendship.

Jesus challenges us to “take up our crosses” (Matthew 16:24), whatever they may be, and to follow him, to become the kind of person today that Jesus was in his day. For the only Gospel some people may ever know is you and I and how we live our everyday lives.