The 24th Sunday in Ordinary Time
September 13, 2015

     Front and center in today’s readings is suffering.  Uncomfortably so.  It’s still summer, although not for long, and we’re a whole half a year away from Holy Week, but that first reading -- one of the suffering servant poems from Isaiah – is one we will hear on Palm Sunday.  “I gave my back to those who beat me, my cheeks to those who plucked my beard: my face I did not shield from buffets and spitting.”

     From its earliest days, the Church has read those mysterious Suffering Servant poems of Isaiah in light of Jesus and his passion.  With good reason.  Notice, for instance, how the servant faces and accepts his suffering.  Even though he is at the mercy of evil forces, he is serenely in charge of himself as he resolutely embraces his destiny. “I gave my back to those who beat me,” he says, “my face I did not shield from buffets and spitting.”  Does this remind you of the way Jesus is described in one of the Eucharistic prayers at Mass: “At the time he was betrayed and entered willingly into his passion…he opened his arms on the cross”? It does me.

     In the gospel, Jesus displays the same serenity as Isaiah’s servant when he calmly tells his disciples that “the Son of Man must suffer greatly and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests and the scribes, and be killed….”  His timing for telling them is worth noting.  He had just put two questions to his disciples.  The first: “Who do people say that I am?” was an easy enough question and they had answered it easily and predictably.  They were well aware of what people were saying about Jesus: that John the Baptist had come back from the dead, or Elijah or one of the prophets had returned.  But the second question wasn’t so easy: “Who do you say that I am?” Jesus asked.  This question didn’t allow them to fall back on comfortable clichés.  This was a between-the-eyes question and Peter was up for it.  “You are the Christ,” he said with laser-like clarity.

     But take note of the timing. The very moment Peter proclaims Jesus to be the Christ, the Messiah, Jesus chooses to redefine the very meaning of Messiah by talking about his approaching suffering and death.  And Peter, of course, would have none of it. In his mind suffering and “the Christ” did not belong in the same sentence.

     It’s worth noting the way Mark tells this story.  “Peter took Jesus aside,” Mark tells us. Usually it’s Jesus who takes people aside, away from the crowd so he can connect with them in a personal way -- like he did with the deaf mute in last Sunday’s gospel.  But here we have Peter taking Jesus aside, and what does Peter do?  He rebukes Jesus!  He rebukes the one he has just confessed to be the long-awaited Christ! 

     Rebuke is a strong word anyway you look at it.  Rebuke is what Jesus did to the unclean spirit earlier in Mark’s gospel; rebuke is what Jesus did to the wind and the sea when the disciples were in danger of drowning.  Rebuke is a very strong word.  It makes it pretty clear just how deeply opposed Peter was to the notion that his master, the Christ, would suffer and die.  Of course, we might imagine that there was a little self-interest on Peter’s part.  If the master was going to suffer and die, what would that mean for Peter…?

     But Peter’s rebuke of Jesus is not the end of the story.  We’re told that Jesus turned right around and rebuked Peter.  And what a rebuke it was!  “Get behind me, Satan!”  Jesus saw the words of Peter for what they were – a temptation worthy of Satan himself.  And Jesus knew what he was talking about.  He had met Satan before -- in the wilderness, following his fast of forty days and nights, and he had heard the same kind of talk from him as he was now hearing from Peter – a temptation, a cunning enticement to take the easy path to glory.

     But, my friends, Jesus wanted Peter – and he wants us – to know that there is no easy path to glory.  No more than there is an easy answer to the question Jesus put to Peter and the others, “Who do you say that I am?”   Sooner or later, it’s a question each of us must answer.  Peter answered it with words on the road to Caesarea Philippi: “You are the Christ!”  Years later, on another road, as legend has it, he answered it again but with no words at all. 

     You know the legend.  It carries a profound truth as legends often do.  The year was 64, A.D., when the emperor Nero was viciously persecuting the Christians of Rome.  The place was the Appian Way along which Peter was beating a hasty retreat, running for his life from Rome where there was a price on his head.  As the legend has it, Peter saw a familiar figure in the distance coming toward him along the road.  It was Jesus, the master.  And this time it was Peter, not Jesus, who asked the question:  “Domine, quo vadis?” (“Lord, where are you going?”) And Jesus answered him, “I am going to Rome to be crucified.”  This time, Peter didn’t rebuke the master.  He didn’t say a word.  Instead, he turned around and headed back to Rome where he himself was crucified.  And that, I would submit, was the moment Peter really answered Jesus’ question, “Who do you say that I am?”

     “Who do you say that I am?”  My friends, it’s a question we too must answer.  And words alone won’t do. We answer it every day by the values we espouse and by the decisions we make, and we will answer it in just a few minutes when we come forward to receive the Eucharist. At that moment more than any other we get to answer the question, “Who do you say that I am?” 

     Father Michael G. Ryan