A Homily – The Twenty-fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year B)

First Reading – Isaiah 50:5-9

Responsorial Psalm – Psalm 114(116):1-6,8-9

Second Reading - James 2:14-18

Gospel Acclamation – John 14:6

Alternative Acclamation – Galatians 6:14

The Gospel According to Mark 8:27-35 ©

 

(NJB)              

 

Listen!

Take comfort in the prophet’s courage, bear witness to the way.

Like Jesus, the authors of Isaiah understand the necessity of telling the truth, there is no justice without it, even though the reward for telling the truth is often condemnation from the people…who do not like to hear it, who do not want to believe that God loves their neighbor just as much as God loves them.

When people are afraid for their well-being, and anxious about the future, poor and rich alike, they do not want to share. They become resentful, jealous and miserly; the world has made them this way, and they will react with anger and violence to any little thing that comes along which threatens to upset their resentment filled lives, to challenge their jealousies and expose their miserliness.

This is the challenge that we face. Like Isaiah, you must open your ear and listen, we must listen with our hearts.

Speak of the divine in order to share the way of peace and blessing of God, never to condemn. Say to the people…do not fear, this is the way.

Remember.

God is not a king; when we call God, king, we risk the eventuality that we will kings will demand that we call them God. Such is the hubris of the ruling class; royals are rarely harbingers of peace, they are destroyers, and war, do not listen to their promises.

Tear down the Jerusalem of kings and fanatics, rebuild a Jerusalem of love and friendship, let that Jerusalem be seen by all the people’s of the world; this is what the prophet called us to do.  

Be mindful!

God, the creator of the universe is, God is the God of all creation. Nothing exists without God, not even death.

Know this:

The death of the body is not the death of self. God is present at every point of our lives. God was with us at the beginning, and within the eternal God there is no end.

Understand this.

Faith is not a thing that a person can possess, faith is a verb, it is an active principle, it is a way of life. Faith is vibrant, it has a frequency, it is sometimes week and at other times strong. Jesus taught that faith is not belief in a proposition, but rather trust in the providence of God, calling us to commit ourselves to the truth, and dedicate ourselves to the wellbeing of all of God’s children…which means everyone.

When the apostle speaks of being crucified to the world, he is talking about the strength of his faith, which has allowed him to forgo his desires for himself in the world, so that he can be a servant of the people; as Christians we are called to follow him.

Consider the Gospel reading for today, it provides to the reader with a profound message concerning the teaching authority of the church. This is a lesson that all Christians should be heedful of, especially in those moments when Christians, any Christian, presumes to understand the will of God and to speak with authority concerning it.

Look at Peter, the first Pope, the founder of the Church, a man who walked with Jesus, who spoke with him intimately; even Peter failed to understand the mission of Jesus and continued to fail Jesus right up until the moment of the crucifixion.

In fact, all of Jesus’ closest male disciples failed him, in the end, only a few of the women who followed him understood what it was that he was called to do.

In today’s reading we see have a record of Peter’s complete and total failure, he resists Jesus’ teaching to the point that Jesus is forced to rebuke him, naming him an enemy of the church.

Peter also rejected Jesus on the night he was captured, tried, and sentenced to death.

Nevertheless, in the light of these failures, which were so well known that they could not be scrubbed from the record, we are asked to believe that sometime after the crucixion, Peter came to understand the fullness of truth, that he came to understand Jesus mission, and that when he founded the church (which is itself pure mythology), that Peter was at-one with Christ.

We may accept the Church’s teaching on this matter, or we may consider the alternate, that the Church was founded by a man who was essentially opposed to the mission and teaching of Jesus. Whatever the case, the reading for today teaches us to be skeptical of authority, of kings and vicars…and rightly so.

First Reading – Isaiah 50:5-9

I Offered My Back to Those Who Struck Me

The Lord has opened my ear.

For my part, I made no resistance, neither did I turn away.

I offered my back to those who struck me, my cheeks to those who tore at my beard; I did not cover my face against insult and spittle.

The Lord comes to my help, so that I am untouched by the insults.

So, too, I set my face like flint; I know I shall not be shamed.

My vindicator is here at hand. Does anyone start proceedings against me?

Then let us go to court together.

Who thinks he has a case against me?

Let him approach me.

The Lord is coming to my help, who will dare to condemn me?

 

Responsorial Psalm – Psalm 114(116):1-6,8-9

Thanksgiving

Lord, keep my soul from death, my feet from stumbling.

Alleluia, alleluia!

I love the Lord, for he has heard

  the cry of my appeal;

because he has turned his ear to me as I call on him,

  day by day.

The ropes of death surrounded me,

  Hell held me tight,

I had found pain and tribulation –

  but I called on the Lord’s name:

  “O Lord, free my soul.”

The Lord is compassionate and just;

  our God takes pity on us.

The Lord cares for the simple –

  I was brought low, but he saved me.

Return, my soul, to your rest,

  for the Lord has looked after you;

he has rescued my spirit from death, my eyes from tears,

  he has saved my feet from stumbling.

I shall walk in the presence of the Lord

  in the land of the living.

Amen.

Lord, keep my soul from death, my feet from stumbling.

Alleluia

 

Second Reading - James 2:14-18

If Good Works Do Not Go with It, Faith is Quite Dead

Take the case, my brothers, of someone who has never done a single good act but claims that he has faith. Will that faith save him? If one of the brothers or one of the sisters is in need of clothes and has not enough food to live on, and one of you says to them, ‘I wish you well; keep yourself warm and eat plenty’, without giving them these bare necessities of life, then what good is that? Faith is like that: if good works do not go with it, it is quite dead.

  This is the way to talk to people of that kind: ‘You say you have faith and I have good deeds; I will prove to you that I have faith by showing you my good deeds – now you prove to me that you have faith without any good deeds to show.’

 

Gospel Acclamation – John 14:6

Alleluia, alleluia!

I am the Way, the Truth and the Life, says the Lord; No one can come to the Father except through me.

Alleluia!

 

Alternative Acclamation – Galatians 6:14

Alleluia, alleluia!

The only thing I can boast about is the cross of our Lord, through whom the world is crucified to me, and I to the world.

Alleluia!

 

The Gospel According to Mark 8:27-35 ©

The Son of Man is Destined to Suffer Grievously

Jesus and his disciples left for the villages round Caesarea Philippi. On the way he put this question to his disciples, ‘Who do people say I am?’ And they told him. ‘John the Baptist,’ they said ‘others Elijah; others again, one of the prophets.’ ‘But you,’ he asked ‘who do you say I am?’ Peter spoke up and said to him, ‘You are the Christ.’ And he gave them strict orders not to tell anyone about him.

And he began to teach them that the Son of Man was destined to suffer grievously, to be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes, and to be put to death, and after three days to rise again; and he said all this quite openly. Then, taking him aside, Peter started to remonstrate with him. But, turning and seeing his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said to him, ‘Get behind me, Satan! Because the way you think is not God’s way but man’s.’

He called the people and his disciples to him and said, ‘If anyone wants to be a follower of mine, let him renounce himself and take up his cross and follow me. For anyone who wants to save his life will lose it; but anyone who loses his life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it.’

 

A Homily – The Twenty-fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year B)